A Tale of Two Childhoods: Foxlowe and The Trouble with Goats & Sheep

 Child narrators can, for me at least, often be problematic in adult fiction. Too often the voice fails to convince being either too knowing or irritatingly faux-naïve. It was therefore a great pleasure to read not one, but two fabulous novels this month that featured child narrators in a convincing manner.

Joanna Cannon’s ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ has been on my TBR pile for a while. I first heard about it from Simon Savidge over at Savidge Reads because, to be honest, he couldn’t stop raving about on both his blog and on The Readers. The novel also got featured in a number of Best of 2016 lists – quite a feat for a book that was published only a few weeks into the year. And, to be fair, I did try to read it when it first came out but it was one of those cases of ‘right book, wrong time’ and I put it back on the shelf about 60 pages in. This month was, however, very much the right time to be reading ‘Goats and Sheep’, which is set in the heatwave of the summer of 1976. So one sunny day, I picked it up and started again.

‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ is the story of 10-year-old Grace and her best friend Tilly. It is also the story of their parents and neighbours on The Avenue and the surrounding streets and provides a fascinating insight into insular communities from a child’s eye-view. At the start of the novel, Grace’s neighbour Mrs Creasy has gone missing, an act that causes some consternation amongst her fellow residents who are worried that she may have discovered the truth behind dark events of one winter’s night a decade before. Acting on some well-intentioned advice from the local vicar, Grace and Tilly begin a quest to find their missing neighbour and, in doing so, begin to uncover the secrets that the other residents have worked so hard to bury.

Although not told entirely from Grace’s perspective (there are switches to some of the adult characters, as well as flashbacks to 1967), it is Grace’s voice that really stood out for me within this book. Although a somewhat precocious 10-year-old, Grace was entirely authentic to me being perfectly balanced between childlike innocence and the increasing awareness of teenage years. And the old adage ‘out of the mouths of babes’ proves to ring true as Grace and Tilly confront the underlying prejudice and pettiness of their small community with an unknowing wisdom. To say more about the story would be to spoil the enjoyment of the narrative, which benefits from a creeping sense of dread as the reader comes to the realisation of what happened in 1967 well before Grace and Tilly get a true sense of events. This was however, one of my favourite reads of the year so far and an extremely impressive debut.

I had a few more problems with my second book, ‘Foxlowe’ by Eleanor Wassberg, another debut and another one that I read thanks to Simon Savidge (it was his Litsy feed that did it this time – the book has to have one of the most gorgeous covers published this year). Set in a commune on the edge of the Staffordshire Moorlands, this is the story of Green, her ‘sister’ Blue and their peripatetic childhood with Founders, Richard, Freya, Libby and the rest of The Family, in the apparent idyll of Foxlowe. As with most communal idylls in novels however, it isn’t long before the reader realises that there is something rotten in the heart of Foxlowe. Green and Blue are affected by The Bad, which can only be cured by the light of the double sunset on the Solstice and which, according to Freya, is growing within them.

Once again, it was the voice that really stood out for me in ‘Foxlowe’. Alternating between Green’s childhood in Foxlowe and her teenage years when tragedy has driven her into the outside world, Green’s voice is by turns confidential, assured, insular and creepy and it does a fantastic job of conveying the dark and gothic tone of this twisted novel. Some reviewers have been irritated by the cadence of Green’s voice – the inclusion of many capitalised words and baby-like language as with The Bad, Leavers, The Family and The Founders – but I found this convincing in a child who has grown up without any form of formal education and, arguably, without any education of note at all. I also found that the use of these words, which are imbued with so much meaning for Green and her ‘siblings’ but foreign to the reader, added to the sense of the uncanny that runs throughout the book.

