What I've been reading

The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje

narrated by Jennifer Ehle

"The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the centre of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned."

It wasn't bad, I suppose, but seemed to meander on without any significant story line except the mysterious identity of the English patient. And when it was revealed I didn't quite understand the significance, but I think that was because of the audiobook format - in a print book I can flick back through the pages to check on some aspect of a character or plot. I seem to remember the film was very good, though.

Beloved
by Toni Morrison

"In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved."

I had many library books waiting to be started but found myself needing something to read while all my books were elsewhere. So I picked this off a shelf of second-hand books, and I'm so glad I did. It isn't an easy read; the subject is slavery after all, and brutal events are told but in a way that softens the impact and allows it to be understood, bit by bit so the pain doesn't impact all at once. I know there is more that could be understood on a second reading, so unlike most of my books I'll be keeping this one in case I'm brave enough to have another go.

Two Serious Ladies
by Jane Bowles

narrated by Laurence Bouvard

"Two serious ladies, nothing is natural for them and anything is possible. For Mrs Copperfield - a trip to Panama, where she abandons her husband for love of a local prostitute. For Miss Goering - a move to a squalid little house on an island and a series of sordid encounters with strangers. Both go to pieces - and both realise this is something they've wanted to do for years."

What a very peculiar book! Apparently, contemporaneous reviews were mostly 'uncomprehending', and that doesn't entirely surprise me. I was baffled at the start, but after I time I relaxed and let it carry me along to all the weird places where these two serious ladies went, entirely separately - they spend time together only at the start and the end. They met men and women, drank, slept and fought with them, and then usually left them for the next thrill to come their way. It's quite an achievement that the narrator made it all make sense.

The Buddha of Suburbia
by Hanif Kureishi

"Dreamy teenager Karim is desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results."

I didn't really get the sense of a story, just an account of an immigrant family living in and around London, lots of sex, not much character development. I suppose it pushed the genre forward when it was written, and it didn't bore me, but I never really wanted to know what happened next.

What a Carve Up!
by Jonathan Coe

narrated by Richard Goulding

"It is the 1980s, and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year. But once their hapless biographer, Michael Owen, starts investigating the family's trail of greed, corruption and immoral doings, the time is growing ripe for the Winshaws to receive their comeuppance."

I started listening to this in the car and a lot of characters were introduced, so I took the decision to start again, and I'm glad I did. It's a murder mystery dressed up as a family saga, and all the characters are wildly exaggerated, but I ended up enjoying it. I listened to most of it in the evenings while I was volunteering, because I was very much left to my own devices in the evenings, and it was perfect.

Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens

narrated by Cassandra Campbell

"For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand."

Another cracking book. I'm spending much too much time sitting listening to books in the evenings when I should be doing some more pressing tasks, but with this one I just needed to know what happens next. I've even seen the film of the book, which follows the story pretty closely, so I already knew what happens next. For a change, I think the film is as good as the book and I wouldn't have bothered reading it if it were not for a strong recommendation from a friend. The narration was absolutely outstanding too.