The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic (by Sophie Kinsella)

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It’s nearly twenty years since I put aside my prejudice against so-called ‘chicklit’, and started reading books by the late Sophie Kinsella. Yes, they’re quick, easy reads. Yes, the characters can be irritatingly naive or irresponsible. But they get under my skin… and the writing is excellent, with quite a lot of ironic humour. So I decided it was time to reread them. 

I started with the author’s best-known book, ‘The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic’, which I first read in 2009. I had remembered the outline: Rebecca Bloomwood is a compulsive shopper who gets more and more into debt and ignores letters from her bank and credit card companies. But I hadn’t remembered any of the details, or how the book ends.

The narrative, told in the present tense by Becky herself, is interspersed with letters from her bank manager. She blames her problem on having been given a generous overdraft when she started work, which she’s never managed to pay off. And she is addicted, in a way I find hard to understand, to shopping. 

First term at Malory Towers (by Enid Blyton)

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I finished rereading the ‘St Clare’s’ series by Enid Blyton in March last year, and decided to take a break from Blyton books for a while. But I spotted the Malory Towers books on my shelves; they were my absolute favourite as a teenager, when I would read them yearly. I realised that I did reread ‘First term at Malory Towers’ as recently as December 2022, but I didn’t subsequently read most of the rest of the series. So I decided to start over. 

Despite having read this book probably dozens of times over the past fifty-five years, I had forgotten the early chapters, and a lot of the details. So I enjoyed it over again. It’s a quick read - intended for girls aged 9-11 originally, with around 150 pages. I’m not sure quite why I like these books so much; they’re not the greatest writing, and are somewhat formulaic. Many of the characters are somewhat caricatured, too.

But they’re still good stories, at least in my view. This one features 12-year-old Darrell Rivers, who is a new girl at a boarding school in Cornwall, Malory Towers. We see her saying goodbye to her mother at the railway station, then meeting some of the girls in her form on the way there. She’s a fairly sensible girl who has been looking forward to going to this school for a long time. 

The Atlas of love (by Laurie Frankel)

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The first book I read by Laurie Frankel was ‘This is how it always is’. I liked it so much, and thought it so thought-provoking that I recommended it for our local book group, and then read it again. I decided to put one or two more of the author’s books on my wishlist, and was given ‘The Atlas of love’... for Christmas 2023. I don’t know why I didn’t read it sooner, but at last I picked it up to read a few days ago.

The story is narrated by a young woman called Janey who is a graduate student in the United States. That means that she does some studying, writes papers, and also teaches some classes. Her subject is English Literature, and on the whole she enjoys teaching. 

But the story opens with a kind of prequel, when Janey, as a six-year-old, finds a baby in some foliage in a hotel. She’s with her grandmother, who insists that the story - the rest of the novel - starts then. Janey thinks it begins when she meets Jill, and other people have other ideas.

Red sky at night (by Jane Aiken Hodge)

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I don’t know why I left it so long before rereading my novels by Jane Aiken Hodge. I last read ‘Red sky at night’ in November 2006 - nearly two decades ago. Still, an advantage of the long gap is that I had totally forgotten the storyline, and the people. The plot kept me guessing almost until the end. I had no memory at all of any of the twists and turns in this historical novel.

It’s set in the early part of the 19th century, in a fictional county on the south coast of England, approximating, I believe, to Sussex or Rye. Smugglers are rife; in the first chapter a lone horseman is accosted, apparently by smugglers. They recognise the rider, who is allowed to proceed, but then the rider comes across some children - two teenagers and a child - who seem to be lost. 

The children, it turns out, have discovered a secret passageway from their house, but they can’t manage to get back in. And when they do, they find that their father, the rather temperamental Lord Hawth, has returned from a journey and is very angry with them.

A prize for Sister Catherine (by Kathleen Rowntree)

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I’m quite enjoying rereading my books by Kathleen Rowntree. But I was in two minds about whether to reread ‘A prize for Sister Catherine’, which I last read twenty-five years ago, in 2001. That’s because although I had totally forgotten the story, I did remember that it was my least favourite of all her books.

But my opinions sometimes change, so I decided to go ahead with a reread. It’s set in a convent, and there’s a large number of nuns mentioned; I never really sorted them out in my mind, as they all feel rather two-dimensional. I recognised them, if at all, due to their roles. 

The book opens when an elderly prioress, who is not in the greatest of health, decides to appoint two younger nuns as joint ‘directrix’. Catherine is quite spiritually minded, and cares for other people. But Margaret is fast-thinking and a good manager. The convent is struggling financially and some changes have to be made if they are to keep going. The prioress hopes that, by appointing both these women, there will be a balance of increased efficiency and continued prayer and devotion.