2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smith

How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again. [loc. 2494]

Another memoir from Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train (the latter of which I have not read). Bread of Angels (the title refers to 'unpremeditated gestures of kindness') covers Smith's childhood, her years as a pioneering punk artist, and her 'walking away' from success to have a real life, marrying Fred 'Sonic' Smith and having children. That period is mostly elided: 'Our life was obscure, perhaps not so interesting to some, but for us it was a whole life' and later, 'The trials and challenges that Fred and I suffered were our own'. 

Then came a catastrophic period when she lost several of the men close to her -- Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Sohl, Fred, and her own brother Todd. This sparked her return to music, and recording, after an absence of 15 years. Further touring, and another series of deaths, revelations and reunions: and travel, and touring. I saw her on the tour commemmorating the 50th anniversary of Horses ('bred in an innocent time and we did our best to now deliver it infused with experience') and she was marvellous -- exactly as I'd expected.

There are many, often abrupt, shifts of tone and language in Bread of Angels: from simple accounts of her childhood and family life to exuberant evocations of performance ('my whining Fender Duo-Sonic drew altruistic swords with the mournful wailings of Lenny’s Stratocaster, Richard Sohl introduced an unexpected melodic shift creating the melancholic beauty of Abyssinia'). Sometimes you can hear the voice of the woman who wrote the lyrics to 'Horses': sometimes she's talking about the boat in their back yard (I can sympathise!) or the beauties of the natural world, the 'many tongues of nature... the language of trees, and the clay of the Earth'.

A fascinating read: I'm now more inclined to read M Train, which apparently focusses more on her life with, and grief for, Fred.

2026/028: The Kite Runner — Khalid Hosseini

"There is only one sin, and that is theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”

This novel, by an expatriate Afghani author, explores guilt, betrayal and redemption in Afghanistan. The narrator is Amir, son of a wealthy Pashtan father ('Baba'), whose mother died giving birth to him. His closest friend is Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant Ali: his mother ran away when he was little. The Hazara (the ethnic group to which Hassan and Ali belong) are oppressed, discriminated against and mocked. Baba, to young Amir's horror, treats Hassan as well as he treats Amir himself. The boys enjoy the traditional Afghan sport of kite-fighting, and Hassan is Amir's 'kite runner', pursuing the conquered kites with preternatural accuracy.

Amir's greatest kite-fighting triumph -- when Baba will finally be proud of him -- is overshadowed by Hassan being attacked and raped by a local bully, Assef. Amir witnesses the attack but is too scared to intervene. He's unable to reconcile his guilt and their friendship, and becomes cold and cruel towards Hassan. Eventually he fakes a theft and forces his father to dismiss Ali and Hassan.

Five years later comes the Soviet invasion: Baba and Amir escape, ending up in California. And fifteen years after that, Amir -- now married, though childless, and still racked with guilt -- receives a letter from a family friend, asking him to come back to Afghanistan: 'There is a way to be good again'.

This was a fascinating insight into Afghani life, and a harrowing story. (I listened to the audiobook, very well read by the author: I think I might have stopped reading if I'd had a print/Kindle copy.) Hassan's unrequited loyalty was pitiable: Amir's cowardice -- which extends into his adult life, in some respects -- was contemptible: I sympathised with both. At the heart of it, for me, was Amir's relationship with his father, and his fragile sense of superiority when it came to Hassan. Amir is shattered when he realises that his father, who's always insisted that theft is the worst crime and that a lie is theft of the truth, turns out not to have been wholly honest with him.

The final third of the novel, set in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, is horrific. Power corrupts, and bullies don't change... There is a happy ending of sorts, but that doesn't stop The Kite Runner being tragic, distressing and harrowing. It's also an excellent insight into life as a refugee in America, though sadly things seem to have been easier for immigrants in the 1980s than they are now.

One drawback of audiobooks is that I can't keep a record of the bits I really liked. But there were some excellent descriptions of daily life and of landscape, and the various journeys out of and back to Kabul were rivetting.

2026/027: Nonesuch — Francis Spufford

...here they still were, since they were not the dead ones, under the weary yellow lighting, sharing the unspoken knowledge that, every night the bombers came, ten thousand possible exits from life opened silently, and unpredictably, and without appeal, down which anyone and anything could fall. [loc. 4817]

My initial review: rereading for this 'proper review' was sheer delight, and I am eager to read the second half of this duology.

The story begins in August 1939. Iris Hawkins lives in a Clapham boarding house, works at a City brokerage, and is fascinated by economics. One evening, she flees a disastrous date and ends up at a bohemian dance club, where she encounters the other two protagonists: Geoff Hale, a gawky engineer who works for the BBC, and Lall Cunningham, the icy recipient of Geoff's unrequited love. Iris intends her seduction of Geoff to be a one night stand, but things become more complicated when she's pursued by a monstrous, inhuman creature which turns out to have something to do with Hale Senior's role as archivist of an occult society.

