bookifer - book reviews by Jennifer Cownie

It’s probably fairly clear by now that, when it comes to choosing books to buy, I can be spectacularly shallow. If it has a nice cover, I will probably buy it. Thus: this book, because it is shiny. Also because it’s by Margaret Atwood, and she’s great. But mainly because it is shiny.

Anyway. Surfacing one of Atwood's earlier books and, though it lacks the polish of her better-known novels, it's still really very good. It's about a woman who returns to her childhood home in rural Quebec after a long absence and is transformed by the experience. And when I say transformed, I do mean a metamorphosis rather than a revelation. Like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, she slowly but completely dissolves herself, unmaking so that she can start afresh.

Given that I bought this book purely based on the shiny cover without having any idea what the story was about, it’s entirely coincidental that the themes are so similar to other things I’ve been reading and thinking about recently - particularly Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Nevertheless, there’s something deeply satisfying about reading a few books which talk about the same things: in this case, the unexpected benefits of allowing yourself to get lost, questioning who you are, and even going a little bit mad in pursuit of the answers. This story is painful at times, wild and uncanny at others, and very, very powerful. 

Inspired by my recent Alan Garner discovery, I’ve been doing a bit of adventuring in the land of old children’s books. A friend recommended this as one of his old favourites, and a Garner-esque read (i.e. rather creepy, with some mythological overtones) and it didn't disappoint. 

The Giant Under The Snow follows three teenagers who accidentally stumble upon a powerful and legendary artefact, and so become embroiled in an epic adventure, and a war between ancient powers. There are points at which it is fantastically mad, but what I loved is the way that this book - like so many of its time - has its protagonists’ escapades take place under the radar. They aren’t special snowflakes, saving the world in full public view. Instead, the weird (and actually quite scary) things that happen to them are relatively private; an experience shared between a handful of people rather than something that happens on a grand scale. Somehow, that just works for me in a way that blockbuster teen dramas don’t.

The other thing that I love about this book is the way that it makes use of British/English folk traditions and mythology: burial hoards, ancient warlords, the Green Man. There’s such a rich seam of storytelling to be mined in those traditional tales, and it’s rare that authors make use of it. So, when they do - like Garner, or Kazuo Ishiguro with The Buried Giant , or this one - it automatically gets about a hundred extra points in my mind. More books like that, please.

This is just the loveliest little graphic novel: a coming of age story about a girl who prefers books to real life. Briony Hatch is fourteen years old, and obsessed with her favourite series of books, The Starling Black Adventures,  which are all about a sexy, strong, independent psychic exorcist.

The final book in the series has just been published and she is, understandably, bereft (I think we’ve all been there). So imagine her surprise when she finds herself encountering ghosts in real life - sort of like in the books she loves, except with less melodrama and glory, and more sweet, elderly, recently-deceased relatives. 

It’s charming and lovely and it’ll warm the cockles of your heart. And there are ghosts in it. Thumbs up. 

I read this in a totally transparent attempt to kid myself that I wasn’t back in my office/on the tube/listening to my neighbours arguing about the ants in the kitchen after a holiday in Scotland. And it almost did the trick. Its a lovely bit of nature writing, one that follows the seasons through the course of a year (actually, now I think about it, is there any nature writing which doesn't do that these days?). From rookeries in the trees to stags encountered on the high peaks on a solstice day, it whirls through anecdotes and memories and observations from the author’s home at Aigas in Glen Affric (just north of Loch Ness) to paint a portrait of a landscape which endures, even in the face of human intervention and the increasingly difficult to ignore symptoms of climate change.

This is not a perfect book, by any stretch. There were times when I wondered if a little more editorial guidance might have been wise. A chapter that particularly stood out for me in that regard is the one in which Lister-Kaye extols the virtues of dogs. Now I LOVE dogs and totally agree with him that they deserve celebration... nevertheless I felt, on reflection, that the page or so given over to a detailed description of one of his beloved companion’s anal hernia was a bit much. (The dog made a full recovery from the complaint, in case you were wondering). 

Flaws aside, this is a lovely book for summoning the spirit of the Highlands. It’s exuberant and expansive and filled with the kind of little details that make me want to immediately up sticks and leave London. Not that I don’t want to do that 99% of the time anyway, but you see what I mean. 

I still can’t believe that I’d never read any Alan Garner before this year - he’s one of those truly spectacular writers, like Philip Pullman, whose work is packaged up as being for children, but which is just as impactful if you’re an adult.

