January 27

Decades: Compiling The Ultimate Library with Heather J. Fitt

It was this very week in 2021 that I launched my Decades quest. So before we go any further I’d like to wish the Decades Library a very happy second birthday. Little did I suspect my quest to compile one of the best digital libraries would still be ongoing after all this time. Despite a couple of unplanned breaks in the second half of last year (demands of the day job) I have been honoured to host so many incredible guests here at Grab This Book – each prepared to give up some of their time to talk about the books they love.  I am beyond grateful for their kindness and the time they gave to keep the Decades Library growing.

But perhaps this is your first visit to the Decades Library?  You are very welcome, please let me explain what’s about to happen.  I set myself a challenge two years ago. If I had a brand new library which had no books on any of its empty shelves, which books should I bring to the Library to ensure it only offered the very best books to readers?

I quickly realised that I could not answer that question alone so I enlisted some help. Authors, bloggers, publishers, journalists have joined me over the last two years and nominated their favourite “unmissable” books which they think the very best library should offer. But I don’t just ask them to pick books at random – I made up rules.  Two rules to be exact and this is why I refer to my library as the Decades Library.

1 – Pick Any Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade Over Any Five Consecutive Decades

Easy!  Or is it?  Have a go at making your five selections and see how quickly you can nail down all five from five consecutive decades.  It’s not by accident that after two years I still haven’t managed to make my own five choices.

But enough of my rambling, it is time for me to give way and allow my first guest of 2023 to take the floor. This week sees the publication of Heather J. Fitt’s second novel (The Flight) so what better time to let Heather tell you about five of her favourite books….

 

Heather was born in Scotland and after moving around Europe with her parents and sister, settled in Hampshire where she met her husband, Stuart.

After leaving the rat-race in 2018, Heather re-trained as an editor and proof-reader and entered the world of publishing. These days she works as a part-time freelancer and a part-time Commissioning Advisor for Bloodhound.

Heather was inspired to start writing her novel by the authors who have become her closest friends. Now the ideas are flowing she has plans to write several more over the coming years.

Her debut novel, Open Your Eyes, was published in 2022 by Bloodhound Books, and her latest, The Flight, was published on 26th January 2023.

You can get Heather’s books here:

Open Your Eyes geni.us/OpenYourEyes_

The Flight https://geni.us/TheFlightCover

And Heather is online at all these places:

Twitter: @HeatherJFitt

Instagram: @heatherjfitt

Facebook: Heather J. Fitt Author

TikTok: @heatherjfitt

DECADES

 

1980s – The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

This is a book I borrowed from someone at school, and, despite its length, I devoured. It’s also one of the few books I’ve read several times over.

 

 

 

 

 

1990s – 13 More Tales of Horror by Various Authors

 

This is a bit of a cheat. I was a teenager is the 1990s – well, for most of them – and I LOVED all of the Point Horror books, so this anthology really represents all of them!

 

 

 

 

 

2000s – On Writing by Stephen King

 

I read this one in the last few years. I’m sure many people will have picked it, but it really is an excellent book and it’s not just for writers.

 

 

 

 

 

2010s – Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

To me, this is one of the best and most important fiction books that discusses domestic violence. To this day, the character Lee terrifies me.

 

 

 

 

 

2020s – Razorblade Tears by SA Cosby

 

Shawn Cosby is a fairly new author on the block, but when I read this last year I knew I was going to read everything he ever wrote. I would say it’s a book of our time, and don’t forget, “love is love”.

 

 

 

 

Brilliant! Five great selections to kick off the new season of Decades. I am always delighted to see horror stories added to the Library shelves (and we don’t have many short story collections) so the Point Horror collection made me happy.

My memory is awful but is this the first time a book has made it into the Library which was written by a former Library Curator? Elizabeth Haynes made her five selections last year and now Into The Darkest Corner has found its way onto the Library shelves. I would be greatful if someone with a better memory than mine can tell me if this is indeed the first time this has happened. Then I look at Razorblade Tears and it reminds me that Mr Cosby is very high on my wishlist of future guests – he just doesn’t know it yet. Does anyone want to warn him?