Spufford's depiction of London in the first year of the Second World War is tremendously evocative, often cinematic. The beauty of silently-falling incendiaries contrasts with the squalor of piss-reeking shelters: the ironwork of Leadenhall Market (still a working market back then, stinking of blood) with the soda-water effervescence of a liberated spirit. Did I mention that this novel has strong elements of the fantastical? There are Biblically-accurate angels in the architecture, and indications that history has been changed in the past -- and could be changed again.

I loved Iris, who is competent, intelligent and sensual. Her interest in economics made it interesting to me -- even the fluctuations of the Stock Exchange index, reflecting events in the wider world, felt integral to the story. (I think Spufford's said that she was partly influenced by C S Lewis' Susan: Iris demonstrates that you can like stockings and lipsticks and boyfriends, and still be clever and resourceful.) But I also found myself warming to Lall, despite her fascist allegiance. She too is smart and quick-thinking: she too is brave and determined. Though she's technically the villain of the piece, I kept cheering for her -- for instance, when she's confronting a pair of elderly perverts in pursuit of initiation into an esoteric order. (Also, she saves the cat.) Geoff, seen through Iris' eyes and her growing appreciation, is also intriguing: I'd have liked more of his viewpoint, and his engineering work for the war effort.

But the focus is always on Iris. This is a distinctly female-oriented, and feminist, novel. I was impressed by Spufford's sex scenes, written from Iris' perspective, and the ever-present practicalities of contraception. And I also enjoyed the ways in which Iris, denied agency by the double standards of the time, claims that agency by demonstrating her intelligence, courage and wit.

There's a lot more I could write about here: economics, and John Maynard Keynes, and the homoerotic murals in artist Eleanor's Sussex farmhouse; fascism ('practical patriotism') on the streets of Chelsea; the precarious calm and magic of Midnight Mass in 1940; the demographics of the clientele of a brokerage firm that's partly Jewish-owned. But instead I urge you to read this novel, because despite the setting and the stakes it is brimful of joy.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 24th February 2026.

2026/026: Cleopatra — Saara el-Arifi

"They'll tell stories of you in years to come," Charmion continued.
Centuries. Millennia.
"I hope so."
I did not understand what it was I wished for. I hoped to become a legend, but I forgot what all stories must have: a monster.
I could not have known that monster would be me. [loc. 452]

Cleopatra narrates her own story from a perspective that remains obscure until the end of the novel. The novel begins with the death of Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII and her own ascent to the throne of Egypt as the last Pharaoh: and it ends, of course, with her death.

Cleopatra, in this account, is a clever, learned woman, sometimes ruthless but also driven by love -- and not only romantic love, but also love for her children, her country, and even her siblings. The Egypt in which Cleopatra lives and rules is a magical land: the Ptolemies have been gifted by the gods, each having a birthmark and a magical talent bestowed by their patron deity. Cleopatra's patron is Isis, but she hasn't manifested any gift. In order to be accepted as a divinely-sanctioned ruler, she studies healing in secret.

El-Arifi's prose is sweeping and emotional, filling in the gaps in the historical accounts of Cleopatra's life. Cleopatra herself is aware of these accounts, and comments wryly that 'history is a disease, masquerading as truth'. Even in her lifetime she encounters prejudice based on the stories told by Romans and dissidents: she reminds Anthony that 'you must always know the story of the storyteller'. 

Throughout the novel, Cleopatra speaks directly to the reader, commenting on her lack of foresight or her growing ruthlessness. Her siblings have plotted against her, and her lovers haved wives to return to. There is war, famine, and civil unrest. The breaking of the 'fourth wall' is at first intrusive, but becomes easier to accept as the story progresses -- though its rationale isn't clear until the devastating finale.

I didn't find it easy to warm to Cleopatra, though her love for her children (and to a lesser extent her lovers, Caesar, Marcus Antonius, and Charmion) made her more likeable. I also found the pacing uneven: major events in the final third of the novel were skimmed over, while Cleopatra's disguised adventures among commoners became repetitive. There were also some vexing typos: 'familial' rather than 'familiar', coins 'exchanging' hands rather than 'changing' hands. And when Cleopatra and Anthony admire some flowers, they're apparently looking at bougainvillea -- an anachronism, as it's native to south America.

Overall, though, this was an interesting and engaging novel. I liked the touches of magic realism, and the mundane trickeries that helped Cleopatra convince her people that she and her children were blessed by the gods. I also liked the emphasis on Cleopatra's intelligence and her taste for learning: 'the Library of Alexandria was my haven'. And that ending!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 26th February 2026.

2026/025: The Dispossessed — Ursula Le Guin

... all the operations of capitalism were as meaningless to him as the rites of a primitive religion, as barbaric, as elaborate, and as unnecessary. In a human sacrifice to deity there might be at least a mistaken and terrible beauty; in the rites of the moneychangers, where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men’s acts, even the terrible became banal. [p. 130]

Technically a reread, but when I read this at the age of 14 or 15,  I didn't really understand it: I recalled very little of characters, themes or incidents.

The brilliant physicist Shevek comes to realise that the collectivist society of Annares, a moon colonised by an anarchist movement, is not conducive to his work. He travels to the 'home world', Urras, which is ebulliently capitalist. Eventually he realises that Urras, too, stifles his scientific creativity.

