Micro Reviews 15 and 16 (2025)

 

Agent Zo by Clare Mulley (Orion Publishing) & The CIA Book Club by Charlie English (HarperCollins)

Thanks to the Women's Prize for Non Fiction list I picked Agent Zo up from the library recently and was immersed in her (and Poland's) story of the Second World War and after. 

While we 'know' that Britain went to war in 1939 because of the Nazi invasion of Poland after this event very little made of Poland's war - a paragraph or two about the Warsaw Uprising maybe and possibly a mention of the horrific massacre at Katyn but that's about it. Once the Iron Curtain fell Poland disappears again until the rise of Solidarity and eventually the fall of Communism.

Agent Zo really fills in the gaps as well as adding so much more detail. In focussing on the work of the women's resistance movement we get a new view of war and perhaps a more honest look at the treatment of women in the SOE movement.

What was most shocking about this book was the way that Poland was treated towards the end of the war by 'Allies' and how this fed into the second half of the twentieth century and how Poland became one of the most repressive Communist states.

Which leads on nicely to English's The CIA Book Club which while it does cover some of the same history as Zo focuses far more heavily on the 1980s in Poland and how the CIA helped the resistance movement in Poland (and their supporters in the West) keep the dreams of freedom alive via the printed word.

This book wasn't quite as engaging as Agent Zo and at times read more like a thriller than an exploration of how powerful words are. However as some of the same people from Zo appear in this book it felt very much like a surprise sequel. It also rounded out the time covered in Mulley's book briefly - once Agent Zo had more or less retired - and showed how Communism in Poland was overthrown.

While both of these books cover the past there is a lot that the current world could learn from reading these - especially how carving up a nation without including that country in the negotiations - is a very bad idea with longer lasting repercussions than are even dreamt of.

If you only want to read one book about Polish history then I would have to say go for Agent Zo, but The CIA Book Club really does add to that story. 

Micro Review 13 & 14 (2025)

 

Books About Books - my kryptonite.

I love books about books - whether its the history of books and publishing, the history of printing, author biographies, collated book reviews, and of course books that fall under the broad 'bibliotherapy' heading.

2025 has started strongly in this field with the wonderful Just My Type that I reviewed a little while ago and then two splendid books about reading journeys.

The first was Read Yourself Happy by Daisy Buchanan (DK) - which is  an interesting more modern approach to a bibliotherapy book. Buchanan would pick an emotion and then share details of her life to explain the choice and talk about the books she read to help with these times. What made it more than a typical self help bibliotherapy book was the personalisation and also the inclusion of all sorts of books - there was no hint of  'good' or 'worthy' books being prioritised, just books from all genres and times that gave Buchanan solace and then some similar books that might also work.

It is a book that can be read from cover to cover like any non fiction book, but is also one that you can dip in and out of as and when the mood strikes.

The second book is Bookish by Lucy Mangan (Vintage) and this is a much more of a straightforward autobiography from the author but told via the books she was reading at each stage of her life. Very much like her previous book (Bookworm) I felt like I was looking in a mirror as I was reading (at least up to the last quarter anyhow). So many of Mangan's life choices and career moves match my own and we were definitely reading a lot of the same books through the late 1990s and in to the 2000s. In fact I'm pretty sure that at some points we must have been in the same second-hand bookshops around Norfolk fighting over the same titles!

Mangan's life has diverged from mine more now, and by the end of it I was moved to tears several times - and also green with envy at her home book-nook. I also have another huge stack of titles to revisit at some point.

Micro Review 12 (2025)

 

The Green Kingdom by Cornelia Funke & Tammi Hartung (illustrated by Melissa Castrillon) Dorling Kindersely.

Right now the world feels a very strange (and scary) place and I am having trouble losing myself in novels, which does seem counterintuitive I know! Even old favourites and comfort reads aren't working so I was very pleased to become instantly immersed in The Green Kingdom.

This is a delightful middle grade novel and while it is packed full of action it is also incredibly gentle and positive.

Caspia's plans for a summer spent hanging out in the wilds of her hometown with her two best friends are scuppered when her parents announce that they will be spending the summer in Brooklyn, due to the work and learning opportunities that they have been offered.

And that is the absolute maximum of threat/peril that happens in the book. Caspia's parents are happily married and not working through any issues and Caspia has only the normal worries of an on the cusp of adolescence girl and even her friendship triangle is mostly issue free.

What we get instead is an exploration of friendship, and cross generational friendship, and of the plant world that can be found even in the heart of a huge city. Caspia comes across some old letters from the family who own the apartment the family are renting and from these unfolds a botanical treasure hunt which spans the world.

In the best sense of the word this is an old fashioned story, and one that can be read and enjoyed by so many people. It reminded me a lot of Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea (but with less peril) and also of Elizabeth Enright's series about the Melendy Family. 

In fact it was so gentle that perhaps my biggest criticism is the freedom Caspia has to wander around a New York Borough - even with a mobile phone this lack of supervision did worry me a bit, although removing parents from a narrative to make the story is of course very common!

The botanical details and illustrations are as important as the story in this book and it is absolutely delightful. I was a huge fan of Funke when I was working as a bookseller and I am so pleased to rediscover her with such a gem.

Prize speculation

 

The Women's Prize for Fiction 2025.

Hot on the heels of the non fiction longlist the 2025 Women's Prize for fiction longlist will be announced on Tuesday and I've seen lots of social media speculating on what might make the cut (and lots of 'dream' longlists) so I thought I would join in.

Thanks to a list that has been pulled together on Good Reads (which you don't need an account to see) and careful scrutiny of my reading journal I think that I've read 42 books that are eligible for the prize, as well as having two on my to be read pile as they aren't out yet, and another two that I abandoned.

At first I was quite surprised how few books that I read last year were eligible and then I looked more closely at the rules for the prize:

• Books have to have been published between 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025
• No translations
• No short stories or novellas
• The book has to have been published in the UK between the above dates

My reading choices last year wiped out a huge chunk of eligible fiction books as I read so much in translation, and my rediscovery of novellas and short stories eliminated another handful. Plus I read a lot of non fiction...

Anyhow the longlist will comprise 14 books this year, and while I can recommend many of the books I read last year I don't think that a lot of them would be deemed 'prize worthy', indeed looking at the Good Reads list I've read very little of the last year's 'literary' output!

I've created a list of 10 books I'd like to see on the list but I don't think that I'll have a great hit rate

Books on my list, in no particular order:

• There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
• The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable
• The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
• The Glass Maker by Tracey Chevalier
• Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts
• Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
• Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
• Le Fay by Sophie Keetch