Aside from the sense that all of his books are infused with myth and legend of unknown provenance, I particularly love that he’s not afraid to take his stories to dark places. Elidor is no exception: it’s shot through with sadness and, in places, it’s extraordinarily creepy. It’s a book about adventure, but not just the shiny, golden type: it doesn’t shy away from loss, from ideas of greatness fallen into decline and decay. I can’t think of any children’s authors writing today who’d have the courage to do that, and it’s a shame.

Also, look at that old Puffin cover! So much better than the modern designs.

Sometimes I’m not sure what to count towards my reading total each year. Generally, my only stipulations are that the book needs to be something that I’ve never read before, and I need to finish it, but I don’t give any thought to size or subject. 

I say this because The Snow Goose is published as a book but at (I believe) fewer than fifty pages, it’s almost in short story territory. Nevertheless, for a tiny little slip of a thing it packs a hefty emotional punch. Right in the feels. If books make you cry, beware this book. It’s so little that there’s really no point trying to give a synopsis, but this is about love and loyalty and the fact that there’s more than one way to do good in the world. 

I found this beautiful old Michael Joseph edition in a secondhand bookshop in Inverness (I mention that mostly because it was one of the loveliest bookshops I’ve ever visited - it’s in a converted Gaelic church and it smells good and has all kinds of treasures in it). It’s an exquisite copy: the inside might even be prettier than the cover. It only took me about half an hour to read the whole thing, but I then spent plenty of time cooing over it because it was so nice.

It’s becoming increasingly clear as I get older that there are some maaaajor gaps in my reading. I have a degree in English Literature but have barely read any modern American classics. This is the second Steinbeck I’ve ever read... and I read the first one about a month earlier. I’m not sure why I feel compelled to confess all of this, but it is the TRUTH and now it’s out there. 

(Also I’ve never finished an entire classic Victorian novel, unless you count Wuthering Heights. Ever. I mean, I’ve started nearly all of them, but never got to the end. I’ll stop now).

So, The Moon is Down! What a fascinating little book. Written not as literature but as propaganda, it was circulated in Nazi-occupied Europe during WW2, as an attempt to boost morale and encourage resistance. Apparently, it was the subject of considerable controversy at the time, because Steinbeck chose to paint the (unnamed but recognisably fascist) invaders not as evil ogres, but as human beings with personalities, fears, hopes and dreams. While some people accused him of being sympathetic to the enemy, his decision was ultimately the root of the writing’s success at the time: it was true to the experiences of people in the occupied zones and, because it was something they could relate to, it had the desired effect. 

On the one hand (and perhaps particularly because I work in advertising) I find that amazing: the power of words to influence people’s perceptions and behaviour. On the other, I find it terrifying, because who’s to say that its a technique that would only ever be used for good. Imagine the damage Jeremy Hunt could do with the right author. Brrr.

Every time I read something by Rebecca Solnit I fall a little bit more in love with her. First it was The Faraway Nearby, then Men Explain Things To Me, and now this. A Field Guide to Getting Lost is a collection of essays united by the common theme of lost-ness. It covers the more traditional definitions of getting lost (deserts, mountains, etc.), but also explores more abstract ideas, and tangentially related topics: the significance and impact of species extinction, and why things that are far away always look blue.

More than anything, though, this book is about the importance of allowing oneself to be lost: about the fact that until you accept that you can’t and don’t know everything, you can’t make progress. It’s the same thought that you’ll have heard time and time again if you’ve ever had a yoga teacher or a therapist about learning to sit in your own discomfort rather than fearing it and hiding from it... except that it’s in a book and you’re not having to do something really unnatural with your spine when you hear it. 

Frankly, it’s almost possible to describe this book without veering into the land of cliché (It’s only when you abandon the illusion of control that you can really grow! You must lose yourself to find your true identity!). But believe me when I say that there is nothing trite or tired about A Field Guide to Getting Lost. It side-steps every overused trope, and approaches a subject that we often hear about, but rarely engage with properly, from perspectives that make it feel completely fresh. It is flawless.

As a side note, and in the true spirit of celebrating the unknown, I read this book in a ridiculous setting - entirely by accident. On my way back from a week of sitting on my own in a hut in the mountains and thinking about my life, I spent a night in Edinburgh. I decided to get some dinner and, knowing nothing about the city, booked a table at a place that had good reviews (Seasonal produce! Nice wooden benches!) and which I figured would serve me some pasta or something. 

It was only after I had arrived and ordered a drink that I was apprised of the fact that it was a restaurant with a set six-course tasting menu. I’m very much an advocate of taking oneself out to dinner from time to time... but this experience took that principle to a whole other level. So I read this book - in its entirety - while sitting in a restaurant for two and a half hours, eating six courses (and the rest), alone. I don’t know if the waiters thought I was a food critic or just a complete weirdo. Maybe both.