That's a brief and reductive summary of a complex novel, in which two separate timelines -- the years before Shevek's departure for Urras, and his time on Urras itself -- are twisted together, in alternating chapters, to show how neither cold, bleak Annares or lush, corrupt Urras nurture those who dwell there.

To me, the setting had a Cold War flavour: there's even a Wall between Annares and (access to) Urras. It borders the spaceport: does it keep the Annaresti in, or the Urrasti out? Annares' collectivism, and the relative lack of sexism, reminded me of Soviet Russia, as seen through the lens of Spufford's Red Plenty and Pulley's The Half Life of Valery K. Anarchists and revolutionaries on Urras dream of being reincarnated on Annares: 'a society without government, without police, without economic exploitation': there's little sense of the reverse being true, despite the kinder physical environment of Urras. And Annares society doesn't always adhere to its lofty ideals: academic infighting is part of the reason why Shevek has to leave.

This was written in 1974, and in some ways shows its age. The term 'Terran' feels dated, a golden-age word for Earthlings. And there's one scene, in which Shevek sexually assaults a manipulative socialite, that really jars my modern sensibilities. Nothing happens as a consequence: we never see the woman again: Shevek apparently forgets the incident. I wonder if Le Guin would have written that scene differently now?

Still not sure I fully appreciate the political elements, but I'm fascinated by the ways in which Odo's Revolution colours Annaresti life: in language, in custom, in the ways it's acceptable to speak. (No 'egoising', even for children. No private ownership: 'the handkerchief that I use' rather than 'my handkerchief'.) And how it has shaped Shevek, a man who will not compete for dominance and is thus indomitable [p. 116].

On Anarres he had chosen, in defiance of the expectations of his society, to do the work he was individually called to do. To do it was to rebel: to risk the self for the sake of society. Here on Urras, that act of rebellion was a luxury, a self-indulgence. [p. 271]

2026/024: Wolf Worm — T Kingfisher

Some thoughts burrow into your mind as thoroughly as a wasp larva burrows into an unsuspecting caterpillar. [loc. 3387]

Set in North Carolina in 1899, this novel taught me more than I ever wanted to know about various parasitic insects. The narrator, Sonia Wilson, is a scientific illustrator who's accepted a position with the reclusive Dr Halder, who lives in an isolated, decaying house in the woods. En route, Sonia's local guide warns darkly that he's seen the Devil in these woods, but Sonia has been raised by a scientist and discounts this as mere superstition. 

She's not wholly charmed by her new employer, who won't tell her about the artist who painted half of his collection but wants her to finish the job. Sally, the maid, has a nice line in lurid tales of blood thieves, and local Native midwife Hezekiah Kersey says darkly that the land is 'alive and all of a piece'. But despite the Gothic ambience and Dr Halder's paranoia ('Are you spying on me, girl?') Sonia is determined to work hard, painting botfly larvae and certainly not following her employer as he sneaks out to the woods at night.

Sonia is an excellent protagonist. The author's afterword mentions that she was formerly a scientific illustrator, and that depth of knowledge shows in the descriptions of Sonia's work: how to blend watercolours, depict an insect's eye, and use a patented caterpillar inflator. I won't go into the specifics of the creeping horror pervading this novel, because I don't want to think too closely about that. But I will say that it's extremely effective, refreshingly unusual and thoroughly revolting. Ah, nature in her manifold glories!

Kingfisher's prose is smooth and readable, and often very funny: her imagination is ... unsettling, and her characters odd and interesting. I really enjoyed Wolf Worm, while simultaneously wanting to stop reading because ewww. Happy endings for many, though!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 26th March 2026.

2026/023: Universality — Natasha Brown

What allowed some people to ‘make it’ while others faded away, as Hannah herself almost had? She knew it wasn’t a matter of hard work; she couldn’t have tried any harder than she did those last few years. Luck was a possible answer, but it seemed too callously random. Increasingly, Hannah felt another, truer word burning in her throat: class. The invisible privilege that everyone tried to pretend didn’t exist, but – it did. Hannah knew it did. She recognised it, and saw its grubby stains all over her own life. [p. 63]

A short novel about class, truth and culture wars. It begins with a 'long read', journalist Hannah's account of a lockdown-busting rave on a farm at the height of the Covid pandemic, and the drug-fuelled attack in which a radical anarchist is bludgeoned by a young man named Jake, wielding a gold bar. Except, of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Hannah's article takes considerable liberties with the truth, ruins the reputation of the farm's owner -- wealthy banker Richard Spencer -- and attracts the attention of anti-woke columnist Lenny, who is Jake's mother.

This short novel unravels and recolours the events described in Hannah's article, and shows us Hannah, Richard, Lenny and Jake in their natural habitats. (Also Pegasus, the victim of the attack.) Unfortunately, I didn't find any of them likeable, and though I appreciated Brown's satirical take on late-stage capitalism and cancel culture, I didn't find this an enjoyable read. Structurally interesting: mercifully short.