By LISA WITEPSKI & BRUCE DENNILL
The Museum Of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan
This Is Happiness by Niall Williams
500 Meals For One by Carol Beckerman
My Mother, My Madness by Colleen Higgs
Pocket Guide: Birds Of Botswana by Dominic Rollinson
Newman’s Birds By Colour by Kenneth Newman, updated by Nicholas Newman
The idea behind Laure’s Museum Of Broken Promises – a collection of exhibits she has established in Paris – is intriguing: people are invited to donate items that speak of dreams unfulfilled and shattered ideals. This collection of poignant mementoes is an entirely appropriate project for Laure, who seems never to be truly present in her own reality. This Laure is decidedly different from the vivacious and passionate younger character we read about who, while au pairing in Communist Prague, embarks on an affair with a dissident singer. The bridge between the young Laure and the Laure of today is her former employer, and the story of the journey over that bridge is an achingly sad portrait of betrayal. A beautiful, haunting read. – LW
One hundred pages into This Is Happiness, I wanted to lend it to everyone I know. Another hundred pages later, I’d decided that I will never let another living soul touch it, because it had become one of my most precious literary treasures. As someone who zooms in on any book or film with the words ‘coming of age’ in the blurb, it was a foregone conclusion that I would love this story of the recently bereaved Noe, who goes to live with his grandparents in Faha after the death of his mother. Faha is a tiny Irish hamlet where there is no need for a weather report, because it is always, always, always raining. Mysteriously, however, the rain stops just as Noe arrives – at the same time, too, that the village explores the possibility of joining the electric grid. It’s also the same time that the enigmatic Christy arrives in the village, bringing with him a new way of seeing the world; on that affects Noe deeply and – without hyperbole – changes his life. There is nothing I did not enjoy about this book. Williams’ writing is a revelation: it’s lyrical yet humorous, endlessly engaging and an uplifting antidote to the cynicism of the twenty-first century. Reading it really is happiness. – LW
If it’s just me eating supper, I’m perfectly happy with a smoothie – and I imagine most people are the same. After all, are you really going to get your pots dirty for one person? This book, 500 Meals For One, blasts this lazy attitude by showing that cooking for one doesn’t need a lot of effort – and you’ll get a whole lot more satisfaction (not mention vitamins) if you invest just a little more energy. There is an enormous range of choices here, from weekend breakfasts to bakes and make ahead meals. Carol Beckerman also gives loads of variations on most recipes, so if you’re not mad about a specific ingredient, or simply want to jazz things up a bit, you can change things up in seconds. My favourites? I’m a sucker for anything Mexican, so I love the burrito bowl and stuffed sweet potatoes, but the Spanish chicken and rice is great too. – LW
In this short, honest memoir, author and publisher Colleen Higgs does little more than relate to her readers the mix of action, admin and emotion involved in being an adult that cares for their ageing parent in the latter’s final years. For most, this scenario is the opposite of glamorous, an obligation that hoovers up earnings, time and emotional capacity, and it being at least a fair trade for the efforts of the elderly parent when everyone was much younger doesn’t make it any easier. Higgs writes beautifully, her narrative simple but thoughtful and with a sincerity that makes it impossible not to feel for and relate to her in the routine activities of her relationship with her mother, as well as with the other protagonists in her life. It’s a recipe for a small but poignant examination of a landscape most of her readers will need to navigate, and there are far worse guides to that journey than the candid, authentic account in My Mother, My Madness. – BD
Botswana is the sort of place visitors might not be in their own vehicles while on safari, and while on a guided game drive or in a mokoro, a giant tome detailing all aspects of the creatures you’re sharing the space with is impractical. The genuinely pocket-sized Pocket Guide: Birds Of Botswana, featuring three species to a page in reasonable but not exhaustive detail, is a sensible, well-designed companion for ventures out into Botswana’s wilderness areas. Well-chosen photographs make plumage features clear and recognisable and distribution maps alongside short descriptive paragraphs mean that is should be possible to make positive identifications after any reasonably unobstructed sighting. – BD
It seems bizarre that in a book market where titles are bought, regularly and repeatedly, by people who are passionate about looking at and identifying birds, there are not many more volumes focusing on facets of these creatures that require no knowledge of the subject. Noting something’s colour is so much easier than trying to figure out its shape when it’s far away or in a thicket, or keeping track of exactly where you are for the purposes of correlating your position to a distribution map. And even avid twitchers will likely describe a bird’s call in completely different ways… A rainbow of coloured tabs extends across the fore-edge of Newman’s Birds By Colour, so you don’t even need to open the publication to look at the contents or index to jump straight in to where you need to be based on the flash of plumage you just saw. An excellent, user-friendly resource. – BD