'Amy and Isabelle' by Elizabeth Strout (Literary Fiction)

As with her other books, there is very little plot, and it plods along offering insights into parent child relationships and adolescents. This is Strout’s first novel and it did not have the 'gasp' moments that can be found in her Olive and Lucy books, but it is still an enjoyable read, giving the reader things to contemplate. It can be a struggle due to the changing of timelines, especially if you prefer a more linear style, and so it can take a while to get into the book. Her understanding of relationships and abuse is very good and, as with her other books, the themes tend to linger.

'Friends of Dorothy' by Sandi Toksvig (Contemporary/LGBTQI+ Fiction)

What an enjoyable romp! Newly weds Amber and Stevie bought a rundown house in a London square but didn’t count on its previous owner still being there. Dorothy will not move and nor will she say why she is staying put. There follows a series of events where Dorothy comes to the rescue of Stevie and Amber, her friend from the past and her grandson and eventually The Onion, the pub on the square. There are larger than life characters and adventures and connections, think of the adventures of the hundred year old man and you get the idea. Loose ends get tied up with a big fat rainbow coloured bow, perhaps too neatly, but sometimes you do just need that happy ending! Funny, fast paced and a delight to read. Another book by Toksvig that fits this theme is Valentine Grey which is set at the time of the Boer War.

'Precipice' by Robert Harris (Historical Fiction)

Asquith is Prime Minister just before and during WW1. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. She is clever and knowledgeable. He comes to rely more and more on her opinion on what is happening in order to make very important decisions. To assist this he gives her top secret material. Some of this material is shown to her in the back of his chauffeur driven car before he throws it out of the window! He finds he can't function without her and sends her highly secret material through the standard, insecure postal service. This causes a moral dilemma as she is wearying of him and the knowledge she has gained about troop movement at crucial times etc. is putting her under massive pressure. She's begged him not to send material to her but he feels compelled to carry on, even as her life changes and the danger of discovery is increased. Should she tell? Who could she speak to? Would she be blamed? She's female and of course she'd be scapegoated! It's a really good book. Well done, Robert Harris.

'The Story of Art Without Men' by Katy Hessel (Art History Fiction)

An excellent and concise history of female artists from the 16^th century onwards. The book is an impressive anthology, comprising of many genres of art and it depicts many of the art works discussed. It is an impressive, colourful and informative book. However, I was disappointed that Annie Swinnerton wasn’t mentioned as she is a must for anyone interested in art. (Check her out on Google). This is a great book to pick up and read in between novels.

'Long Island' by Colm Toibin (Irish Literary Fiction)

This follow up to Brooklyn, written in 2009, is set in both New York and Enniscorthy, Ireland (neither of which have been by the group member visited). It’s 20 years since Eilis left Ireland for a new life in America. Toibin doesn’t mess around so we’re straight in with a serious situation which is going to rock Eilis and Tony’s marriage. This leads to Eilis’s return to Ireland to attend her mother’s 80th birthday celebrations. Although we’ve met some of the characters before, we get to know more about them and we also meet some new ones, particularly Eilis’s children who are older teenagers. They make the trip to Ireland to meet their grandmother for the first time.

Most of the action for about three quarters of the book takes place in Enniscorthy. Toibin embellishes the Irish characters whom we met 20 years before. The Ireland of the late 60s/early 70’s is brilliantly described, the parochialism, the small mindedness and the downright spiteful at times. Eilis’s mother is a force of nature and at times you could gladly throttle this woman and not feel bad about it!

Toibin is a master storyteller and when reading the book it is possible to imagine the man himself reading the book in his Irish accent. A wonderful book. In fact so wonderful you may want to curl up and read it again right away.

