Welcome to Litsy!

I‘ve been so busy that I have been absent on Litsy but still reading lots🤗
I‘m reading Exiles the latest novel by Jane Harper which is great!!
I‘ve read -Here We Are ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I love Graham Swift
Untimely Death ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A new author to me
The Evening of the Holiday⭐️⭐️⭐️ Shirley Hazzard
Give Unto Others ⭐️⭐️⭐️ my first Doona Leon novel!
I‘ve got a few weeks off work now so hoping to do lots of reading 🤞🏼Hope your all well and reading lots 😘

Picking up @Andrew65 ‘s idea of posting #12Booksof2021, posting my favourite book from each month of last year, starting with this one, a gentle plot with keenly observed characters. Swift is a master of character-driven novels.

#1stBookof2022 #January

Summer 1959. Brighton.

Jack is doing a show on the pier, and asks his friend Ronnie to join him if he can get an assistant. So he does, Evie. Ronnie is a magician. Jack signs and dances. The show is a success, but things happen behind the scenes.

We learn about their backgrounds and the consequences of that summer 50 years later.

I enjoyed this short novel; I like Swift‘s writing style, a master of the throw-away but at the same time meaningful line. This isn‘t a book for someone who likes a fast-paced or action-filled book. The plot is thin - one of three friends in a late 50s end-of-pier variety show goes missing at the end of the season - but the book is driven by it‘s character studies, and all three characters are keenly observed.

Read for my IRL(/Zoom) bookclub

Some stories need 1,000 pages to tell; some need 100. I have enjoyed many book bricks and many novellas in my time. This is a novella about three entertainers in 1959 England. Flashbacks fill in some details, but I would have enjoyed more details about each of these characters. Although I loved the setting, the characters, and the plot, this made a better outline for a novel than a complete story. Still, I am glad I read it.