Ali very kindly gave me this wishlist book for my BookCrossing (Not So) Secret Santa gift in December 2024. I have now read and reviewed eight of the twelve print books I acquired that month! I have enjoyed reading the collection over the past few weeks, and have also been inspired to write the two poems I include in this review, the haiku above and another below. I can’t think when I last wrote a poem, so I do apologise for inflicting them on you all!
Wendy Cope – “Collected Poems”
(14 December 2024, from Ali)
I have always claimed Cope as one of my favourite poets, usually easy to understand, writing about modern but lasting concerns, and movingly about love, and I remember her Waste Land Limericks, which are clever and funny. Like most people, according to Wikipedia, I read and loved her first two collections (“Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis” and “Serious Concerns”): this book includes those and her other three books, plus unpublished poems from each period collected between them so it runs chronologically.
I enjoyed revisiting old friends, then in the less-known collections, things become a lot darker, with illness, death and fear making themselves known, and because she’s good, these are upsetting (the final one in the book: oof!). Hence the haiku.
There were stand-outs of course and I did appreciate losing the parodies as I’m often lost with them, not being a big poetry-reader. I’d encountered “The Concerned Adolescent” before and enjoyed, as then, its portrayal of the anguished world-saving teen, reminded of my own terrible nuclear war poem, which made it into the school magazine. I really loved the poem made from the names of paint colours (“Poem from a Colour Chart of House Paints”) and was brought to quiet tears by “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, with its memory of her father’s quibbles over carol lyrics, and “Greydawn” about the remains of a dinner service she still has. There are of course still eye-rolling complaints about men and their opinions, and a funny one late on about seeing a photograph of the Archbishop of Canterbury out jogging.
So a range of emotions, a reminder of how technically adept she is (so good at vilanelles and sonnets and other complex rhyming schemes!) and still a poet of whom I’m very fond, now apparently aged 80 but at least still going!
I always through of Cope as an easy poet,
But some of it still sails right over my head.
Allusionary and illusionary stuff
Takes me too far from the concrete – but she has that, too
I always thought of Cope as an easy poet,
But she parodies people who I have not read.
Then when it comes to Eliot, Hughes and Shakespeare,
I’m on safer ground and can raise a wary smile.
I always thought of Cope as an easy poet,
Perhaps the reading should have been longer spread.
Having greatly enjoyed Jeevani Charika’s “How Can I Resist You?“, I joined her mailing list and was thrilled to be offered a review copy of the first in her new series, writing under the nom de plume of Rhoda Baxter. Read below the review for an insight into how it came about.
Rhoda Baxter – “The Valentine’s Express on the Brambleberry Steam Railway”
Poppy is just coming up for air after putting her life on hold when her mum fell ill. Living back home in a tiny Yorkshire village and working in a heritage railway’s cafe while being a carer was not the stellar career in hospitality and city life she’d planned. But now there’s support available for her mum and she has the opportunity to apply for jobs back in London. Scott is a relatively recent village resident: his wife died a year ago and his grief and PTSD didn’t allow him to keep working in London where memories of her were around every corner. Now he’s slowly making his way into village life with the support of his friend Adam, who runs a farm, and he’s encouraged to volunteer at the railway.
Scott and Poppy feel immediately drawn to each other but need to navigate Scott’s fragility and the very real prospect that Poppy will be moving away, tugged towards London when she’s able to think about her ambitions again, and we root for them to manage to work it out. The background to all this is the set-up of a special night out, a Valentine’s meal on the steam train, with all the little bits and pieces and staff that need to go into it … and of course something’s bound to go wrong.
I loved all the side characters, with a great range of ages, the details of the cafe and the railway, but also the portrayals of grieving are carefully done and even small details like how to get out of a panic attack nicely captured. I also loved Poppy standing up to her interviewers when they wondered whether caring work gave her the experience she needed to work in hotel management. The relationships between the main characters and their friends are given a lot of space and are three-dimensional, and yes, that incidental diversity is there, with a woman engineer in the shed and the one Asian guy part of the team but acknowledged as standing out more in the village than he would in a bigger place.
Thank you to the author for sending me a review copy in return for an honest review. “The Valentine’s Express on the Brambleberry Steam Railway” is published today, 30 April 2026, and you can buy it from e-book retailers – see link to buying page below.
The story behind the book
There’s a story behind this, shared in an author’s note in the book: Jeevani was enjoying a run of success with her closed-door romantic novels and series (which I’m guessing all had the lovely touch of “How Can I Resist You?”s incidental diversity and strong women characters) when she was inspired to write three (so far!) novels set in around a heritage steam railway in Yorkshire during lockdown. Astoundingly, she had trouble placing these, with publishers claiming the time for cosy small town novels had peaked and that setting novels in Cornwall or Scotland did better than Yorkshire. So she decided to put them out herself, and here’s the first one! I have to say that I’m very glad she did what she did, as I loved this and will be rushing to obtain the sequels. Buying links for all kinds of ebook sellers (not just Amazon) are here.
