Goyhood

Goyhood is the story of twins, David and Marty (now Mayer), who find themselves cast away from their lives when their mother dies suddenly. In grappling with this news, they also uncover that they are in fact, not Jewish, as they had known their entire lives. David is usually up to no good and in true form, largely sticks to this script in the aftermath. Mayer, however, as a Talmud scholar married to a rabbi’s daughter, is cast adrift in the spiritual sea. What follows is the incredible journey of the brothers, a one-eyed dog they rescue, and Charlayne, a friend they find. Together, the reader journeys with them through America’s deep south as they try to work out who they really are and what this means for them.

At its heart, author Reuven Fenton’s story is one of identity. Who are we really when the layer of race, religion and social stratum are peeled away? What is the difference between the faith we have and the religion we follow? How much of our spiritual compass shapes our everyday? Through the twins’ journey we learn that coming back to your roots may not always be as you imagined. And you may have to recalibrate your life, and in Mayer’s case, your now void marriage.

The other theme that runs through the book is the sibling relationship. Originally close, Mayer and David have been estranged for a while. Their personalities are completely different and they have chosen different paths for life. But the death of their parent throws them together in this mayhem and they have to provide support for each other, or they’d lose their way. Plenty of hilarity ensues too, not least in the form of fireworks which leaves the reader in splits.

For those of us unfamiliar with Judaism, some of the terms were a little difficult to understand at the start. But I got the hang of them soon enough and I also appreciated learning more about a religion different to my own. The pace of the story is fast and the author’s style is engaging and entertaining, which is great for a debut novel.

Read this over the summer – and contemplate, if you lost your parent and found out that you weren’t the religion you thought you were, what would you do?

A Woman of No Importance

This book had sat on my shelves for a few months, I’ll admit. The size of it was a bit daunting and it’s non-fic, so I’d put it off for a while, only picking it up late last year. I was very very surprised with how much I enjoyed it. This is the biography of an American WW2 spy, Virginia Hall. Hall is a young woman with a wooden leg who is recruited by the Brits to become part of the Resistance against Hitler in France.

She is a remarkable woman. Not only does she foil German attempts to capture her multiple times, she also becomes an enabler for many other spies who operate out of occupied-France. She’s resourceful, quick witted and amazing at disguises. As you would imagine, the world she inhabits is treacherous and risky. But Hall is undaunted and fearless. She is a true heroine, without who the Resistance would not have been as effective.

As always, as I was raving about this book to C, he put on ‘A Call to Spy’ on TV for us to watch. This series not only covers the life of Virginia, but also Noor Inayat Khan, a muslim Indian lady who was also part of the Resistance in France as a highly skilled radio operator. So I’d recommend both the book and the movie for you to watch, both are truly compelling and inspiring.

When my friend mentioned that she’s quite like nonfic this year for Christmas, it went straight to her as a present!

Pipe Dreams: Secret Diaries of a Neighbourhood Plumber

This book was recommended to me by a friend. The author is married to her cousin. Occasionally, I like books like this – lighthearted and an easy read. This is the memoir of the author Nicholas James, or Nick, who gives up his regular 9-to-5 job to retrain as a plumber. The book is a collection of episodes, stories and anecdotes of the people he meets and his clients as he plumbs through London homes.

The book is wonderfully written. The situations and charaters are larger-than-life, vibrant and jump off the pages. Nick comes in contact with the wild and wonderful of London, and as a Londoner the experiences are a hundred percent believable. Some might argue that fact is stranger than fiction though, especially in some of the whacko characters he meets.

There is a great sense of humour in the author’s style. And some edge of the seat moments too, particularly when there is a plumbing problem he doesn’t quite know how to solve or a stopcock that is about to burst and flood the house. But Nick manages to save his clients’ house (and his job) by a hair’s breadth most times. It’s also heartening to read about how he manages his kids and family life in amongst the demands of his chosen career.

Overall, if you are looking for a light peppy read, full of memorable characters that paint a true picture of modern-day London, then I would recommend this book!

Wild Harbour

I was browsing through a bookshop a few months ago and I came across this book in the Sci-Fi section. This is not a genre I normally read, but the blub sounded very intriguing – set in Scotland, a pacifist couple flees to the highlands and goes into hiding to avoid conscription as a world war breaks out. But here’s the clincher – the book was published 3 years before WWII broke out!

I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit slow to start off, with the couple Terry & Hugh wrestling with what the right thing for them was. But I certainly wouldn’t call it sci-fi, which for me is a good thing. This is a survival book. In the harsh and desolate landscape, the couple find a sheltered cave on the mountainside to inhabit. But no one must spot them, nor any signs of their presence left to be discovered.

