The Familiars by Stacey Halls

9 group members met, on Zoom, to discuss our latest read: The Familiars by Stacey Halls. After a short chat about life in lock down we dismissed the 'Reading Group Questions' provided at the end of the book, just before the advertisement (oh, exlusive extract) for The Foundling by Stacey Halls and got straight into lively conversation and debate. 

We kicked off with a classic Ashendon Book Group diversionary tactic: "I didn't want to read a book on the subject, so I read The Foundling instead! and really enjoyed it". So, let's reconsider dismissal of aforementioned ad. and give it a go sometime. 

The comment was met with the reassurance that the book was more about misogeny than witchcraft. We didn't get into deeper discussion on this obervation other than to log the fact that (male) doctors did not like losing business to midwives and that it was less about witchcraft than about relationships. Following the meeting I googled 'misogeny and witchcraft 1612' and up popped this: 

https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-67763).

Back to the book: the story is based in the year 1612 and is about a young woman (aged 17), married to Richard Shuttleworth since the age of 13. Richard is a wealthy and successful local man, with realistic aspirations to be in Parliament and who needs an heir! Fleetwood has had several miscarriages and is desparate to have a child with Richard whom she loves very much. The story does touch on how this situation impacts their relationship but the main focus is on Fleetwood's relationship with a local midwife.

Although based on a true story, Stacey Halls makes no secret that this book is fiction. So Fleetwood is presented as a feisty girl who gallops around the county on a horse, with a huge dog in tow, and makes day trips to Lancaster (about 40 miles away) - this in itself is improbable and Fleetwood was heavily pregnant at the time! It made the story interesting but some of our group found 'flying in the face of historical reality' frustrating. Those of the group who wanted more historical fact were disappointed. This is not an historical novel. It is almost as if the author wanted Fleetwood to be living in modern times. 

There were though 'nods' to history, such as references to travelling players performing Shakespeare (including the popular Macbeth) but overall the book failed to give insight or conclude the purpose of 'the nod'. It feels as if the author has a few bits of information from her visits to Gawthorpe Hall and Wikepedia and has dropped them into a story with no clear purpose.

Going back to this not being an historical novel, there was a feeling that more insight to the Pendle Witch Trials would not have gone amiss. Compared to Year of Wonders by Anna Frith, another 'not historical novel' based on historical fact that we have read as a group, we felt that The Familiars lacked depth. Even the concept of Familiars was inadequately explained or followed through in the story - we imagined they are similar to Phillip Pullmans Demons - luckily we had already read that!

Interesting fact from Sue: In 1652, George Fox (Founder of The Quakers) climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire, where he had a vision of a “great people to be gathered” waiting for him. The beginning of the Society of Friends (Quakers) is usually dated from the day, soon afterwards, when Fox preached to large crowds on Firbank Fell, near Sedbergh, in Cumbria. We wonder what drew him to Pendle Hill?

Would we recommend this book? No, unless you don't want to know about the witch thing and are looking for an beach read. It is luke warm and there are better books to use your time on. 

The group did not agree on the book as a 'good read', one reader felt it was a 'page turner' and couldn't put it down (despite it not giving what she wanted), others felt it 'dragged on'; was 'longer than expected' and one member of our group even fell asleep while reading it. Then we had: 'I wouldn't choose to read another book by the same author', followed by 'Oh I would!' and 'The Foundlings is a good read'.

We couldn't choose between 2 of the 3 books proposed for our next read so we are going to read both and meet again in 6 weeks on Zoom (or possibly in small groups + Zoom). So our next reads are: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires and A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson and we will meet to discuss these on 6th August. 

Book Choices for SUMMER 2020

Here are our choices for what could be a very hot Summer.

Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

In this crackling debut collection Nafissa Thompson-Spires interrogates our supposedly post-racial era. To wicked and devastating effect she exposes the violence, both external and self-inflicted, that threatens black Americans, no matter their apparent success.

A teenager is insidiously bullied as her YouTube following soars; an assistant professor finds himself losing a subtle war of attrition against his office mate; a nurse is worn down by the demand for her skills as a funeral singer. And across a series of stories, a young woman grows up, negotiating and renegotiating her identity.

