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Saturday February 29, 2020
Books in February
- This Golden Fleece by Esther Rutter
I heard Esther Rutter on Saturday Live publicising this book as I drove back from Scotland last December. She talked about her family life and growing up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, and how, after a degree in English, she managed to gain sponsorship to write this book, and the trials of her rather basic existence while she did it. Over 12 months (12 chapters and 12 pieces of knitting) she describes the histories of communities whose lives were shaped by wool. This is a meditation on the craft and history of knitting, rather than a book of patterns. I thought I might "knit along" with her painstaking pieces - but (luckily) that's not really the aim of the book.
Note 1: If you go to the Saturday Live piece, do listen to Jason Manford as well as Esther - his amusing reminiscences of his childhood holiday at Butlins really struck a chord with me (and he is very funny).
Note 2: Esther also appeared on Woman's Hour earlier in the year: 7 minutes on the "secret feminist history of knitting". - The Last by Hanna Jameson [read by Anthony Starke]
This is a story about the end of the world - or the world as we know it - or the Western world. The ensuing chaos is horribly realistic from the point of view of 20 people staying in a remote hotel in Switzerland. They pool their resources (good for some period in a hotel) but others covet their food, and it's pretty obvious to all that bullies will rule - and guns talk.
Against this pretty devastating backdrop, there is some kind of murder mystery which the protagonist tried to solve. But of course he has no idea how the killer could be brought to justice even if he does.
In my view the scenario is written so vividly that it is more interesting and has more tension than the mystery. - The Sleeping and the Dead by Ann Cleeves
[read by John Telfer ]
Just before the Shetland novels came into being, Ann wrote this - now, a stand-alone novel since she did not revisit the main characters (Detective Peter Porteous and Hannah Morton).
The story revolves around a cold case (increasingly popular in fiction and "real crime"): a body is found in a lake, and finally deduced to be a teenager who went missing in 1972. Of course identifying the lad has repercussions for everyone who knew him all those years ago....
Posted by Christina at 5:33 PM. Category: Books of the Month
