MUST READS
Fracture by Matthew Parris (Profile £9.99, 304 pp)
Fracture
by Matthew Parris (Profile £9.99, 304 pp)
Matthew Parris is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives, in which his invitees explore the life of a notable figure who has inspired them.
Based on the series, this collection of short biographies delves more deeply into the idea of ‘greatness’, arguing that in many cases genius was linked to childhood trauma.
Parris describes how famous individuals, including Frida Kahlo, Charlie Chaplin and Muhammad Ali, overcame appalling childhood experiences of neglect, abandonment, poverty, prejudice and other crushing setbacks.
Where others might have succumbed, Parris’s subjects found their misfortunes ‘released those extraordinary qualities to which we give names like “genius”’. This wide-ranging biographical selection offers thought-provoking accounts of human resilience.
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Three Women And A Boat by Anne Youngson (Black Swan £8.99, 336 pp)
Three Women And A Boat
by Anne Youngson (Black Swan £8.99, 336 pp)
Two middle-aged women are walking towards each other along a canal towpath. Eve is wearing a business suit and holding an orange carrier bag containing the modest debris of a 30-year career.
Sally is dressed as though she hopes not to be noticed. Between them is a dark-blue narrow boat from which a volley of eerie howls is emerging.
The howls are coming from a mischievous mongrel called Noah, but Eve and Sally don’t know that. Convinced that something dreadful is happening, they break into the boat, and an adventure begins that will change their lives and that of the narrow boat’s formidable owner, Anastasia.
Anne Youngson’s witty and elegant novel is a celebration of friendship and a timely reminder that it is never too late to take on a daunting (but life-changing) new challenge.
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Picador £8.99, 352 pp)
The Mercies
by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Picador £8.99, 352 pp)
Award- winning children’s author Kiran Millwood Hargrave turns to adult fiction in this dark novel set on the Norwegian island of Vardo and based on historical events.
On Christmas Eve, 1617, the village fishermen are at sea when a violent storm drowns them all.
Maren, the novel’s brave young narrator, describes how the women overcome their grief to take over the men’s work as well as their own. While there are tensions between believers in Christian and pagan rituals, the women work together to survive — until a new governor, or ‘lensmann’, is appointed, instructed by the Norwegian king to stamp out suspected witchcraft.
Torture, show trials and executions ensue, and soon the horror threatens to engulf Maren and her beloved friend, Ursa.
The Mercies tells a thrilling story of courageous resistance by women whose only crime is to be strong and self-sufficient.
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