Lines in Books

Two women with an interest in plants, one a perfumer and the other an illustrator, one the widow of an abusive husband and the other the illegitimate daughter of an aristocrat, brought together by when the botanical garden at Edinburgh is shifted around the time of a royal visit. Both are fettered in different ways, both find their freedom too, in vastly different ways: one through marriage, the other through the sale of a 'love potion' though perhaps both find freedom by being true to themselves rather than to societal expectations.

A portrait of John Donne — rake, poet, priest and more — which brings out his vitality; a man whose life had been touched by despair but who chose to eke what joy he could of it, whose genius lived beside pettyness, whose immediacy and voraciousness for life and living and loving and books is apparent even today, who was politically circumspect (except perhaps once by accident in the throes of grief) and somehow radical too, who helped reshape the English language...

Finally read Constellations which I'd been meaning to; asked what I made of it, I said: I have to think that over. The author often uses a nice turn of phrase but doesn't have the lyricism I've come to expect of Irish authors and, too often for my liking, uses 'erudite' words.  She's into art and I'd not heard of some of the artists she's mentioned... *note for me to do some Googling* Her words on motherhood meant nothing to me. Much of the rest was easily relatable — a hodgepodge of everything that makes up a life, I think — but it seemed to me that it lacked depth — I suspect that that's because many of the issues she's engaged with are ones I've thought long & hard about, and that other readers may not have the experience I had reading it. For me, the words didn't provide new insights or new ways of seeing. It was more of hearing "and I see things this way too" while going for a walk with a friend & having a chat (whi...

Not a book I regret reading but it seemed like a weak echo of The Silence of the Girls as though the author ran out of themes relating to women in war being silenced. There was quite a bit of repetition, and characters often felt wooden.

I (finally!) read Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. And I loved it because it was by Alan Garner. And I understood almost nothing of it despite its being by Alan Garner. It felt like a hodgepodge of motifs which readers are meant to appreciate which, it seemed to me, it's hard to do because there's no clear narrative arc. Instead the book feels like those adventure books of the 80s where readers choose what characters will do next, thus creating their own story, as readers must do to make sense of Treacle Walker. (I loved those books but I wasn't expecting this book to be like them.) It brought childhood memories to the fore — ranging from Treacle Walker (from Macclesfield, Treacle Town, was my first thought although it's more likely to be a reference to triacle, I think) to the bog man: Lindow man, one of my most uncomfortable childhood memories. And it had far too many unanswered questions not least of which were: who's dead, who's not, is all life illusory? What...

"I've learned to slow down and look for beauty in my days, for the mysteries and blessings woven into everything, into the very words we speak." — A woman recovers the story of a suffragette ancestor who's been erased from family memory.