“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
‘Lolita’ by Vladimir Nabokov
Natural Flights of the Human Mind by Clare Morrall is an original story about two outsiders who are brought together by circumstance and who, unknowingly, help each other to come to terms with their past. They are both scratchy characters, secretive, who do not invite gestures of friendship. Despite this, I liked both of them. 
Like all Morrall’s books, this is a gentle build, gradually unveiling the hidden goodness of people who on the outside seem unattractive and possibly irredeemable. Pete Straker lives in a lighthouse which threatens to collapse, a symbol of his life since he caused the death of 78 people 24 years earlier. He talks to no-one, the only sign of his caring nature is his nurturing of his two cats. Imogen Doody, a school caretaker whose husband walked out one day and never returned, inherits a wild, uninhabited cottage, covered with dense undergrowth, a symbol of her life. These two outsiders meet and, despite Straker’s silence and Doody’s anger, come to understand each other’s turmoil.
With numerous references to Biggles, the discovery of a Tiger Moth in a barn, and much DIY, this is a story about how lives can be rebuilt no matter what happened before.
Read my review of these other novels by Clare Morrall:-
AFTER THE BOMBING
THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS
THE LAST OF THE GREENWOODS
THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
THE ROUNDABOUT MAN
Read the #FirstPara of ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR.
If you like this, try:-
‘Something to Hide’ by Deborah Moggach
‘Summertime’ by Vanessa Lafaye
‘Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND by Clare Morrall https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4aS via @SandraDanby
“I remember, in no particular order:
– a shiny inner wrist;
– steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
– gouts of sperm circling a plughole before being sluiced own the full length of a tall house;
– a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
– another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
– bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.”
‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes
“I remember, in no particular order:
– a shiny inner wrist;
– steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
– gouts of sperm circling a plughole before being sluiced own the full length of a tall house;
– a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
– another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
– bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.”
From ‘The Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes
Read my reviews of these other novels by Julian Barnes:-
THE NOISE OF TIME
THE ONLY STORY
Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘Super-Cannes’ by JG Ballard
‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ by Helen Fielding
‘In Cold Blood’ by Truman Capote
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes https://wp.me/p5gEM4-nE via @SandraDanby
In The Little House by Philippa Gregory, Ruth’s story starts with Sunday lunch at the in-laws and builds slowly, pulling you in relentlessly until you can’t put the book down. Tension between Ruth and her mother-in-law, a newborn baby, a chilling tale of tension within a family
It is deceptive in its simplicity, at various points in the story I found myself thinking ‘but they couldn’t do that’ or ‘that would never happen.’ But it does and you believe it. The denouement is startling.
The Little House is very different from the historical novels by Philippa Gregory but shares the same aspects of a pageturner: you simply want to know what happens next.
Read my reviews of these two Tudor novels by Philippa Gregory:-
THE LADY OF THE RIVERS
THREE SISTERS THREE QUEENS
Read the #FirstPara of THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, also by Philippa Gregory.
If you like this, try:-
‘The Past’ by Tessa Hadley
‘Lord John and the Private Matter’ by Diana Gabaldon
‘The Knife with the Ivory Handle’ by Cynthia Bruchman
And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview THE LITTLE HOUSE by Philippa Gregory https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4aQ via @SandraDanby
“The morning was clear. There was no wind on the lake. There was also a great stillness. When the bells rang out for Mass, the strokes trembling on the water, they had the entire world to themselves.”
‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ by John McGahern
“The morning was clear. There was no wind on the lake. There was also a great stillness. When the bells rang out for Mass, the strokes trembling on the water, they had the entire world to themselves.”
From ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ by John McGahern
Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The Crying of Lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon
‘The Fortunes of War’ by Olivia Manning
‘The Impressionist’ by Hari Kunzru
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN by John McGahern https://wp.me/p5gEM4-mo via @SandraDanby
Felix Kendall longs for a family, as a boy he lost his own. From the first page of The Man Who Disappeared by Clare Morrall, where Felix stands in a dark street watching a family illuminated in their dining room, curtains open, you know Felix must be the ‘man who disappeared’ but you don’t know why. 
The characters are believable and the pages turn quickly as we follow the stories of Felix, his wife Kate, son Rory and daughter Millie as they come to terms with what has happened. I expected this to be a slow indulgent read, lyrical, beautifully written, which it is, but I raced through it in the way I am accustomed to do with thrillers.