Whilst the narration was accomplished and erred on the right side of creepy, I did however have major issues with the plot. Without giving away major spoilers, all I will say is quite how none of the other adults realise that Freya is as mad as a box of frogs baffles me. Whilst I get that these are ‘adults’ who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the responsibilities of everyday life, the fact that they would wilfully choose to ignore child cruelty on the scale sometimes shown by Freya just didn’t wash. Whilst Freya is a truly hateful character throughout, she isn’t violent or dangerous (at least not in the beginning) and seems instead to operate through a mixture of fear, anger and spite. So how does she exert so much power and influence through the commune? And whilst I get that Freya evidently has severe mental health issues (although enough with the ‘evil’ characters having mental health problems already please! I could write a whole other blog post on that one), that alone just didn’t seem to justify her malicious hatred of Green and Blue. I read a brief but enlightening interview with Eleanor Wassberg in NewBooks Magazine in which she talked about the characters’ lack of agency due to ‘shoal’ mentality – the idea of a communal mania. And whilst this can and does happen in real life (take instances of mass suicide within cults for example), it usually has a charismatic central figure at the heart of it. For me, Freya was just not charismatic enough – I didn’t buy into the fact that all of the other characters would have bought into her hippie shtick and I think it led to an increasing disbelief with the events of the novel.

That aside however, I do think ‘Foxlowe’ is an accomplished debut and I would definitely recommend it to fans of the Victorian gothic, although I would add in a trigger warning for scenes of child abuse. Wassberg is clearly a very accomplished writer and, whilst I had issues with the plotting, I do think that the compellingly eerie quality of Green’s voice resonates with the reader long after you turn the final page. It was also nice to see my home county featured in a novel – although it is the setting for a cult so…..maybe not!

So if you’re looking for convincing young narrators, you can add both ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ and ‘Foxlowe’ to your reading lists! If you have read either book, please let me know your thoughts by dropping a comment below or over on Twitter @amyinstaffs or Litsy @ShelfofUnreadBooks. As always, I’d love to know what you’re reading or if you have any more recommendations for adult books with child narrators that you think I’d enjoy. And, as always, until the next time….

Happy Reading! x

July In Review

I cannot believe that today is the first day of August and we're over halfway through 2016 already! And although it a cliche to say it, July really has flown by - predominantly in a blur of furious activity at the day job and busy weekends with friends, neither of which have allowed for as much reading time as I would have liked. 

The start of the month was, in all honesty, something of a dry period reading-wise. I bailed on 'The Glorious Heresies', which I just couldn't take to despite the accomplished writing and the many plaudits the book has been awarded since winning the 2016 Baileys Prize. And, despite having a TBR that now extends well beyond one shelf of unread books, I really struggled to pick up anything that hooked me. It was one of those intensely frustrating periods when just nothing on my shelves seemed to fit my mood. 

I did manage to finish my book club read for the month, Ben Elton's 'Time and Time Again', which was a reassuringly readable piece of speculative historical fiction that posits the interesting question 'if you could go back and change one thing in history, what would that be?' For the hero of Elton's novel, Max Stanton, the one thing is the start of the First World War and his quest to prevent the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and bring about the death of the Kaiser in order to do this makes up the bulk of the novel. Elton is a surprisingly good writer of historical fiction and clearly researches his books very thoroughly - the sections where he discusses the causes and effects of The Great War and its repercussions throughout history were my favourite parts of the novel. Unfortunately I do find that he sometimes pads his novels with unnecessary subplots, in this instance a rather pointless romance with an Irish suffragette whose progressive views seemed unbelievably enlightened even for a first wave feminist. It did make for a good book club discussion however and, for the most part, my group enjoyed the speculative elements of the plot and we had an interesting debate about what the implications of preventing the First World War could possibly be. 

Having finished one book, I was determined to keep reading so signed up for the #24in48 Readathon, which took place over the weekend of 23/24 August. This readathon challenges you to read for 24 hours out of 48 and, whilst I knew that work on the Saturday would prevent me reaching this goal, I thought signing up and being part of a readathon would encourage me to dedicate my downtime to books as opposed to mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I also pulled one of my long-time TBR bench-warmers, Joanna Cannon's debut novel 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep', off the shelf for this purpose. Set during the heatwave of 1976, the novel is a coming of age tale that follows 10 year old Grace and her friend Tillie as they go in search of their missing neighbour Margaret Creasy and uncover secrets and lies within their community. I'll be writing a full review of the book in a future post, comparing it to my other read from the latter part of this month 'Foxlowe', another coming of age tale but one that tackles the subject very differently. 

