August reading roundup
Our Reader Services Librarian Lucy shares her top August reads. Enjoy!
For the first 1/4 of this book I was unimpressed, it seemed the story of a bored and boring young man on the path to addiction and destruction in Eastern Europe after being groomed and abused by an older female neighbour. But somehow around the half way mark, when István moves from Hungary to the UK, I became invested in his success and enamoured with his character.
Flesh is a simple idea, one man's life dictated by an encounter with a predator as a teenager, but it is done seamlessly, the story moving from youth to young adulthood and into middle age, challenges and highs in equal measure. István is a character you can sink your teeth into, flawed but also loving, beset by much grief in his life. I thought Flesh was a wonderful and supremely clever read.
Audition is a beguiling and complex story that explores identity, family, and the roles we play in life. Cleverly structured in two halves, the book leads readers through a maze of assumptions and interpretations, challenging them to uncover the truth. Likely a strong contender for the 2025 Booker Prize.
Atmosphere - Taylor Jenkins Reid
Joan Goodwin wants to go to space, but for women in the late 1970s, it's a long shot, even when you're a professor of physics and astronomy. But when the space agency puts the call out for more female astronauts in training, Joan seizes the opportunity. Reid has said she always wanted to write a space novel, but Atmosphere is more romance than adventure, more domestic novel than high stakes space mission and to me, the romance element fell flat. Save this one for a summer beach read.
Sui Ching and Jack, their daughters Lina and Yin and son Jay travel to the south of Malaysia to visit the farm Sui Ching has inherited from her father-in-law. There Fong, Jack's half brother and his son Chuan run the farm, but a catastrophic drought and financial strife in the country make living perilous. While the adults fade into the background, Jay and Chuan being a tentative love affair, discovering new realms in the nebulous and free surroundings of the farm. The sisters, rebellious art student Lina and Yin who seeks to please her bullying father are also pushing boundaries and exploring their newly adult surroundings, while Sui Ching remembers back to her early relationship with Jack and thinks over her regrets. The South is a hard novel to pin down, it's part teen romance - it's very clean, part family drama, part coming of age story. While I thought the descriptions and prose were beautiful in parts, Jay escaped me and I wish there was a little more substance.
When Dawn in 16, she gives up a baby for adoption in Venezuela after a late night boat trip across the 7 miles from her home in Trinidad. The daughter of a wealthy and influential white passing family, her pregnancy cannot be known and when the baby arrives she leaves it with the nuns and returns home. 40 years later, now in her 50s, her marriage ended, her children grown, a woman matches with her on a forum for adoptees. Could this be the child Dawn now believes she mistakenly gave up? I enjoyed this contemplative and introspective story of finding yourself later in life, it is rich in Trinidadian culture and flair, Dawn's character is an utterly human one, a mother, daughter, sister, a woman lost in the world.
Peter Grant (now a Detective Sergeant), his wife the river goddess Beverly Brook, their twin toddlers, The Nightingale, Abigail and her foxes head to Scotland for a summer holiday and to investigate reports of a large cat terrorising the countryside. The newest addition to Aaronovitch's immersive urban fantasy series will both please old fans and attract new ones.
On the calculation of volume 2 - Solvej Balle
Following immediately on from Balle's International Booker Prize nominated first volume, antique bookseller Tara Selter is now on her 122nd iteration of November 18th. Trapped in the same damp late autumn day, Tara craves change, craves seasons, winter. Heading north through Europe, into Scandinavia where early snow falls, then south into England and Spain for spring and summer before back to Western Europe for more autumn. As with the first volume in this spectacular series, Balle's focus is on the minutiae of our daily lives, of the mundanity of living. I look forward with anticipation to the remaining five books in the series.
The life of Chuck - Stephen King
When one person dies, the whole world dies with them. Working backwards from Chuck's death and the end of the world to his childhood, this is a practically perfect Stephen King short story. Dancing, family, sadness, ghosts, the love of music and some magic too. Non-horror readers will love this charming outing.
In the bleak, poverty-stricken Britain of the mid-1950s, Thomas Flett scrapes by, fishing for shrimp with a horse and cart to keep himself and his mother afloat. His world is confined to the dark, damp shores until a mysterious American filmmaker arrives in his small village, offering a way out of his meagre existence. Reminiscent of Audrey McGee’s The Colony, Seascraper is a coming-of-age story that offers a window into a vanished way of life on England’s coast while Wood's lyrical prose, interwoven with poetry and music, elevates the descriptions of the sea and sand into a beautiful and evocative reading experience.
