Like a swallow curling in towards its nest, this year I have come home to books in a surprising and not so surprising way.
Books have been part of my life, perhaps the biggest part of my life since I can remember. This year I circled about my book nest, testing, sensing, trying.
Normally my reading year has been absorbed by book events. We have given, by and large, events a rest this year for a number of reasons (nothing to panic the horses by) and I have read like I have not read for a long time.
This is the time of year when newspapers and magazines are full of recommendations. I cannot and will not bore anyone with the twitterings of what is filling my front of store.
Instead, these are the books which have made an impact on me this year as a reader, a bookseller and a manager of a bookshop. They are too, as they came into my life, in no particular order – except for the last three which are there because they are special.
2666 by Roberto Bolano
A monumental book. I took a deep breath when I dived into it. It is comprised of five novellas centred around an obscure German cult novelist and a town that does not exist (but probably does) in Mexico. How Benno von Archimboldi (whose story emerges with the patience and uncertainty of ice) and Santa Teresa (a town where hundreds of women disappear or are murdered) come together is uncertain. Bolano died before he finished this extraordinary book and there are pages of where one wonders where the story is going and a needing-to-gather-things-together, but there are also great chunks of almost forensic clarity and excellence which are ultimately moving and nothing like I have read before. There is something within these pages which keep one reading, reading and thinking. By the end, as inconclusive and wondering as it is, one knows one has read something by a genius; has something extraordinary; something unsettling and brutal; but something that surges with the energies of a very real world.
Operation Snake Bite by Stephen G
rey
Afghanistan once again is on our minds. Afghanistan once again takes our hearts. Afghanistan once again is part of memory. Stephen Grey, an old Windsor Boys boy, is now a journalist of some repute. He has worked with newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, with the BBC, Channel 4 and so on. This involving book about the war in Afghan and principally the siege of Musa Qala in 2007 tells not only of the military ground truth of what the war is like for the soldiers (of the guys we see on the streets everyday in our town) but also of the political ground truth. He writes with care, with distinction and honour about what our soldiers face on a daily basis – professionally and privately.
Lynette Roberts: Collected Poems
Earlier this year the BBC did what they should be doing in a Reidean sort of way. The Poet’s Guide to Britain led us to a number of poets and their response to our landscape. Presented by the inspirational Owen Sheers (if you have not read his poetry or his novel “Resistance” you should ) one poet came to me and led me to their table and their words as none other did: Lynette Roberts. From the Argentine she married a Welshman and found herself in rural Wales over the War years. No electricity, having to grow vegetables, the cold and a lack of friends. Dylan Thomas was her husband’s best man and R.S. Thomas was her greatest supporter. And then, for about ten years she wrote poems, wonderful poems: about what and where she was. Myths, war, everyday life, loneliness, the bay and home. Her time were her words: “If you come my way that is … Between now and then, I will offer you/ a fist full of rock cress fresh from the bank/ The valley tips of garlic red with dew/ Cooler than shallots, a breath you can swank…” Just wonderful.
A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carre
Le Carre returns to his old stomping ground – Germany. A Chechen asylum seeker turns up in Cologne. At the same time a private banker has a major call on some private funds. The Americans and the British intelligence services are interested in him and the money. Le Carre can write about American/ British/ German tensions like no other writer. After having wandered away from this scenario for a while, he returns at a time when another set of wired-up tensions stretch our lives and make us make choices about things we thought we had resolved. A perfect dark night read.
Shadow Child by Libby Purves
People are always amazed when I say I like this kind of fiction. I loathe book-snobs for they distance themselves from some very honest and moving stories – like this one. Libby Purves’ son committed suicide a few years ago. This story is about a mother whose son has died. Mother and father, Marion and Tom are strong and managing their grief. But, when a strange woman turns up at the family home demanding to see her son (not knowing of his death) things go awry and Marion and Tom find that personal stories, grief and realities are not easily restored or recognised. This is a modern story of relationships, of pasts and of futures that can wreck or make a family. Intensely moving.
