Penny Reads

Step inside a world of books. Vintage and modern. Children's and Adult.

No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy – Mark Hodkinson

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The book No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy seemed to be on my radar for a while before a finally got round to picking up a copy in a local bookshop and reading it. These “memoirs of a working-class reader” had me somewhat intrigued. Hodkinson green up in Rochdale in a house with just one book. He’s remained in Rochdale, but now lives with some 3,500 books. I was intrigued to see how someone made that transition in the 70s and 80s. After all, that was a pre-internet time when nearly all information and education came from books, school or the media.

I was hoping for a bit of a bit of a reminisce, much as I had when reading Grace Dent’s Hungry, and to some extent I got that. But No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy isn’t just a memoir. Weaving through the story of Hodkinson’s childhood and the books he discovered on the way is the story of his grandfather’s dementia and subsequent decline. This is very poignant and obviously had a huge impact on him as he was growing up.

The book was all going fine, even if I was getting a bit frustrated from him going off topic quite a lot (there’s load about his musical aspirations for instance), until I got to page 232. At that point I’m afraid I got rather angry. So angry that I even folded over the corner of the page so I could go back to it and refer again. He’s talking about libraries – a subject I feel very strongly about. We also know that the number of people using libraries is decreasing and libraries have diversified somewhat to provide services that the local community want and need.

Whilst I agree that it would be preferable for funding not be to cut elsewhere so that libraries (and also schools) have to pick up for services that no longer exist, the bit that really got me annoyed was this bit: “Libraries were best when they were libraries, housed in austere buildings (echoey stone steps, polished brass, and plaques dedicated to long-dead aldermen). They formed an umbrella to the world, keeping out the noisy, the ill-mannered, the non-book people. The only sounds heard were whispers or, at worst, the clatter of coins fed into a photocopier. Libraries have tried to offer too much to too many. And surely it matters very much that visitors pick up a book, otherwise what is a library?”

The last part of this was in response to a librarian who had written in the Guardian about all the wonderful things libraries do and finished with “One day they might pick up a book. But, it doesn’t matter if they don’t. We don’t mind.”

Bearing in mind that this quote about keeping “non-book people” out of libraries is in the memoirs of a man who grew up in a house with only one book I would have laughed at the irony had it not made me so angry. Books are for everyone. Libraries (and everything in them) are for everyone. Libraries have changed and adapted as information, and the way it is accessed, has changed. They’ve evolved as our understanding about how children’s brains develop has. Rhyme time sessions for babies and toddlers are vital for the development of pathways in a child’s brain to help them access language later on. They are not just done to be a noisy annoyance for other library visitors.

I’m not going to lie. I stopped reading this book for about a week after page 232. I did pick it up and finish it in the end, but I still kept reflecting on what he had to say about libraries and it made me angry, and then later sad. If someone feels so passionate about books and learning that they write a book about their own literary journey, how can they miss the point so much about libraries? How can they not see how these wonderful places can help others develop themselves beyond what might have been expected for them based on their home life? I’m left assuming he’s never had Caitlin Moran pick him up on the topic!

Despite the interesting start and the nice bit of 70s/80s nostalgia I’m left unable to recommend No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy. But what I do recommend is that you all go and support your local library!

No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase from Amazon through one of these links it will cost you no more than if you’d gone their under your own steam, but I will receive a small commission. Thank you for any purchases made. What would be even better though is if you went to your local library and borrowed books there. It’s free and you might also discover some other wonderful services they offer.

The Animals at Lockwood Manor – Jane Healey

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What a peculiar book The Animals at Lockwood Manor tried out to be! From the blur on the back I was instantly drawn into the story and convinced that this was the type of book that I would lose myself in. Yet I ended up finding myself drawn into a disturbing story that left me feeling quite strangely the end.

The front cover of the book The Animals at Lockwood Manor. The subtitle reads "Some Secrets are unspoken. Others are unspeakable..."