So although I didn't manage the #24in48 fully, the readathon weekend did get my reading back on track. The social media presence of the readathon on Twitter and Litsy really helped as I enjoyed sharing goals with other readers and the fact that there was a lot of mutual cheer-leading over the weekend. I was also helped by the fact that 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' was a really compelling read and I ploughed through it in a matter of days, followed by devouring 'Foxlowe' over the course of a weekend. All of which has really re-energised my reading life, allowing me to really look forward to August.

I'm currently reading my next book club read, Edna O'Brien's 'The Little Red Chairs' - the first O'Brien I have ever read - and am narrowing down my holiday TBR for a planned weekend away later in the month. As always, I'd love to know how your reading has been going - did you have a more productive July than I managed? Have you also read 'Time and Time Again' or 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' and what did you think? What are your reading plans for August? Drop me a comment below or come say hi @amyinstaffs on Twitter and @ShelfofUnreadBooks on Litsy. And,until the next time...

Happy Reading! x

Summer Reading Plans

Summer seems to have finally decided to arrive here in the UK - and just in time for vacation season too. Following weeks of rain and 'highs' of 16 degrees, we've had an absolute heatwave with a full week (a week!) of sunshine and the mercury stretching into the upper twenties. You'd think the weather was making up for something - as if it's really sorry it's late and has decided to go that extra mile now it's here.

Being stereotypically British, all this sunshine has turned my thoughts in earnest towards summer reading plans. Whilst I am no longer fortunate (or young) enough to get the traditional six weeks summer holiday enjoyed by schoolchildren, students and their long-suffering teachers here in the UK, the summer is still a time when I like to set myself some reading goals and plan my vacation reading and there are certain books that I definitely feel have that 'summer reads' feel to them that I save for this time of year.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I am trying to complete a Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo card this summer. So far, I've marked off about five squares although alas, not five squares that line up and would give me a bingo! A lot of my 'required' reading (reviews, book club reads etc) haven't fitted my categories so far however some of the books on my summer TBR will probably fit into some squares and allow me to at least get a line bingo before the end of summer. 

I also want to join in with The Readers summer group read of 'The Sympathizer' by Viet Thanh Nguyen, which is about a Vietnamese army captain with divided loyalties who ends up being a sleeper agent in America after the end of the Vietnam war. The books won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and it sounds like a rich and many-layered novel about a period of history I know little about. Not something I'd usually pick up for myself but I'm looking forward to hearing the podcast discussion and I think expanding your reading horizons and discovering new books is one of the major benefits of book clubs and group reads. 

I'm having a late vacation this year, with a staycation to the Lake District booked for September. However, before then the hubby and I are having a long weekend away for his birthday in August when we'll be staying in a caravan on the Welsh coast. During both 'holidays' we plan to combine getting out and about with a good deal of chilling out, drinking wine and reading books so I've started setting a few titles aside that promise to be good holiday reads. 

The first of these is Ruth Ware's latest thriller The Woman in Cabin 10 about a boutique cruise that goes horribly wrong when a body is pushed overboard in the dead of night. Or was it? The passenger manifest shows no one to be missing but journalist Lo Blacklock knows what she saw and is determined to investigate. Billed as Agatha Christie with a modern twist, I'm looking forward to this one. Along similar lines, Sophie Hannah's latest Hercule Poirot novel 'Closed Casket' will be released just in time for my September holibobs and is already on pre-order for my Kindle. I thoroughly enjoyed her first attempt at reviving Christie's classic sleuth in 'The Monogram Murders' so I'm hoping this second book will be just as enjoyable. 

