What We’re Reading

For the new kid in the school, get ready with this tour. Given the book is for small children, we start with the toilets. Great for singing in because the echo is amazing, but weeing is good too. The playground, an emergency place, Gary the fish, and – last but not least – the library. All you need now are some friends. The book is useful too to go back to after a year, say, so the child can talk about the things they know and perhaps give a tour themselves.

–Ross

1,000 trees to find in Britain and Ireland’s towns and cities is the subtitle, so, Nottingham then… And why not start from the bookshop.  Turn left out of our alley and in four minutes you can be looking at the Yellow Catalpa on Carlton Street at the start of Hockley. Turn right at the end of our alley and wander down to Castle Boulevard to find one of the best London Plane trees. And then there’s the Arboretum (the Arbo if you are young), and the huge fig tree hanging on a cliff beside the Contemporary, and the 500 year old oak at Woolly Park, the Medlar on University Park…
Pick a town or city and check out what’s there in this wonderful 500 page gazetteer.
Some places, said Paul Wood (a nice bit of nominative determinism there) have their own smaller tree guide. Anyone here want to write one?

–Ross

There’s been a lot of interest in recent years about the persecution of alleged witches, but until now, not much has been written about cunning folk, who were considered a different sort of magical practitioner and were more tolerated by society. Stanmore gives a highly entertaining account of the services they offered, including healing, recovering lost items, and even finding buried treasure, as well as an explanation of the roles they played in late medieval and early modern society.
There also some real oddities in here, like the man who returned from Spain with a human head in his luggage, to be used for divination. The authorities decided that since the head didn’t belong to one of the King’s subjects, no crime had been committed, but they did confiscate it none the less. I wonder if they just couldn’t work out the import duty to put on it…

–Kate

–Ross

I rarely reread books (there are so many more waiting for me!) but occasionally book club forces my hand. This month, I couldn’t be more grateful for that being the case. Returning to Butler’s dystopian world, set in our present, has been rewarding and haunting in equal measure. The text remains fresh, engaging and disturbingly prescient. Never has fiction felt more like a natural tool for survival.

–Sarah

Humans have pushed the planet close to the point where they cannot survive, and Personal Computer Companions (androids) have been developed to the point of sentience, although they are still subject to human orders. The story starts with Emancipation Day approaching, when all PCCs and humans will have equal rights. Abigail is David’s PCC, illegally made in the image of his dead wife. As her freedom approaches, it becomes increasingly important that PCC Abigail finds out what happened to human Abigail. This is a dystopian novel with a difference, examining what it means to be human and what it means to be a sentient non-human alongside a cracking plot full of twists.

–Pippa

Queer, trans, autistic and disabled people find community and fight the violent institutional powers in small town Appalachia. What’s not to love?! This YA book connects the rich history of working class resistance to today’s impoverished communities, abandoned and written off by many as “stupid rednecks”. Also, our protagonist is haunted by the ghost of a mining union organiser.

–Sarah

What We’re Reading

We are in Venice (500 years before Bezos despoiled the place) and meet a family of glassmakers on Murano, just across the lagoon. The book features the same set of characters, ageing slowly, but modern to the age of each section of the book which skips down the centuries. From medieval plague to Covid and steps in between. Not a Doctor Who or a time slip but the same people reacting to their times, with their same personalities and family and friendship networks. The industry changes, there are love affairs and disasters, and Venice eventually becomes joined to terrafirma to become the place we know, where you can still buy Murano glass, though primarily tourist tat rather than the craftwork of before. We learn a lot about glassmaking, and a little Venetian as we go along. One neat character is an initially enslaved gondolier, drawn from a Carpaccio painting from the Renaissance. These days, I imagine you would need to be Bezos to afford a gondola, but they were the standard mode of travel around the city and the watery suburbs. A great summer read.

–Ross

–Carl

–Giselle

If you pay attention to nature writing, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that Robert Macfarlane has a new book on rivers (which you should absolutely read) but if you’d like to know more about Britain’s beautiful and oft mistreated waterways Beer’s 2023 book is well worth a look. Her personal love of rivers sings through the pages, as she grapples to redefine her relationship with the water after stepping back from kayaking following the tragic death of a dear friend. It’s much more than a touching memoir though – it’s also a wealth of information on natural history, geology, and access rights. Worth noting – Beer is one of the key figures in the right to roam movement, fighting to give us all better access to swim, paddle, or simply sit and watch the flow.

–Kate

I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding value in this brilliant collection of essays. Each time I pick it up, I learn something new and am challenged on things I thought I understood about, to quote Jen Calleja, the “life-art of translation”. If you enjoy fiction in translation, thinking about language or have an interest in forms of communication, this is a book for you.

–Sarah

Start by looking closely at the cover, then google the original painting, Gypsies by Rafael Barradas, then sink in… Initially to a poetic equivalent of Merlin, the app where you can identify birdsong, then to a long section on Romany life, which takes two readings, one before, one after reading the extensive glossary.
Here we find the lives of Esmeralda Hystead, Luminitsa Walker, Yoska Small… Their gledala, their reflection, as we rocker, speak, their honour. Finally we return to other birds, and to women scientists, to complete a verbal triptych of Morley’s worlds.
    There are also more personal, perhaps autobiographical family poems.
Highly recommended for gajo and Rom, non-Romany and Romany.

