April reads

1. Gossip From The Forests: A Search For The Hidden Roots Of Our Fairytales is a lovely book, packed full of fascinating facts about both the natural and social history of British forests (really - she genuinely makes the history of our forestry sound incredibly interesting!) and how they influenced the development of fairy tales (and how fairy tales have, in turn, influenced the forests). Taken together with her own versions of the tales, this makes for a genuinely absorbing read.

2. Finally! I finished the currently published A Song Of Ice & Fire series with the behemoth that is A Dance With Dragons. If I found the first 400 pages hard going, things certainly heated up after that and I was soon just as much in love with the book as with the others in the series. But the final chapters: major WTF-ness! I actually gasped out loud while my eyes filled with tears.

3. You might recognise Longbourn from my December reads list, but in fact on the first time around I didn't quite finish the book before it had to go back to the library (I was also reluctant to finish it as it seemed to be on course for a heartbreaking ending and I'm too sentimental!). When it was picked as our April book group read, I returned to it with joy, as it's quite simply one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. The story of the servants from Pride & Prejudice, I loved how Baker gave the servants parallels to the events of the Bennett family, and it opened my eyes to the hardship suffered by those in service.  A lovely book.

4. The Humans by Matt Haig has been all over my Twitter feed lately and, perhaps because of the enormous number of "this is the best book evah"-type tweets, my expectations were extremely high. And I don't know whether I just wasn't quite in the mood for it, but I didn't love it. The story of an alien lifeform's attempts to fit in with humans after being sent to Earth, the book is full of great soundbites that sounded profound and meaningful when they were being tweeted by fans of the book but which, when read in the context of the narrative, I found a tad facile. It's a book I'll shelve and try again in a couple of years.

5. I was inspired to read Divergent after reading Hannah's review, which promised something in the vein of The Hunger Games. While the quality of writing doesn't come close to that - I found the constant repetition of Tris touching her forehead to indicate anxiety wearing - it is a largely a satisfying YA dystopian action adventure. I think I will, slightly reluctantly, end up reading the other two books in the trilogy (despite one of my pupil's warning me today that they decline in quality as the series goes on).

6. The Outcast Dead is the latest Ruth Galloway thriller and a welcome improvement on the previous novel, which I found a tad silly. Linking the exhumation of the body of a convicted Victorian baby-killer in the grounds of Norwich Castle with a spate of child abductions in modern Norfolk, it moved at a cracking pace and with the usual fantastic characterisation.

7. Jennifer Weiner can always be relied on for an enjoyable read. I suppose one could call her books chick-lit, but they're fantastically written with characters that are always believable and well-rounded. Then Came You was no exception. Like a few of her previous novels, this one featured multiple first person narrators, which is a very effective device for getting a reader to sympathise with a range of characters, and although the surrogacy storyline contained a few rather far-fetched touches, I nevertheless enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

8. When, a few days after the sad death of Sue Townsend, I found a copy of The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole in a Glasgow bookshop, I knew it had to be mine. There was much written about Townsend's genius after she died, and as someone who lives just a few miles from where she grew up, went to school, lived and wrote, it was particularly sad. I read all of the Mole books as a teenager and it was fun to revisit his world with an adult eye.

 

9. After reading a glowing review of Kiss Me First (and learning that it had been nominated for The Guardian First Book award - I basically take whatever The Guardian says as gospel!), I was really disappointed. The tale of computer whizz Leila, who is recruited to take over Tess's online presence so that the latter can kill herself, it sounded an interesting thriller and just up my street. However, it was clunkily written and had very little tension: the blurb pretty much tells you all you need to know about the plot. Although I quite liked some of Leila's observations (her description of going to Topshop was priceless) and her complete inability to understand social norms reminded me somewhat of Don from The Rosie Project, it wasn't enough to save the novel being, essentially, a little dull.

10. 11. & 12. I decided to have a Poppy Z Brite splurge and re-read three of her novels set in the culinary world of New Orleans.  In The Value Of X the reader is introduced to G-Man and Rickey as teenage boys and best friends, just figuring out their love for each other and their love for cooking.  Liquor finds them opening their first restaurant, while D*U*C*K is a novella at the end of the series.  If you've not read Brite before, I'd suggest perhaps starting elsewhere - her vampire novel Lost Souls , or the black-as-pitch romantic thriller Drawing Blood - but if you enjoy her writing and are a lover of food, or New Orleans, or both, then the Rickey & G-Man books will satisfy too.

13. Days Of The Bagnold Summer is a lovely graphic novel following a single mother and her teenage son across one summer.  Full of emotion and pathos, it reminded me forcefully of being a moody, black-wearing adolescent and made me want to apologise to my own mum!