Three novels I’ve read this month which all centre on female friendships, sisterhood and solidarity (or the lack of) rather than romance or family.
Asako Yuzuki translated Polly Barton – “Hooked”
(27 March 2026, NetGalley)
Observing her father’s high-handed behaviour with the young nurses, Shōko had a feeling that a long-standing mystery had been solved. Regardless of whether it was members of his own family or strangers, this was a man who took it for granted that women would serve him and act in his interest.
Yuzuki is the author of the acclaimed “Butter”, which I knew I didn’t read because the topic is a bit grim and it’s based on a real-life story, which is not something I like. But I was intrigued by it so excited to request her other (older) novel. We meet the seemingly perfect Eriko, good career, excellent hair, happy successful family in whose home she still lives, but unable to forge friendships. Enter Shōko, who blogs about being a slacker housewife, and it’s easy for Eriko to become obsessed. When they meet, things ramp up, and we see the story through their alternating viewpoints, all the while reminded that Eriko has been through a friendship failure before, and that Japanese society is setting up women to compete while pretending to be groups of “girlfriends” and exposing its misogynistic side. Things get messy and both women start to realise what they’re trapped in.
I actually thought this would turn more domestic-horror-y than it did: there was a weird scene in the office with the man Eriko had confided in and thought fancied her and his fiancée but nothing more than that. There was a lot of interior monologue and telling rather than showing, but what the author was attempting to educate us about was really interesting and I appreciated the book for that.
Thank you to Fourth Estate for accepting my request to read this book on NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Hooked” was published on 12 March 2026.
Angela Flournoy – “The Wilderness”
(10 December 2025, NetGalley)
She yearned for something else, something that would put an end to that pit-of-her-stomach feeling, that sense that all her scrambling was for nothing. She would know it when she found it.
I searched out and requested this book after seeing it on my friend Thomas’ Best of fiction list for 2025. The story of four (or five, really) Black women’s friendship through from their 20s to their 40s, reflecting social changes in the US and moving slightly into the future to accommodate what the author wanted to accommodate (weirdly, I didn’t actually mind this), it centres friendship over relationships, with the shifting closenesses of a friendship group carefully portrayed. Some of the characters shone through more than others, and I actually think the author was trying to shoehorn too much into one novel, and it could have been two. The prose was powerful and actually the first section, where Desiree accompanies her grandfather on what he plans to be his final journey, was the most compelling.
But near the end, I got a bit confused, and it all became a bit dystopian, although that is probably the way things are going really. I found the description of a kitchen and garden going to waste and then surviving and being tended pretty moving, and there’s an attempt to address class issues, and the unhoused – like I say, I feel there was maybe too much being stuffed into one novel. But you could believe in most of these women (sadly, Monique the librarian seemed the more distanced one to me) and wish them well through their stories. A strong attempt at an honest portrayal of Black women and their friendships, and I will look out for what comes next from this author.
Thank you to Verve Publishing for accepting my request to read this book on NetGalley in return for an honest review. “The Wilderness” was published on 21 April 2026.
Eleanor Anstruther – “Fallout”
(18 February 2026, NetGalley)
‘What, you shit in a hole?’ Bridget asked when Dawn handed her the shovel. ‘Where else are you going to do it?’ replied Dawn, and Bridget thought about her dadd punching out the seat of one of her mum’s kitchen chairs and why did the end of the world always end up in the toilet?
We’re in 1982 and meet a cast of characters – 15-year-old Bridget, awkward and not doing well with friends at school, her quietly furious mother and her father who’s obsessed with hoarding tins in case of nuclear war since the pamphlets came round; Kate who thinks her husband Simon is a feminist; Annabel the closeted art teacher who was briefly herself at art college until her parents pulled her back into line. When Bridget goes to the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp and decides to stay there, the shockwaves run through her family and community, and everyone is changed by the months of her stay.
The book seemed well-researched and was evocative of the changing situation at the camp I’ve read about in nonfiction books, with women finding themselves, organising cooperatively and being progressively relieved of their homes and possessions by the authorities. It certainly changed so many people’s lives and should be remembered (and the author has an introduction and epilogue which set the scene and encourage readers to investigate further). There is a good nod to the (since largely lost) intersectionality of the feminism of the early 80s, with two Black women characters speaking truth and also highlighting the split that the Wages for Housework movement started. There aren’t any Disaster Lesbians, which is refreshing, and although sex liberates, so does friendship, sisterhood, art and organising. The plot is cleverly worked out and you are invested in the characters, and the cat and two pet mice survive fine to the end. In the end, we’re left with the knowledge that housework and care have to be done by somebody, and that it can be split around a family or a cooperative group, not a bad lesson to learn. Oh, and that it’s best to be honest and be yourself. All good!