Anyway, if that’s not an adventure in getting lost and then sitting with your discomfort, I don't know what is. Oh, and my meal was delicious. I particularly enjoyed the watercress soup with lobster dumplings.

Children’s books. I have said it before and I will say it again: I love them. Sometimes, you just need something light and entertaining to take you out of the world for a few hours. I’ve never one for thrillers or chick lit (I know, it’s a horrible term) but give me a good children’s book on a bad day and I am happy as a clam. I’m even happier than a clam if that children’s book has also had the same attention lavished upon it by a publisher as adult fiction might. And again, at the risk of repeating myself, I love how carefully Pushkin designs its children’s books - of which this is another beautiful example.

The Secrets of the Wild Wood is the sequel to The Letter for the King and it’s pretty much everything I need in a children’s book. It reminds me of things that I used to find in my grandparents’ bookcases - children’s books from the 50s and 60s with their funny, flat, yet precociously articulate and brave protagonists - and at the same time, of Tolkien and Malory and Middle English poetry. It’s vaguely medieval in setting, with knights errant, and politely warring kingdoms, and strange green people who live deep in the wilderness; heroic deeds and demure flirtations. It’s like romantic ballads with all of the knowingness taken out - no sex, no intrigue, no political machinations (maybe one cross-dressing maiden, but she’s doing it to be helpful), just enchanting, imaginative storytelling. 

Nan Shepherd is currently number one on the list of people I want to be when I grow up. This is partly because I’ve seen a photograph of her as a young woman and I love both her attitude and her amazing hair. But it’s mostly because she lived a life which, though difficult and unusual for the time, appears to have been constructed on her own terms. She was born, grew up, lived, and died in a little cottage in the Cairngorms, teaching at a college in Aberdeen. She wrote novels and poetry and non-fiction; took lovers but never married; and devoted much of her life to exploring the wild landscapes by which she was surrounded.

I read her memoir The Living Mountain last year - a book about the Cairngorms, its flora and fauna, and the powerful, almost spiritual connection that she formed with the area after a lifetime of walking it - and it left such a lasting impression on me that it inspired a trip to Scotland. 

Now, the whole of 2014 (plus the beginning of 2015) was quite the annus horribilis for me and, as a result, I regarded the rest of 2015 as a sort of psychological gap year, in which my main objective was to piece myself back together again, i.e. regain emotional stability, trust in the world, and a sense of who I was as a person. Somewhat unsurprisingly, this led to a lot of me doing whatever I felt like (consequences be damned! etc.), eventually culminating in an autumnal Nan Shepherd adventure. 

Basically, despite the bafflement and concern of parents, friends, and colleagues, I decided to spend a week on my own in the middle of the Cairngorms in a shepherd’s hut with no electricity or running water. It was amazing. I walked a lot of walks, thought lots of thinks, cried a few crys, and chopped up and burned a lot of logs (turns out it’s pretty cold in the mountains in October). I shunned human companionship, drank whisky, wore thermal underwear and a silly hat, and greeted my ovine neighbours politely as I passed them. I also read a lot of books and, given the circumstances, it seemed only appropriate that I take something by Nan with me: in this case, the exceedingly apposite collection of poems, In The Cairngorms.

To be honest, poetry isn’t Shepherd’s strongest point. The Living Mountain is far better than this book - by which I do absolutely mean that it’s life-changingly good and everyone should go and read it. She struggles to find her voice at times, instead leaning too heavily on imitating older poetic traditions and employing archaisms that are both overused and overwrought. 

But! But but but. There are a few moments of genuine beauty: poems in which she captures the spirit of the place she’s writing about; something real and true, crisp and clear and wonderful. For me, ‘Singing Burn’ is one such example: succinct, yet evocative. Another that I loved is ‘Strange gifts of pleasure’, a poem which is about man’s (or, in this case, quite specifically, woman’s) relationship with landscapes, the way that wild places can soothe the soul, providing a safe place in which to break yourself down into your component parts and then rebuild yourself from the ground up (”Now she may re-create herself. / Now is the primal day.”). 

And yes, given that at the time of reading I was on my own in a shepherd’s hut in the middle of the forest at the end of a year of sorting my life out, it’s probably not too surprising that that particular poem leapt out at me. But 1. That was the point of the trip and 2. I’ve reread it since and I still love it.