Starting in August 1939, The Animals at Lockwood Manor follows 30 year old Hetty Cartwright as she is put in charge of evacuating the natural history museum’s mammal collection out of London to the safety of the fictitious Lockwood Manor. This is something that actually happened at the Natural History Museum in London in wartime, with their collection send partially to their Tring outpost and the rest to other country houses.

Once at Lockwood things seem to take a worrying twist. Lockwood is home to recently widowed Major Lord Lockwood, his daughter Lucy and reducing number of servants. Whilst arrangements have been made in advance about the museum using the house, I wouldn’t go as far as saying that Hetty and her animals are welcomed there. More tolerated.

The first night at Lockwood the jaguar from the collection vanishes. Almost into thin air. Poor Hetty is beside herself author she can possibly have managed to lose something as large as a jaguar, but she seems to be the only once concerned about his disappearance. As the nights at Lockwood go on other animals seem to move around of their own accord and Hetty really starts to wonder if she is losing her mind as well as her animals.

It becomes clear that Major Lockwood sees the animals being there as a mix of an inconvenience and something to show off about. The staff certainly see them as an inconvenience though; one which causes them even more work. In fact, the only person who really doesn’t seem to mind is Lucy. But, as Hetty gets to know her better she soon realises that life isn’t entirely as it seems with Lucy around.

Whilst I really liked the book’s war time setting and appreciated all the little timeline historical nods in it, I soon began to tire a bit of what appeared to be setting itself up to be a ghost story. I’m not at all a fan of that sort of genre (as I said when I read Mystery in White) but once again the story swing round and didn’t go down that particular track. But, the route it went did suddenly become quite horrific and disturbing. Not at all what I was expecting and whilst I commend the unexpected twist, it also wasn’t a topic that you necessarily wanted to find yourself reading about.

I find The Animals at Lockwood Manor quite a difficult book to have just one opinion on. I enjoyed the setting, both physically and the time it is set in, and also liked some of the characters – especially Hetty and Lucy. I didn’t appreciate the ghost suggestions, and also didn’t like the twist. Whilst the ending felt right I was left wanting to know a bit more about what everyone’s reactions to it were, and what happened next to Hetty. At points the storyline felt a bit flat and repetitive, and I saw some things coming a mile off, but then the major twist also came to me as a complete shock.

Overall, I think I’m glad I read it, but just not convinced that I’ll recommend it to others. It has made me want to know a bit more about what happened to some of the major London museums in wartime. Having read about how unnerving it can be to walk around in the dark when surrounded by the animals I do also wonder just how freaked out I’m going to be when I go to the National History Museum at Tring next week for an after hours torchlit evening as part of their half term Halloween activities!

The Animals at Lockwood Manor is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: I picked up my copy of The Animals at Lockwood Manor at a WI book swap. I was under no obligation to write about it. This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and make a purchase it will cost you no more than if you had gone to Amazon under your own steam, but I receive a small commission. Thank you for any purchases that you do make.

A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines

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There are several books that have been haunting me for years. Books that people (often my mum!) bought me when I was younger with the words “you ought to read this” and then they’ve sat on my bookcase ever since. I can never bear to part with them, but I also never seem to get round to reading them either. That’s exactly the case with A Kestrel for a Knave, or Kes as many people better know it.

A copy of the Penguin classic book A Kestrel for a Knave. On the cover is a still from the film showing a young boy (Billy Casper) sticking up two fingers. The books has the major title on the cover of Kes and then A Kestrel for a Knave in smaller font underneath. You can see a well worn bookmark sticking out of the book and next to it is a cup of tea in a mug from Barter Books in Alnwick.

Set in a mining town in northern England (always suspected to be near the Barnsley area as that’s where author Hines came from) in the 1960s, A Kestrel for a Knave tells the story of Billy Casper. A young working-class boy who has a hard life both at home (with him mum and older half-brother Jud) and also at school.

