Friday, 1 March 2019

February book review

Well here we are in March which makes me very excited about spring time, my favourite season. It’s actually late spring that I love most, with the promise of summer stretching ahead, but I’m happy with all the daffodils and crocuses that are suddenly springing up everywhere.
The four books that I read in February were quite varied. I started with Wilding by Isabella Treee, about her family’s rewilding project on their estate in Sussex, which meant they stopped farming and allowed the land to revert to its original state. This was more complex than it sounds because they also reintroduced species which had disappeared from the area, and they have been constantly surprised by what has happened since regarding both flora and fauna. Then for EK Book Club I read Lullaby by Leila Slimani which was both incredibly horrifying and a real page turner. I also read A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, recommended by Billy Connolly in a recent documentary about his life. Toole committed suicide in the 1960s when he couldn’t get his book published but his devoted mother touted it about after his death and it eventually earned him a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I can see why many people love it and it does have its brilliant moments, but all in all I found it to be very dated and more sad than funny. The characters in it were all horrible without exception, which makes it very difficult to empathise with them. Next, The Man Who Disappeared by Clare Morrall was a straightforward thriller, but had some quite interesting ideas and kept my attention until the end.
I’ve just started Becoming by Michelle Obama and it’s great so far; very well written. 

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