Sylvia Plath Watches Us Sleep… but we don't mind – Victoria Richards

 

If ever a title was going to lure you in then this is it! An arresting short story collection by journalist Victoria Richards will have you entertained and 'thought provoked' in equal measure. 

There's something almost ghostly, sinister even about many of the stories, some dystopian others just plain weird! But in a good way.

Victoria Richards uses the short story medium well. It's an underrated art - to create your characters, scene and plot in a more limited number of words requires concise thinking and an aptitude for the salient without compromising the story. This author understands her genre so well.

The stories are diverse but there are clear themes - mental health, loss, relationships gone awry - all dealt with in compassionate ways that favours the female perspective. 

Favourites? Several. The story that gives the collection its title, subliminally your knowledge of Plath, her life and her work, influences your response to the story. And The World Was Water  bleakly apocalyptic. Earnest Magnitude's Infinite Sadness which blends magical realism with political and environmental concerns.  

The writing is crisp and assured, economic without being sparse. Without doubt a writer to watch.

Thank you Fly on the Wall Press for my subscription copy.  

Missing Person: Alice and The Case of the Lonely Accountant - Simon Mason

It is not my habit to review two books at once in a blog post but is felt fitting here as I received both books together from riverrun books.

I've read all of Simon Mason's DI Ryan Wilkins' mysteries and I thoroughly enjoyed them. And whilst these novellas remain in the crime genre they are very different stories. 

These stories are the first two in the Finder series which feature a character known as ....... The Finder. His specialises in finding missing persons. Cold cases. In the first the case of Alice is reopened when the body of a girl is found and the perpetrator is thought by the police to be guilty of Alice's disappearance too. I'll give nothing away! This might be classed as a novella but I found it packed as hefty a punch as a novel twice its length. It's meticulously plotted and our intrepid Finder is thorough to a fault. He interviews all and sundry with a tenacity that would put a terrier to shame. We learn a little of his back story too. The final denouement a delight.

The second book looks at the disappearance of Don Bayliss who has been missing for seven years, presumed dead. When his wife finds a business card amongst his possessions many years later the police interest is piqued, the case is reopened and the services of the Finder once more engaged. Whilst the story is very different from the first one the same doggedness and painstaking attention to detail is employed and once again the final conclusion is most congenial.

I love the DI Wilkins stories but I'd also greatly enjoy reading some more of these. There's some of the classic detective tradition in the narrative. I loved the way the author ran the Finder's investigations alongside a classic book - What Maisie Knew and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I think that contributed to the classic and almost traditional feel that the books had yet the actual writing felt very contemporary. 

I think these stories cement Simon Mason's position as one of our most interesting and imaginative crime writers.

Thanks to riverrun books for my gifted copies. 

Listen - on Music, Sounds and Us - Michel Faber

 The paperback edition of this book was published on 1st August so I'm a little behind with this review, okay a lot behind, but sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and reviewing. 

It's an interesting take on the hows and whys of our listening habits but it is very much one man's views and opinions which won't be universally shared. Faber makes many assertions that in many cases are his and his alone. Maybe it's just me but I found his tone condescending and at times superior as if he has some kind of edge on music that sets him above the majority of the rest of us. 

In many ways it's more a sociological work, a dissertation if you wish, than a book about music. Faber claims that it will change the way you listen. It hasn't, not for me, anyway.

I've been a music lover and collector of music all my life. And I'm old now. I have eclectic tastes and am not governed by what is currently in vogue. From Beethoven to Barry Manilow I'll listen. If my ears like it that's fine by me. I pass no judgement on what anyone else enjoys listening, we're all different. But I felt at times that Faber was ridiculing folk such as myself. 

This book could be seen as contentious. But you don't necessarily have to agree with all of Faber's views to enjoy the book. It seemed that he was very negative much of the time. It's both interesting and irritating but seems likely to generate a deal of discussion. I found the frequent footnotes annoying as they interfered with my reading of the main text. 

It's certainly not the best book I've read on the subject of music but there's plenty of challenging ideas here. 

My thanks to Canongate Books for a gifted copy.