Billy is coming up to school leaving age and whilst he knows that he doesn’t want to go and work down the pit like his brother and so many other boys and men locally, he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. The one area where Billy does show a passion, and a great skill, is falconry. He has found a kestrel, that he called Kes, and has learnt everything there is to know about keeping and training a bird from a book that he stole from a shop in town. He has trained Kes from wild in a way that is simply spellbinding.

At school Billy finds himself bullied by teachers who don’t understand him (especially his PE teacher), and being caned by the headmaster after daydreaming and falling asleep in assembly. His English teacher sees a different side of Billy though after a lesson about fact and fiction. Children are invited to stand up and share some facts with the class. Billy rises from his seat and tells them all about Kes and how he has trained him. The teacher is in awe of what this young boy has managed to do and asks to come and see him work with Kes after school that day.

I’m not to give away anything further about the plot, but suffice to say that the book is incredibly powerful in the way that it tells of Billy’s life and challenges, and also those faced by so many living in a northern mining town at the time. It’s clear to see why it has been on exam board syllabuses since the 1970s. Some of the language and dialect used in the text transports the reader to South Yorkshire and adds a layer of reality to the action.

The film Kes

The film version of A Kestrel for a Knave was given the snappier title Kes and is a film that many still regard as one of the best British films ever. Directed by Ken Loach, the film brought the gritty northern mining town and its characters to life and the use of a local cast helped do this with native Yorkshire accents. Many of the cast had never worked as professional actors before and it’s particularly interesting to see both Brian Glover and Lynne Perry (better known by many as Ivy in Coronation Street) in their first film roles. Glover actually worked as a teacher at the same school as author Barry Hines and Hines put him forward for the role of PE teacher Mr Sugden to the film’s director.

I’m not always keen on film versions of books I’ve enjoyed, but Kes does an excellent job of bringing the book to life and not veering away from the original storyline. There is a flashback at the end of the book which is not included in the film, which I feel is a bit of a shame as it adds an extra bit of context to much of what happens, but at the same time the film does stand alone without it too.

What does the title mean?

As I’ve mentioned, many people know this book simply as Kes, after the famous film version of it, but the slightly strange sounding original title A Kestrel for a Knave does have a meaning behind it. Apparently taken from a poem in the Book of St Albans, in medieval England the only bird that a Knave (a man of low-class or a male servant) was allowed to keep was a kestrel. Hence Billy, a working class boy akin to a Knave, keeping a kestrel in the story.

Where to buy A Kestrel for a Knave?

You can pick up a copy of A Kestrel for a Knave online here. I managed to find the film Kes available to watch for free on Channel 4 not long after I finished reading the book. It’s not still on there at the time of writing, but you can rent or buy it on Amazon Prime for as little as £3.49 (to rent). If you want to see how much it costs on other platforms, or set an alert for when it is next available for free, then I recommend the site Just Watch.

What to read next

If you’ve enjoyed reading about Kes, then why not see what other fiction I’ve been reading lately.

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and then go on to buy anything from Amazon I will receive a small commission, but it will cost you no more than if you had arrived there under your own steam. Thank you for any purchases made.

Death and The Penguin – Andrey Kurkov

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Written in Russian back in 1996 (and then translated to English in 2001) Death and The Penguin isn’t the sort of book that I’d normally pick up. This copy only came into my hands as my mum had received it as part of a book subscription and she passed it on to me when she’d read it. The brief synopsis she gave me was that it was about a journalist living in Kiev with his pet penguin Misha, who he took home when the zoo closed down. Those few words were enough to intrigue me and make me read the book for myself.

A yellow book cover depicting a black and white penguin. The penguin is holding its wings out to the side and is shaped so that the left wing (as we look at him) is shaped like the handle of a gun and the other wing is shaped like the barrel. The white patch on the penguin's tummy has a black bit in it looking like the trigger of the gun. A thin grey line does up from the barrel of the gun.

