My Year in Books 2022: March

After a bit of a strange month for reading in February, I think I've managed a bit better this time. There are three books on my March list, so that's a definite improvement. Like last month, I did read some other books for work and review this month, but the books in this post are the one I read for fun.

In case you're interested, here are my other review posts from 2022 so far: January, February

Daffodil: Biography of a Flower by Helen O'Neill (2016)

I bought this book to read during our Vernal Equinox celebrations. I knew I was going to be thinking about daffodils a lot in the run-up to the equinox (as it turned out, I underestimated how much) so I thought this might be an interesting book to read. And I was right! It was the perfect choice of seasonal reading, and a really fascinating study of a flower that, perhaps, we sometimes take for granted. O’Neill’s book includes some history of daffodils, but this is sometimes vague by necessity. It seems that there is still a lot that isn’t known about the daffodil, including whether or not it is actually native to Britain. There’s also some botanical information here, and I will say that it helps to do a little bit of light background reading if you’re not familiar with how daffodils actually grow and reproduce. Where the book really comes into its own is when it looks at how the story of the daffodil intersects with more human stories, like the background of the more famous daffodil hybridizers or the ways in which gardening tastes and habits have changed. Some stories are intriguing; other episodes in the daffodil story are still shrouded in obscurity or lost to time. Ultimately though, after reading the book, I was left with the feeling that daffodils matter, that their story is a significant and revealing of something bigger than just a pretty spring flower. And, surely, that’s what a good biography should do.

Asta's Book by Barbara Vine (1993)

The next book I read this month was a reread. And a frequent one at that! Given the difficulties I found last month with reading, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to something I know I’ll love. Asta’s Book is one of my favourite novels of all time. When I first read it in the late 90s, I just fell in love with it and couldn’t put it down. And this time – the umpteenth time I’ve read it – I finished it in a single (albeit rather long) sitting. Asta’s Book is a multi-narrative, multi-generational, domestic mystery novel. The ‘book’ of the title is a diary kept by a Danish woman – Asta Westerby – between 1905 and 1967. After Asta’s death, her daughter Swanny discovers the diaries and has them published to great acclaim; after Swanny’s death, the guardianship of the diaries falls to Asta’s granddaughter Ann. There are two mysteries here: the first is the mystery of Asta’s daughter’s birth, a question that plagued Swanny in her later years, and the second is an unsolved murder from the early twentieth century. Ann believes the answers to both lie in Asta’s diaries. This summary really doesn’t do justice to the depth and intricacy of Vine’s storytelling, or the way in which narratives weave around one another before the final answers leap out with startling clarity. If I could, I would erase all my memories of this book, so I could read it again for the first time.

All Her Fault by Andrea Mara (2021)

This one was an impulse purchase at the supermarket. I read Andrea Mara’s One Click a while ago, and I liked the writing, even though the ending was a little far-fetched. Mara’s books are domestic thrillers, and I have a strange relationship with that genre. It frustrates me intensely (no matter how ‘mind-blowing’ a twist is promised, it’s almost always that the husband did it), and I’ve read a lot of books in this genre that I really haven’t enjoyed. And yet – I keep coming back, and I’m not even fighting it anymore. Fortunately, Mara really is a good writer, and I found All Her Fault just as readable and enjoyable (in fact, probably more so) than One Click. The story revolves around a kidnapping. Middle-class Marissa seems to have everything sorted, but when she arrives at a friend’s house to collect her son from a playdate, her world falls apart. Not only is her son not there, but it turns out the text arranging the playdate wasn’t sent by her friend. Marissa’s son has been kidnapped, and the race is on to find out where he is. The book shifts between multiple perspectives: Marissa, Jenny (the friend who was supposed to be holding the playdate) and a couple of others that I won’t reveal for fear of spoilers. It’s a fun read, and with hindsight Mara plants a lot of clues to the big reveal along the way. But you might not put them together correctly until the end!