Movingly, other NetGalley reviewers have talked about either not knowing the history of Greenham Common or being glad to have this book to show their granddaughters, so it is doing the job it’s set out to do. My primary school teacher went off to the camp and after she came back I remember having to do nuclear bomb alarm tests, so it’s always seemed very close to me and I enjoyed finding this book all about it.
Thank you to Empress Editions for accepting my request to read this book on NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Fallout” was published on 21 April 2026.
I haven’t disappeared: I’ve been really busy with work (which is rarer these days, so great) and also helping our local councillor and new candidates to campaign in our local council elections, so I haven’t had so much time for reading as normal (oh no) or writing reviews (oh no!) or in fact reading other people’s blogs (sorry!!). But here are two non-fiction reads. I bought “Of Thorn and Briar” a year ago: I’d popped into The Heath Bookshop on the offchance to see if an order was in; it wasn’t, but I was so traumatised by my hairdresser having announced (mid-cut!) he was leaving that I had to buy a comfort book anyway! I have now read and reviewed precisely two of the print books I acquired in April 2025. It’s part of my Get The Hardbacks off the Shelves project, where I attempt to read books I have in hardback before they come out in paperback, although I fear this one has already come out in paperback, and I have two more to read this month! The other book is another NetGalley one; I spotted the topic and Matthew said he’d read the author’s first book so I thought I’d give it a go.
Paul Lamb – “Of Thorn and Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer”
(03 April 2025, The Heath Boookshop)
We evolved within the cycles of nature’s calendar, and it is therefore in the consistency of nature’s rhythms that we thrive. Our ancestors, both ancient and more recent, rightly cherished this relationship and nurtured it appropriately, as one must nurture any relationship if you wish to see it thrive. If we take this relationship for granted, however, neglecting it and, worse, exploiting it continuously for our own ends and habitually disregarding its beauty and vulnerability, we will lose it. (p. 235)
This was a smashing book, a real classic in the making, which should last like “Akenfield” or “English Pastoral“. I’m afraid I also found it more appealing than “Words from the Hedge“, the rather similar book I read a little while ago; it was much less red in tooth and claw; the only time Lamb caught a fish, even, he admired its beauty and returned it to the river.
Like that book, we follow Lamb through a year of his work, travelling slowly around the West Country counties of Devon, Dorset and Somerset, with the odd foray into Hampshire and Wiltshire. Dorset and Somerset are my counties of origin, so it’s lovely reading about them, and he really shares his intimate knowledge of the woods, fields, hedgerows, birds and countrypeople of the areas. We learn how he lays different kinds of hedges, as well as planting them and doing other country jobs like weaving fences and doing farm work in his off-season.
We slowly get to know Lamb and his circles, relieved he’s still friends with his ex-wife and in close contact with his now-adult daughters, one of them following him into working with the land, and we meet his friends, some of whose farms he stays on and helps with. Living in a converted truck, we learn he has a simple life, but a well-loved one, with plans to settle at some point and teach others about the old country ways. He’s clearly passionate about how we should all keep connected with the land and preserve ways of doing things that work well and also support nature (some of his descriptions of waking up with the birdsong are beautiful). There are lovely woodcut illustrations by Robin Mackenzie to mark each month.
Lamb appears to be running courses now and has a lovely Instagram where you can see his truck and learn about what he’s doing. I loved this book and really do think it will remain a classic.
Amir Levine – “Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life”
(13 February 2026, NetGalley)
You don’t really need to have read his first book to appreciate this as he explains the four modes of attachment (Secure, Anxious, Avoidant and Anxious Avoidant) and then looks at how these apply in situations other than the usual parent-child or romantic relationship areas they’re discussed around, looking at friendships and work relationships, too.
There’s a form to work out which one you are, and then he goes through how you can become more secure, mainly by promoting relationships in your life which are consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable (CARRP) and looking for seemingly insignificant minor interactions (SIMIs) in our lives and communities that will keep us secure and happy.
A lot of the book seems to be promoting the author’s “Secure Priming Therapy” offer, and although there is good and sensible advice here, there are two aspects I wasn’t hugely fond of. Levine claims that your attachment style is often nothing to do with your early experiences but comes along with your personality, which I think ignores helpful ways to work out why you are like what you’re like, and it does seem to push seeking out secure people and making them be your friends to help you learn how to do it, which seems a bit transactional.
I do feel the SIMI thing is useful though, as I noticed how rooted in my community I feel when I’m walking back from a volunteer shift at our local Community Centre, having worked there with a new friend I feel very comfortable with, seeing neighbours on the way back and saying hello. So there’s that.
Thank you to Cornerstone Press for accepting my request to read this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Secure” was published on 14 April 2026.