There are very few things which delight me as much as being given a book as a present - not least because almost nobody ever does it for me. I’m repeatedly told that I’m impossible to buy books for because I read too much/I’m too particular in my tastes/etc. etc. but this book, which was a gift, is evidence that such claims are all LIES and NONSENSE. My tastes are clearly extremely transparent. Modern literary fiction by women? Hello. Anything featuring interesting use of fairy tale and folklore? Bring it over here. Apex predators as a major plot point? YES I WILL READ IT IMMEDIATELY. Thus: The Wolf Wilder, a gift from my friend Caitlin who rightly deduced that a children’s book with a lupine theme would be right up my street.

I was already familiar with Katherine Rundell because of her previous book, Rooftoppers. And I have to confess that, apparently unlike every other person in the universe, I wasn’t blown away by it (a bit too saccharine for me). This one, though, I adored. Probably because of all of the wolves. And the snow. 

No, definitely the wolves. 

It’s a glorious romp through the frozen forests of Russia, a heartwarming tale of adventure and family and friendship set (lightly) against the political backdrop of the impending Russian Revolution. I’m not going to pretend that it’s got anything particularly deep or meaningful to say because, obviously, it is a children’s book and it is mostly about wolves (wolves!). But it is beautifully written and gorgeously illustrated throughout by Gelrev Ongbico, and it’s the perfect thing for a bit of light escapism.

For the most part, my family is unremarkable. Obviously, I’m very fond of all of my relatives, and a number of them have done wonderful things, but if we’re being honest, there’s almost nothing in the way of celebrity/notoriety for generations and generations of my family tree (unless you count the 18th century Scottish doctor who moved south of the border and, in a misguided bid for reinvention, coined my faintly ridiculous surname).

There is one exception, though: my great-great-aunt, Malachi Whitaker, who, as the photograph above suggests, was an author - a genuinely talented one, in fact. She mainly wrote short stories (in fact, during her lifetime she was dubbed ‘The Bradford Chekhov’), but And So Did I is her one long-form offering: a memoir which loosely centres around a personal quest to find deeper meaning in life. It’s a book that I first read in childhood, but then revisited in advance of attending a talk about her life by Valerie Waterhouse, one of several authors and academics who are beginning to study Whitaker’s work, at a literary festival in Ikley. 

You can call me biased (and maybe I am) but And So Did I is a brilliant book - really it is. it might have been written seventy five years ago, but reading it I’m constantly reminded of how little some things change. Malachi complains about the banality of women’s magazines, the significance and symbolism of a shared cup of tea, the joy of trousers. Like any autobiographer, she picks and chooses the sides of herself that she wishes to make public, but at times she’s remarkably candid about her feelings, her fears and her beliefs. She talks about everything from the deaths of her parents and her decision to adopt children, to impromptu adventures on the train and days at the seaside. There’s no clear structure - it’s neither comprehensive nor strictly chronological - but somehow, by collecting together her fragments of thoughts and stories, she weaves a compelling narrative that illuminates a life lived with eyes wide open. I’m not sure that Malachi ever found the perfect contentment and spiritual fulfilment that she pursued, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped her taking delight in good things when she found them - and that’s probably more important. 

This book also has special resonance for me because it reminds me so strongly of my grandmother, who died last spring. Malachi’s matter of fact tone, her turns of phrase, and her sharp, mischievous wit is uncannily like my granny’s. Of course, that’s no coincidence, as the two were extremely close, but it’s still very strange  - and lovely - to read this and notice those similarities, almost as though Malachi/Auntie Marjorie’s voice were an heirloom passed down through the generations. I never met Malachi but, when I read her writing, not only do I feel able to imagine precisely what she’d have been like to talk to, I also find myself flooded with memories of conversations with another beloved and much-missed person. I think I’d love And So Did I even without that personal connection - with it, it’s a very special book to me indeed.

Ahhh, Margaret Atwood. She’s so great. I don’t think I’ve ever read an Atwood I didn’t like, and this one is no exception. Stone Mattress is her latest collection of short stories. It contains nine tales, each about a person of a certain age, each of whom has a certain amount of emotional baggage. 

Now, as it happens, I’m 28, so I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be middle aged, let alone older. But I love the fact that Atwood paints such deliciously dark portraits of all of her characters. Every single one has an axe to grind: lost loves, old secrets, festering resentments. And every single story in this collection gleefully unpacks those personal dramas, offering retribution and/or resolution (often one and the same). It’s an extremely satisfying read: literary schadenfreude at its very best.

Lately, I seem to have fallen into the habit of reading children’s books on a Sunday. I’m not sure what that says about me and my attitude towards the working week - probably nothing good - but there we go. The Water and the Wild was one of those Sunday reads. I figured anything with a Yeats quotation for a title and a papercut on the cover would probably be up my street. It was. 