Heads of the Colored People shows characters in crisis, both petty and catastrophic. It marks the arrival of a remarkable writer and an essential and urgent new voice.

The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman's struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist--and confidante--to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own...

Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow--a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.

A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson

A popular science book about bumblebees and about life as a field biologist.

Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees.

Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee is now extinct in the UK, but still exists in the wilds of New Zealand, descended from a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century.

A Sting in the Tale tells the story of Goulson’s passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land and contains groundbreaking research into these curious creatures, history’s relationship with the bumblebee, the disastrous effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path.

Here is some good news:

https://www.hugofox.com/community/ashendon-parish-council-10421/news/buckinghamshire-libraries-launch-new-request-collect-service-36642

We will meet to discuss our current read: The Familiars by Stacey Halls at 8.15pm on Thursday 25th June, by ZOOM. Before then I'll be:

The Switch by Beth O'Leary

9 of us met via Zoom for yet another lively discussion about our shared reading experience of what was declared: an enjoyable pleasant piece of Chick Lit. 

Despite comments such as “I wouldn’t put literature in the same sentence!” and “it’s one for the beach” and “well, there were no surprises”, we all agreed this was a refreshing book by a young author and all the better that she is an Oxford Graduate in English Literature!

Beth took a nice approach, showing how a young person thinks and cares about the elderly, and she handled the subject of bereavement well.

One of our group declared her love of ‘Chick Lit’ (describing it as her ‘dirty’ secret) and gave us a break down of the formulas for success. This book met much of the criteria, and the writing wasn’t awful, so she gave it ‘middle of the road’ classification and a thumbs up.

Those of our group who had already enjoyed her first novel ‘Flat Share’ felt that was a better story and, perhaps her editors had put her under pressure to produce The Switch. 

Overall we felt this was a good choice for ‘lock down’ reading in the garden and would recommend it to anyone as a nice bit of light reading. 

Our next book is The Familiars by Stacey Halls, which we will discuss on Thursday 25th June, at 8.15pm, on Zoom. 

Reading Choices as Lock Down Eases a Little

We will meet for the third time (where did that time go?) by Zoom on Thursday 21st May, for our virtual meeting.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

A tender and humane dissection of what happens to a relationship when unforeseen events conspire to sabotage it. Tayari Jones’ handling of her protagonists’ emotions is a masterclass in authentic characterisation whilst the story subtly probes issues of race and justice with a piercing emotional intelligence and colossal heart.

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. Until one day they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit.

Devastated and unmoored, Celestial finds herself struggling to hold on to the love that has been her centre, taking comfort in Andre, their closest friend. When Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, he returns home ready to resume their life together.

A masterpiece of storytelling, An American Marriage offers a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three unforgettable characters who are at once bound together and separated by forces beyond their control.

Novel On Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith

Stevie's alter ego Pompey is young, in love and working as a secretary for the magnificent Sir Phoebus Ullwater. In between making coffee and typing letters for Sir Phoebus, Pompey scribbles down - on yellow office paper - her quirky thoughts. Her flights of imagination take in Euripedes, sex education, Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church, shattering conventions in their wake.

The Familiars by Stacey Halls 

Strikingly evoking the heartland of seventeenth-century industrial Lancashire, Stacey Halls’ accomplished debut is a haunting novel of two women struggling to fight against the expectation and superstition of their age. Told with an infectious passion for the period, Halls’ blend of compelling plot and vividly drawn landscape crafts an unforgettable story of bewitching power.
In a time of suspicion and accusation, to be a woman is the greatest risk of all...

Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir.

When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn't supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong.

As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the north-west, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Soon the two women's lives will become inextricably bound together as the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood's stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake. Only they know the truth. Only they can save each other.

We will meet to discuss our current read: The Switch by Beth O'Leary at 8pm on Thursday 21st May, by ZOOM.

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

Ten of us met on ZOOM to discuss our 'lock-down' reading of this very short memoir of time spent in the countryside. Once again we all agreed that this was a great read. We loved it.