I bought this book as a reward for myself for completing my 20 Books of Summer project in 2025 – that aimed to get hardbacks off the shelves, so what did I do but buy another one (and a book on Goth)? It’s then formed part of my Get The Hardbacks off the Shelves project, where I attempt to read books I have in hardback before they come out in paperback (I have been moderately successful in this). I bought this in September 2025, and of the seven print books I acquired that month, I have now read and reviewed two.
Laura Spinney – “Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global”
(05 September 2025, The Heath Bookshop) A thoroughly up to date exploration of the possible origins of Proto-Indo-European, the source language for the whole language family that extends from Iceland through Britain and Ireland (and thence to North America), Europe, Russia, Eastern Europe and through to India, this book goes into detail about researchers and competing theories, evidence and gaps in evidence, offering compelling arguments examined through historical linguistics, archaeology, the study of myth and legend and genetics.
In brief, the language that became Indo-European then split into all those branches (to visualise this, think of Latin and the Romance languages of French, Romanian, Italian and Spanish, which belong to one family, and Germanic languages like German, Icelandic, Swedish, English, which belong to another but are linked by similar words for shared concepts) started off in the mid-European/Asian steppes, then spread, as genetics and the related concept of language shifts (think of how -edad endings in Spanish match -ity words in English, or b in Spanish is v in French so often). Spinney takes the major sub-families of Indo-European, with living and extinct members, and shows how they perhaps have travelled, using fascinating evidence including what words might have been shared by particular populations (if a population migrated and settled into farming, its predecessors won’t have had their own words for farming terms, so will gather those from other groups, etc.: “People who spoke of wheels and wagons could have not lived before 3500 BCE, when that technology was invented” (p. 79)).
Spinney uses extremely up-to-date research to bring us up to the state of the art, and she’s very careful to set out both sides of any debates that are still ongoing. Links have been shown between very disparate language families, such as Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian: “If you pull on the cultural and genetic cords that tie the speakers of Sanskrit and Lithuanian to their roots, you find that they cross in a single place and time: the Dnieper Rapids, in the Bronze Age” (p. 216). There is also acknowledgement of previous researchers and of the effect of the Russian war on Ukraine on this area of research. Language change is addressed, with Geek the only language that’s remained little changed for thousands of years, but the multiethnolects among young people in multicultural neighbourhoods shifting fast and being examined by linguists.
There’s a lot of information here and I’d say it’s best to read at least each long chapter in one go so you don’t forget the details. There is a bibliography with general reading and then sources per chapter, and endnotes, and although Spinney says it’s not a textbook and she doesn’t want to overload readers with references, I think you do need to have an interest in language change and development and historical linguistics to get the most out of it.
I read this book for my Get the Hardbacks off the Shelves project. In a Bookish Beck Serendipity Moment, the good old aurochs (the ancient wild ox) manages to pop up yet again; it’s usually in books I read with Emma but here it was again!
Leading up to the Iris Murdoch Society Conference in 2028, but also because it’s something I like to do in every decade of my life, I’m rereading all of Iris Murdoch’s novels in order once again. The last time I did this, in 2017-2019, I ran a readalong project, and the time before, I read them with a group of friends: this is a solo effort, just to allow myself to think about how I find them as I move into my 50s (and age past a lot of the main characters!). So I’m writing more notes than recaps of the novels: if you want the deeper dive, please take a look at the Readalong post and comments for this one. My earlier review on here from 2008 (which is slightly less useless than the one for The Bell) is here for completeness’ sakes. I read my original copy which I suspect I bought in 1993-ish this time, seen bottom left. I don’t have a note of when I bought my rather marvellous Penguin paperback.
A couple of notes: I read this one immediately after “The Bell” because I wanted to fit it into Kaggsysbookishramblings‘ and Simon Stuck-in-a-Book‘s 1961 Week, which I have obviously managed to do (I was also slightly behind on my IM rereading pans so this catches me up).
And rather pleasingly, I found this receipt between pages 72 and 73 dating from 3 May 1993. I can only assume this was around the time I bought the book; I’d originally read my friend and neighbour Mary’s copy in 1986 and got round to buying up all the paperbacks that were out so far from the late 80s onwards. I bought 12 white baps for the price 6 cost now, some pick-and-mix and some cat litter, from Selly Oak Sainsburys (which itself is no longer there, though exists in a new incarnation a little way from its original site); I was living on Reservoir Road, Selly Oak, at the time, the year after I graduated from my first degree.
Iris Murdoch – “A Severed Head”
(my original 1993? copy)
Opening with Martin Lynch-Gibbon discussing his wife Antonia with his mistress Georgie, we are thrown into a whirl of relationships and deceit. Martin is supposed to be gentle and passive but is full of inner rage and is not a narrator with whom we identify and who we care for. With a small closed cast of Martin and his brother and sister, Antonia, psychoanalyst Palmer Anderson and his half-sister Honor Klein, along with Georgie (with three employees at Martin’s firm taking minor background roles), this feels claustrophobic and gothic (the first time we really get this, but it will come back with a vengeance). I first read this aged 14, and it was my first Murdoch: I still have no idea what I would have made of it then and how it hooked me into her work!