Terry and Hugh are extremely creative with what they use to set up home – from making their own waterproof boots, to carving out a bed, a fireplace and chimney. They learn to hunt and to preserve, and particularly through the winter months, they ration. All the while, they appreciate the landscape, with the Cairngorms both menacing and welcoming. The heather, moss, tall trees and the moods of the Scottish sky all come to life through their eyes.

Ian MacPherson’s writing style is lucid, easy to read and the book itself is a good size to carry on a commute or on travel. A very unique premise, and a good example of something only picked up during a bookstore browse. Have you read this book? What genre do you think it is?

The Lamplighters

I bought myself this book for my birthday this year, having seen it in a bookshop and unable to ignore the blurb. I am fascinated by lighthouses – I believe it stems from having spent my childhood at airports, playing in and aound closed terminal buildings, under the watchful gaze of air traffic control towers. They would have a beacon, and my earliest memories involve countine to 10 in between every sweep of the beam of light.

In adulthood, I have visited a few lighthouses, but there are my top three – the lighthouse at Kaup Beach near my university town Manipal, the one at Ardnamurchan Point in Scotland and the Portland Bill lighthouse in Dorset. Anyway, author Emma Stonex has captured perfectly the thrill and mystery surrounding lighthouses in this ‘locked room’ thriller, based on the disappearance of the lighthouse keepers on Eilean Mor.

Three keepers vanish mysteriously, the table is set for dinner, the lighthouse is locked from within and there is no way anyone could have gone in or out. They leave behind families – wives, children and a girlfriend. The investigation of their disappearance yeilds nothing – no bodies, no clues, nada. Decades pass and then an author decides to do some more digging, beginning with interviews of the family.

The plot is watertight and Stonex builds up the pace brilliantly. And her style of writing is excellent, with every chapter like peeling away the layers of an onion, revealing more and more. However, I feel the author does herself a disservice towards the end by merging fact, fiction and imagination. To the point where it becomes hard to figure out who killed who, when and why. There are so many people with so many motivations, but somehow it doesn’t quite come together satisfactorily. I’d still recommend this book, for the journey rather than the destination. Enjoy!

Hiraeth

Hiraeth is written by Haydn Wilks, and it is the account of the Covid times, a lockdown ovel written by a millenial. Millenials have had an interesting journey – from a childhood without internet, to the dawn of the new millenium and the financial crash, followed by a recession, a global pandemic, and another recession. Our generation has seen remarkable peace and prosperity in large parts of the world, with the threat and horrific ravages of war in other parts.

In Hiraeth, Wilks presents a snapshot in time, a period of 18 months that represented the peak of the pandemic in the UK. The author presents a picture of society interspersed with his own personal journey. From travelling in the far east just as Covid starts to break out, Wilks is forced to spend the first round of lockdown with his father in Wales. The anecdotes here are great and will resonate with all those who found themselves in unfamiliar multi-generational living arrangements.

As the pandemic rages on, the world slowly opens up and we find ourselves in amongst the author’s group of friends, who are an irreverent and eclectic bunch. Through their collective experience, there is a social commentary on various aspects of the pandemic – the mass surveillance of people, the upheavals of the economy and how people went through compliance and non-compliance of the lockdowns.

Overall this book will appeal to those who wish to look back on this period and reflect on the times they’ve led through the lens of the author. The writing style is alternative and stream-of-consciousness, with a fair bit of swearing involved. It’s meant to be read in bursts, I guess, sort of like how Covid unfolded in the UK. So if you’re a fan of this style and topic, be sure to give this book a go this summer.

The Snow Leopard

I was fortunate to return to the Himalayas earlier this year. Even more special was the fact that, after 4 days of travelling through the clouds and haze, when the Kanchenjunga range appeared for a brief 30 mins, I was able to enjoy the view with one of my closest friends. It was breathtaking, as the Himalayas always are.

This novel is the 1978 book by Peter Matthiessen, and describes his two-month journey into the highest valleys of the eastern Himalayas in search of the snow leopard with naturalist George Schaller. Accompanied by sherpas and porters, they go up into the mountains through Nepal, in late autumn. This book, in some ways, is of its time. There are no crowds, the villages are remote, and the people, untouched by mobile phone and internet communication are isolated.

