Tower and Town, December 2020

  (view the full edition)

A Good Read

As I write this we've just gone into lockdown again. I'm typing, so I can't cross my fingers, but I do hope we're out again by the time you read this. Do you have plenty to read? The following have kept me entertained.

Not new, but enjoyable escapism, just what I want at the moment, is False Lights, by K J Whittaker. It's a 'parallel history' in which Napoleon won at Waterloo, and the Duke of Wellington is a prisoner on the Isles of Scilly. Our heroine gets caught up in a plot to rescue him. It's pacy and adventurous, one for those of you who like the world of Poldark, or Daphne du Maurier's Cornish novels.

The Flavia de Luce novels by Alan Bradley have also been around for a while, but I've avoided them until now because I thought they sounded preposterously twee. The narrator/heroine is an eleven-year old chemistry enthusiast who solves crimes. I rolled my eyes so hard I gave myself a headache, but I was wrong, it works. There's a charm and lightness of touch to Flavia, tormenting and tormented by her sisters, brewing up poisons in her home laboratory and cheerfully making the best of what the reader realises are actually fairly grim circumstances. I've just finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and am looking forward to the rest of the series.

Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain by Pen Vogler is all about what, when, where and how we have eaten a variety of foods over the years. I love this kind of social history, and I devoured this book (oh, ha ha). Eating is a game of social Snakes and Ladders – is tea a drink or a meal? Scone or 'sconn'? How thick is your gravy? I think I concluded that one's social position is almost entirely dependent on the approach to avocados. I don't like them at all, so I slither down the social scale, but I drink Earl Grey tea, so can haul myself a couple of rungs back up the class ladder. Ultimately of course, it's unimportant, but fun. I mean, it couldn't matter less whether someone puts the milk in first or last, could it? (But would you want him to marry your daughter?)

Finally, for 8 to 12 year olds, I’m plugging The Unadoptables by Hana Tooke, an eccentric adventure story, a bit like (a better) Lemony Snicket.

Debby Guest