I do like to take a big chunky book on hols with me - something I'd struggle to dedicate time to during the average working week's juggle of family and work life. There's a few contenders this year including Marlon James' 2015 Booker winner 'A Brief History of Seven Killings', Ryan Gattis' novel of the LA riots 'All Involved' and Iain Pears' genre-bending speculative fiction novel 'Arcadia'. I've also yet to find the time to pick up Jessie Burton's 'The Muse' or Sarah Perry's 'The Essex Serpent' so I imagine they might find their way into my packing at some point. And I do like to leave room for some non-fiction, with Virginia Nicolson's 'Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s' at the top of my list.

All in all, I'm certainly not short of books to choose from but, in my mind, a summer read is one that I've been waiting to find the time to savour as much as it's something pacy or specifically set in the season. That said, the current sunny spell has seen me pull Joanna Cannon's 'The Trouble with Goats and Sheep' off my shelf as it's is set in the record-breaking heatwave of 1976. 

I'd love to hear about your summer reading plans and goals.Do you organise your holiday reading in advance or are you an airport book buyer who takes a chance on whatever paperbacks catch your eye? Do you even have 'summer reads'? As always, let me know in the comments below or say hi over on Twitter @amyinstaffs or on Litsy @ShelfofUnreadBooks. And, whether you're partaking in any summer reading or not, until the next time...

Happy Reading! x

REVIEW: Smoke by Dan Vyleta

Maybe I set the bar too high for this one but, having heard it described as a cross between ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘His Dark Materials’, it was hard not to be excited when I was approved to read ‘Smoke’. And, having read it, I can definitely see how the comparisons have been drawn with these classics. Sadly, however, I don’t feel the finished product meets the standard of either series.

Opening in a private boarding school on the outskirts of Oxford, ‘Smoke’ is set in an alternative England in which sin appears as smoke that emits from the body and stains clothes with its soot. School friends Thomas and Charlie are amongst the privileged few – born into the ruling elite, they are being taught to control and suppress their smoke, a sign that will eventually distinguish them from the uneducated masses. It’s a fascinating premise and the opening chapters are full of a dark, foreboding atmosphere with the dense, descriptive writing creating a real sense of the Victorian gothic on every page.

Thomas and Charlie are likeable enough narrators – although Charlie is so pure of heart for a teenage boy that it’s almost unreal – but I felt that there wasn’t enough distinction between their voices. That was, in fact, one of the major problems with the novel for me. As the story opens up, the POV hops between multiple narrators as well as between the third and first person but, despite this, I never got a real sense of each voice as an individual. I feel that the author was, in some ways, trying to emulate the style of Charles Dickens - there is certainly something very similar in the tone – and maybe Dickens fans will find this method of characterisation enjoyable but, alas, I am not a fan of Dickens and I just found it rather leaden.

As the story continues, Thomas and Charlie are drawn into a conspiracy that undermines the very nature of the smoke and its role in society. Forced to run for their lives; their every step hunted by dark forces, the boys – along with a teenage girl, Livia, who is also of noble birth – begin to question the nature of the smoke, their relationship with their own sins and transgressions and the very concepts of purity and sin themselves. All of which sounds – and should be – absolutely fascinating. Unfortunately, all of this happens so slowly that I found the latter part of the book to be terminally dull and terribly convoluted.

Following on from the tense opening at the school and the growing tension that takes the boys to a mysterious country manor, there is a well-executed dramatic incident about midway through the book that forces the trio on the run. Following this however the book slows down instead of speeding towards the finale, with an awful lot of hand-wringing and self-reflection and long paragraphs about the nature of sin and personal identity. Couple this with the dense, descriptive writing style and I just felt that the story was getting bogged down, the characters struggling to wade through the mass of world-building and the intricacies of the theology that the author wanted us to understand. Add in the fact that a lot of incidental characters are introduced who seem to drop into and out of the story on a whim, and the final third of the book becomes a real tangle of plot, sub-plots and motivations. By the time the finale did arrive, I just wasn’t invested enough in any the characters to really care what happened to them and I was struggling to retain a grasp on what the most important aspect of the plot was meant to be.

