Authors & Readers Share Their September Reading Finds

Andrew O’Hagan's Selections

I find myself deeply moved by Namanlagh, the debut verse compilation after ten years by the esteemed Tom Paulin. A tone-perfect meditation on illness and healing, partnership & writing, violence and historical neglect, it is a true masterpiece. One finds graceful references to Derek Mahon and Seamus Heaney, and many verses are filled with the feeling of mature artistry and unfinished business.

Autobiographies by politicians tend to be disappointing, frequently rants of excuses & retaliation, but Nicola Sturgeon’s Frankly redefines the genre. She’s a skilled author, to begin with, and knows how to explore uncertainty, mixed feelings, remorse, love & compassion, openness to change, and many aspects which truly make people. I look forward to what she writes next.

I came across an unfamiliar author – new to me, though beloved by Norwegians for years. This is the late Dag Solstad and I consumed his book Shyness and Dignity in two sittings. It narrates the story of an English instructor of 25 years’ standing who suddenly loses his head as he attempts to deal with a broken umbrella. He experiences a crisis , the book traces it in an illuminating, unfussy manner, producing something beautiful.

I wish to offer more freshly baked goods to my friends. Soon, I plan to run a coffee morning from a kitchen table laden with fresh pastries, tattie scones, artisan loaves and mad cakes. I’m hoping to be helped on this journey by Helen Goh’s Baking and the Meaning of Life.

Penny's Choice

Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions by Akshat Rathi came out last year. Every section describes a success story in the capitalist transition away from oil-dependent systems toward renewable energy & environmental fixes, highlighting individuals that have achieved significant impact. It includes abundant information & information I hadn’t come across previously, even with my intensive reading around the subject.

While some issues spark debate, like CO2 sequestration – and Bill Gates has proved to be not quite the environmental champion than is claimed in the book, due to his oil industry holdings – on the whole, the progress described give a tremendous amount of optimism. They demonstrate how certain governments have worked in tandem with private enterprise , are now heading in a positive future, while innovative tools advance rapidly. The scientific explanations are excellent, too. I had no idea how photovoltaic cells functioned, for instance.

Patricia Lockwood's Top Reads

Elaine Kraf’s Find Him! is being reissued in November, making it the perfect time to read it, or revisit her shimmery, patterned The Princess of 72nd Street.

Down Below from Leonora Carrington is a classic. Although not the direct model for my latest novel, Will There Ever Be Another You, but I recall perusing it outdoors during the pandemic and thinking: here is what is happening to me. Also, it includes the closest approximation one might find of an illustration of God’s perineum.

Another major event – Airless Spaces by Shulamith Firestone was originally published in 1998, a decade following the author’s schizophrenia diagnosis and retreat from public life. She was a towering figure, already somewhat remote for activists in my age group, but these sketches, which deal with her institutional stays, feel immediate, intimate, rebellious.

Another Reader's Perspective

Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter provides an understated & calm complex narrative. It’s set in the stark winter of the early sixties and follows the lives of two couples who live across from one another across a field of rural England. Closed in in their surroundings, the protagonists – Eric and Irene, Rita & Bill – wrestle with their past and present, moving toward an unravelling. This is an exquisitely penned book that again marks out Miller as one of Britain’s finest writers of the human condition.