Post-Soviet Surrealism

Death and The Penguin is what can only be described as a bit of a surreal book. Just the fact that it features a man who lives with his pet penguin in a city tells you that much already. With Ukraine having declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 the book is set in a country that is obviously in a bit of a mess. There are local Militia men, bribes for people to get hospital treatment, power cuts and suspicious hushed up deaths a plenty. Lead character Viktor is a frustrated writer. Living in an apartment with his penguin Misha and generally minding his own business. He’s trying to get writing work at various newspapers, but his attempts come to nothing, until he receives a phone call from the Editor in Chief of Capital News.

Before he quite knows where he is Viktor is employed to anonymously write obituaries for the country’s VIPs. The only thing is that none of them are actually dead. This is more a bit of preparation work for when they die. As obviously everyone dies eventually.

The book seems to flit between the mundane life around Viktor’s day job and life in post-Soviet Ukraine at the time, and then a variety of bizarre things that seem to happen in his life. Living with a penguin is random enough, but then being paid to attend funerals and wakes with said penguin is weirder still.

Confusion and meaning

I finished Death and The Penguin feeling rather confused. I don’t want to give away any spoilers here, but being utterly baffled at what had happened I did then go online to try to find some answers to penguin related questions that I had. This article from The Guardian helped explain things somewhat, especially the final three paragraphs where the author’s own words are used to clarify a few things.

I’m sure many of us know so much more now about what current life in Ukraine is like, but at the same time understanding what it was like there when Death and The Penguin was written might help us understand the journey that the country has been on too. I generally consider myself relatively well travelled and well read, but this was my first read that had been set in Ukraine. Years ago I remember enjoying A short history about tractors in Ukrainian and reading Death and The Penguin has got me thinking that it might be time to re-read about Ukranian tractors, and also expand my reading further into more translated texts. Kurkov himself has written a sequel to this book called Penguin Lost and that’s definitely top of my list. Just as soon as the To Be Read pile in my bedroom is reduced a bit!

Buying Death and The Penguin

Death and The Penguin in available to buy online here. More of Andrey Kurkov’s works can be found here.

Looking for something else to read?

Why not take a look at what other fiction I’ve been reading lately?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon and buy something from one of these links it will cost you no more than if you had arrived at the site on your own, but it will earn me a small commission. Thank you for any purchases made as all commission is very appreciated.

How to Make a Leaf Rainbow – A Year of Nature Walks and Games

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This week sees the launch of the brand new book A Year of Nature Walks and Games and we are delighted to showcase the book as part of their blogger book tour.  It is written and photographed by child wellbeing author Becky Goddard-Hill from Emotionally Healthy Kids and gardening expert Catherine Hughes from the blog Gowing Family

The cover of the book A year of Nature Walks and Games. The book has the subtitle "52 things to see and do".

A Year of Nature Walks and Games is designed for 6- 12 years olds and packed full of fun activities kids can do whilst out and about in nature. The activities are all eco and budget-friendly and will entertain all year round. With ideas such as making and flying a kite and elderflower foraging to make shortbread this lovely contains 52 things to see and do will inspire children to go on a nature walk and have fun outdoors!

Today we are sharing one of the activities from the book to encourage kids to embrace an Autumn nature walk

How to make a leaf rainbow 

Take 5 bags with you as you walk and collect different coloured leaves (remember to only take fallen leaves) Make sure it’s not windy or this community art project will just blow away!)  

  • Brown  
  • Green  
  • Yellow  
  • Red  
  • Orange 

When you feel you have enough leaves and find a big enough clearing to make your rainbow it’s time to get started. Leave this where as many people as possible can see it but not on a pathway that will make it slippy if it rains. 

Begin the outer arc of your rain with red if possible  (just like a real rainbow) then orange then yellow, green and lastly brown   

It’ll be great fun to make and is sure to make passers-by smile. 

A rainbow on the ground made up of leaves and seeds of five different colours with res, orange, yellow and green leaves and brown seed pods.

