We thought it might be fun (and interesting) to ask our editorial team and contributors what they are or have been reading recently. Do write in and tell us what you have enjoyed and would recommend (or not!): editor@westcountryvoices.co.uk. More to come!
Dame Sarah Cowley, our Dorset editor.
Someone Else’s Shoes, by JoJo Moyes. Penguin
It would be easy to underestimate JoJo Moyes, as her novels move at pace, usually with some fun, some mystery and some very well-drawn characters that we can all identify with. An overarching theme in Moyes work is to demonstrate the impact and unfairness of Britain’s marked inequalities with a depth of empathy and clarity that statistics could never match.
In ‘Someone else’s shoes’, Sam is the hard-pressed ‘sandwich-generation mum’ whose whole life is taken up with running around after her demanding parents, teenaged daughter, incontinent dog and a deeply depressed husband who took to his bed when he was made redundant after his father died. Not to mention her best friend, who needs support through chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer and a bullying, demanding new boss at work, in a full-time job that doesn’t cover the household costs, so her savings are rapidly depleting.
Meanwhile, ultra-wealthy Nisha is the classic rich-bitch, demanding instant attention, luxury and comfort. Her life exists to service the needs and demands of her tycoon husband, who requires her beauty and attention at all times. She ensures that all his wishes are met by his own staff, and those of the hotel they are living in. Her son, on the other side of the Atlantic, hardly gets a look-in, at least for the moment
Then, there is an early morning mix-up in the gym changing room, with each taking the other’s bag by mistake. Their lives are about to change in dramatic ways, in a roller-coaster of a novel with an unexpected ending, concerning a pair of shoes.
Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris. Penguin
In the middle years of the last century, school ‘history lessons’ meant learning interminable lists of dates – wars, kings, the occasional queen and maybe a special horrific event, like the plague or the ‘South Sea Bubble’ (which I could never make head or tale of!). Boring. But fortunately, some incredibly talented historians can enliven the past by fictionalising real events and people, telling their stories in ways that educate and inform, whilst entertaining along the way. I love historical novels!
‘Act of Oblivion’ tells the story of two fugitives from the cruel justice required by Charles II, newly restored to the throne after the death of Oliver Cromwell. Ned Whalley and his son-in-law Edward Goffe, were former colonels in the New Model army and regicides who had signed the death warrant for Charles I. In 1660, they escaped to New England, leaving their families to fend for themselves as best they could – through their eyes, we see how the plague afflicts London, then the war between the Dutch and English, followed by famine. The Great Fire is next: in 1666, seen as the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, which surely heralds the second coming?
The Puritan settlers in the new colonies are initially sympathetic to the regicides’ cause and the deeds for which they are now pursued, but as time passes, this support wanes and becomes less reliable. The pair reflect back on past decisions and doubts, and events that led them to their self-imposed exile. In the most puritanical settlements, the new coming of Christ is eagerly awaited as well as in London, but as 1667 dawns, the exiled colonels have to come to terms with the fact that there is no saviour to release them from their plight. Much of the extreme religious and cult-like nature of Cromwell’s cause is revealed through their reminiscences, along with the multiple political divisions and despotism that led to failings in the Protectorate even before its charismatic leader died.
Belinda Bawden, Green Party Dorset councillor for Charmouth and Lyme Regis.
“The four I’ve mentioned helped me overcome the ‘doom, gloom and despair’ it is too easy to feel as a climate and environmental campaigner and local councillor. Happily the May local election and the general election has lifted much of the dread we were all experiencing …”
God is an Octopus by Ben Goldsmith. Bloomsbury
Goldsmith describes how grief and despair found an outlet in rewilding his Somerset estate in memory of his daughter. I went to his talk at Dartington (not twigging he was Zac’s brother) and bought the book in 2022. It got me reading again after the pandemic lockdowns had somehow caused me not to read books at all. I tried audio books but even that didn’t work, but Ben’s book got me reading again.
Heart-breaking, but uplifting.
Breathe by Sadiq Khan. Penguin
The Mayor of London’s journey from SUV driver to clean air campaigner through getting severe asthma while training for the London Marathon on polluted streets. Very interesting on the politics necessary even when you have fully consulted and know you have public support for clean air.
It was written before the Conservatives unexpectedly held Johnson’s seat through anti-ULEZ fervour. Sunak then weaponised climate change as a culture war/political tactic. Horrible though thank goodness the voters saw through it all.
However, we’ve seen since then how the conspiracy theorists can be dangerous, effective, organised and funded. Disruptive and scary stuff at community level.
The Assault on Truth – Boris Johnson and the emergence of a new moral barbarism by Peter Oborne. Simon and Schuster
Brace yourselves – it’s a shocker but meticulously researched and unflinching in his condemnation of the recent governments. Very funny too, except it isn’t really a laughing matter. We need to be fully aware of what we are up against!
Sadly, far too many people seem willing to believe lies …
From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins. Chelsea Green Publishing Co.
The antidote to Oborne’s evisceration of the Johnson-era Conservative Party.
How to create a positive vision of a cleaner, greener, fairer future for everyone and how to make it all happen.
It’s so important to remember that grass-roots activism can be way ahead of government and can bring communities together in fun, sociable and creative ways to bring real hope and real change.
Mike Zollo, contributor and proof-reader, Hispanophile!
