Alan Bennett’s novella, The Uncommon Reader, is a mischievous and witty tale that revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader’s life. It begins with a chance encounter between the young man, Norman Seakins, who works in the royal kitchens and the Queen of England. Their paths cross when the Queen’s corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace.
Norman’s suggestions as to what type of book Her Majesty might enjoy awakens in her a long-held desire to engage in an activity for pleasure and enlightenment rather than simply, a sense of duty.
As the Queen’s passion for reading grows, she discovers there is something lofty about literature. ‘Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included.’ To her, books were an uncharted country, a territory to be explored.
The following are My Best Books of 2023 – your uncharted country, a territory to be explored!
The Passenger – Cormac McCarthy
The Passenger, published in October 2022, by award winning 89-year-old novelist Cormac McCarthy, has received a mixed reception. Some readers have described it as breathtaking while others found it frustrating. Having read No Country for Old Men (2005) and The Road (2006) in the past twelve months, I didn’t know what to expect.
Cormac McCarthy is a writer who insists on being read thoughtfully and thoroughly. The Passenger demands your attention from the outset. It is not a comfortable read but an intense engagement with the questions we ask ourselves about life and what lies beyond. The psychological complexities of the story are weighty…
Real trouble doesn’t begin in a society until boredom has become its most general feature. Boredom will drive even quiet minded people down paths they’d never imagined.
Cormac McCarthy
Faith, Hope and Carnage – Nick Cave & Sean O’Hagan
The book Faith, Hope and Carnage is an edited transcript of more than 40 hours of conversation between Nick Cave and journalist Sean O’Hagan. The exchanges took place during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 when normal routines were spectacularly disrupted.
It is a compelling book, wide ranging in its subject matter and brutally honest. Whilst some aspects of the text were outside the breadth of my experience, or did not reflect my perspective, there was much that resonated, that expanded my understanding, and stirred my spirit.
We need to able to exist beyond disagreement. Forgiveness is an essential component of any good, vibrant friendship – that we extend to each other the great privilege of being allowed to be wrong.
Nick Cave
Landlines – Raynor Wynn
Celebrated author Raynor Wynn and her husband Moth are embarking on an ambitious walk. Her latest book, Landlines, explains their motivation and the challenges they are likely to face. Their walk will start in Sheigra, ten miles south of Cape Wrath in north-west Scotland and end in the familiar territory of the South-west Coast Path in Cornwall. They will cover a thousand miles of rugged and at times inhospitable terrain.
COVID has not been kind to Moth. His illness – a condition known as corticobasal degeneration – has not gone away. Any physical activity requires immense effort.
Raynor wants what is best for her husband. Curling up in a ball and dying is not an option. She recalls an earlier time when Moth benefitted from being in the wild…
It’s so easy to put life off, put dreams on the top shelf where you can no longer see them, so never have to acknowledge that they’re unfulfilled.
Raynor Winn
A Hole in the World – Amanda Held Opelt
In her book A Hole in the World, author, Amanda Held Opelt writes about the rituals of grief.
Amanda Held Opelt spent 15 years serving in the non-profit and humanitarian aid sectors. She experienced various challenges in disaster areas like Northern Iraq, which called for fortitude and resilience.
When Amanda Held Opelt experienced her season of sorrow, a time when she suffered three miscarriages and her thirty-seven-year-old sister, Rachel died unexpectedly having contracted the flu, she didn’t know what to do with her grief…
It is often through vulnerability that God shows Himself strong in love, wise and unrelenting in His grace.
Amanda Held Opelt
The Bookbinder of Jericho – Pip Williams
Pip Williams’ new novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, is set between 1914 and 1920. The story is about identical twins Peggy and Maude. They are both bookbinders at Oxford University Press at the start of World War 1.
Peggy has incredible dreams of studying at Oxford University. She is not at all accepting of her place in life.
Maude is a more sensitive young woman, underestimated by her quiet disposition she is no less brilliant.
As refugees arrive in town from devastated parts of Europe, the sisters are confronted by the reality of war…
Despite our mastery of words and our ability to put them together in infinitely varied ways, most of us struggled to say what we really meant.
Pip Williams
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece – Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks is a natural storyteller. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece is a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film… and the humble comic books that inspired it. It is a story about what happens behind the cameras.
Moviemaking is a circuitous process involving a vast network of people – some famous, most not – showing up and doing their best.
Although often portrayed as being glamorous, filmmaking is hard work.
Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
Tom Hanks
The African Trilogy – Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He is considered the father of modern African literature. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, became a classic of international literature and required reading for students worldwide.
The African Trilogy captures a society caught between its traditional roots and the demands of a rapidly changing world.
Whilst colonisation has impacted traditional life and shaken traditional ways, Achebe argues for flexibility, that traditions must change and adapt with current conditions.
Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
Chinua Achebe
Thin Places – Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Thin Places by Kerri ní Dochartaigh is an evocative memoir, a vividly descriptive account of her war-torn childhood and her quest for peace. It is a story of survival, of overcoming personal tragedy. But to survive we need to know who we are, and that can prove a difficult and complex undertaking.
Born in 1983, Kerry ní Dochartaigh grew up in Derry, Northern Ireland, the child of a Catholic mother and Protestant father. Her parents’ religions made the family a conspicuous target during the decades-long struggle known as The Troubles.
Heaven and earth, as the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.
Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Once Upon a Wardrobe – Patti Callahan
Patti Callahan’s captivating story, ‘Once Upon a Wardrobe’ is an exploration of death and dying through the eyes of a young boy George and his devoted sister Megs. Their mentor in this quest is the author and apologist C S Lewis.
George is eight years old. He lives with his parents in Worcester, an attractive city steeped in history. George is dying. He has a weak heart. His parents feel destitute. They are bereft of ideas. They can offer their son comfort but no miracle cure.
The stories that thrilled him were echoes of the world that waited for him.
Patti Callahan
Visual Thinking – Temple Grandin
In a world engineered for the verbal thinker, people with a visual brain can often be overlooked or underestimated. Visual Thinking, by bestselling author Temple Grandin delves into the world of the visual thinker and reveals the hidden powers of this remarkable ability.
Grandin shows how our modern structures from education and health through to politics and media are biased toward the dominant verbal thinkers and in turn under serve those who see the world differently.
Data is stored in three places in your brain. I think of them as your phone, your desktop, and your cloud for archiving detailed visual memories.
Temple gRANDIN
The Book of Fire – Christy Lefteri
In her latest novel, The Book of Fire, Christy Lefteri tells the story of one family’s struggle to contend with the trauma of a forest fire that engulfs their village.
The Book of Fire explores not only the damage wrought by human folly, and the costs of survival in our changing world, but also – our powers of redemption and renewal.
Since the fire, her love has become delicate: she lives life as if she is holding a butterfly in her palm, afraid that it will die.
cHRISTY lEFTERI
The Naturalist of Amsterdam – Melissa Ashley
At the beginning of the 18th century many artists and scientists were recording the wonders of the natural world. Maria Merian is one of them. Her daughter Dorothea has lived her life in service to her brilliant and fated mother but she herself has never had any recognition for her input.
When offered a chance of happiness will Dorothea have the courage to take it, at the risk of everything her mother has built?
I felt great pride in Ma’s ability to render a simple sketch into a brilliant watercolour of a butterfly drying its wings.
Melissa Ashley
Hope For Tomorrow 