–Ross

This is the best poetry anthology I’ve picked up in a long time. Where many fall short on consistency, this collection maintains a high standard throughout, while showing a diversity in form and approach. A particular favourite is Levent Beskardès’s poem ‘V’, transposed to the page and translated from French Sign Language by Stephanie Papa. The talent on display in this collection is staggering and has introduced me to so many exceptional poets.

–Sarah

Kelly Link is one of my favourite short story writers and her latest collection does not disappoint. Loosely based on fairy tales, the stories quickly diverge into truly original Link tales, full of playful humour. She is a genre-bender of note, effortlessly blending realism, horror, fantasy and sci-fi. Be prepared to go on a wild imaginative journey full of fantastic surprises, from cats running a cannabis farm to a house sitter who is instructed to never let in the owner, should he happen to visit. My favourites are ‘The White Cat’s Divorce’ and ‘Skinder’s Veil.’

–Giselle

–Sarah

What We’re Reading

Finally got round to reading this most autobiographical of DHL’s novels, the one which caused the breakdown of his real-life relationship/friendship with “Miriam” – Jessie Chambers, about whom we have published and whose own memoir we are planning to publish down the line.

This long novel is pretty grim reading at times – the first part particularly due to the the father in the book – “Walter” – becoming a bully and a drinker, though later there’s an entrancing section on him telling stories to his children about a pit pony from his work. The portrayal of his inadequate but tender feelings for his children when they are seriously ill is moving too. The book’s good on “Paul Morel” visiting Nottingham, and on his relationship with “Muriel” and “Clara”, the lovers, and his cloying relationship with his mother. I was surprised about the overt descriptions of sexual relationships. This was 1913, but it was Lawrence.

I read the book on holiday in Robin Hood’s Bay. It’s not a great holiday read, but one of those essential Nottingham books, even if, like me, you are late to the party.

–Ross

–Pippa

–Sarah

A powerful, intelligent and fierce account of child sexual abuse, multiple award-winning Sad Tiger blends memoir and literary criticism to deeply explore a difficult subject in a unique way.

“Everyone should read it.” — Annie Ernaux.

–Giselle

I’ve been a big fan of Sophie Lewis for years and this latest work feels so necessary and timely. This book is a confrontation for all of us who call ourselves feminists, asking us to acknowledge and own the ugly parts of the movement, throughout history and today. In accessible prose, Lewis shines a light on our skeletons while offering ways to move forward and hold the line against fascist policy and agitators.

–Sarah

What We’re Reading

The last words in this book are “The good life was to be found in fellowship and generosity to others, in a world in which people carried on learning and supporting each other until the music stopped”. And fellowship and generosity suffuse this book of essays, personal, architectural, historical, ethnographical, biographical, by an old comrade of Five Leaves.

The “East” is often Essex, home of utopian experiments, good, like Canvey Island, and, like Bernard Cornwell’s Peculiar People, bad. The book starts with Worpole’s own story of growing up in Southend, with skiffle and CND. I hope he will write a full autobiography one day.

–Ross

I was disappointed this didn’t make the International Booker shortlist, but am so glad the longlist prompted me to pick up the first work from a disabled author to win the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. Hunchback is funny, unapologetic and addresses the complexities around disabled rights, reproductive rights, sexuality and feminist activism all in just 97 pages. Be prepared for some raunchy descriptions, as our narrator has a side-line in online erotica!

–Sarah

Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo, trans: Herbert Lomas (Pushkin £9.99)

The premise of this peculiar novel is one small tweak to our world – in the early 20th century, trolls were discovered to be a real wild animal, endemic to northern Finland. It begins as the young, gay photographer Angel rescues an injured troll, which proceeds to obsess him and turn his life upside. Written more as a queer love story than a fantasy book, I was drawn in by short punchy chapters with shifting narrators, and interludes of Angel’s research into trolls. Sinisalo’s debut novel, first published in 2000 (now deservingly revived under its new title by Pushkin), has stayed surprisingly current feeling, with only a few now-nostalgic references to CD-roms and Windows 98.

–Kate

 A classic from the 1940s and a Turkish bestseller by political author, Sabahattin Ali, thought to have been murdered by the National Security Service. His most uncharacteristically romantic book nonetheless challenges gender stereotypes and conservative norms. Set in Ankara and 1920’s Berlin it is a touching and tender account of first love.

–Giselle

This anthology is written by and about trans people, tackling milestones, jargon, creative expression, healthcare and everyday life. If you are trans, you may be feeling particularly scared and alone right now – this book won’t change the world, but it might give you some solace and a sense of solidarity through the pages. If you are not trans and want to know and understand more about trans people and their experiences, give this a read. Trans people are the experts on their lives, not the tabloid press, cis men in courtrooms or MPs perpetuating culture wars through fear-mongering!

–Sarah