Rather slim pickings this month, partly because some of the books I chose took time to read and think about, and partly because it’s been a busy month anyway and time for reading has been in short supply.

First, to tie in with my plan to read some less current books this month, I picked up Persuasion by Jane Austen (my copy Wordsworth Classic 2000).  I’ve been intending to re-read it for some time because I live near Lyme Regis where parts of the book are set.  And then to my surprise I found that I hadn’t actually read it before.  What a treat!  So I took my time and reveled in every page, and then felt bereft when I’d finished it.

Next something completely different.  A book called Nothing To Envy: Real Lives in North Korea (Granta Books 2010) recommended by a member of one of my book groups.  The author Barbara Demick is an American journalist who has spent many years living in South Korea and China.  Getting accurate and credible information about what daily life is actually like for North Koreans is almost impossible.  But she managed it by interviewing dozens of defectors currently living in South Korea and then focusing on the life stories of six of them.  The result is a well written and readable book which is both informative, believable and harrowing in the extreme.  Before I read it, I  had not fully understood just how repressive a society this is, and I certainly hadn’t appreciated the extent of isolation and the horrors of famine and poverty which the people of North Korea endure.  For me, this is one of those books everyone should read. And it reminded me of other books I now want to look at again – The Siege by Helen Dunmore (a novel set during the siege of Leningrad), If This Is A Man by Primo Levy (depicting his life in Auschwitz) and of course George Orwell’s 1984.  My list grows ever longer!

I needed a bit of light relief after that so I turned to the latest Katie Fforde book to appear in paperback – The Perfect Match (Arrow books 2014).  An easy read and very enjoyable, as are all her books (and yes – I have read them all), but I wonder if I’m alone in preferring her earlier books which just seem to have a bit more substance?  Not that I will let that stop me reading her next – and the one after that!

My final choice for this month has been Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd (my copy is Macmillan Papermac 1969).  Like many of my generation, I first encountered Hardy novels at school and distinctly remember preferring The Trumpet Major because it was short!  But Far From the Madding Crowd wasn’t far behind in my estimation.  Many years later I came to live in Dorset and have enjoyed visiting Hardy’s Cottage and Max Gate, his home in later years.  A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the preview of the new Far From the Madding Crowd film and spent a wonderful evening at the Electric Palace in Bridport enjoying both the film itself and the delights of spotting familiar locations.  The new adaptation is an excellent one in my opinion.  But having seen it, I felt the need to return to my copy of the book and check out the accuracy of the film.  And of course to appreciate anew Hardy’s wonderfully poetic language, his portrayal of the countryside I love and above all his ability as a story teller.  Both book and film highly recommended.

So that’s it for another month.  And now time to think what I want to read next.  It’s not easy to choose.