Blogger Book Tour

To see more wonderful activities from A Year of Nature Walks and Games follow the blogger book tour!

Becky and Catherine are also the authors of A Year of Nature Craft and Play, (awarded Highly Commended in the 2022 Creative Play Awards) 

Agatha Christie – Lucy Worsley

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My love affair with Agatha Christie

When at university and studying for my finals, I lived in a flat above a charity shop. This charity shop was for some local animal charity and was the kind of place that sold things cheap. Very, very cheap. I still regularly use a pile of side plates that I picked up there for just 10p each, but the other thing they sold for just 10p was paperback books. In particular Agatha Christie books, which they always seemed to have a load of.

Living on my own at the time and spending pretty much every spare minute studying I struggled to fall asleep at night as my brain was just going at 100mph. My solution was to pick up an Agatha Christie book. The plots were gentle enough that I felt relaxed reading them, but at the same time they engaged my brain in trying to figure out who the murderer was so I stopped thinking about engineering formulae and complex mathematics instead. And so my Agatha Christie love affair started.

Finding my people

The classic age of detective fiction has always been one that I’ve loved and over the years I’m slowly working my way through many of the titles from the British Library Crime Classics series and picking those up secondhand where possible. During my many hours of driving kids I was on the look out for something new to listen to and earlier this year happened across the Shedunnit podcast on BBC Sounds. The first episode I listened to was entitled Agatha’s Archaeologists and as I listened along I realised two things. Firstly that I actually knew very little about Agatha Christie myself, and secondly that I had finally found “my people”. But I was left wondering how it had taken me so long to find them.

In the same week I took the kids to the local library and Lucy Worsley’s Biography of Agatha Christie caught my eye. I picked it up and started reading it there and then, and was instantly hooked. The fact that both these links with the golden age of crime fiction came so close together was a tad surprising, but also a very happy coincidence. Another coincidence is the fact that there is a actually a whole episode of the Shedunnit podcast with Lucy Worsley as a guest talking about her book. Also well worth a listen.

Agatha Christie – A very elusive woman

Back to Lucy Worsley’s book itself. Although it’s hard to separate the subject from the author as Worsley’s style of writing means that as I read it I could so clearly hear her voice telling me all about Agatha and her life. The writing style draws you in in exactly the same way that her numerous television programmes do. A voice of such passion and fact combined that it draws the reader (or viewer) along with her. Her enthusiasm for everything is just so contagious.

For me, just one read of this book isn’t enough. I need to go out and buy a copy and read it again whilst also re-reading all of Agatha Christie’s works in chronological order. I need now to read each book again and cross-refer to the point in her life when Agatha wrote it. To be able to see the influences of what was going on elsewhere, and also see how her characters develop over time, sometimes based on influential characters and experiences in her own life.

I also want to take a step back and imagine what Agatha’s life must have been like. I’m keen to visit her home in Devon (now owned by the National Trust), but also to go back to The Old Swan in Harrogate, the hotel where she was found after she famously went “missing’. Her travels round the world which provided inspiration for so many of her books also fascinate me.

Of course there’s absolutely nothing new in what I’m hoping to learn. Many others have done their own research on Agatha Christie’s life and works, and the Shedunnit podcast covers many of the topics in excellent detail, but Lucy Worsley’s book has given me a drive and enthusiasm to learn so much more for myself. If that’s not a sign of an excellent biography then I really don’t know what is.

A televisual delight too

And if re-reading the biography alongside all of Agatha Christie’s books, and catching up with the whole back catalogue of Shedunnit podcasts isn’t enough to keep me out of mischief there is also Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on The Mystery Queen on BBC iPlayer too. I fear my to do list might take a bit of a back seat in my life for a while.

Where to buy

Lucy Worsley’s Agatha Christie biography is available to buy online here.

Disclaimer: All links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links. If you buy anything through these links it will cost you no more than if you’d arrived there on your own, but I will receive a small commission. Thank you for all purchases that are made through affiliate links. It is very much appreciated.