There
is so much to love about this short, Booker-shortlisted novel. It’s narrated by
Tom Birken, who reflects on a summer spent in the small Yorkshire village of
Oxgodby in 1920. Still reeling from his experiences in the trenches of the First World War and the recent break-up of his marriage, Tom is tasked with restoring
a medieval mural on the wall of the village church.
What follows is a tender,
introspective story which, on one hand, explores the loss of youth and times
gone by and, on the other, examines the human spirit’s capacity for resilience
and the enduring power of art to heal and inspire.
I’ve been reading my entire
life, but I have rarely come across such a soft, whispering beauty of a
book.
Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling.
J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country was first published in 1980. Tom Birkin, a damaged survivor of World War One, is spending the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting in the village church of Oxgodby. Joined by another veteran, employed to look for a grave outside the churchyard, he uncovers old secrets…
Of
all the graphic novels I read last year – and I read around fifty – this was
easily my favorite.
It’s a beautiful and bittersweet portrait of modern life
that describes, with heartbreaking accuracy, a young illustrator’s struggle
with his mother’s illness and his own ennui. McPhail’s delicately lined
graphite drawings are delightful, the humor is spot on, and the protagonist’s
yearning for personal connection in a world of social media and online dating
apps is deeply relatable.
This is a book that I will read again and again and
which I urge you to read as well. It’s just perfect.
A poignant and witty graphic novel by a leading New Yorker cartoonist, following a millennial's journey from performing his life to truly connecting with people
Nick, a young illustrator, can’t shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He haunts lookalike fussy, silly, coffee shops, listens to old Joni Mitchell albums too loudly, and stares at his navel in the hope that he will find it in there. But it isn’t until he learns to speak from the heart that he begins to find authentic human connections and is let in—to the worlds…
This
captivating Irish mystery tells the story of a long-ago murder in a remote
coastal village and Mahony, the young man who, twenty-six years later, seeks
to avenge it.
Set almost entirely in Mulderrig, a benign little speck of
a place. Pretending to be harmless,’ this dark fairytale is chock-full of
folklore, humor, and flawless comic touches. Reading this, I was particularly
impressed with how successfully Kidd managed to meld superstition and folklore
with real personal tragedy.
Mrs Cauley, the ancient former actress who
inhabits the guesthouse where Mahony is staying, is
one of the most memorable fictional characters I’ve ever met. She’s fully
original and fearless, and her encounters with both Mahony and the local priest
are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.
A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice Shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2016 Shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2017 Longlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2017
When Mahony returns to Mulderrig, a speck of a place on Ireland's west coast, he brings only a photograph of his long-lost mother and a determination to do battle with the lies of his past.
No one - living or dead - will tell Mahony what happened to the teenage mother who abandoned him as a baby, despite his certainty that more than one of the villagers…
Six months ago, Tom Halliday left his job. Two
days after that, his wife left him. Now, with his mother seriously ill, he is forced
to return to his childhood home and rejoin the family he has worked to avoid
for the past twenty years.
As the weeks pass and his mother’s condition continues to worsen, secrets are
revealed, and longstanding grudges resurface within the Halliday home.
But by
re-examining their shared histories and the status of each tattered
relationship, the family begins to reconnect in moving and unexpected ways, and
Tom is finally able to make sense of the mess his life has become.
