BOOK CLUB

ALGARVE BOOK WORMS

Jake Cleaver has called all the book lovers of the Algarve to unite, and let us in on their most beloved gripping yarns. If you are interested in sharing one of your all-time favourites, or even latest favourite, please email us at simplyalgarvemag@gmail.com

Ithought it might be nice if we could get a little book review club going here in Simply Algarve. Most book reviews these days seem to be about what’s current and upcoming, which is great, but I thought it might be nice to have a slightly different spin on it and talk about books both new, but also old. After all, we’ve been telling each other tales for a long time, and this might be a good opportunity to zero in on the great ones.

To that end, at the beginning of August I put a little SHOUT out on Facebook, for exactly what its namesake suggests - to uncover the faces of some of the book worms here in the Algarve. The question I asked to get their pens flowing was this: “What is your favourite book, and why?”.

Now, I got a few responses all with their own interpretations. Some of their favourite books of all time, and others simply of recent times. Which turns out to be quite a nice mixture. If you are looking for some reading material as we cool off after the Summer and head into Autumn (the season of books and tea), you might very well find something below, handpicked by your fellow Algavians, that you will enjoy.

I’d like to thank everybody for their contributions, and if you, dear reader, have read anything recently, or years ago, that you would like to share, we would love it if you would write into us at simplyalgarvemag@ gmail.com and we’ll help you spread the word. Or should I say spread your words, on our pages. Because, like Dr Seus said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Let us know where you’ve been!

Fever

Hello. I saw your Post. I love books. My favourite author is Deon Meyer. I usually love crime fiction but my favourite book of his is Fever. It’s a crime ‘can you guess who’ post-apocalyptic thriller set in South Africa (where I was born). It’s an on your edge kind of book which makes you sad when you finish it. Sandra Pereira

Not Forgetting the Whale

My favourite book at the moment would be John Ironmongers “Not Forgetting the Whale.” It is highly recommendable, as it could, in many ways, very much apply to the current situation, but gives us a happy ending. It was written in 2015, but describes a world fighting the very problems we’re currently facing. Eva-Charlotte Gross

Where the Crawdads Sing

Hello Jake, I am an avid book reader. I don’t have a particular favourite, but I have just finished reading ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’, by Delia Owens, which I couldn’t put down until I had finished it! Engaging story of a “marsh girl” living alone in the marshlands of North Carolina, who is accused of murdering a local boy who is mysteriously found dead.

Sensitively written, bringing the characters alive and believable. I looked for other books by this author as I enjoyed the story so much. Marilyn Sheridan

Pride and Prejudice

I adore Mrs Bennet! She is the most sassy, switchedon and perceptive of all Jane Austen’s characters. Mrs B’s raison d’etre is perfectly summarised in the narrator’s statement; “the business of her life was to get her daughters married.” Poor old Mrs B had the misfortune to produce five daughters when, rather unhelpfully, the necessity to marry them all off was somewhat exacerbated by the fact

that all property and money would pass to the nearest male relative. So, a bit of a tall order faced Mrs Bennet in that her daughters were of less than squeaky clean reputation (not in a strumpet kind of way but more a bit nuts and wilful) and, should they remain unmarried they would be impoverished also.

P & P is a marvellous social commentary of its time. Jane Austen began the novel in 1797 and it was published in 1813. Women were subjugated terribly – used to enhance relationships between families, were not allowed to initiate divorce, could not derive an income from their own property – it was a completely different time and over 100 years before women would be allowed to vote.

The five Bennet sisters are all incredibly different to one another. The book is possibly most famous for the lovestory between Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy but is considerably more complex. Lydia is naughty, Jane is good, Elizabeth is intelligent and fierce, Mary is solemn, Kitty is easily led and of little substance. The girls all play interesting roles within the substance of the novel and demonstrate how dreadful a time of it poor Mrs B had in trying to marry them all off suitably and respectably. I must say – as the mother of four daughters in 2020 I’m jolly glad I’m not in Mrs B’s shoes! Dawn Annandale

Early Riser

Cardiff in perpetual winter sounds like a bleak setting for your novel – and it is, in Jasper Fforde’s Early Riser. The story follows Charlie Worthing, AKA Wonky, as he finds himself hopelessly out of his depth in the cold world of Winter Consuls, dormitoriums, and English Villains.

Charlie’s story takes place in a Britain blanketed in snow for four months of the year, so humans have taken to hibernating through winter to survive, with the Winter Consuls acting as a security force to protect the population during their long slumber. To boost survival rates through this enforced rest, the pharmaceutical company HiberTech have developed a drug to push the populace into a deeper sleep, though not without some worrying side effects. Chief among these effects is the potential to never fully wake up, becoming a mindless zombie, capable of only the most menial tasks and prone to cannibalism if not properly fed.

Charlie is thrust into this world and must contend with all these dangers, along with conspiracies and power struggles among the Consuls. Figuring out who to trust and navigating these troubled waters will take all his ingenuity and a large slice of luck, as well as a couple of pairs of extra thick socks.

Fforde’s Early Riser will have you keeping an eye on the weather forecast and reaching for a jumper as you follow Charlie and his Winter Consul compatriots’ attempts to survive until spring. Charlie Millen

Jupiter’s Travels

In the 1970s, Ted Simon completed the first journey around the world by motorbike. In the days without these super intelligent phones to tell us which way is ‘around’ (and a million other things) this was a true adventure! And luckily for us Ted Simon, also known as Jupiter, is a writer, and when he got back, he chronicled his tale in “Jupiter’s Travels”. Which means, we can now travel back in time, get on the back of his Triumph, and ride the 63,000 miles, through fifty-four countries; with their deserts, prisons, wars, disasters, love affairs - disastrous love affairs, and prisons with him.

And if we make it, we can do it all over again. Like Jupiter himself did in 2002, this time at 69 years old, in his newer book, “Dreaming of Jupiter”. Retracing his steps, or tyre tracks more accurately, his wheels spin around again, and we get to see how the world has changed in that time. Although I’m sure it’s changed again by now. The world is like that.

But for now, just to give you a taste (of the dust in your face) let’s join Jupiter on his first orbit, as he makes his way through the Atbara desert in north-eastern Sudan, and it sounds a lot like he’s about to come a cropper:

“So I steered a middle course and, gaining confidence, increased speed until I was doing nearly forty miles an hour in third gear. Then, quite unexpectedly, two sets of wheel tracks converged and intersected in front of me. I could not avoid them, nor could I stop. I bounced through the first track but nose-dived on the second. I saw it coming, and was interested to notice that I did not say ‘Christ’ or ‘Bloody hell’ or ‘Here we go, my darling’ or even ‘Sic transit gloria’. I said ‘Oops!’.” Jake Cleaver