Thoughts on themes
Painted ladies / ageing hags
Georgie and Honor are unpainted and unadorned; Antonia is rather cruelly described as ageing, even “ravaged”, and “I noticed the rouge on her cheeks and how elderly she had become” (p. 164), although Martin often finds this increases his affection for her, harking back to Jake in “Under the Net”.
Sudden revelations
Nothing in front of art, but Martin is hit with a love revelation I won’t go into to not spoil the plot.
Reading Iris Murdoch post-#MeToo
Georgie is probably our candidate for a saint: there aren’t any non-masculine soft men in the book (Martin is described as soft but he’s relentlessly egotistical and self-obsessed).
Women aren’t treated well and Martin complains of adding a third woman to deal with to the two he already has; Antonia is afraid of Palmer. Martin is used to controlling Antonia with “the customary pressure of [his] will” (p. 25). But Martin is infantilised throughout, identifying his wife with his mother and her and her lover with his parents.
Mid-life crises?
Martin is in his 40s, Antonia five years older and Palmer a little older still, so it could be claimed that it’s all one big mid-life crisis, especially as Martin swaps his older wife for a younger model originally.
Alternative idea: set pieces
There aren’t really any big set pieces in this one, sadly. The journey to and from the station to collect Honor in the fog is the only one.
What’s changed in my reading this time?
I had forgotten what happens to Georgie, and the ending – how on earth as I’ve read this so many times? I remembered the main characters, the fog, the Gothic quality of it all and the plot up to a certain point.
What has stayed the same?
I still seem to find it quite glamorous and sophisticated, even while knowing that it’s a muddle and a mess and no one really comes out of it well! But I suppose my first reaction will always stay with me to an extent.
Links to my life and way of being
As in “The Sandcastle”, Antonia comments that “Happiness is not the point”, although I don’t subscribe to her need for relentless change and improvement (but I do like to continue to learn). Georgie doesn’t make a fuss and comments, “It’s only me,” but I’m not sure I picked that up from her.
As with my previous, this is my thinking aloud, and it might bet that these posts are only interesting to Iris Murdoch afficionados, I don’t know. If it’s disappointed you, go back to the first of the earlier links I posted and read a proper review. Back soon (but it won’t be quite the very next review!) with the next one!
Leading up to the Iris Murdoch Society Conference in 2028, and because it something I like to do in every decade of my life, I’m rereading all of Iris Murdoch’s novels in order, again. The last time I did this, 2017-2019, I ran a big readalong project, and the time before, I read them with a group of friends: this one is a solo effort, just to allow myself to think about how I find them as I move into my 50s (and age past a lot of the main characters!). So I’m writing more notes than recaps of the novels: if you want the deeper dive, please take a look at the Readalong post and comments for this one. My earlier review on here from 2008 (probably not worth looking at as it’s so short) is here for completeness’ sakes. I read my original copy bought in the 1980s, seen in the middle of the bottom row. I didn’t record when and where I bought the two older paperbacks.
Iris Murdoch – “The Bell”
(my original 1980s copy)
Dora is travelling to Imber Court, a lay community associated with an abbey full of nuns, to be reunited with her husband, Paul, after running away from him. She inadvertently travels with two other members of the community, Michael, who has inherited Imber and is using it as a refuge from a life marred by an old scandal, and Toby, a young man who is doing a summer retreat before university. More community members are encountered, and nuns, and the plans for both a human and a bell postulant to enter the abbey. Rotating between Dora, Michael and Toby’s viewpoints, we see the workings of the community (and, of course, its precise layout and relation to the lake and the abbey) and the discovery of an ancient, fabled bell in the lake. As Toby and Dora work to rescue it, both think over and work through changes that have recently happened in their emotional lives. The plot culminates in a scene of farce as the new bell tries to enter the abbey.
Thoughts on themes
Painted ladies / ageing hags
Dora appears as the ultimate woman in Toby’s young thoughts; she’s attractive but not painted. Mrs Mark is hairy, freckled and wide-faced and has solid calves, so another natural woman, if not painted in a good light. Catherine’s hair is all over the place. So not really a theme here.
Sudden revelations
Dora has our first art-based revelation when she sees the paintings in the National Gallery in a new light when she’s there escaping for a day from Imber (and Noel).
Reading Iris Murdoch post-#MeToo
My candidates for a saint this time are Sister Clare, the swimming nun, and Peter Topglass, careful, quiet observer – the more masculine, bearded or generally posh/army Mark and James are not in the running. Noel, though surely not a saint, is a harbour in a storm for Dora, and is fat, pale, passive and nondemanding, the opposite of Paul’s moustachioed, academic rigour. So the non-masculine saint is still a theme. Michael is viewed with loving kindness and forgiveness by the authorial voice.
