A Retired Rector's Reflections

I enjoy looking at lists of books. There seem to be no end of them being produced. Lists of prize winning books, lists of influential books, lists of forgotten books, and so on. All very interesting, I find.

I have a record of all the novels I’ve read since I was a student at Cambridge, so many years ago. There is a gap from 2010 to 2017 when I lost the notebook with the books listed and was so annoyed I didn’t get another – and then wonder of wonders it reappeared!

One of the interesting things about the list as I look back over it is how books chimed with where I was in life, or indicate how pressured life was. I notice that after a difficult few months it seems Agatha Christie pulled me out, and when things are more settled I tackled weighter works.

I have my own list. I give a star to a book which makes a great, sometimes unexpected, impact on me at the time. Its not saying this is a great work, although it may be. It is more saying the novel ‘spoke to me’ deeply at the time of reading, and helped me grow in understanding or wisdom. The list is actually quite short. The first to receive a star from me was way back in 1979 when I starred George Mackay Brown’s Magnus. I’ve just given a star to Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s Ice. Before that in May 2024 Paul Lynch’s Booker winning Prophet Song received a star. It so helped me understand how human trafficking and displacement of people can happen to everyday people. Before that I have to go back six years to my next starred book – Ruth Hogan’s The Keeper of Lost Things.

Its a curious list, some of the books are relatively unheard of, and I’d not necessarily recommend the books today. Lundberg’s book won the Finlandia Prize, and the author is Finnish, writing in Swedish. Set in 1946 in a windswept island off the coast of Finland, and clearly drawing on the author’s own experiences, the novel gently tells of life in a frugal, isolated community. A community in which the seasons and the weather are so important to everyday life. The detail creates for us a mindset and view of life so distant from busy city life today. Therein, perhaps, is a reason why it appealed so strongly to me, having retired from busy city life to a simpler and quieter life in north east England.

And so Ulla-Lena Lundberg’s book joins my list of starred books, I don’t necessarily recommend it to all, but I’d be fascinated to know what others who read it think of it, (you are welcome to add a comment below). For me the book, so well translated, will remain long in my memory.