My thanks to Heather for these wonderful reading recommendaitions. Don’t forget to pick up your copy of her brand new book The Flight – published this very week: The Flight https://geni.us/TheFlightCover

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

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August 26

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Michael J Malone

It has been a busy old time here at Chez Grab and reviews have been scarce. Even more frustrating is that Decades has not been updating each week as I would like. Time to put that to right – a return of Decades and a return to Friday too. But before we get to my guest curator I feel it is time to recap what the Decades Library is all about.

In January 2021 I began a mission. I had a virtual library. Empty shelves and the goal I set myself was to find the very best books to put onto those empty shelves. Where to start?  My limited field of reading meant I was not the best person to decide which books were “the best” so I decided to ask booklovers to help me fill the shelves of my Ultimate Library. Over the last 20 months I have been joined by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists who have all selected their favourite books which they want to add to my Decades Library.

Why did an Ultimate Library become a Decades Library? That is down to the two rules I ask each of my guests to follow when they make their selections:

1 – Select ANY five books
2 – Each Guest May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

Sounds easy! I am told choosing just five books is tricky – I am also told that narrowing down five books from a fifty year publication span is even more tricky.

Taking on the challenge this week is my friend Michael Malone (with a J). Michael is the reason Grab This Book came into being back in 2014, it was his influence which led me to my first ever author event (the guest speaker was Jenny Colgan) and he also gave me the first opportunity to read a book which wasn’t a shop bought copy – it was actually one of his novels on a CD-ROM if you remember them?

It is with great pleasure that I pass the Decades Curator hat to Michael J Malone…

 

Michael J Malone is the author of over 200 published poems, two poetry collections, four novels, countless articles and one work of non-fiction.

Formerly a Faber and Faber Regional Sales Manager (Scotland and North England), he has judged and critiqued many poetry, short story and novel competitions for a variety of organisations and was the Scottish correspondent for Writers’ Forum.

Michael is an experienced workshop leader/ creative writing lecturer to writers’ groups, schools and colleges as well as a personal coach and mentor. He has a Certificate in Life Coaching and studied as a facilitator with The Pacific Institute.

He is a regular speaker and chair at book festivals throughout the country – including Aye Write, Bloody Scotland, Crimefest and Wigtown.

Michael can found online at: https://mjmink.wordpress.com

and his books can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-J-Malone/e/B009WV9V4Y/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

 

DECADES

 

It’s a near impossible task to pick not only five favourite books, but five from different decades – indeed, on any other day I sat down to compile this I might have chosen another five. What has surprised me as I read over my compilation is the number of historical books I’ve chosen. What doesn’t surprise me is that each of these books affected me deeply as I read them – an impact that has lasted to this day.

 

1970’s – Roots – Alex Haley

I remember walking to school reading this book as I walked: I literally could not put it down. As anyone who was alive during this period can testify, Roots was a social and cultural phenomenon.

It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America; it follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley, the author. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to it being a sensation in the United States. The novel spent forty-six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including twenty-two weeks at number one.

Haley acknowledged that the book was a work of “faction” with many of the detailed incidents in the book being works of the imagination, but the main facts of the story were based on his research. An approach I copied when I wrote my 2014 novel The Guillotine Choice.

 

 

1980’s – The Lost Get Back Boogie – James Lee Burke

It was while in the audience listening to John Connolly talk at Harrogate Crime Fiction Festival that I first heard of JLB. Mr Connolly said, talking about the man’s greatness – when James Lee Burke dies, the rest of us move up one.

This is JLB’s fourth published novel – and it was rejected 111 times over a nine year period before going on to be published – only to be subsequently nominated for The Pulitzer. (There’s a morale here for any aspiring authors reading this.)

But the book. Recently paroled from prison, Iry Paret, a young Louisiana blues musician, settles in with fellow ex-convict Buddy Riordan and Riordan’s family on a sprawling Montana ranch and becomes drawn into a tragic conflict involving the family and their neighbours.

No one writes about nature like JLB. And few people write about the darkness in the human heart like him either. There is a layer of melancholy running throughout the narrative – a contemplation on loss – the loss of roots (as Paret moves from Louisiana to Montana), loss of innocence, loss of opportunities and loss of time. The hills of Montana are given the same lush and lyrical treatment that Burke would later provide to the bayous of Louisiana in the Robicheaux series.