There’s not actually too much MeToo stuff in this one. Paul is a horrible, controlling misogynist, but he’s seen clearly as such, it’s commented that he shouldn’t have married Dora just as much as she shouldn’t have married him, and his behaviour isn’t condoned. Mrs Mark has internalised the patriarchy and expects women and men to take on traditional roles, but that’s it, really.
Mid-life crises?
Is the whole setup of Imber Michael’s mid-life crisis? Not sure. There’s a lot of performative masculinity (even Patchway denigrates a machine which isn’t man enough for the job), but not a mid-life crisis as such.
Alternative idea: set pieces
Two great set pieces here. The removal of the bell from the lake is full of Murdoch’s trademark detail, and the final day of celebration is also a classic set piece including farce (it’s also reminiscent of Rain’s car going into the river in The Sandcastle). I found it pertinent that Toby is fulfilled by engineering – “The mechanical details of the plan aroused in Toby a sort of ecstasy. It was all so difficult and yet so exquisitely possible” (p. 215) – while I don’t like to make assumptions about authorial intentions, and IM herself lived in a house that actually fell down through lack of maintenance, and her saints often live in chaos, it feels like this is important to her, too
What’s changed in my reading this time?
Dora seems to be portrayed more kindly this time around: although there are some barbs about her not checking timetables, etc., she is described approvingly as living in the moment. I found James, Mark and Peter to be much hazier figures this time around, with only Michael, Toby and Dora (and perhaps Mrs Mark) in full focus. I’d always thought that all the “brotherhood” were equally balanced, so that’s a bit odd. I’d forgotten some of the ordering of the plot, with certain things happening nearer to the end than I’d thought.
What has stayed the same?
I had a good recall of the plot and characters. I remembered that it’s only Toby who uses the word “rebarbative”. I still retained my view that Michael is an occasionally weak and misguided but generally well-intentioned man who is not a predatory paedophile: I was wondering if this would have changed to fit more the views of my book group readers in my study of a good few years ago, with my lens of #MeToo, but no, I can’t see it. The Headmaster at the school and James Tayper Pace both acknowledge that the stories they’re told might not be true, and I struggle to see this as the patriarchy closing ranks, although you could do. I thought I might be more amenable to Mrs Mark this time around but she’s a monster with her little suggestions and constant correction of Dora.
Links to my life and way of being
I didn’t really get any links to how I’ve learned to live my life through Iris Murdoch’s books in this one. Maybe it would be odd if I’d taken something from each of them!
As with my previous, this is my thinking aloud, and it might bet that these posts are only interesting to Iris Murdoch afficionados, I don’t know. If it’s disappointed you, go back to the first of the earlier links I posted and read a proper review. Back soon with the next one!
It’s Kaggsysbookishramblings‘ and Simon Stuck-in-a-Book‘s new Year Club week starting today, and the year in question this week is 1961. I do have Iris Murdoch’s “A Severed Head” to read from that year, but getting it read and reviewed has to come after finishing “The Bell” so not sure I’ll get to it. However, Victoria at Dean Street Press very kindly came to my rescue and sent me a proof copy of D. E. Stevenson’s “Bel Lamington”, from their Furrowed Middlebrow imprint, which I of course thoroughly enjoyed reading.
D. E. Stevenson – “Bel Lamington”
(4 April 2026, from the publisher)
Louise ran the house, answered the telephone and made notes of her father’s appointments. It was surprising to find that Louise was so capable for Bel had always thought her a butterfly – she had seemed a butterfly at school – but Bel had a theory that people don’t change, they merely develop. Who would think that the lovely fragile blossom upon an apple-tree would develop into apples? It was almost incredible when you thought about it – but so it was. The germ of the apple was there form the very beginning … and the same with Louise who had been fragile fairy-like blossom and was now sound fruit, sweet and juicy. (p. 60)
Bel has been living in a flat in London for a little while now – orphaned at an early age, she had lived with her aunt in the countryside but when her aunt died, she had to make her own way in the world. She’s working for an interesting importing company complete with an active dock on the Thames, and has just been promoted to be the secretary of the Junior Partner, Mr Brownlee (to the horror and fury of the other secretaries and their horrible boss), and she’s made a little garden on the flat roof outside her window, and things seem to get more interesting when she meets an artist who climbs over the rooftops and insists on including her in a painting. But then he proves selfish and shifty and, when Mr Brownlee, who is rather a dear and encourages Bel’s interest in the business, goes away and she befriends and helps the Senior Partner’s son, who is coming into the business, the third partner gets very shirty indeed and work life becomes more difficult just as home life has gone flat.