This is a perfect book group read, and one that few of us would have read had it not been a group choice. Some of our group watched the film, made in 1987, starring Colin Firth being very Colin Firth - it wasn't well liked!

The book though is exquisite. The writing style is accessible and matter of fact. There is a lot to read in every sentence and it is an easy read. The descriptions are beautiful and the humour wonderful. It tells the story of two young men returned from the trenches of WW1 who find specialist work in a small Yorkshire village. The story alludes to many things about the 'war experience' in a subtle and gentle manner, and it doesn't dwell on things.

There is no plot and there is no reason to 'rush' through the 100 pages and yet it is a page turner.

The timing of this read gave us the opportunity to reflect on our own experience of 'lock-down' in a small village. We are in a small universe, just like Oxgodby, we can function without the big wide world and we are finding just how therapeutic the countryside can be. It is easy to imagine now how much good the pace and community of a small village would have been for two city dwelling men, broken by war, to spend some time in. Our French member brought our conversation to a lovely close by announcing 'I love the English countryside in the Summer.' Our Australian member agreed and the rest of didn't dispute it!

Our next read will be The Switch by Beth O'Leary and we will meet in a month, once again virtually, on 21st May at 8.15 pm. After our rather abrupt enforced ending of this meeting, a use of full ZOOM account has been offered and Sue will set us up and send invites.

Until then here's a little about J.L. Carr from a resident of Ashendon who knew him:

40 years ago, I was an undertaker, working in the family business, in Kettering , Northamptonshire: the county of "Squires and Spires". I did meet Carr from time to time on various funerals. But that was not where we first became acquainted. The local art shop 'Dinsdales', a frequent haunt of mine, was full of prints, tints and watercolours of local  Churches, some with stupendous skyscraping skylons, others, with squat towers as if trying to fold back into the countryside and hide for fear of offending the county's signature edifices Among these pictures I first came across some print oddities, described by the proprietor thus: “ That's by Carr, he does them himself, he used to be a local headmaster.”

It  cost more to frame, than to buy his prints... Unlike The Dan Dare print hanging next to Carr’s, by local Cartoonist Frank  Bellamy (who had just died) and was described  as a  “Renown Nationally Newspaper Illustrator”. His proofs fetched hundreds. But I preferred the idiosyncratic J.L. Carr.

Kettering was then, a boot and shoe town. The headquarters of the British Shoe and Allied Trades Research Centre (SATRA) was and still is based there today, as are the scatterings of some high brand boots and shoes manufacturers. If you look at Kettering's coat of arms, you'll notice a slave with a broken manacle and a leather hide. That's where it all started, the leather industry, a rural economy, marked by  a strong allegiances  to  non-conformism. Everywhere countryside. a massive park donated by the local engineer and philanthropist Charles Wicksteed vies on It's outskirts with a massive private estate belonging to Britain's largest (by acreage) landowner. Then even more rolling countryside.

So hopefully, you've now got the picture of a market town with little to distinguish it from rolling acres of countryside but Carey the Baptist, Knibb the freer of slaves, Wicksteed park, possibly the Duke of Buccleuch , an incredibly inspiring spire and an awful lot of footwear.

Gently undulating hills on vast tracts of farmland in Northants. separate a half a dozen very large towns. Few villages, means  traveling  several Miles between settlements is not unusual.
Kettering was a self important fish of a town in a modest pond.  It felt bigger than it was.  Surrounding villages were exceptionally modest despite being endowed with churches of outstanding character, full of under appreciated architectural gifts that  took the talent of J.L. Carr to prevent them being obliterated by time and vandalism and lost from consciousness .

He took on his own mission, to prevent one particular local, yet remote and derelict village church from bring made redundant. In this, the ex-teacher partially failed, though not to annoy church authorities. But that church, who’s actual fabric he helped preserve became a field centre and another local church followed suit to become a training school for stonemasons, something else that Carr turned his eccentric attentions too.

A curate of that aforementioned Kettering Church , with the landscape dominating Spire, who self importance had obvious rubbed off on himself, visited JL Carr at home. Carr had carved some statues at the church out of old curb stones to replace ones lost in the reformation. Despite my curate friend’s right wing pretensions, he was very offended when Carr concentrated his energies on trying to get him to purchase some of his prints, disdaining just how small Carr’s bedroom cum print shop was.