I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me about ‘Smoke’ - it’s a high-concept, densely descriptive and imaginative dystopian with a heavy dose of the Victorian Gothic on the side. As such, I’m sure it will appeal to a lot of readers. And the first half, in the school and the gothic country mansion, was exciting and inventive, with plenty to recommend it. Unfortunately, the second half of the book just gets bogged down in plot and the characters fail to develop in any way that felt meaningful to me. Overall therefore, whether it was a case of too high a set of expectations on my part, or whether it was all just too Dickensian for my tastes, this wasn’t a book that I particularly enjoyed and I probably wouldn’t have pushed through to the finale if it wasn’t for the fact that I was reading for review. 

'Smoke' by Dan Vyleta, is published by W&N and is available as a hardback, e-book and audio download from all good bookshops and online retailers. My thanks go to the publisher and to NetGalley for the chance to read an advanced copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review. 

June In Review

So the first thing that might be noticeable is that this is not a wrap up post. I’ve decided to make a few changes to the blog and one of them is to ditch the wrap ups – I just don’t feel they work as well on a blog as they do on BookTube and I wasn’t enjoying writing them. So instead of reviewing every book I read in a given month in a wrap up, I’m going to do a few more reviews and themed mini-reviews (i.e. Summer Reads, Books for Halloween etc.) and then do a month-in-review post like this one in which I might make mention of some books I’ve read, what I’ve picked up that excites me and what I’m currently reading but which is more of a chat than a specific review. Don’t worry however – there will still be lots of book based goodness throughout!

I think I bought more books in June than I read in all honesty. This is, in part, the fault of Independent Bookshop Week (see last month’s post) which meant I just had to visit the lovely Booka Bookshop and buy all of the things, including a lovely little essay called ‘The Gifts of Reading’ by Robert McFarlane. I also bought a book for my Dad for Father’s Day and a gorgeous Virago edition of ‘Diary of a Provincial Lady’ for my Nan as a birthday present. So there was some book-gifting going on in my life too.

June has however been a really good month for book releases. Sarah Perry’s second novel ‘The Essex Serpent’, with it’s beautiful deep green cover, called to me across the bookshop so that’s now sitting on my bedside table. And Clare North, author of the fantastic ‘The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’ has her latest, ‘The Sudden Appearance of Hope’ out this month too. I also decided that I needed a little YA fantasy in my life and picked up my first ever Sarah J Maas books ‘A Court of Thorn and Roses’ and ‘A Court of Mist and Fury’ (because, of course, you can’t just buy one in a series!). I’ve heard very good things about her ‘Throne of Glass’ novels but there are a lot of books in that now so this newest series seemed a little more accessible for a newbie.

On the reading front, after finishing both ‘The Girls’ and ‘Shrill’ for review, I took a break with another foray into Kurtis J Wiebe’s excellent ‘Rat Queens’ series with ‘Volume 3: Demons’. There was a (somewhat controversial) change of artist for this third volume but, once you get past the change of art style, the story remains strong and the characters as awesome as ever. And it’s not like the new artist does a bad job – the art style is still amazing, it just is a little bolder and more colourful than the previous volumes. I’ve read that the series might be going on hiatus for a little while which is a shame – this third volume ended on one heck of a cliff-hanger so I really want to know what happens next! I might however pick up ‘Lumberjanes’ to fill the comic-shaped whole in my life in the meantime as I’ve heard only good things.

My real-life book club pick for the month was very different to ‘Rat Queens’ – Sunjeev Sahota’s ‘The Year of the Runaways’, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize. The tale of 3 Indian migrants (one illegal, one on a student visa, one on a marriage visa) trying to make it in modern Britain, this was a fascinating but unremittingly bleak read. When I picked it up, I thought it would focus on the hardships involved with being a migrant in the UK which, in parts, it does. However, I was really surprised by how long the book spends in India, examining the complexities of the caste system and the turmoil of religious and political unrest that lead each person to leave their country. It was a very nuanced tale that really exposed the complex nature of immigration – such a prevalent topic these days – and stripped away the headlines to show the humanity lying at the heart of the issue. By no means an easy read in terms of subject matter but I certainly feel more educated for having read it.

