I started six books in November and finished three of them: Rivers of London 5, an urban fantasy about a wizard apprentice police Constable; Rembrandt is in the Wind, a Christian non-fiction book about art; One Two Three Four, a biography of the Beatles. The three I haven’t finished I’ll mention them quickly at the end: The Essential Emily Dickinson, poems selected and with an introduction by Joyce Carol Oates; Gormenghast and Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Rivers of London 5: Foxglove Summer
The first book I started and finished this month is Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch from the Rivers of London series. This is the fourth book in this series I read this year, number 5 overall. I’m going to do a year-end review in a few weeks’ time. I feel like my 2023 can be summed up as the year of Shakespeare and Rivers of London.
Police Constable Wizard Apprentice Peter Grant continues his work to keep the peace and order for the Queen – this was published in 2014 – but this time not in London itself, but in Herefordshire. The trigger of the investigation is the disappearance of two 11-year-old girls. The mystery is unpicked little by little by Peter and Beverley Brook and turns out to involve human agents as well as terrifying unicorns and a vicious faerie queen.
One thing that stands out from this book from the previous four is the pace of things happening. In previous stories, the incidents pile in so thick and fast it’s dizzying to read and nearly impossible to keep track of. This one happens in the countryside, the speed of the narration slows down to the pace of a rural life. I like it.
Another thing that stands out is the imagination of the author and how he executes it in the story, how he makes improbable things plausible. I love the surprises and how he breaks the stereotypes, for example unicorns are harmless tame creatures, a fairy queen is a noble beautiful woman. It’s quite fun to get my stereotypes turned upside down!
Lastly, once again I love how ordinary Peter is but at the same time, I admire how heroic and self-sacrificial this policeman can be!
Rembrandt Is In the Wind
Rembrandt Is In the Wind by Russ Ramsey is a Christian non-fiction book about art. I found it on the Gospel Coalition website. It was one of the winners of their annual book awards. I know very little about art, but like poetry, I find it fascinating. So I thought let’s try this why not. It’s a good book, a pleasant surprise.
The book introduces nine artists from the 15th to the 19th century. Each chapter starts with one artist’s life and work, then it goes onto some reflections on life at large. For example, in the chapter on Vincent van Gogh, one quote by him struck me. It says,
“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but little smoke.”
I understand it to mean Van Gogh’s passion for art and beauty as the fire, but very few people appreciated it at the time and passers-by only recognised a small glimpse. The author’s point is that Van Gogh was not ultimately frustrated by the price tags of his paintings during his lifetime, the frustration came from the longing to produce beauty that would transcend his days but he wasn’t able to achieve it. “Because the glory, love, beauty and peace he hungered for were not of this world.” But he has this longing “does my life contribute anything of value to this world?” I think it’s a great question. I’d recommend this.
One Two Three Four
I picked up One Two Three Four by Craig Brown not because I was a Beatles fan, but because this biography won Baillie Gifford prize in 2020. When the Beatles’ new song came out a few weeks ago, I heard the story about how technology made it possible and all that, the first thing that came into my head however, was, oh I wonder if the author of that colourful biography is gutted that he couldn’t include this into his book!
I listened to the sample of the audiobook and was hooked immediately. It’s funny as well as intelligent. The chapters are short and fast-paced. The voice actors did an amazing job. One of the beginning chapters includes a story when the Beatles went to visit a man in his hotel room while being sick and that little incident gave a great taster of their distinct personalities. When it mentioned Pattie Boyd, it simply said, ‘reader, she married him’ – I was sold! There were little literary references like this scattered all over the book. Anyway, I not only bought the audiobook to laugh on the metro and in the shower, I also got a physical copy just so I can write lol in the margin.
Like I said, I wasn’t a Beatles fan, I knew very few songs by them before this month, and they were mostly covers by other musicians. I knew so little about their persons, that I had to google when I started to find out who are still alive. And I still have to look hard to tell one Beatle from another in pictures. In theory, if I wanted to know the Beatles from scratch, this is probably not the best biography to start with. Because I have a sense that this biography kind of builds on all that has been written about them previously. I guess from the author’s point of view, there are so many Beatles biographies already, it must be a challenge to write yet another one, talk about the same people same events, but tell different stories.
But because I wasn’t all that serious to start with I think the tone and style were perfect and I enjoyed the book very much. Yes I don’t know who are all the various people that revolved around the Beatles like planets around the stars, and I’m probably missing some really basic things out because they’re so common knowledge except for me. It’s like this little lightbulb moment that happened when I was on a tram in Edinburgh – before 20th Nov 2023 I’d never heard of ‘Yellow Submarine’ when most of the world takes it for granted, it was a revelation to me. Before that day I didn’t know what ‘Yellow Submarine’ sounded like, after that day I did. It’s quite a fascinating thought.
There are a few chapters about certain songs and the lyrics. Those are generally my favourite chapters, in addition to the last chapter. I liked the chapter on ‘A Day in the Life’, about how the classically trained Britain’s top musicians at the time joined the recording session and they were not impressed! So I listened to the song after reading the chapter. That was the first time I listened to ‘A Day in the Life’. I live in the 21st century now, not in 1967, so I couldn’t get the full effect of how fresh and revolutionary it was. But even 60 years later, to a pair of not very musically cultured ears, this was still wonderful. In addition to the “individual orchestra members playing the lowest to the highest notes in an unsynchronised slide”, I was delighted by the lyrics, especially the last section. I was in the bathroom at the time, too much information I know but it was a moment worth commemorating, the evening I heard ‘A Day in the Life’ for the first time. I was laughing in the bathroom and I felt my mind got bent and stretched in a weird and wonderful way – I loved it! Honestly it was more delightful than Lewis Carroll, who apparently had a big influence on John Lennon, and just as amusing as Edward Lear. You might think song lyrics are not poetry, maybe, but it tickled my heart more than a lot of the proper poems did.
I listened to a lot of the Beatles songs since ‘Yellow Submarine’ and read many more worthy lyrics after ‘A Day in the Life’. The songs and this book made my November rather wonderful. Overall, a brilliant book, wonderful stories. I used to read fantasy novels to lighten up my gloomy November, but this book did a better job than many of the fantasies I read in previous years. Highly recommend.
December planning
Those are the books I finished in November.
I think I got so excited about Beatles song lyrics partly because I’m just getting into poetry. If you’ve seen my 2024 reading goals video, you’d know that poetry is one of my reading goals of 2024. I couldn’t wait so in addition to song lyrics, I started reading two poetry books already.
The first one is The Essential Emily Dickinson, poems selected and with an introduction by Joyce Carol Oates. They are short but so dense and there are so many of them. It takes me longer to read this little book than a full-length novel. One of the first poems by Dickinson I heard is ‘Because I could not stop for Death’. I loved it!
I said I started two poetry books. The second one is Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Don Paterson – I’m really enjoying this at the moment. I never heard of Don Paterson before but I came home from Edinburgh with two books by him. Maybe he’s popular in Scotland. It says on the cover ‘A new commentary’ but it’s more of a reading diary as the author calls it. I love it’s informal and super funny. The author is an excellent communicator. This book also brought a lot of laughter to my November. I’m reading one sonnet per day so it’ll take me a few months but it’s OK. It’s one of those books I don’t wish to finish too quickly.
Lastly I’m in the middle of Gormenghast. This is the second book in the Gormenghast series. It’s classed as a fantasy, but not because there’s magic. It reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane a little bit. It’s a nightmare country, fantastical things happen, but that’s not the point of the story if you know what I mean.
What plans have you got for December and especially the Christmas holidays?
A Day of Small Things 