This is such a charming little book: it’s about an orphaned girl who lives an unremarkable life in a small town, until one day she falls through a door in an apple tree, into a world of faerie. Too often, stories with that kind of plot fall on the wrong side of whimsical, with self-conscious writing styles and silly tropes that, frankly, set my teeth on edge. Not so this one: it’s light and lovely without ever becoming saccharine or irritating. 

I’ve got to say, though, that I wasn’t convinced by the ending, mainly because almost all of the important plot points remain firmly unresolved, which in my opinion isn’t really cool in a children’s book. It looks like a sequel is in the works, which is fine (and obviously, I’ll read it), but I’d still prefer a few more things to have been tied up. In any case, apart from that minor niggle, this was quite a delight.

What can I say about this one, really? I am no physicist. The basics of theoretical physics are familiar to me, to the extent that I could take Interstellar apart on first viewing, but really nothing more. And this is a lot more. In the space of a hundred pages, it offers a brief and beautifully written history of the major discoveries of the twentieth and twenty first centuries: relativity, quantum mechanics, and the rest.

What is most wonderful about it, though, is the way that it makes a science which is usually so far removed from day to day life into something real and tangible. I’ve already lent my copy to someone else so I can’t quote it, but there’s a paragraph in there that really made me think about the world and my place in it. This book, though brief, is both beautiful and important. I suspect that I shall be recommending it to many people for years to come.

Did I mention that I am shamelessly superficial when it comes to books? I think I did. I am also a shameless scrounger, so when a publicist who works at Penguin mentioned on Twitter that they had a new set of ten Penguin Essentials - twentieth century classics which have been given fancy new covers by modern illustrators and artists - I was, within seconds, all up in her tweets like “OH HOW INTERESTING DO YOU KNOW I WOULD LOVE TO READ ONE OF THOSE.” 

She took the hint and graciously said she’d send me a couple (commence much rejoicing on my part) and then she actually sent me all ten of them because she is a queen among women and the recipient of my endless gratitude. Seriously, these books are very lovely indeed. They’re small and beautiful and there are so many of them and rrrrrrrrrrrrr/other noises like that.

Anyway, after I’d finished putting them all on the floor and then rolling around in them like Scrooge McDuck, I decided to do the proper thing and actually start reading them. I was a bit overwhelmed by the choice so in order to decide where to begin, I employed the entirely superficial tactic of lining them up in order of how pretty I thought they were, taking out the ones I’d already read, and going from there.

Thus I came  to The History of Love, which I’d never even heard of before, but whose cover I liked. And KNOCK ME DOWN WITH A FEATHER but this is a good book. I’m normally a poker-faced reader. I might weep at John Lewis Christmas ads, and laugh until my colleagues actually think I’m actually mental whenever I see a ‘Nailed It’ posts on Buzzfeed, but with books I can usually hold it together. 

Not so this one. I laughed on public transport. I had all the feels. Actually I probably made a lot of weird faces (apologies, fellow riders of the Piccadilly line), but I don’t regret it.

This is one of those books which it’s hard to describe because it’s so complex, so vast-despite-being-small, and so eccentric. It’s a book about a book (a book called The History of Love), the author of that book, the real author of the book, the translator of the book, and a young girl who’s trying to piece together a rather tricksy puzzle. The book within the book is first written in Yiddish in Eastern Europe, then crosses the sea, is translated into Spanish, disappears, reappears, and ends up in America. It’s a book about love which tells both a specific and a universal story… as does the book that it’s within. It’s heartbreaking but hilarious, and I will be reading it again. Plus any/all of Nicole Krauss’ other books. 

Last but not least: the very handsome cover because, of course, these are specially-designed reissues and deserve a moment’s attention. It’s credited to an illustrator named Ricardo Valiente, who isn’t actually a real person - not with quite that name anyway. This could be just an eccentric whim on the part of the designer (not unlikely in this instance) but I prefer the notion that it’s an entertaining and apposite nod to Spanish pen names. 

So. Apart from The Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights, which is a translation of Malory, and which I used in a degree paper, I’d never read any John Steinbeck before this book. 

I’m very embarrassed by this, so I’m not going to dwell on it. Instead, I think I am going to say thank you to Jim Stoddart at Penguin Press for making such a lovely-looking set of Steinbeck covers that I have now bought several, and am correcting this omission in my literary education.

(This one’s really good by the way - it’s a fable about wealth and richness and freedom and happiness).