‘Runaways’ did leave me in a bit of a slump – it’s one of those novels that takes a few days to digest – but I’ve recently started ‘Homegoing’ by Yaa Gyesi and am completely involved in her writing and in the story of two Ghanaian half-sisters, one who marries a British slave-trader and one who is sold into slavery herself. The book follows their descendants in both Ghana and America through to the present day and has been super-hyped in Gyesi’s native US. It’s not due out until January 2017 here in the UK but (whisper it), Book Depository do have US copies listed for worldwide delivery. Patience not being one of my virtues, I succumbed to temptation and bought it. So far it’s amazing so well worth the few extra pennies.

I’m also reading Lisa McInerney’s Bailey’s Prize winning ‘The Glorious Heresies’ which I picked up at the library. If I’m honest, I am struggling a little with it – the black humour is excellent and it’s certainly got punch but I’m finding the characters a little hard to relate to. Possibly too much bleakness – I’m not over the Sahota yet! Early days however so I’m going to persevere as there is no doubt that McInerney’s writing is very accomplished.

As for what’s next on my TBR, well I don’t want to keep ‘The Essex Serpent’ waiting too long but I also need to read a proof of Dan Vyleta’s ‘Smoke’ (billed as perfect for lovers of ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘His Dark Materials’, neither easy shoes to fill) which hits shelves next month and I’ve got a hankering to get started on the Sarah J Maas. As always, too many books and too little time!

As always, I’d love to hear from you – if you’ve read any of the books mentioned or have any recommendations, or if you just want to come and talk books for a bit, then drop me a comment down below, tweet me @amyinstaffs or find me on Litsy @ShelfofUnreadBooks. And, until next time….

Happy Reading! x

REVIEW: Shrill by Lindy West

A confession: when I received a copy of Lindy West’s ‘Shrill’ (subtitled ‘Notes from a Loud Woman’), my first thought was ‘who?’ And I admit that the thought of reading a memoir by someone I’d never heard of held little appeal given memoir isn't one of my favourite genres. Subsequent investigation however has shown that West is a respected journalist with a weekly column in The Guardian, a former blogger for Jezebel.com and a culture writer for GQ. She’s also a well-known Twitter commentator with over 71,000 followers. Despite all this I’ll also admit that, cynically, the thought crossed my mind that ‘Shrill’ might be yet another humorous rage-against-the-patriarchy manifesto to spring up in the wake of Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to be a Woman’; a thought not quashed by Moran’s blurb on the cover.

How wrong I was on all counts. Whilst West certainly can (and does) use humour to her advantage when needed (the book explores, amongst other topics, her stint on the stand-up comedy circuit in her native Seattle), ‘Shrill’ is a considerably angrier book whilst, at the same time, being less actively concerned with a traditional feminist agenda. And whilst both books examine how the writers came to develop their voice, ‘Shrill’ is arguably more focused as a memoir, examining the specific events that led West from cripplingly shy teenager to vocal, fearless and provocative woman who is unafraid of being loud.

“Women matter. Women are half of us. When you raise every woman to believe that we are insignificant, that we are broken, that we are sick, that the only cure is starvation and restraint and smallness; when you pit women against one another, keep us shackled by shame [….] that moves the rudder of the world.”

Her journey takes her from tackling the issue of fat-shaming, to Twitter trolls via rape culture, workplace misogyny and the free speech debate. We follow West as she comes to identify herself firstly as a woman, then as a fat woman, then as a fat funny woman and finally as a fat funny woman with a voice that deserves to be heard. As such the book is definitely gentler in its earlier stages and I do feel it takes a few chapters for the tone to even out and West to get into her stride. From the defiant chapter ‘Hello, I am Fat’ onwards however, it’s a fearless shout against social expectations, which confronts a number of unpalatable and uncomfortable truths about women’s lives.