'The House in the Olive Grove' by Emma Cowell (Contemporary Fiction)

Maria is Greek and runs a restaurant in New York. When she is disfigured by hot fat, her husband divorces her and she returns to her homeland. She opens a cookery school on an olive farm owned by her father. Kayla is a food journalist and the night before she heads to Maria’s school, she learns that everything she had built her life on was a lie as her husband had been having an affair. Our third character is Alessandra, a strong Italian woman who has just received the diagnosis of a terminal illness. The three women are very different but their summer together is a journey of self-discovery. The book is an easy read.

'Case Histories' by Kate Atkinson (Crime Fiction)

The first of the Jackson Brodie stories is slightly more readable than Shrines of Gaiety by the same author but not much better. Atkinson uses the same technique of jumping about from one storyline to another, in a weak attempt to link three stories together and tell them in one. There was a depressing familiarity about the recurring themes of dysfunctional families, child abuse and bitter divorces. It was surprising to find two rather negative throwaway comments about gay people, which didn't gain her any credit. (Somebody had a manicure, so he must be gay; a woman with a husky voice - was it a ‘gay thing’?). Jackson Brodie didn't really do any credible detective work, and the summary just didn't wrap up the cases in a satisfactory way.

There are some echoes of Thomas Hardy. There’s a young mum who is experiencing postnatal depression. She had been looking forward to living her dream life with a husband and child in a pretty cottage out in the countryside, with a garden full of flowers and vegetables, bread in the oven, a bowl of strawberries on the table and a baby on her hip as she throws corn to the chickens. However, she just feels isolated and miserable out in the middle of nowhere. It would be like a Hardy novel, before it all goes wrong

'The Queen's Gambit' by Walter Tevis (Literary Fiction)

Tevis’ work seems to be made for the screen as two other books, The Colour of Money and Hustler have also been made into films. Reading a book after watching a series of film can be a disappointment but not so in this case. The main character, Beth Harmon, is an orphan in a 1950s children’s home. The children are regularly drugged to keep them quiet and Beth likes the way the tranquilisers make her feel, to the point that she hides extra pills. She is given a task to get something from the basement and discovers the janitor playing chess against himself. She spends a lot of time with him, reads books about the game, develops a real love for its structure and becomes a champion. She still loves her pills and also gets into alcohol, spending 6 months drunk. The author clearly understands addiction but this aspect of Beth’s character was not fully exposed in the screen version.

Books to screen can be a good thing, especially where writers keep control of the process, such as Hilary Mantell and the Wolf Hall series. Other writers choose to be less involved, trusting the process rather than the integrity of the work. Other good adaptions mentioned were Catch 22 by Joseph Heller and Robert Galbraith’s Cormorant Strike novels

'Bleeding Heart Yard' by Elly Griffiths (Crime Fiction)

When reading crime fiction, it is easy to miss the clues and whilst this wasn’t a long book, it is still possible to miss the connections as there were too few threads to follow and untangle. A friendship group loses a member to suicide or perhaps accidental death and twenty one years later, they meet at a reunion. The friends are high powered people, with clear career paths and are well defined and there are mutterings and talk of the death being a murder. When two more of the group are killed, it’s clear the original verdict was wrong. The book becomes a typical ‘whodunit’ but the perpetrator is a real surprise. It’s not a long, the chapters are short and it’s an easy read.

'The Judgement of Strangers' by Andrew Taylor (Crime Fiction)

Taylor usually writes historical novels but this is the second book of a trilogy set in the 1970s. (Historical to some, perhaps!)  It’s always interesting to look back at a decade you have lived through and how a writer reveals the times. A widowed village priest is causing frustration in the church warden, a woman who has a crush on him. The lady of the manor is dying and for company she has her senile dogs.  She has sold her house to a brother and sister who are hippies and who have secrets of their and who could cause ripples in the village. The vicar’s wife was beautiful and was besotted with a dead poet who just happened to be related to the lady of the manor. The vicar’s daughter has problems and to add to the plot, he takes on a friend’s son for the summer, a person with a Sherlock Holmes obsession. Throw in murders and animal mutilations and you have a good read. The other books in the series are The Four Last Things and The Office of the Dead. Taylor is a prolific and good writer and his Lydmouth series is a good read.

