Five Books For Time Travel, fun stuff edition
A bonus recommendation, our monthly playlist, a poem, and more
Welcome to this month’s Fun Stuff Edition of Five Books For, a newsletter for people who love great stories.
Over at Global Comment, in this month’s Great Adaptations I was so excited to cover Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series - some of my favourite books of all time and a riveting adaptation too. If you haven’t already read the books or watched the series then add them to your list and let me know what you think, I’d love to hear!
As always for this edition, we have a bonus recommendation, a poem, a playlist and some reading links, all in keeping with this month’s theme of bookish time travel. As ever, I hope you’ll find something here to surprise and delight you. If you’re not already subscribed, you can receive this newsletter directly to your inbox by clicking the button below. Everything is free although if you’d like to support the newsletter with a paid subscription, that option is right there too.
Let’s dive in!
Bonus recommendation: The Map Of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
“If people can write to each other across space, why can they not write across time too?”
So what’s it about? This novel was a 1999 Booker Prize finalist and tells the stories of Anna, a woman living in Cairo at the turn of the 20th century and Isabel, her American descendant. Anna falls in love with the politically-active Sharif when she is kidnapped by some of his associates and finds herself navigating a turbulent political situation because of Sharif’s activism. In the 1990s, her great-granddaughter Isabel has also fallen in love with an Egyptian man, a much older music conductor called Omar, and contacts his sister Amal, our main narrator, for help exploring some of Anna’s heirlooms. Amal herself is lonely but finds purpose and solidarity in getting involved in local politics and the book leaves together all the separate stories and threads from both timelines skillfully, exploring ideas of love, family, activism and cross-cultural connection and especially translation.
What’s great about it? I love how this book explores two separate timelines but makes each of the characters truly compelling and sympathetic, even when they’re not always acting rationally. It’s also beautifully written so if you love gorgeous prose then this is definitely something you’re likely to enjoy. Anna especially is a compelling character and the contrast between past and present Egypt, and the similarities in the themes that the characters need to navigate, make the book thought-provoking as well as a love story.
Give it a try if: you love beautiful writing; you like books set in Egypt; you love books that explore ideas of translation and communication; you love romance; you love books with parallel narratives; you love books which explore the clash between public and private duties; you love strong heroines.
This month’s playlist
I have three things to share this month because they’re all so good and I figured, why put a limit on great music?
First up, did you know that the album featured in Daisy Jones And The Six (you see the lyrics throughout the book) actually exists? It was recorded as part of the TV adaptation so if you're reading the book for the first time you can also have the joy of listening to the songs as you go through, especially as they are so intricately entwined with the story.
I've also included a link to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, the album which Daisy Jones is loosely inspired by.
And finally, if you’re reading The Camomile Lawn and want to get into the musical spirit, here is my Glenn Miller playlist. Glenn Miller is one of my all-time favourite artists. He tragically died when his plane went down over the English Channel while serving in the US Army (as a band leader) during WW2 but, astonishingly, the band is still going strong (with new members, obviously) and tours regularly. I saw them live about 20 years ago and they were brilliant so if you have the opportunity to go and see them I’d definitely recommend it. In the meantime, you can listen to the original band here:
This month’s poem
Homo Neanderthalensis
By James Brush
Pick inspired by Jean M. Auel’s The Clan Of The Cave Bear.
Old teeth still talk. Shards of bone and flint blades found in Spanish caves, scraps of DNA unravel the edges of a story— a sentence from which to divine an epic. What tales did these other humans tell when their cousins came north, surrounded them and built a new world full of strangers? Did they know their time had come? Did they dance with ghosts and worry about decline? Did they imagine other isolated outposts of their kind lonely and encircled also by these wise interlopers? I would like to have known them, and I wonder how the world would be if there were still mirror humans, living in a shadow world, hunters stalking slopes alongside us, mysterious as strange footprints in the snow. The sun must still have risen and set, ice receded as the world shrank down to just a range, a hill, a cave. Is this the way of age, this shrinking of the landscape until we wander no farther than the yard, puttering around our piece of earth, no longer wondering (and just a little afraid of) what lies beyond the blue gray mountains?
Found via my favourite poetry Substack here:
This month’s reading links
More evidence of time travel via the history of art. (Artnet, free)
An insight into the making of the Aurora album for the Daisy Jones TV adaptation. (Rolling Stone, free)
Taylor Jenkins Reid shares which books have most impacted her life. (The Guardian, free)
If you love music too, this interactive data set is fascinating and explores how many hit songs are actually written (rather than just performed by) women. (The Pudding, free)
On the concept of music medicine. (The Guardian, free)
To make you laugh: A Guided Tour Of The Human Discovery Exhibit, from a future where ants rule the Earth. (Medium, free)
An interview with Kate Summerscale on The Suspicions Of Mr. Whicher. (The Guardian, free)
Another way of trying to time travel, just a little? Ancient Romans brought back holiday souvenirs. This article explains more and also considers the importance of these seemingly trivial items. (Aeon, free)
Do you speak more than one language? If so, do you dream in your other language(s)? This article explores dreaming in different languages. (BBC, free)
An article which explores the imperfect nature of translation, much like The Map Of Love. (LitHub, free)
For those of you who are more in the mood for listening this month:
Newletter favourite Sentimental Garbage discusses The Camomile Lawn:
And Daisy Jones And The Six:
Thanks for reading!
As always, I’m grateful to each and every one of you who subscribes, free or paid. I know we all have such crowded inboxes these days and I feel so lucky to be sharing the joys of reading with you like this. I would love to hear from you - what have you been reading recently? Have you read or watched any of the books I've covered this month? Let me know in the comments. I’ll be back next month with a new theme and more reading joy.
Happy reading!
Kate
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