The Three Books I Read Over Christmas

The title of this post makes it sounds as though the contents are going to be really profound; that my earthly existence has in some way been altered or redirected as a result of my Christmas reading sessions. “Three books that have changed the way I think forever”, etc. There’s the lightest hint of self-importance to the title, suggesting that this post might turn out to be the literary version of It’s A Wonderful Life, where I explain how each of the three books I ploughed through made me self-reflect and soul-search, how they forced me to analyse my (mostly quite shallow) priorities.

Alas no. It’s just not that deep. It’s a post about the three books I managed to get through whilst the kids were off school, which in itself was an achievement considering how utterly knackered I was for the entire two weeks. Seriously: my most knackered Christmas yet. I thought things were supposed to get easier as kids got older? Mine are nine and almost-eight and I’m sure I feel more tired now than when I had two under two. It’s probably a perception issue, of course, because how could I possibly be more shattered now, when I get unbroken sleep every night and I don’t have a toothless sprite gumming away at my nipples every three hours?

It just feels very cumulative, the parenthood tiredness thing. I don’t think that you ever really get a chance to recover from the baby years - it’s not as though they reach two and someone gives you a month off to have a reset - alone, in a mountain cabin with no phone signal. And so the tiredness of the toddler years gets piled on top of the wear and tear of the baby era, and then suddenly they start school and you think you’ll finally get on top of it all, but actually all that happens is you have to try and squash your working day into the six hours between nine and three…

Anyway, the kids were actually a delight over the holidays; I think that my severe lack of energy was more to do with 2024’s brutal work/life demands and also the fact I’d managed to book in an almost ceaseless carousel of house guests from the 23rd of December until 4th Jan. (Love being able to host lots of guests, it’s one of my favourite “adult” hobbies*, but boy did I get overly optimistic with my scheduling!)

*the “adult hobbies” thing sounds suspect. Intentional. I like to keep people guessing…

So all of this to point out that finishing off three books over Christmas was actually nothing short of miraculous. Possibly the most productive thing I did, really.

Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey

The first book, Our London Lives, was a gentle, slow sort of love story that fluttered back and forth across four decades in a series of missed opportunities and disappointments. Gentle is probably the wrong choice of word when I think about it - there were strong themes of addiction, loss and the depressing passing of time, so not your traditional bed of roses - but what I mean is that it felt like a very quiet, smooth read. No moments of jolting horror. Just a constant, underlying semi-sadness. Like drizzle.

It alternated the point of view between two central characters, Milly and Pip: one, a teenage runaway from Ireland who gets a job at a pub in Clerkenwell, the other a boxer who is quite often found at the same pub. (Can you guess which is which?) They are both of them damaged and are also both fighting their respective demons for the entire forty-year span of the book. More or less. Hence the constant semi-sadness.

They can be frustrating, these stories where people keep on messing it all up and never quite getting it together (no spoilers, I won’t tell you whether or not it’s a happy ending), but I really enjoyed Our London Lives. It was tender. Surprisingly, one of the things I liked most about the book was how it documented the regeneration of Clerkenwell over the decades. The old buildings that were redeveloped, the communities that were fragmented and reduced and then gradually lost forever. It was as thought-provoking and emotional as the personal journeys of the main characters, in many ways - London wasn’t just the setting, it was a living, breathing part of the plot.

It left me wanting to read more books by Christine Dwyer Hickey and I have already added them to my reading list - you can buy Our London Lives here*

[AD info: affiliate links marked *]

Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher

Next book: Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking. A very short read. I did it in one sitting on New Year’s Eve-Eve. It almost doesn’t count as one of the “three books I read over Christmas”, it was that short. Virtually a pamphlet. I have no beef with very brief books, or novellas, or short stories, but this felt like it should have been the middle section of a larger memoir and I was very noticeably left wanting more.

It also flung itself about from anecdote to anecdote in a completely wild and disordered way, but I think that was perhaps part of the charm. I can’t make my mind up. Sometimes it was a bit frustrating - stories were left half-told and never returned to, chapters ended without any real prior warning - but then the chaotic, unstructured format effectively echoed the subject matter.

Which was pretty full-on. Wishful Drinking is an autobiographical account of Fisher’s experiences living with addiction and bipolarity, but also dips into her childhood (daughter of Hollywood royalty, so you can imagine the stories) and touches briefly on marriages and motherhood. You’d expect it to be a grimmer than grim read, but it’s all delivered with such detached, jolly humour and sharp wit that you don’t know quite what to do with the information.

There’s no beating around the bush, either: Carrie Fisher writes with all the gay abandon of someone who’s not afraid to be sued. You can almost hear the lawyers wincing. It’s refreshing, if I’m honest - she doesn’t particularly go in for the kill on anyone, but at the same time you get the impression that if she did, she’d be confident that it would be justified. She stops short of character assassination, every single time, and leaves you to fill in the gaps yourself.

It’s very clever and incredibly funny, but I did finish it and think, is that it? I needed more! Thankfully there’s Shockaholic and The Princess Diarist to follow it up with and I’ll be grabbing those next time I do a bulk book buy. I feel quite invested now and need to know more about Carrie Fisher’s life. I’m not usually that bothered by celebrity tell-alls (in fact this is one of the only celebrity-written books I’ve ever read) but there’s something about the way she writes that’s very attractive. She’s not afraid to be vulnerable and is totally straight-shooting and without self-pity. It’s a heady mix.

Buy Wishful Drinking here*

Benediction by Kent Haruf

The favourite book: I cried big old heaving tears at this one, which hasn’t happened in a while. I used to be a prolific crier, now my tears seem to be reserved exclusively for takeoffs and landings (something about the cabin air pressure? the thought of impending death?) and thinking about my pets’ deaths.

Benediction. This is the third book in the Plainsong trilogy, written by the American novelist Kent Haruf. I think he’s incredible. He is a genius at capturing slow, plain life. I want to say “normal” life, but what is normal? I suppose I mean lives that have stayed virtually the same for a number of generations, where nothing seems to change very much and explosive, dramatic events are rare. At any rate, part of what happens when someone writes so intensely about the slow passing of time is that the people in the story become extraordinary, because every little movement and emotion and action, when it’s captured so beautifully, becomes a thing of wonder. I mean, you really sit and appreciate how huge life is: it has all of its deep sorrows and joyous highs, but the majority of it is made up of all of the bits in between. The stuff we deem to be uneventful until we realise that it’s all of the non-events that make up the time.

Both Plainsong and Eventide are amazing, but Benediction is the one I’d immediately read again. Oh, I sobbed. It made me feel thankful and hopeful and fearful and sad, all at the same time, and that is all I have to say about it.

Buy Benediction here*

---

I’ve just realised that I signed off before Christmas with a book post and now I’ve returned with one! I’ll be starting up as a BookTokker next. If I could work out how to even use TikTok…