'Upon a bright and sunny day...'

May Review of great reading, listening, and watching

‘Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!’

Christina Rossetti

It’s time for this month’s review of the best reading, watching, and listening!  This is an extra end-of-the-month post for all subscribers.  If you enjoy this post, please consider a free or paid subscription to receive weekly literary discussions straight into your inbox.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

Well, spring has well and truly sprung here in the UK and this month I have been enjoying wandering the woodland paths and admiring the short-lived bluebells, in between enjoying some great reading, listening, and watching, of course!

I wrote a post all about my own wrangles with writing and job titles this month, which seemed to strike a chord with a lot of other writers and readers.  I think the practice of writing is an infinitely interesting topic (particularly if you write yourself) and I had many lovely responses commending me for returning to a job role I loved – so thank you if that was you! : )

This month, I was lucky enough to be invited onto The Matterhorn podcast to talk about my research into women writers and the complex issue of combining writing with motherhood.  The podcast is available now through The Matterhorn’s Substack as well as available on other platforms, including Spotify.  I really loved recording this conversation with Kate over there!

Other Substacks I’ve been loving this month have been Samuel Adamson’s ‘The Essence of the Thing’.  Sam, who is a playwright, talks about his reading and writes sharply observed book reviews, which are always entertaining.  I got the recommendation for two books from him this month already (see more below), and this is something I love about this platform: not only is there a lot of quality writing on any topic you can think of, but the reading and other recommendations are always of a high standard.

I’m also enjoying Haley Larsen’s Substack ‘Closely Reading’.  Haley is an academic who writes about (you guessed it) closely reading texts, but in a refreshing and accessible way.  I love her take on books and the way she doesn’t just focus on traditionally ‘studied’ texts, but covers a whole range of reading.

My own book reading this month has taken the form of one recommendation and one of my own discoveries. 

Firstly, I enjoyed The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St John.  I hadn’t come across her work before (which I was a bit ashamed of) and picked this up after Sam recommended it on his Substack above (the observant amongst you will notice he loves the book so much his newsletter is named after it!)  The novel is an ironic look at the breakup of a relationship and those involved, and reminded me of the writing of Muriel Spark.

Secondly, I picked up We Run the Tides by Vandela Vida.  I loved Vida’s earlier book Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name (not just for the title, though it is wonderful!)  Vida’s novels often explore the complexities of women’s lives.  In this book set in the 1980s, she features two young girls as they develop into young women.  It is set in the foggy coastal town of Sea Cliff, San Francisco and it made me long for the beach.

Photo by Jasper van der Meij on Unsplash

I was interested to check out the finalists for the Women’s Prize for Fiction a couple of weeks ago, which features three debut novels amongst them.  I was particularly intrigued by the sound of Louise Kennedy’s nomination Trespasses which is set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.  Though with a waiting list of 28 currently at my local library, I may be on hold for a while yet…

Speaking of libraries, I recently discovered the Libby app for borrowing audio books from your local city library.  Apparently, this is an international thing (you may have already known about it for ages and I am, as usual, late to the party…) and although I’ve never been a big audio book fan, I decided to download it and give it a try.  I’ve been trying to intersperse listening to an audiobook with my love of podcasts whilst out walking and doing household chores, in an effort to get more reading done. 

I noticed there were debates online about whether audiobooks really count as reading (which seems an absurd thing to debate, but still) and would love to hear readers’ views on this and whether they are pro-audiobooks.  It seems that every podcast I listen to has readers waxing lyrical about them!

There seems to be no end of articles about book censorship at the moment, but this one caught my eye, telling us something I think we probably already guessed: banning books just makes them more popular.

On the subject of banned books…I finally got around to watching the new Judy Blume documentary, Forever, which unfortunately is only available on Amazon Prime (which I don’t have).  But a nudge to my daughter (who does have AP) ended in a lovely afternoon, watching my hero Blume talking about her writing and her life.  As I handed down my prized Blume books to my kids, it was nice to reminisce about our favourites as we watched.

Forever by Judy Blume

That’s it for this month; let me know if you’ve read, watched, or listened to anything listed here and what you thought of them, as well as anything else you’ve been enjoying.  

I’ll be back on Sunday with my regular newsletter.