But then, hooray, Bel has recently re-encountered her old school friend Louise and her doctor father and gets the opportunity to take a trip with them up to the Borders of Scotland. There, she meets all sorts of lovely people, including Jock, Mamie, James and Rhoda from the Vittoria Cottage trilogy (I checked this information on the very useful page about the connections between DES’s books here). Hoping to stay on in the open air and countryside and not to have to return to London, Bel looks for a job. But who is this coming striding across the heather to find her?
What a lovely, joyful, detailed and kind book this is. I loved Bel as a character, resourceful but a bit innocent, and the sisterly friendship she develops with Louise is a delight.
“Bel Lamington” will be out in July 2026 and you can read about it here in the meantime. Note that, as Victoria told me during Dean Street December last year, Amazon remains an important outlet which is why they include those links on the website, but their ebooks are sold via all major online platforms, e.g. KOBO, Booknook, and others. In addition, their titles can be found on bookseller websites like Waterstones, Blackwells and Barnes & Noble, as well as independent bookshops.
Three novels I requested from NetGalley because they were from authors I’d previously enjoyed, and they had some odd Bookish Beck Serendipity Moments linking all three. First of all, they all had a main character whose business was going downhill (not the best theme for me as my editing and transcription business slowly goes downhill thanks to the incursion of AI into the industries I work in, but maybe it feels relatable to the authors!); they also all featured a more well-off man and a poorer woman as the main characters; and all also featured beloved grandmothers!
Emily Kerr – “Blind Date with a Book”
(27 February 2026, NetGalley)
Two male voices tried to stop me, two guys appearing out of nowhere as if some flash alert had gone round the Man Network saying ‘Woman in mismatched undies about to jump into slightly mucky canal’. I ignored them and lowered myself into the tepid water.
Molly has taken over her grandmother’s canal boat and turned it into a bookshop, the Oxford Bookship, but she’s struggling and the costs of mooring it are getting higher. Just as she starts to have ideas for new events – including a blind date with a book party – she gets a grumpy, posh new neighbour, Jack, playing at running a floating wine bar; not only that, but she’s warned against him by the cheeky and affable new boat vlogger on the scene, who’s dating her best friend.
But, in this Pride and Prejudice-themed read, all is not what it seems, and gradually Jack comes through – and learns how to steer a boat, too. There’s a good dog (with some mild peril that is resolved of course). I think I’ve read all of Emily’s books and there is a fun reference to “Take a Chance on Greece” as well as the main characters from “Read Between the Lines” popping up, a nice touch linking her books together.
Thank you to One More Chapter for offering me this book to read via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Blind Date with a Book” was published on 10 April 2026.
Debbie Macomber – “Chasing the Clouds Away”
(12 January 2026, NetGalley)
The Ritz was too much. Everything Chase did was too much. It was one of the big differences between them. Maisy and her family lived frugally, whereas Chase was accustomed to and expected only the best of everything.
Maisy had to give up her nursing studies to help run the family jewellery business – which is going down the pan now it doesn’t have her late father as the salesman. Her older brother has smartened up his act and has an apprenticeship, her mum is working as hard as possible and her younger brother just wants to play in the Little League. Grandma meanwhile is in assisted living being pursued by a lovely older man. When Maisy meets banker Chase on a flight to arrange his estranged mother’s funeral and helps him out with a lift, then attends the mother’s funeral when he doesn’t, they become entwined and fall for each other. Although he starts to do good turns for people, her influence doesn’t stop him trying to save every situation with money, and their fledgling relationship falters when she won’t let him save their business, then thinks he has. Meanwhile he has some issues with his ex’s father and resolves his own family stuff.
Entertaining and wholesome enough but a bit simplistic maybe in these days of more complex lives.
Thank you to Sphere for approving me to read this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Chasing the Clouds Away” is published on 28 April 2026.
Jane Linfoot – “The Cornish Beach Hut Wedding”
(30 March 2026, NetGalley)
I’ve always been easy-going and dealt with whatever life has thrown at me as it came up. But if Lando’s around, I can’t afford to waft about and let things happen to me. However unnatural it feels, I need to sort out a strategy. Because if I’m not the one in control, it suddenly feels as if anything could happen.
I’ve enjoyed Jane’s interlinked series of St Aidan’s books, including the Little Wedding Shop ones – this has some serious themes, but was done really well. Maeve and (Or)Lando had a moment ten years ago and her beloved daughter was the result, but things didn’t go well for the two of them at first and Maeve was terrified Lando would swoop in with his entitled attitude and posh family and take Nemmie. So she stayed in her chaotic house, with mum, brother, stepdad, step brother and sister and foster kids, and did her best to keep going. But now Lando’s suddenly back and in a twist, is Jess from the wedding shop’s nephew, so they are thrown together uncomfortably doing themed shoots around the town to promote the shop. Maeve needs the money and her best friend and family support her – apart from her brother, whose business is – you guessed it – going down the drain and taking half the builders and suppliers in town with it. And the beach hut – that’s Maeve’s grandmothers, her refuge, but now perhaps the newest wedding venue in town!