“This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay out of the world. If you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like.”

As with the best writing of this type, West is excellent at taking aim at an issue, skewering it to a post and picking it to bits with a rapier sharp wit and more than a dash of black humour. What is refreshing however, is that she doesn’t just want you to laugh along with her. West wants you, the reader, to engage. To be angry, to question and to challenge. To stop being quiet. She makes statements that provoke, and creates catalysts for conversation.

“Women are told, from birth, that it’s our job to be small: physically small, small in our presence, and small in our impact on the world. We’re supposed to spend our lives passive, quiet, and hungry. With this book, I want to obliterate that expectation.”

I consider myself a feminist but I found myself questioning my own position on the language of ‘clean eating’ and ‘health’, on the comedy I’ve previously found funny and on the defensive stance (i.e. ‘do not feed the trolls’) so many female commentators (myself included) take when encountering misogyny on the internet.

All in all, this makes ‘Shrill’ a very different book to ‘How to be a Woman’. Where Moran laughs at misogyny and patriarchy, making it seem small by reducing it to absurdities; West is confronting it in a different way, locking horns with the trolls and roaring into the void, daring it to challenge her. Both are valid and increasingly necessary approaches to being an engaged woman in the modern world. As such, ‘Shrill’ is a very welcome addition to the conversation which will both anger and delight in equal measure. Having read it I not only know who Lindy West is, but I no longer think of being a shrill; of having an opinion and of that differing to someone else’s, as a bad thing. And for that, Lindy West, I thank you.

‘Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman’ by Lindy West is published by Quercus and is available now as a hardback, ebook and audio from all good bookshops and retailers. My thanks go to the publisher and Real Readers for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review. 

Independent Bookshop Week Tag!

It’s Independent Bookshop Week (#IBW2016) again – a celebration of all things books and bookshops! Kicking off on Saturday just gone, the week is full of bookish activities taking place across independent bookshops nationwide including author events, signings, the #IBW2016 book awards and plenty of bloggers and vloggers taking part in a #bookshopcrawl! And, as this year marks 10 years of Independent Bookshop Week, the lovely people @booksaremybag created a fun and interesting tag as well! So, without further ado, here are my answers to the #IBW2016 Tag!

What books are currently in your bag?

I have lots of books in my bag at any given time as I always carry my Kindle in my handbag so that I am never without something to read (it comes in handy when queuing at the post office)! I’ve got a NetGalley proof of ‘Smoke’ by Dan Vyleta which I’ve just started on that. I do prefer reading physical books however – you just can’t beat the feel of a ‘proper’ book – and am currently reading ‘The Glorious Heresies’ by Lisa McInerney, which won the 2016 Baileys Prize. That lives in my book bag, where I also keep my bullet journal.

What’s the last great book you read?

The last book that really affected me was Hanya Yanigahara’s ‘A Little Life’, which I read last year. That book gave me all sorts of feels, from elation through to anger and sorrow. I felt the ending was a bit of a cop out but, overall, it’s a book that’s all sorts of amazing and it made a lasting impression. More recently, ‘The Natural Way of Things’ by Charlotte Wood and ‘The Girls’ by Emma Kline have been impressive reads and are both well worth seeking out this summer.

What book have you gifted the most?

It’s a toss-up between ‘Pride and Prejudice’, which I gift to anyone who hasn’t yet read it as proof that the classics can be both funny and relevant, and Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to Be a Woman’, which gets foisted on all younger female friends and relatives the moment they turn eighteen because I think it should be mandatory reading for all women. Both books, in their way, are remarkable and the Jane Austen can always be found in a beautiful edition, making it ideal for gifting!

What’s your favourite independent bookshop?