Clare Morrall is one of my favourite authors, I’ve been a fan since her first book Astonishing Splashes of Colour was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by Clare Morrall:-
AFTER THE BOMBING
NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS
THE LAST OF THE GREENWOODS
THE ROUNDABOUT MAN
Read the #FirstPara of ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR here.
If you like this, try:-
‘The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy’ by Rachel Joyce
‘Housekeeping’ by Marilynne Robinson
‘Ghost Moth’ by Michele Forbes
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED by Clare Morrall via @SandraDanby https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4aR
“When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her. Maybe he had been turning towards her just before it was completely dark, maybe he was lifting his hands. There must have been some movement, a gesture, because every person in the living room would later remember a kiss. They did not see a kiss, that would have been impossible. The darkness that came on them was startling and complete. Not only was everyone there certain of a kiss, they claimed they could identify the type of kiss: it was strong and passionate, and it took her by surprise. They were all looking right at her when the lights went out. They were still applauding, each on his or her feet, still in the fullest throes of hands slapping together, elbows up. Not one person had come anywhere close to tiring. The Italians and the French were yelling, ‘Brava! Brava!’ and the Japanese turned away from them. Would he have kissed her like that had the room been lit? Was his mind so full of her that in the very instant of darkness he reached for her, did he think so quickly? Or was it that they wanted her too, all of the men and women in the room, and so they imagined it collectively. They were so taken by the beauty of her voice that they wanted to cover her mouth with their mouth, drink in. Maybe music could be transferred, devoured, owned. What would it mean to kiss the lips that had held such a sound?”
From ‘Bel Canto’ by Ann Patchett
Try one of these #FirstParas & discover a new author:-
‘The L-Shaped Room’ by Lynne Reid Banks
‘The Last Tycoon’ by F Scott Fitzgerald
‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’ by John McGahern
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#Books #FirstPara BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett https://wp.me/p5gEM4-mY via @SandraDanby
You know that feeling, it happens once in a while, when you finish reading a book that was so good you want to go back to the beginning and start again? Well, it was like that for me with Dominion by CJ Sansom. 
It was the premise that caught my attention as soon as I read the pre-publication reviews: an alternate history set in Britain in 1952, peace is made with Hitler in 1941 which changes the direction of World War Two. An alternative world. Previously I had read one Sansom novel, Winter in Madrid, which I enjoyed; three of his Matthew Shardlake mysteries sit on my to-read shelf. After Dominion, I will turn to them quickly.
The story focusses on four main characters, a scientist, a civil servant, the civil servant’s wife, and a Gestapo officer based at Senate House in London, the tall university building being the Gestapo’s London HQ with torture cells in the basement. This is a different Britain, where Jews are being rounded-up and transferred to camps in the country, where the Isle of Wight is occupied by the German army [which is still fighting in Russia], and where it is rumoured in Berlin that Hitler is either dead or dying.
To say more would risk spoiling the plot twists, of which there are plenty. The darkness of the time is shown symbolically by the Great Smog which actually happened in London, December 1952. It sheds a stifling blanket of choking fog which stops life and blinds everything more than a foot away. The smog is a metaphor of course for the blindness of the Government, and much of the population, who accept their situation with apathy and do nothing to aid the Resistance led, inevitably, by Churchill.
Sansom’s central message is about the danger of nationalism and xenophobia and what, in the extremes, they can lead to. A subject which, as he says in the Appendices, he fears is all too relevant in modern Europe.
A thought-provoking read.
And here are my reviews of CJ Sansom’s Shardlake detective series:-
DISSOLUTION #1SHARDLAKE
DARK FIRE #2SHARDLAKE
SOVEREIGN #3SHARDLAKE
REVELATION #4SHARDLAKE
HEARTSTONE #5SHARDLAKE
LAMENTATION #6SHARDLAKE
TOMBLAND #7SHARDLAKE
If you like this, try:-
‘The Aftermath’ by Rhidian Brook
‘Homeland’ by Clare Francis
‘The Bird in the Bamboo Cage’ by Hazel Gaynor
And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview DOMINION by CJ Sansom https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-4aP via @SandraDanby
