Swimming Home - Deborah Levy

Swimming Home

It's actually a short story which goes on a little longer. Very crisp story line, makes you want to find out more about the characters. A little like an Agatha Christie novel - very English kind of setting, a swimming pool, a dead body waiting to happen.....but it has it's own twists and turns. It captures the modern day feeling of loneliness even when you are with people. A good read.

The Lighthouse - Alison Moore

The Lighthouse

A very lucid novel with a suspense in the end which just lets your imagination go wild........what will happen to Futh? When the bathroom door opens, will Bertrand find him, or will Ester, or will Futh assert himself.......

I was initially attracted to the minute details that were described........food on a plate, on someone's face......the missing mother...the scents and aromas of coffee, of violets. The young Futh and his neighbor Kenny.......the adult Futh and the relationship with his wife Angela, the ever present Dad and the acute loss that Futh feels for his mother who abandoned him.....make up the running theme in the entire book. 

Tautly written, I felt I was reading a murder mystery and wanted to make sure I remembered all the details given.....just in case I was called to solve the mystery....

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew

The story offers a refreshing look at life in an English village in today's world. A retired, widowed Major with connections to the Indian sub continent, the subtle underlining of the increasing presence of people of Indian/ Pakistani origin in England, the decaying aristocracy with an impoverished specimen called 'double d', the rise of bankers as a breed, the whiff of wall street, a bunch of church-ladies hell bent on doing good in the village........ Duck hunting in the local pond, ...a family of Pakistani Muslims stubbornly resisting western culture when having been born and brought up in England, and a pretty Pakistani-origin widow ........A very sweet love story, extremely entertaining. Great read !!!

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

Harold Fry

 One of the most lucid, touching books I have read. 

In the telling of the Ramayana, it is always said that after the entire recitation, one should again listen to the story of Rama's ascent to the throne, because it is so full of good will for Rama and is an auspicious moment. In the story of Harold Fry also, I felt that in order to rise above the grief experienced by Harold and Maureen on the death of their only son David, they recapture the joy they had felt when they first met - across a dance hall - and fell in love.

Harold Fry resides in all of us as does Maureen. They embody the decisions that one takes which finally define our life for us -either because it impacts us or because it has consequences for those whom we love.

The friendship and gratitude that Harold feels for Queenie is awe inspiring. He is beholden to her for taking responsibility for something he did in a fit of anger and grief, at the work place. The author, Rachel Joyce, has re created in simple words, a very poignant picture of the fragility of human interactions, the way in which we cocoon ourselves into comfortable nooks and crannies - "we hang on by so little, he thought, and felt the full despair of knowing that."

There are any number of people who show immense kindness to Harold Fry along the journey and this is one aspect of the story which I found most uplifting. The Slovakian doctor who cleans his feet and offers him food and a place to rest, while she herself waits in vain for her partner to return to her....while she fills her days by cleaning houses and toilets....a trained doctor!!! This is just the kind of devotion to a guest which is prescribed in Hinduism where it is said that a guest is like a God "athithi devo bhava". The oncologist who shares his table at a tea shop and enlightens him about the different manifestations of cancer, the stray dog which follows him around asking for nothing but only offering its companionship, the occupants of farm houses who offer him food and shelter him in barns........

A beautiful and unforgettable story, which makes you introspect and maybe conclude like the mother of six in the story, who confided that she never knew life could be so solitary." "The superhuman effort it sometimes took to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The normalness of that."

on canaan's side - sebastian barry



this is one of the most sensitively written books i have come across in a long time.
the life of lilly bere and her dramatic, terrifying and most defining relationship with tadg, which brings her to america....her marriage to joe and the birth of her son ed.
the wars which killed her brother willie, consumed the soul of her son ed and left a shell in its stead, which shocked a young bill her beloved grandson who sees oil fields being burnt in kuwait and people running to escape the war....are all described with a poignant intimacy because of her dear ones being invariably drawn to these circumstances.lilly comes across as an uncomplaining person, surrounded by helpful and caring people while simultaneosly being abandoned and betrayed by the one's she loves.
she is able to cope with her tragedies because of the comfort of genuine and warm friends. they restore her faith in humanity. its a very human story, written in the most poetic prose...not a word is jarring, not an emotion out of place, such gentleness in her pathos that lilly wins your heart before the end of the first page.