A Suitcase of Great Books, by Catriona

 Tips for Summer Reading.

Tip 1: Don't do what I do because it's bonkers.

I don't use a Kindle (I'm just not much of a gadget person), I read a lot, I keep books, and I go to Scotland for two months in the summer when we're not in the grip of a global pandemic.

The downside of this is that over the end of June, July, and the start of August I have ammassed a suitcase's worth of books to take home to California in a couple of weeks' time. It'll work; it always does (sometimes with the help of posting a few clothes home in a parcel.) Because on the outward journey I've got a suitcase full of See's Candy and other gifts. I'll be there at the gate praying to hear a ground staff member say those magic words: "This flight is complete full and we are looking for volunteers to check their roller bags", so I don't have to lift it over my head and possibly kill someone.

The upside is that I've got my entire summer reading, completed and still TBR, in two piles right here in this room, making this blog dead easy. Look: 

And actually, I think that's a fairly modest haul. I can get some more (which is just as well because my Mum and I are going to the big Waterstones on Saturday as part of a shopping spree).

Tip 2: Hmmm. Tip 1 is my only real tip. This here is more of a personal rule, no reason whatsoever for anyone else to follow it. I read British books when I'm in Britain. The rest of the year my reading has a lot of American stuff in it as well as writing from the rest of the world (less than there might be, I admit), but while I'm back here on the ancestral rock I read drizzly, sweary, mordant stories with lots of Us and Ss in the text.

(YELLOWFACE looks like an exception, but I bought it in a tiny indie bookshop where it was the only thing I really fancied. I'll read it when I get home.)

So here goes: my summer reading so far, in size order is:

Alan Bennett, HOUSE ARREST (the pandemic diaries): a short update from a national treasure about life in 2020. Highly recommended.

Marion Todd, A BLIND EYE: the seventh instalment of this utterly brill police procedural set in Fife. I inhaled the first six last summer and have been looking forward to the new one. Highly recommended.

Richard E Grant, A POCKETFUL OF HAPPINESS: a diary of REG's wife's last year, as he cared for her through cancer and the lockdowns, interspersed with chapters of their early days. It is as heartsoaring as it is heartbreaking. Highly recommended.

Stuart Maconie, ADVENTURES ON THE HIGH TEAS: a national treasure from the north goes in search of Middle England (Midsomer - American friends), pre-Brexit, pre-financial collapse, pre-Boris. It reads like a pastoral fantasy these days. Highly recommended but will make you weep and throw things.

Clare Balding, THE RACEHORSE WHO WOULDN'T RUN and THE RACEHORSE WHO DISAPPEARED: warm, funny, cosy, extremely well-informed horsy books for kids, written by - guess what - a national treasure. Adults reading YA is unremarkable these days. This is the first time I've read 9-12, though. Book 3 is waiting for me at the big W too. Highly recommended - they're like Enid Blyton without the snootiness and racism. And they're MILES better than bleedin' David Walliams.

Ann Cleeves, TELLING TALES: I managed to miss this Vera when it came out so this was my plane book to get me here from San Francisco. Highly recommended, but you knew that.

Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. I can explain. I've got the five books that made me a writer in a pile on a table, and P&P is one of them. I've also got the blessed Jane in pride of place in my main bookshelf area. So I need two P&Ps, right? And now I've got them. Oh by the way, it's highly recommended.

Stuart Maconie, THE FULL ENGLISH, a retread of JB Priestley's English Journey, of 1934. This one is post-Brexit, post- Boris, post-COVID, and to be honest it's only for the very interested. I enjoyed bits of it and there are a couple of cathedrals I really want to visit now, but I'm not recommending.

Ruth Ware, ZERO DAYS. A bit of a departure this. It's a high-octane, real-time thriller about hackers and various other rascals. I enjoyed it. My dad loved it and immediately started reading all the other Ruth Wares. But stopped quickly when he hit the time-slip, psychological suspense that's Ware's usual patch.

Sarah Smith, HEAR NO EVIL. See now this is the heaven (that goes with the hell) of a book group. I crash one every summer when I'm here and this was their choice. It's a historical near-mystery, based on a true case in Edinburgh in 1817, when a deaf woman was charged with murder and a teacher from the city's new deaf institute was given the task of interpreter for her. Not enough linguistics for me but still highly recommended.

Clare Askew, THE DEAD DON'T SPEAK. Once you've ripped through Marion Todd's seven, you could slide right over to Clare Askew's wonderful procedurals, set in Edinburgh. They are just good, straight, satisfying, fair-play mysteries. And she writes like a dream. She's great at describing expressions and gestures. Highly recommended.

Rebecca K. Juang, YELLOWFACE. On this pile because it's not TBR right now.

I'm halfway through Beth O'Leary's, FLATSHARE: a romcom in the great new wave of romanctic fiction that's fresh and funny and not at all . . . I'm having trouble finishing this sentence without sneering at a genre I haven't read. My uninformed conception of old-style romance was that it was reductive and concerned with upholding the social order that benefitted men. I'm probably wrong about that. But I'm right about this book. It's joyous. The first two hundred pages are highly recomnended.

Still to come this summer are:

Mick Herron, REAL TIGERS: yes, I'm behind. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this might be quite good.

Raynor Winn, LANDLINES: same again. I read Winn's debut about being made homeless and walking the 630-mile Southwest Coastpath with her disabled husband. If you love the outdoors, Cornwall, Devon, grit, good writing about love and triumph over adversity . . . highly recommended.

A J Pearce, MRS PORTER CALLING: if you've read DEAR MRS BIRD and/or YOURS CHEERFULLY then you don't need me to recommend book three in this WWII-set series about a magazine agony aunt (by day) who is a fire warden in London (by night). Imagine 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD crossed with THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY. Highly recommended.

Yomi Adegoke, THE LIST. Can't say anything about this yet - it's a debut. But the premise was irresistible: Ola made her name as a journalist breaking #MeToo stories. She is about to marry the love of her life, when "the list" of abusive scumbag men, heretofore circulated amongst industry women, is suddenly published online. And guess what?  Really looking forward to this one.

Janice Hallett, THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALPERTON ANGELS. I feel confident that this will be a complete belter. Hallett's first two - THE APPEAL and THE TWYFORD CODE - were triumphant stylistically and absolute page-turners to boot. This time she's fixing her beady eye on cults and the care system.

And finally, Joann Harris, BROKEN LIGHT. Our fearless leader (she's the chair of the Society of Authors) has come up with a premise I would kill for. I heard about this book in these terms - "Imagine Carrie White comes home from the dance having managed to hold it together. She goes to university, gets married, has a job, a house and a son. Then comes the menopause." When I told Neil about this book, I swear I saw a flash of genuine fear in his eyes. Hahahaha. I think I might save it for the plane trip home.

And speaking of home . . .

There is now about one shelf and a bit of another left in these, the final bookshelves. When I unpack my suitcase, it's all over and I'm moving to one-in-one-out. It's going to be . . . interesting, but over time my book collection is going to distill ever closer to only books I absolutely adore. The one drawback is that I'm overly ready to adore pretty much everything. See above for useless sifting into "recommended" and otherwise. 

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