 

1990’s The Power of One – Bryce Courteney

Set in South Africa in the 1930s and 40s , The Power of One is a coming-of-age story of “Peekay”, an innocent English boy who very early in his life realizes that there are greater things at stake than the hatred between the Dutch Afrikaners and the English – the Second World War in Europe, the growing racial tensions and the beginning of apartheid will influence his world and challenge his spiritual strength.

Even though the odds are stacked against Peekay from the start, he never loses faith in the goodness of people and following the advice of several memorable mentors, he sets out to work towards his dream of becoming a boxing world champion.

This was one of those “lucky” finds I came across in my local library – a debut novel, by an unknown (to me anyway) and one that I went on to recommend to everyone I met. Chances are if I met you around this time I would have frog-marched you to the nearest bookshop to buy yourself a copy.  I found Peekay to be such an inspirational character that I even read the book in the week preceeding a job interview I was going for – if Peekay could survive everything he faced then I could deal with my nerves over the presentation I had to give for this job. (I didn’t get the job, btw – but I did manage to control my nervousness.)

 

2000’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

Set between the 1930s,and the present, Maggie O’Farrell’s novel is the story of Esme, a woman removed from her family’s history, and of the secrets that come to light when, sixty years later, she is released from an asylum, and a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt no one in the family knew even existed. The mystery that unfolds is the heart-rending tale of two sisters in India and 1930s Edinburgh – of the loneliness that connects them and the rivalries that drive them apart – and towards a terrible betrayal.

Beautiful writing, characters to fall in love with and insight into (recent) historical attitudes towards women this is a book that deeply affected me and made me a huge fan of the author – as soon as her latest book is published it goes to the top of my TBR pile. (Hamnet, for example is A-MAY-ZING.)

 

 

 

 

2010’s The Orenda – Joseph Boyden

I heard the author being interviewed about this book on Radio Scotland while I was travelling between bookshops (I was a sales manager for Faber at the time) and I just had to buy the book from the next bookshop I went into. (You could be forgiven for thinking that my connection with Orenda Books was what made me seek this novel out, but if memory serves it was a few months after this when I heard Karen Sullivan was setting up a new publishing house, and calling it Orenda. Btw – according to the book, this is the name that the Iroquois gave to a spiritual energy that they say connects all living things.)

This historical epic is set in the mid-1600s in Huronia (part of Canada) at a time when the Hurons and the Iroquois are involved in skirmishes – just as the Jesuits arrive and begin their attempts to convert the natives to Christianity. A member of each of these three groups serves as a narrator: Bird is the warrior leader of the Wendat (Huron) nation; Snow Falls is a young Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) girl whom Bird captures and adopts in retaliation for the Iroquois killing his wife and daughters; and Christophe is a priest, whom the Hurons call Crow, who has come to convert the “sauvages” to Catholicism.

What follows is a gripping and at times brutal tale with rich and fascinating detail about the lives of the natives of this ancient land. Boyden has written a balanced narrative between the indigene and the coloniser – no one is guilty, no is innocent – they simply act in accordance with their beliefs and the habits of their people – leaving you, the reader to be the judge (please take note current crop of TV and film writers – let the characters demonstrate the unfairness of a thing rather than wagging your finger at us.)

The times in which this book is set are carefully and convincingly detailed. This is a book of love of family and friends, full of captivating descriptions of the beauty of the natural world they inhabit, acts of kindness and sacrifice, and vivid descriptions of torture and death – all the extremes of human nature are here. It’s a book that portrays the beginning of the end of a way of life, while another form of civilisation works at taking over. It is sobering, and powerful.

 

 

Thanks Michael. Every review on this blog can be traced back to the days we worked in Bellshill and the event in Ayr where your invitation to attend the writing group event opened my eyes to a side of books I had never known. All the books I have been trusted to read by publishers and authors, all the events I attend (and blog or tweet about) and all the opportunities I have been offered to participate in (reading groups, podcast guest, a Nibbies Judge, interviewing authors at their book launch) all thanks to that early support and encouragement. Thank you.

 

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

 

Category: Decades, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off on Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Michael J Malone