14/06/19: David Quantick – Go West (2018)

This short novel is an entertaining romp that deals with the world of forged antiques. The plot escalates into something fairly involved and ends excitingly. For me, though, the best sections are those in which the hero, Charlie Bread, drives west across Britain listening to tapes of John Peel radio shows with his glamorous new friend Penelope.

The most amusing moment is when he pretends to be tour guide and bluffs an entire bus tour of Exeter.

Go West is that rare thing: a road-movie-type narrative successfully set in the UK.

22/02/19: Deborah Levy – The Cost of Living (2018)

“The writing life is mostly about stamina. To get to the finishing line requires the writing to become more interesting than everyday life...”

This little hardback was free from the Totteridge & Whetstone book exchange – the wonderful “take one, leave one” scheme run from the waiting room on the station platform.

It’s a short, philosophical memoir about writing, the break-up of her marriage and the death of her mother. Levy writes beautifully, in clear, concise sentences. The structure seems abstract – rambling even – but then she loops back to certain individuals, themes and ideas and you realise how cleverly constructed it is.

A work of philosophy and gentle wit, she flits between playful and profound with graceful ease.

03/01/19: Raynor Winn – The Salt Path (2018)

Raynor Winn and her husband “Moth” have financial and legal problems that cause them to lose their home. Moth then receives a diagnosis for terminal brain disease. With no money, nowhere to live and seemingly no future, the couple decide to walk England’s South West Coastal Path. They do this in two sections, with a few months in between, and cover all but 40 of the 630 miles.

The story of that walk works as an amiable travel book, but there’s so much more to it. Living on the outsides of society, they encounter prejudice and fear whenever anyone hears about their situation. Often perfectly friendly members of the public recoil from them when they discover that the hiking couple are homeless, with the “h” word itself seeming to carry a lot of stigma.

There’s some pretty writing about nature and wildlife and there are quite a few laughs (or smiles, at least) – such as a running joke about Moth being mistaken for Simon Armitage, who was walking the same route.

There’s obviously a tragic element, too. Moth’s wellbeing and longer-term options are always in doubt. Paradoxically, the extremes of the walk seem to improve his health, but the days beyond the walk remain a big unknown.

A few passages of worldly wisdom and philosophising occasionally seem overbaked until you consider what the couple have been through.

It’s an entertaining, moving and oddly gripping read.

30/10/18: Matthew De Abaitua – Self & I: A Memoir of Literary Ambition (2018)

Fascinating. Matthew De Abaitua worked as Will Self’s live-in assistant in a remote Suffolk cottage. Self acts as an inspiration and sort of mentor for the author’s own literary aspirations. The memoir flits between the time in the cottage (much of it spent alone while Self was travelling) and other episodes from his life. It’s a hybrid of autobiography, literary criticism and social history – a real window into how different life was in the 1990s, the last era before the dominance of the internet.