Booka Bookshop in Oswestry is, sad to say, probably my nearest independent bookshop. I say sad because I live in the next county over so that fact that the nearest independent is over an hour away shows why you should go out and support your local booksellers! Fortunately, Booka more than makes up for the travelling distance by being an amazing bookshop with a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction, covetous author-signed stock, a stellar line-up of author events and readings and super-friendly and knowledgeable booksellers. Plus, they have tea and cake (amazing cake) and what shop isn’t made even better by the inclusion of those?!

What’s been your favourite book recommended by a bookseller or Booktuber?

I doubt I would have picked up ‘The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August’, a novel about a man who cannot die, if it wasn’t for my bookseller friend Claire waving a copy under my nose. Claire works at my local branch of Waterstones and we have quite similar tastes so I take her recommendations very seriously. She was spot on with ‘Harry August’ – I raced through it and am about to start author Claire North’s latest book ‘The Sudden Appearance of Hope.’

What’s your favourite bookshop memory?

I don’t think there’s one particular incident – I have so many happy memories of bookshops that it is hard to narrow them down. I do however fondly recall rocking up in Waterstones with my first year university reading list and having a genuine excuse to buy two bags full of books (plus a few non-list books as well because what else is a student loan for?!). And I really look forward to my book group every month and have many happy memories of being there – everyone is friendly and the discussions are always lively without ever veering into combative. Plus, we have cake, which helps us get through even the toughest of books!

What do bookshops mean to you? What do you love about them?

Bookshops are my retreat from the everyday worries of the world. I love the aura of peace that comes with being in them – there’s just something lovely and comforting about being surrounded by piles and piles of books and by people who love them as much as you do. Discovering the best bookshops - the ones with the carefully curated stock that feels like it was all picked just for you – can feel like making a new friend.

What are the books that made you? Which books have most affected or influenced you?

I was very fortunate to grow up in a booky household so books and reading have been part of my life since I was very small. I have fond memories of being read Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl, as well as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, One Thousand and One Nights and the exploits of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Growing older, Jane Austen became a favourite after my mum lent me ‘Pride and Prejudice’ when I ran out of books on holiday - I soon hoovered up her remaining novels before moving onto ‘Jane Eyre’ and other classics. ‘The Lord of the Rings’ remains my favourite book of all time however and I spent many happy evenings tucked up in bed while my Grandad read me this epic – he kept having to read the same bits twice when I fell asleep! Later, I read them for myself and realised how carefully Grandad must have edited them to remove the long descriptive passages and keep the action moving forwards to keep me engaged. I usually re-read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ every year – there’s just something about the story that gives me great comfort and takes me instantly to my happy place.

 

What book did you gift for Father’s Day?

My dad is a keen fisherman so, when I walked into Booka and saw ‘Rivers Run: An Anger’s Journey from Source to Sea’ by Kevin Parr on prominent display, I thought they must have seen me coming! I hope he enjoys it.

What book is currently at the top of your TBR pile?

My TBR has exploded a bit recently so I’m trying to work my way through a few on it before buying any more books – easier said than done! I have just bought ‘The Essex Serpent’ by Sarah Perry and cannot wait to start it – the cover called to me from across the bookshop and I’ve heard that the writing inside is just as beautiful as the exterior! I’m also really looking forward to reading ‘Homegoing’ by Yaa Gyasi, a debut that’s already making waves in the US – it’s about two half-sisters, one who is married to a slave-trader and another who is a slave herself and is sold to the US plantations. The novel follows their descendants over many generations – it’s a book I think we’ll be hearing a lot about in the coming months.

So, now that you’ve read my #IBW2016 Tag, get thee to your nearest independent bookshop and go celebrate Independent Bookshop Week 2016! And don’t forget to join in on Twitter using #IBW2016 and by following @booksaremybag. You can also follow me, @amyinstaffs, and you can find me on Litsy @ShelfofUnreadBooks. Whatever you’re up to and wherever you go, enjoy the rest of Independent Bookshop Week 2016 and, until next time…

Happy Reading! x