This has depth to it, with lots of characters from previous books popping up – even Betty and her pony from “The Cosy Croissant Cafe” – and Jess talking about how the Little Wedding Shop coped during the lockdowns, and it all moves towards a very satisfying conclusion.
Thank you to One More Chapter for offering me this book to read via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “The Cornish Beach Hut Wedding” is published on 30 April 2026.
I’m sharing two really good fiction reads with you today which are both by Black women authors and both feature protagonists with horrible bosses. Will they escape them and have happier lives as a result? In other ways the books are quite different: a story of family secrets and going home and one of ruthless ambition and poor choices in men. But I can happily recommend both.
Marie-Claire Amuah – “Sister of Mine”
(17 March 2026, NetGalley)
We pass a group of men engaged in an animated discussion of politics; the subject elicits loud voices and big gestures. A barber cutting hair by evening light suspends his clippers mid-air while his client shares news that causes his mouth and eyes to open wide in disbelief, half-shaved head shining under the glare of a single light bulb. A man broadcasts the sale of bath nets and salted peanuts with impressive marketing skills. Another does his best to woo a woman engaged in the business of selling coconuts. On the street corner, a group of teenage boys snacking on roasted plantain showcase dance moves and body popping skills to Afrobeat. A woman in her twenties wearing a pink Lycra dress and poorly attached wig commands the attention and comments of passers-by: ‘Brazilian virgin hair.’
Sika gets the opportunity to go to Ghana, where her mother and beloved father, who died the day she was born, were born and she was, too. But she and her mum have lived in London ever since. Now she has the chance to meet her aunty and her mum’s best friend, Auntie Larjey, whose big party they’re due to attend. Experiencing believable culture shock as they drive through Accra’s chaotic streets to visit another old friend of her mum’s, Sika nevertheless feels mostly comfortable and at home, although her aunt has a weird relationship with a dodgy preacher who runs overstimulating services that force fainting and revelations onto the congregation.
Things are going well, and Sika has even met a nice young man, with their dates showcasing the modern, sophisticated side of Accra and the wonderful nature that can be found outside the city, but then she overhears something at the party which overturns everything she’s previously believed about her family. Will she be able to heal the fractures that appear in her primary relationships? While all this is going on, Sika is dealing with her horrendous boss at their marketing agency, who pimps young women out to horrible potential clients and expects unquestioning loyalty and work at all times, her only ally her kind colleague Julian. It feels like Sika might be about to snap, and when she falls ill thanks to an untreated mosquito bite, it’s time for things to get honest, and maybe resolved. I loved this complicated and realistic novel and hoped for a good outcome for Sika and her mum.
Thank you to OneWorld for making this book available via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “Sister of Mine” is published on 9 April 2026.
Amy DuBois Barnett – “If I Ruled the World” (6 March 2026, NetGalley)
I was getting sucked into a fever dream that was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, while my former life seemed less and less familiar. I leaned my head against the worn leather set and closed my eyes as TLC’s “Unpretty” came on the radio, the lyrics hitting home in a new way. When the taxi turned down Grand Street and pulled up in front of Sofie’s Cafe, I realized how long it had been since I’d been here. I stopped before opening the cafe door, listening to the JD mix ’80s disco hits and willing my body to relax before I faced the music inside.
Remember those big blockbuster novels about a woman fighting her way to business success from Jackie Collins and the like in the 1980s and 90s? This is the version you want to read about a Black woman in New York at the turn of the millennium getting to grips with urban magazine publishing and a cut-throat world in which the enemy she made by (finally) refusing his unequal relationship threatens her at every corner.
Nikki Rose is the only Black woman working at a high-end style magazine when she’s told “Black girls don’t sell magazines” after suggesting a cover star for the next issue. She jumps ship to Sugar, a magazine for young Black women which she can see isn’t respecting or serving its audience well. But she also jumps from a nightmare White woman boss, who throws a cocktail at the wall when she gives in her notice, to a nightmare Black woman boss who, yes, points out her errors but has made plenty of her own.
She starts seeing another controlling bad boy and we’re worrying for her when her group of loyal friends stage an intervention and she starts to see how she’s got caught up in a world of partying and glitz which isn’t really her. Oh, and there’s a lovely, solid, kind man in the background who sticks up for her properly against a dodgy rapper in a marvellous scene, so we hope she’ll see sense there, too. Nikki’s academic mum and dad are nicely drawn and her friendship group is marvellous.
The author has a storied background in Black and other high-end magazines herself, and that shows in the level of detail given about how Nikki and her team work to turn Sugar around: apparently she kept the manuscript in a drawer for a decade but the slightly retro timeline works really well, with communication through old-style phones and pagers making breakdowns in contact more easy to believe. Another excellent read.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster for offering me this book to read via NetGalley in return for an honest review. “If I Ruled the World” is published on 14 April 2026.
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