I’ve been trying to write up some family history this month, so put my reading to one side. However, I still managed to find time for 4 very different books in March.
The Stone Sky by N K Jemisin is the award winning third and final instalment of the Broken Earth trilogy.
I have, I’m sure, written about the previous two instalments which were both brilliant, and this doesn’t disappoint.
The story is set in a post apocalyptic world where the Rogga have the ability through a geological magic to destroy and or keep the world safe. They are often killed at birth or ‘tamed’ and trained to be used. There are forces that want the world cleansed through destruction, and in the middle of this there is a mother and daughter with the ability and desire to literally change the world in the physical sense.
I had a gap between each section but if possible it would be well worth reading the three books together. They are quite complex with layers of intrigue and emotion and world building.
This trilogy hasn’t won its awards for nothing. It is brilliant
5 stars for the book and series from me on Goodreads.
Then I found a hardback version of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens in a local charity shop for the grand price of €1
I had almost bought this a few times on the back of the great reviews I’d read in the ROSBC. I used by TBR pile as an excuse to back of buying any new books this month.
Crawdads is one of those books where the location of the story is as important as the characters. Ms Owens clearly has a love for this part of the USA. It is set in a coastal marsh in North Carolina and the natural surroundings and occupants are important in the telling of the story of young Kya Clark, ‘swamp girl’.
There are 2 central threads. The narrative jumps between two time lines. From 1952 the life of Kya growing up abandoned in the marshes and from 1969, whether or not she is guilty of the murder of the local hot shot alpha male type Chase Andrews.
We read about her family and her upbringing, her abandonment, her education, formal and otherwise, her brushes with authorities, the development of the person known as ‘swamp girl’ locally and her growth as a woman, and importantly the few relationships she develops.
At times her loneliness and yearning leaps off the page. Sadness trails through this book leaving debris in almost every chapter. But the use of the marsh with it’s flora and fauna as pretty much the guardian, parent and soul mate of Kya is also uplifting, and will hopefully inspire the book’s readers to consider the fate of the land Ms Owens has so lovingly depicted.
Although there is a murder to be solved, don’t expect in a thrill a minute whodunnit. It’s a gentle sad look at the life of lovely young girl that grows to be a lonely woman. Impeccably told, if occasionally drifting into tweeness, or cliché, this is well worth the time for anyone that wants to drift away in Swamp Girl’s world.
4 stars in Good reads
I picked up ‘A Chronicle of Jails’ by Daniel Figgis in my local library.
Figgis was a nationalist propagandist in that period of time from 1916 onwards. He was among those rounded up after the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, and subsequently imprisoned in a few different Jails in Ireland and Britain. He describes his time in each prison or camp, and his contact with other prisoners from that time. There are 2 introductions to the book. One the original, and the other came with this book’s re-release as part of the commemorations of that time in Irish history. The introduction isn’t hugely flattering for Figgis, but the book remains a fascinating insight it what was going on at the time. My father’s uncle and grandfather were interned (albeit in a different period – 1920) so it was interesting to consider how thing may have been for them.
Recommended for anyone with an interest in that period if Irish history. It is a quick and easy read.
4 stars in Good reads
I was lucky enough to be able to blag and bag a copy of Jan Carson’s ‘The Fire Starters’ before it has been released.
It’s a beauty. It’s also a little bit hard to describe without giving too much away. It really is not your every day novel.
I love a book that’s a bit different and makes you think. This book is clever, funny, dark and fast paced.
The first thing that struck me was that those people that struggled with the long stream of consciousness sentences in ‘Milkman’ by Anna Burns, will surely love the short sharp sentences of The Fire Starters’ that push the pace along briskly.
Both give an unusual insight into life in Belfast, both are brilliantly written, both are funny and dark, and put together you have a real sideways, upside down, but real look at life in Belfast. There is layer after layer in this novel.
On one hand I kind of want to leave it there. Maybe the less you know the better. Maybe it’s enough to know that in my opinion it’s a fantastic read, that is guaranteed to make you laugh and cringe and feel sad and worry about a city or the individual lives that seems so out of control and maybe you might even burst into applause. Then there is ‘the unfortunate children’.
If you want to know what its about read on, if not, stop here.
Against the background of a untypically long hot summer in Belfast someone – ‘The Fire Starter’ – has instigated a series of arson attacks around the city that has the potential to consume Belfast.
In East Belfast two fathers with their own baggage-littered past are trying to deal with worries about their children. One, Jonathon Murray, is a doctor. So far so normal. But he didn’t have a normal upbringing, and this clearly has had an impact on him as an adult. The other, Sammy Agnew has a violent past from his time during the Troubles in Belfast. He liked setting the cars of Catholics on fire for example.
On one hand you have a touch of fantasy in this book. Jonathon’s daughter’s mother is a Siren. A mermaid type creature from Greek mythology that lured men to their deaths through their song. So Jonathon is worried about his daughter growing into someone that lured men to their ruin.
On the other hand there is the social realism of politics and life around the period of July 12th, the marching season and recreational rioting. Sammy has his own past in loyalist paramilitary violence and is determined that his own children won’t have that experience. However the emergence of a ‘fire starter’ has Sammy worried about his son.
Everything seems out of control, trying to write something that makes sense of it is difficult. It all seems a bit mad, and it does fall into the bizarre side of things. There’s no real explanation for the fantastic side of things, other than, its always been there, we just don’t talk about it. The realistic side of things seems no less fantastic or bizarre at times, and maybe the response to that is also, ‘it’s always been there, we just don’t talk about it.
I gave the Fire Starters a worthy 5 stars on Goodreads
Incidently, there have been a few newspaper articles about inequality of women authors and men who would never read a book written by a woman. It’s not a mindset I particularly understand, it would be like not reading books with red on the cover or something, but anyway, it occurred to me as I wrote that 3 of the 4 books I read last month were by women, and the one that was very old. Its not something that really merits notice, but it is something that happens without any thought or conscious decision about gender of the writer. Its all about what book I fancy reading when starting a new on.
Passing time 