Four quick reads

 I have picked up my reading pace now that I am on leave from work, but my concentration level, after a huge year and while battling an annoying cold virus, has been a little below par. Thus, I have been gravitating to quick reads (which I define as "230 pages or less, simple straightforward style, no highly complex ideas to grapple with"). These four books all meet that brief, and all were worth reading!

I saw the movie of this years ago when it first came out (late 80s, I believe?) and found it charming, but had somehow neglected to read the book. I finally got to it, and what a sheer delight it is! 

This is the true story, told through letters, of the long-distance friendships formed by American writer Helene Hanff with the staff of a British secondhand and antiquarian book shop, located at (you guessed it) 84 Charing Cross Road. Over more than twenty years, starting in 1949, Hanff communicates with the bookshop to find her obscure titles, primarily corresponding with chief bookseller Frank Doel, but also, as time goes on, with Doel's wife and other members of the shop's staff.

Hanff's American brashness, counterpointed with the British reserve and quiet charm of the return letters, adds a wonderful spice to the correspondence, but above all, what shines through is the generosity and genuineness of all the parties.  The way Hanff goes about providing food care parcels for the post-war rationed Brits is truly touching, all the more so for her lack of sentimentality about it. The bonds they formed were no less profound for being only in writing, and the ending hits like a gut punch for that reason.

I love an epistolary story, and the fact that this is a real one rather than a work of fiction made it both more poignant and more compelling. Absolutely loved it. 8.5/10.

The memoir of Australian Pub Choir founder and director, Astrid Jorgensen, this book is, simply, great. It is funny, moving, interesting, charmingly written, and I even learned some things about music that I (the most unmusical person to ever live, at least vocally - I can play piano somewhat) did not know before. Astrid's writing voice is so strong and individual that it achieves the feat that all memoir strives for but not all pulls off - making the reader feel connected and privy to a real person's inner world and authentic experience.

I haven't been to a Pub Choir show yet, but fully intend to rectify that at some point after reading this! Highly recommend this one to all readers, but especially to Australians, memoir fanciers, and those interested in contemporary music. 8.5/10

Like most of Victoria (maybe most of Australia), I followed the Patterson mushroom-cook murder trial quite closely, and was pretty interested in the underlying story. Both Garner and Hooper are writers whose true crime forays I have rated extremely highly (Garner's book, Joe Cinque's Consolation, is in my top five true crime books of all time), so I had high hopes for this book on that basis. 

In short, while it wasn't a total letdown by any means, it was less impressive overall that I had anticipated (although still much better than almost all of the journalism on the case).

Firstly, the weaknesses.

I found the conversational staccato style of the text distracting a lot of the time, and I wasn't very taken with the relatively shallow and slick scene-setting snobbery about the location and the locals. Nor did I think the book added anything to my understanding of the evidence, or the way the case progressed in the courtroom. I thought some of the judgements of Patterson's online circles were unjustified and flippant. I also thought that the text had less clarity of voice than each of the writers usually achieves when writing alone (with the possible exception of Garner, who still sounds like a cranky old feminist, which is on brand for her).

And now to its strengths!

I think the book gave an insight into the victims that was really poignant and moving, and added depth to the understanding of their humanity and the scale of the cruelty inflicted on them. The chapter based on Hooper's interview with her nephew by marriage, who was taught senior high school physics by Don Patterson, actually brought Don as a person into sharp focus, and made me tear up a little bit. I liked the way none of these writers ever lost sight of the injustice and tragedy of Don, Gail and Heather's deaths, and Ian's crushing loss, or indeed the misery Erin has sentenced her children to live with forever.

I also found the speculative discussion of Erin's history and possible motivations really interesting, if not entirely persuasive. I thought the "fear and rage at abandonment" theory was plausible-ish but not completely satisfying - but then, can anything be? Short of a confession, we will never know even what ostensibly drove Erin's actions, and indeed, a confession would only reveal what she *thought* was her motivation - a lot of what drove her may have been below the conscious level.

All in all, this is a better-written book than most of what will come out of this case, and it's a quick and reasonably engrossing read. If you are expecting something of the calibre of one of the greats of true crime, you'll be disappointed (In Cold Blood this ain't), but it's worth the time if you were even marginally interested in the case. 7/10 for me overall.

Before reading these books, I would never have believed that cosy horror is a genre, but it most certainly is, even if it's a genre of one writer :-) 

I love Alex Easton (and Angus), I love all the stories, and this one is no exception. As a claustrophobe, I was already primed to find a story set deep in a mine properly horrific, and it is - there were moments when my skin was literally crawling at the descriptions of the tight crawls and the mountain pressing in, not to mention the various kinds of "damps" (ie gases and hazards).

That said, the creature in this one (all these books feature a creature or entity, it's part of the schtick) is a beautiful, Lovecraftian-coded balance of sympathetic and dangerous, and allows Kingfisher to display one of the themes she's genuinely best at - finding empathy and common ground in unlikely places. 

I didn't find this one as funny as some of Kingfisher's other writing (she is often very witty), but it didn't matter much in the context; the more wistful / plaintive tone suited the storyline.

A very enjoyable read, and I look forward to the next one, as promised by the closing paragraph! 8.5/10.