The Occasional, issue 5
Lots of book recommendations in a post for paid subscribers, with my thanks. This follows on from Occasional 4, which gathered books from the first 100 Fortnightlies.
Books, books, books.
Fortnightly 178 arrives on December 7th, and then 179 can’t wait for the excitement: the annual Books of the Year special comes on December 14th, in time for Christmas shopping.
Now, in order of appearance in Fortnightlies, books by Brian Dillon, Rita Wilson & Emma Fitzgerald, Musa Okwonga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, George Saunders, Meriel Schindler, Ali Smith, Tim Winton, Jonathan Coe, Maria Dahvana Headley, Eavan Boland, Sara Baume, Deborah Levy, R.M. Christofides, Damon Galgut, James Harpur, Craig Bromfield, Bernard MacLaverty, Wendy Erskine, Jessica Au, David Park and Fintan O’Toole.
Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon
Sentences make up paragraphs, which make up chapters, which make up books. Brian Dillon has written an entire book of essays analysing 28 sentences, with authors including John Donne, Susan Sontag, James Baldwin and Joan Didion, and it's terrific. Here are my thoughts.
A Pocket of Time by Rita Wilson and Emma Fitzgerald.
is a surprising children's book. Sub-titled The Poetic Childhood of Elizabeth Bishop, it tells the story of the early life in Great Village in Nova Scotia of a poet who increasingly seems to me one of the finest poets of the twentieth century. What is surprising for a children's book is that Bishop's early life was truly horrendous. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother went to a mental asylum when Elizabeth was five years old. Her maternal grandparents looked after her until her wealthy paternal grandparents took ('kidnapped') her to their own home in Boston. What a start in life. So many losses. Each page features a quotation from the Collected Prose or the poetry, including 'Sestina', a work of such sadness.
One of Them by Musa Okwonga
is subtitled An Eton College Memoir. True: it is indeed about his experience as one of the few black pupils in the school in the 1990s. But it's also about friendship, British society, a London suburb, racism and much more. I read it (in a day) with a lot of pleasure, and recommend it. Fuller thoughts here.