Riikka Pulkkinen: True

The most enjoyable thing about True for me is how very Finnish it is.

Ali Smith – Autumn. Winter

 

Autumn, the first published of Ali Smith’s Seasons series, was being written when the EU referendum was mooted. In December 2015 it was just an idea, by January 2016 it was a done deal.

Gert’s Science Corner

Gert’s readers will immediately recognise this. Here’s your challenge. Was it used to find out:

Alexander McCall Smith

 

It is not often the Gerts write about books they haven’t read, but in this case, when we all seem in need of cheering up, I have put aside my review of Ali Smith’s Autumn and Winter and given space to two books which will give us a jolly good laugh.

Cheer up, Gert!

Reading is, as you know, second nature to Gert. So why is it, in these troubled COVID times I can’t find a book that speaks to me?

The black cloud carries the sun away…

As the City of Melbourne goes back into a six week lock down and the Russian Government refuses to say how many of people in Siberia have died of Covid 19 related illnesses, It is salutary to remember our history.

George Orwell on book reviewers

 

He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak he will be suffering from a hangover.

Across the Common – Elizabeth Berridge

‘Across the Common’…a nice English title, you think perhaps a cosy Barbara Pymish book about a young woman finding her way in life in a small village. But then if I tell you it was published in America under the title The Violent Past, you might wonder how the two titles could refer to the same book. But then you might consider Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Comyns and recall how their very Englishness had quite a dark side to it. And Elizabeth Berridge belongs very much in the company of these great female writers. I find it remarkable she is so little known. I would never have discovered her if I had not read a review of a recent reprint of her short stories Tell it to a Stranger (Thank you Guy at swiftlytiltingplanetwordpress.com) where this quote really appealed to me, the reflection of an aging woman on a visit from her great nephew ‘Another bit of cargo dropped overboard to lighten the boat on its lonely journey over a darkening sea.’

Mind your mustashes

 

Gert does love a good insult.