Having spent much of my working life teaching literature to A Level students of Spanish, French and Latin, dissecting and analysing every aspect of the set text or chosen works, in retirement I needed to find a style of literature I could read with no other motive than pleasure. I have developed a penchant for detective novels: intriguing mysteries with a beginning, a middle and an end. Formulaic, yes, and often with chapter lengths suited to my ten-minute bed-time attention span before I fall asleep! I have read – in Italian suffused with Sicilian dialect – most of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano novels, as well as enjoying the renditions of them on television. My reproduction of his favourite dish – pasta ‘ncasciata – is very acceptable even though I say so myself, but my one attempt at his other favourite – arancini – was a complete flop, literally!
A few years ago, my surprise 70th birthday treat from my lovely lady wife was a stay in Montalbano’s house in Punta Secca, southern Sicily. We drove there from the UK in our Alfa Spider: we enjoyed his favourite gastronomic haunts, and sunbathed and swam from the beach in front of the house… without encountering any dead horses on the beach nor corpses in the water! Camilleri was inspired to write Montalbano by the Pepe Carvalho novels of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (note the name – not just a coincidence!). Whilst Salvo Montalbano is an actual policeman, Carvalho is a quirky private detective in Barcelona, with a taste for good food and wine… and a bit of a lecher, like his Sicilian offspring.
However, in the several Carvalho novels I have read, I found the author’s style somewhat heavy and self-indulgent. Quite different from my latest reading choice: the Inspector Mascarell series of another prolific and award-winning author, Jordi Sierra i Fabra; Penguin. These detective stories are set in a period of Spanish history which I have studied and taught with interest, the Spanish prose is undemanding (if it’s a challenge, regard it as part of the detective process!), the chapters are arranged in a digestible way… and of course the mysteries are intriguing and engaging. In the first novel, the protagonist, Inspector Miquel Mascarell, was a leading police detective in Republican Barcelona in the 1930s.
Arrested when the Nationalists entered Barcelona in January 1939, he was sent to the Valle de los Caídos, the huge mausoleum carved on Franco’s orders inside a mountain by the forced labour of thousands of Republican prisoners. After years of suffering, spared his expected death sentence, he is sent back to Barcelona for reasons unknown to him. He becomes embroiled unofficially in a series of investigations of all sorts of crimes and mysteries, in which his expertise and experience pay off.
The stories are very effectively set against a background of – and often directly involved with – aspects and events in the early years of Franco’s Spain and the wider world. For anyone with a moderate level of Spanish, the 14 novels in this series are very readable, and offer a fascinating insight into life in the early years of Franco’s triumphalist dictatorship from the point of view of the vanquished, who – like Mascarell – always hold the moral high ground. A thoroughly good read so far, and I have six of them left to enjoy!
Kathryn Fox, contributor and reader
Madly, Deeply by Alan Rickman. Canongate
When I first came across Alan Rickman playing the obsequious Reverend Obadiah Slope in The Barchester Chronicles many, many years ago, I could not imagine then how I would come to love him as an actor. His Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Professor Snape in the Harry Potter film franchise confirmed him in my mind as one of the finest actors Britain had ever produced. I first fell for him, though, in 1990 when he played opposite Juliet Stevenson as the cello playing ghost of her former partner in Truly Madly Deeply and it is that which inspired the title of his collection of diaries, published posthumously, Madly, Deeply which I am currently borrowing from my library via Borrow Box.
In her introduction to the diaries, Emma Thompson describes Alan Rickman as being blissfully contradictory – a combination of profoundly nurturing and imperturbably distant. He wore a protective shell of unapproachability but, if approached with anything like gratitude, friendliness or simply a question, he revealed himself to be a most generous and compassionate being.
The plays, films, projects he was involved in, the highs and lows of the acting profession, his politics, his humanity, his commitment to the Arts and to his friends and protégés all reveal themselves in his daily jottings. A lovely collection to dip in and out of.
How Westminster Works …and Why It Doesn’t by Ian Dunt. Weidenfield and Nicholson
Everyone should read this book. I mean, should we not all know and care about how our politics works? Politically awoken as I was by the horror that was Brexit, I have been following Ian Dunt for the past seven years, tuning into webinars and devouring his books and newspaper columns and, more recently, his weekly Striking 13 emails.
I am halfway through How Westminster Works… and admit it is not really your typical ‘holiday reading’, but it is absolutely fascinating and somewhat horrifying whilst being very entertainingly written. I have learnt that Westminster is largely dysfunctional, by accident or design, and that the Civil Service is far from the safe hands I presumed it to be. I now know that the press are even more mouthpieces of the government than I had feared but have yet to find out about the Commons, the Law and the Lords. What I am most interested in, and seeking reassurance from, is the Epilogue: Solutions.
Highly recommended reading – come with me and support one of our best political writers with fingers crossed that someone in government is reading it, too.
Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. Mantle
Anyone who loves a beautifully-crafted murder mystery will be thrilled to pick up Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Daughters of Night and even more so if they like a historical setting for said intrigue. Set in London in 1782, the story revolves around Caro Corsham, her discovery of a woman dying in a bower in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and her determination to seek justice for her. Not only is the writing on a par with C J Sansom and Robert Harris, the plot’s twists and turns keep you wondering right up to the end. But Shepherd-Robinson is more than a story teller, she’s a social historian shedding a light on a world where women are bought and sold as commodities. That many of them have a dignity and strength that belies their situation is testament to all women who fight to be heard both in eighteenth century England and now.