My Better Half and Me by Joss Ackland
Actor Joss Ackland chased hard and won his wife Rosemary. This inspirational and wonderful book is about her. She kept a diary during all their years together; through exceptional hardships and wonderful times. This is one of the most wonderful love stories I have read. Mostly in Rosemary’s words this about an exceptional relationship. Even when Rosemary developed Motor Neurone Disease their love for each other is deeper than Burns’ red, red rose. Don’t read this to find out about Hollywood and the West End. Read this to be enriched and enveloped by a story that is so rare in its caring and partnership as to leave one envious, inspired and deeply moved.
The Great Silence: 1918 – 1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War by Juliet Nicolson
After the Great War there was a Silence throughout the land. The men were just not there. The was an attempt to return to normality but for a couple of years the country was in trauma. The Cenotaph, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior were markers. But in households and in lives there was the blackest and most grim of silences. Juliet Nicolson writes with insight, discipline and feeling of these years. She brings herself back from the edge of emotion to the ridge of history and reality. Not much is written about these days. Juliet Nicolson has bridged this gap and has given us a most valuable and very moving book about how the Great War changed peoples’ lives, families’ lives and our nation forever. Read it – please.
The Music Room by William Fiennes
Six years ago, in my previous life at another bookshop, we had one of the most memorable events we ever had (in the 300 we put together). It was with a young man called William Fiennes who had written a beautiful book about the migration of the Snow Geese: it was a travel book about coming home. After seven years he has written about his home … and his eldest brother. Fiennes grew up in one of the most beautiful houses in England: Broughton Castle. In this gift of a book, he writes about boyhood (lonely at home, gregarious at school) but also most importantly about his brother who was a severe epileptic. Violent, moody, loving, sensuous Richard Fiennes was adored by his family. William Fiennes has written a truly wonderful book. Lyrical, full of the songs of life and land, full of passages one wants to read again and again. Full of family and home. When I finished this book I held it in my hands for about 10 minutes in a state of thanks for all it had given me as a reader. I shall treasure this book for a very long time.
Brooklyn by Colm Tobin
Colm Toibin is one of this language‘s greatest writers. His novel “The Master” about Henry James was almost close to perfection. Now with Brooklyn he has written a book of great power. It is a book about choices. Choices one has to make in life and then live with them forever. Set in the 1950s in Ireland and Brooklyn Toibin takes one by the hand as on a walk along a strand with a lover telling one a story. Eilis Lacey has to leave Ireland for work in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn life begins to happen to her. Love comes her way and so does tragedy and she must return to Friary Street, to home. Love again skirts by her emotional hems. What choice must she make?
Toibin is a master. In a sentence he can turn a tale. In a word he can make one weep. In a tale he makes one wonder of the beauty of stories and of the silences and noises of our lives.
Sissinghurst: An Unfinished Story by Adam Nicolson
When Adam Nicolson came back to Sissinghurst after his father’s death he had memories he knew were no longer real. When I came to this book I had an impression about it that I swiftly came to realise was no longer real. Sissinghurst, now owned by the National Trust, was no longer, in spirit and place, the place that Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson had created, nor the place that Adam remembered from his childhood – mostly. He wanted to change things more than a bit. He had a vision of what he wanted: a return to authenticity and recognition of the place it was. This book is about the Place: Kent, the house, the land, and the intangible essence of all that Sissinghurst is about. Adam, and his wife Sarah Raven (gardener and cook of much renown) have struggled over these years to convince not only the National Trust but also those who love Sissinghurst that their vision was what was needed: the new old. Adam writes most beautifully, with passion, with intelligence, with clarity and the book is inspirational. In a year when much was in the air, this book reminds us that the past can be used for the future, not all needs to be new and clipped within an inch of its life, but that ultimately it is the authenticity of vision, spirit and place which is at the core of not only our national charachter but also where we belong.
Frazer Jansen is the manager of Waterstones, Windsor.
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