The Monthly Line: October 2023
Good evening dear reader,
I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend. As the nights draw in and we hunker down in our homes, I hope you have a good book to read, ideally by a roaring fire but I’ll have to settle for a radiator and a blanket.
In the meantime, let’s take a look back at October’s autumnal offerings. We’ve got some gripping non-fiction, a romantic re-telling and two charming men (one fictional, one real). Let’s dive in.
One. Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe
You might remember I’ve read a couple of books by Radden Keefe, who is an investigative journalist who works for the New Yorker. His bread and butter is writing profiles, and this book is a collection of those, focused on the more shady characters of the world. There’s one about Pablo Escobar for instance, or one about a woman who may have shot her own brother, and then 20 years later, killed several of her colleagues. He is so good at getting under the skin of his subjects and his writing style is gripping. There’s always another twist waiting round the corner, as he slowly reveals the background of each story.
How I read it: Mostly on the tube, with a little bit on holiday
Two. Much ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin
Jalaluddin writes romance novels set in the muslim community, which are usually contemporary spins on old favourites. This one is a re-telling of Persuasion, my favourite Austen novel, and I think she does a good job of nodding to the story without feeling the need to follow every twist and turn exactly. There are some romance tropes, but she breathes fresh life into them with a fun setting and lovable (or exasperating) characters.
How I read it: On a train up to Leeds
Three and Four. The Stranger Times and This Charming Man by C K McDonnell
I picked up the first in this series - the Stranger Times - because a colleague recommended it and I wasn’t disappointed! As you can probably tell by the fact I’ve already read the second one. I would describe the genre as Terry Pratchett writes a newspaper. McDonnell definitely borrows from his off the wall brand of humour, with a joke around every corner, though he doesn’t quite have Pratchett’s gift of always nailing the punchline. It follows the staff of the titular newspaper, who report on all the weird and wonderful - mediums, ghosts, UFOs etc - only to find that world encroaching on their own. I’m already halfway through the third.
How I read it: At home in the rapidly darkening evenings
Five. Imago by Octavia Butler
The final in this trilogy which I’ve been enjoying this year, about a humanity in the not too distant future that has gone halfway to destroying itself, only to be saved by aliens - or destroyed in a different way, depending on how you look at it. This third instalment deepens the world and keeps burrowing into those eternal questions that we would all grapple with in this situation: what does it mean to be human? What would you do to survive?
How I read it: On a train home from York
Six. Taste by Stanley Tucci
What a charming man Stanley Tucci is. So charming that it comes across even in prose. In this memoir/recipe book/travelogue he takes us through his life in food, from eating at his mother’s table - where if he complained about the food she would tell him to go and eat at the neighbour’s - to eating in some of the best restaurants at the world. In between he diverts into the food offering on film sets (very culturally dependent), his old New York haunts, and his wife’s roast potato recipe. There are recipes throughout actually, which gets across that this is a man who not only loves to eat, but also to cook.
How I read it: My commuting book for the month
Book of the month: I think it’s going to have be Taste - I enjoyed spending time with Tucci so much that I’m now watching his TV show, Searching for Italy.
That’s it for October, I’ll be back soon with a few extra newsletters for Christmas (that’s the plan anyway, but don’t hold me to it). In the meantime, do drop me a line if you enjoyed any of these, or have read something lately you think I would like!
And as ever, if you enjoyed this newsletter, please do forward it to a friend who you think might like it too.