Mrs Blackwell’s January Reading Log

‘Good Material’ by Dolly Alderton

I belong to the Featherston Bookclub and the group chose ‘Beach’ as the theme for January. I understood this to be beach read - something lite and easy - only to realise it was supposed to be a book that featured the beach, which Good Material definitely does not. But I’m glad I misunderstood the brief as I ended up enjoying it.

It’s the anatomy of a couple breaking up in their 30’s in London. Told mostly from the perspective of Andy, a struggling comedian.

‘Water’ by John Boyne

I turned to Water, the first book in John Boyne’s elements series to fulfil the ‘Beach’ requirement for Featherston Bookclub’s January theme. Willow is a middle-age Irish woman who needs to escape her life after the revelation that her husband has assaulted young women at a swimming academy. She goes to a small, unnamed island off the Irish coast and grapples with what she knew and what she chose to ignore.

I don’t usually enjoy books about trauma but I found myself quite gripped by this story and what would become of Willow. John Boyne has created subtle links between the books in this series and I immediately wanted to see what would happen to the next character so I picked up Earth…

‘Earth’ by John Boyne

Earth centres around the trial of Evan Keogh who has become a raising football star after leaving the small island where we met Willow in Water. He and a fellow team mate are accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a party and this book centres around the trial and the years that lead up to it.

‘Fire’ by John Boyne

In Fire, we meet Freya, who was a member of the jury during Evan’s trial in Earth, and we find out she is a successful surgeon. She was assaulted in her teens by two brothers and she has a dark way of taking this out on young men who are now aged 14.

By the end of this book we get a sense that the links between the characters in this series might be bigger than it appears in the first two books. I’m looking forward to the fourth and final book later on this year to see how this concludes!

‘The Coin’ by Yasmin Zaher

This book is a wild ride! A wealthy Palestinian woman is teaching in New York. Her preoccupations are designer fashion and cleanliness, the latter a constant issue in a city as filthy as New York. She makes a series of very strange decisions, one of which culminates in her starting a designer handbag reselling scheme with a homeless man.

I would suggest this to anyone who really loved All Fours by Miranda July.

‘Love Unedited’ by Caro Llewellyn

Edna works in Australia in a publishing company and once day crosses paths with a famous but unnamed writer visiting on a publicity tour from the US. They start a love affair that leads her to New York. Years later a young Australian woman living in New York named Molly is working as an editor and comes across a partially finished story of Edna and her writer.

This book had so much promise, but for me there wasn’t enough detail about Edna and her writer to convince me that this was a great love story.

This book comes out in February, I had an advanced reading copy from the publisher.

‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ by Micheline Maynard

I’m read this as part of Business Bookclub with Wendy Batten. It’s the story of Zingerman’s, a deli come hospitality group in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Adam and I purchased this book when we visited Literati Bookstore there last year. I really enjoy reading a well written book about a mid-sized business as I feel like there’s a lot I can take away from it, unlike books from bigger businesses.

‘Madam’ by Antonia Murphy

Featherston Bookclub’s February theme is 'Spice’ so I chose this on audiobook from LibroFM. It’s the memoir of an American woman who started an ethical brothel in Whangarei. Antonia narrates the audiobook herself and told a story that was both interesting and funny.