It would have been water off a ducks back. Carr was used to disdain. Have a look at his Wikipedia entry, where he described himself.

If you have any doubt about his interest, indeed passion for church architecture, compare two of his prints below hanging in my house.

The quirky Northants. map left ; then the print of local Northampton-shire church stone work (The Soke of Peterborough was part of Northants., pre-boundary changes).

Enlarged sections of both follow below.

I hope you can enjoy this additional glimpse into J.L. Carr .

You may like to add him to that list of Kettering’s distinguishing graces...

Richard (Phillips)

Reading Choices to Lighten Up Unprecedented Times

We will meet for the second time by Zoom on Thursday 23rd April, for our virtual meeting. Our book choices are the result of Sue's research into 'uplifting' books for a period of lockdown. Here they are:

What Ho!: The Best of Wodehouse: The Best of P.G.Wodehouse 

We all know Jeeves and Wooster, but which is the best Jeeves story?
We all know Blandings, but which is the funniest tale about Lord Emsworth and his adored prize-winning pig? And would the best of Ukridge, or the yarns of the Oldest Member, or Wodehouse's Hollywood stories outdo them? This bumper anthology allows you to choose, bringing you the cream of the crop of stories by the twentieth century's greatest humorous writer.

There are favourites aplenty in this selection, which has been compiled with enthusiastic support from P.G. Wodehouse societies around the world. With additional material including novel extracts, working drafts, articles, letters and poems, this anthology provides the best overall celebration of side-splitting humour and sheer good nature available in the pages of any book.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov – recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt – is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol.

But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely.

While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary

Leena is too young to feel stuck.
Eileen is too old to start over.
Maybe it's time for The Switch...

Ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, Leena escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Newly single and about to turn eighty, Eileen would like a second chance at love. But her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen... So Leena proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love, and Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire.

But with a rabble of unruly OAPs to contend with, as well as the annoyingly perfect - and distractingly handsome - local schoolteacher, Leena learns that switching lives isn't straightforward. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, and with the online dating scene. But is her perfect match nearer to home than she first thought?


We will meet to discuss our current read: A Month in the Country by JL Carr at 8pm on Thursday 23rd April, by ZOOM.  Jitsi was also suggested as an alternative to Zoom because it offers unlimited time, but having sent details out to various members of our group by various methods I was concerned someone would get missed if we changed tack this time. So, the meeting will only last 40 minutes, limited by the software licence so please try to join 5 minutes before, with choice of beverage to hand, so we can make a prompt start. We can always take a quick break and start another session if we need/want to. And let's discuss the Jitsi option if we have time, hopefully I will have managed to test it between now and then.

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

A dynamic book group meeting was had this week. I reckon that's the best word to describe how our little group stood up to COVID-19: by being positive in attitude and full of energy and new ideas. The new idea turned out to be a complete success and we held our first ever 'virtual' book group meeting.

Sorry Sue - we know you were there.

Following the national clap for our NHS, 7 of us logged into Zoom and had a lively discussion about our most recent read 'Prisoners of Geography'.

And thanks to Zoom giving us a special gift of unlimited time we were able to natter on for more than our allocated 40 minutes!

Everyone agreed that this book is brilliant. We thought it might be heavy going, we expected it to be a challenging read and perhaps a bit technical. It was none of those things, it is a very well written, thoroughly enjoyable book full of facts and clear explanation of world history and geopolitics.

Our conversation started with Russian Politics and ended with homelessness in Aylesbury! In between we explored the Middle East, Africa, Europe, America, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Japan and Korea.

There is so much information between the two covers that, we agreed, it is impossible to take it all in. This is a book to dip in and out of and one to read more than once.

Do we recommend it? yes, of course, and we hope that Tim Marshall updates it too because we need his take on the world after Trump.

Our next book is A Month in the Country by J.L Carr and we will review our read in April. I have set up a Zoom meeting for 8.10pm on Thursday 23rd April. If you haven't received an invite and would like to join in please let me (Sian) know.