My favourite part of the book is in some of the initial chapters, as the party climbs along the lower reaches of the Kali Gandaki river. This is the deepest river gorge in the world, partway forming the boundary between Nepal and Tibet. Mountains on either side are the Dhaulagiri (8,167 m or 26,795 ft) on the west and Annapurna (8,091 m or 26,545 ft) on the east. Anecdotally, I learnt that this is where the holy Hindu shaligram shila is found (used quite commonly in many rituals as an embodiment of Lord Vishnu).

As the group gets higher, there are some interesting incidents that happen amongst the party. But I found the human stories less interesting in comparison to the description of quiet nature and the quest for the elusive snow leopard. I can’t tell you if the animal is ever spotted. For that, you must read the book.

Some photos here

Around the World in 80 Trains

I love train travel. When I was a kid, we lived in a different city to my grandparents and so multiple times a year I would get on a 2-day long train to go stay with them. Even after I grew up, when most of urban India had switched to low cost flight travel, my family and I took many trains across the country – visiting places like Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. In the UK, I have also taken so many trains, most notably the LNER service between London and Edinburgh once a month for many months.

The author Monisha Rajesh seems to be my ‘kindred spirit.’ She takes train travel to a whole new level by taking 80 trains around the world. There are 3 trains in particular that have been on my own list for years – the train to Lhasa, Tibet, the train across Canada and the Orient Express in Europe. She describes her travels with her fiancee on all these trains and many more.

An account of people, places and cultures; but more importantly this book is an account of the author’s own impressions. She meets a remarkable number of characters along the way and particularly in more curtained parts of the world like North Korea and Tibet, these people jump off the pages to tell their stories.

I must admit, I have not read her book about Indian train travel yet, and it’s gone on my tbr now. But as she says in her book, worldwide, train travel means so many things to different people. To some it is a form of escapism, to others a unique way to see the world. And again to some, it is just a way to get from Place A to B. But whatever it is, it is impossible to deny the thrill of a carriage and the gentle lull of the sounds of wheels on tracks. A wonderful read, and I will finish by sharing my favourite rail poem.

From A Railway Carriage (1885)

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

The Mucker Revolt

Sci-fi meets fantasy in the first book of the The Aneksaria series by author Chris Maries. Cullin and his fiercely independent companion Sara set off on a journey at the start of the novel. They are the Muckers and the subtext of their journey is that Cullin must win the approval of his father. As they journey together, they must stick together against the tyranny of the Frame. The Frame, along with aimu (who are minions of the Frame) are overlords of this fictioal Universe. To help their governance, the Frame has also put in place the Divines, a sort of ruling elite.

Classism and hierarchy play a deep role in this novel. In every chapter, the reader is balancing the relationships in the storyline. As the book progresses, these shift a little. But they form a central theme and they reminded me of the social caste structure in Hinduism. Over millenia, this social structure has decided the role of an individual in society.

Maries does a nice job of explaining the journey. However, as a reader I found myself wanting the author to slow down and describe the surroundings in greater detail, particularly in places where my LOTR radar was on. As an example, the travellers approaching the ‘Gullet’, the most treacherous mountains of Garvamore, was like the approach into Rivendell, and I’d have liked a slower pace.

Eventually, to overhtrow the thousand year dominion of the Frame over Inalsol, the Muckers must head into battle. And so they do, at Dundoon, the forces clash. And of course, the Muckers must fight the Frame and the aimus. But to truly defeat the Frame, they must strategise against the Divines. The battle chapters are thrilling and the author’s attention to detail shines through – not only in the creation of entire worlds but even their artillery.

Fans of the ‘Immortals of Meluha’ will enjoy the battle scenes. And, as you’d expect, the last chapter leaves the door open for the sequel. The book could do with some more proofing and pace changes. But overall, for a debut, it is a unique and thrilling read.

The Island

I really love Victoria Hislop. I like her style, the fact that she writes about Greece, Spain, Cyprus; and just the way she spins stories. They are stories about everyday people in remarkable situations typically set against a period of historic significance.

The Island had been on my TBR for a while, but I saved it until I got to THE island. Yes, read the book while on a vacation to Crete and a visit to Spinalonga, the 20th century leper colony that housed so many people plagues by leprosy. It’s a disease that has faced so much stigma and shame historically, that a person contracting it is instantly shunned by society.

The story really is Alexis’s grandmother – Eleni, who is a mother to two daughters, Maria and Anna and wife to Georgio. When a trip to the doctor alters her simple life, she must face her tragic reality. The reader is instantly drawn into the lives of the daughters, their contrasting personalities, and their aspirations in life.

Simple village life on Crete takes on larger proportions through themes of love, passion and ultimately the human spirit against challenges. Such a wonderful read, no surprise that it is prize winning and has sold millions of copies. Here is mine in the Cretan sun.