It is clear that Bainbridge must have done much research for this novel about Dr. Johnson. Johnson had depression and we read about his gritty day to day life. He is befriended by a family where the parents are odd and he becomes a tutor to the daughter of the house. Some years later, a biographer seeks out the girl in order to get information about Johnson. However, she is cagey, as if she wants to protect her former tutor. As always with Bainbridge’s novels, you do get a good read.

This is Bank’s last novel and it tells the story of a son who doesn’t know who his mother is but does know his father, Guy, is dying of cancer. Guy organises a friends’ reunion and past tensions are reignited. The rising political star doesn’t want a tape made at university to come to light. There are corporate big shots and one woman who just might care about Guy’s approaching death. The son does not know what will happen to him when Guy dies and he wonders where his mother is. He watches as the lies and jealousies of the past are revealed.

A great book that gives a fascinating in to how crucial manners and expectations were to the upper classes. Get something ever so slightly wrong and you could be ruined. Mr Bennet is a likeable character who had to cope with his bonkers wife and dizzy younger daughters. The sycophantic slimy cousin, Mr Collins, is a figure of amusement. Lady Catherine is appalling and the reader has to feel sorry for the sickly daughter of Lady Catherine, who had always expected that Mr Darcy would marry her.

This is not a ‘whodunit’ but more a ‘who was it done to’ novel. It is set in a swanky part of Bristol where murders just don’t happen! Everyone has a secret and everyone is watching each other. Beware of who is infatuated with whom and of those who are not all they claim to be.

There are some remarkably similar themes here such as a family being afraid of losing their home, because only sons can inherit the family property. Daughters from wealthy families need to decide whether to marry for love or money. There are roguish suitors that appear charming but have a hidden history. Next, we have a mixture of sensible and rather dim girls and mothers who scheme to secure a sound future for their daughters. There are brothers, cousins and uncles, all with varying degrees of involvement. It is a fascinating look into the world in which young men from higher classes seem destined to either enter the church, train for the law or become soldiers. Jane Austen completed the first draft of this when she was only about 19 which explains why a man of 35 is considered by a young character to be old and decrepit.

Coming in at 650 pages this novel does not lack ambition. It takes a while to gain momentum but it’s worth sticking with. It’s a bit of a ‘state of the nation’ story set among the London elite. Funny in many parts and poking fun at the London ‘it’ crowd.

This is very much a book in Nicholls’ style. Will northern teacher Michael get along with London based copy editor and proofreader Marnie on a long walk? It’s a very funny and heartwarming read.

This is Norton’s first novel and is not a bad way to spend an hour or two. It is set in rural Ireland and is a ‘soft’ murder mystery. Norton paints a charming and dysfunctional Irish village with a secret or two.

O’Sullivan is one of five children who grew up in great poverty and when she becomes homeless and a mother at 15 years old, it looks like life has little to offer. She did have teachers who looked out for her and school was her bedrock in an otherwise chaotic world. They gave her the shoots of self-belief and she sought help, got a flat and a job and improved her chances by eventually getting into university. She is now a lecturer who looks at barriers to education. Her past overshadows her present and she is an advocate for caring for children and giving them hope in their own future.

Being a prize winner does not always make a book a good read! This is a very long novel and not an enjoyable one. It gives insight into Japanese life and how women are brought up to believe that they have to be thin. People seem to live on convenience store food, nobody cooks and people seem to live sterile lives that lead to loneliness. Maniko Kajii is in prison for allegedly killing her three husbands. She adores food and is described as being really fat, even though she weighs only 66 kilos. She wants to be freed from the tyranny of food and gives her recipes to a food journalist and tells her to eat butter. The journalist puts on 4lbs and everyone begins to hate her. There is a lot in the book about food nostalgia which seems to be a recurring theme in Japanese literature. Another example is The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai in which a father and daughter duo try to recreate dishes from the past that have special meaning for their customers.