The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre

The cover blurb describes this as a masterly epic of post-war France.’ It’s quite a compelling read, though perhaps not masterly. The story begins in the WWI trenches, with descriptions of the horrors that remind me of Pat Barker’s novels about that war. Emerging from this horror are three characters, the dastardly bastardly Henri, officer but not gentleman; the effete, cynical Edouard; and the lowly bumbling mouse of a man, Albert. Albert and Edouard are more or less bonded for life because of the events that happen in the trenches and they work together to create the great swindle of the title. The book is as much a commentary on the corruption of the wealthy, on greed, and on the devastating impact of war as is it about the swindle. It’s shocking, dark of mood but an accomplished page turner.

The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni

I understand now why there is a street in every Italian city called Via Manzoni. This is the Italian classic novel. While the English were producing Bronte and Austen and Blake and the French Moliere, Hugo and Dumas, the Italians produced Manzoni, the father of Italian romantic literature. This is a whacking great novel , 700 odd pages, that traces the unhappy journeys of two innocent peasants Lucia and Renzo as they go on the run from a despotic warlord, Don Rodrigo, who wishes to despoil Lucia’s innocence. But it is much much more than a romance. Their separate journeys take them through the plagues, the wars, the famines, and the riots of the 1600s; not only that, Manzoni also lays into the politicians, the judiciary, the church and the aristocracy as the young innocents come face to face with them. I am ready to suggest that it’s one of the first in the much maligned historical fiction genre. And it’s fascinating, utterly fascinating. It takes some reading and I could only manage a chapter, maybe two, at a time because of the density of the commentary about whatever aspect of society was attracting Manzoni’s attention at the time. The lovers really became insignificant as I read on, so absorbed was I by the descriptions of what life was actually like during the plague, with the spectre of the dreadful ‘anointers’, and so forth. I’m told Italian school children used to read half of this book one year, and the other half the next, better to absorb its lessons perhaps. It’s no wonder then that all the Italians I know are so attuned to the polemic!

Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick de Witt

The blurb on the back of this book describes it, among other things, as ‘nervy’ and ’beautifully strange’. And it is. The story is rather like a fairytale, with all the elements of fairytale such as beautiful maidens, mad barons, pickpockets, supernatural visitors and castles. But it’s not a fairytale. It’s a story about a young man, an antihero of sorts, pale and vapid and pretty much clueless, who sets out from his home village and a fairly unloving mother to make a living as a servant in a castle. He falls in love. And as with all love stories, there are ups and downs, competitors, love lost, love recovered etc etc etc. The story is told in the emotionless tone of a fairytale character too, so we are not privy to the depth of thought and suffering and joy that you might get with a more usual novel about a young man. There’s no embellishment around incidents such as the death of one of the character – you walk into the room with our hero and so and so has died. End of commentary. It’s as if you are in another sort of world as you read. But there is definitely a sense of wonder about the whole thing, as our hero Lucy travels through his experiences to find his place in the world.

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

You don’t have to have read My Name is Lucy Barton to appreciate this marvellous collection of linked short stories, but it does add depth to your appreciation. These are not independent short stories; they are the stories of the people who are in some way connected to Lucy Barton, either as family or acquaintance or friend of an acquaintance. The characters sometimes appear in other people’s stories. And sometimes you learn that the situations they were in when their story finished have been resolved offstage, as it were, and you discover the endings of their story in someone else’s story. It’s a fascinating and brilliant technique. So while these stories are not so much plot driven as character driven, plot still has agency. This technique works beyond even the stories in this book, because the original Lucy Barton novel leaves so much unspoken, and you find yourself gathering more clues about her early life as you read this. So the dimension changes. It’s brilliant really. And as characters, these people just shine. They are so very real, such ordinary people with such ordinary lives and such normal problems. They are the sorts of problems, though, that people do not speak about – infidelity, perversion, incest, debilitating neglect and poverty, loneliness, envy and so forth. Strout tells their lives with kindness, empathy, understanding, sensitivity. She’s like the therapist listening and recording. She knows that most of them will not muster the strength to change their circumstances. This is one of the very best, most moving books I’ve read this year and even last. I will be going back to Lucy Barton.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Greer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this book. It’s a sweet book, about a sensitive soul on a mission to distract himself from his miseries. Arthur Less is an aging gay writer, whose novels are not show stoppers but who is continuing to try. His lover of nine years has left him to marry another man. He is about to turn fifty. So he escapes on an around the world journey that takes him places like Milan and Paris, Morocco and Mexico, Germany and Japan. It’s a charming book, and a sweet love story. It has humour and grace, and the character of Arthur Less is beautifully observed. There’s tongue in cheek humour, as subtle as it is clever, and lovely, lovely language and metaphor.

Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

The most frustrating thing about books like this is that I forget most of what I’ve read almost as soon as I have finished the chapter. And this wonderful book is packed with fascinating details that I do so much want to remember! Jack Hartnell is an art historian so here he is writing about medieval bodies as the people themselves saw them and lived in them, and how we can see evidence of this in the contemporary art of the times. The book is divided into chapters about the various areas of the body, such as head, feet, stomach and so forth. Each chapter contains wonderful anecdotes (Jack Hartnell understands the importance of story telling to capture an audience), medical opinions and treatments of the time, and spin offs – in the chapter about feet for example, we look at travel and cartography. I enjoyed some aspects of this book so much that I sent emails to long suffering friends about characters like Roland the Farter, a member of Henry II’s court, employed for his skills in jumping, whistling and farting all at the same time. Because this is fundamentally a serious book though, and absolutely packed with information, it requires some concentration to read. Not for the beach but definitely for a rainy day on the couch!

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

This is such a lovely book. Anthony Doerr writes about the year he spent in Rome with his wife Shauna and baby twins Henry and Owen in 2004. On the day the twins were born, he received a one year fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, which involved moving the family there and living and writing there. So what he ends up writing, three years later once all that experience has had time to mature, is this story of his year in Rome. For someone who knows Rome well, has lived in Italy herself for a year and returned over and over and over again, this is like reliving the experience all over again. It’s not a travelogue, but rather a quiet and detailed observation of daily life in Rome throughout the year, the small sights, sounds and tastes of the city. With two tiny babies in a pretty basic rented apartment, no car and a book to write, Doerr and his wife are not tourists per se, but genuine visitors absorbing the life of the city. Quite simply, it made me very, very homesick for a city I love. And I haven’t even mentioned the writing, which is quite simply gorgeous. Doerr’s language is beautiful and his observations thoughtful. This is a lovely book.