The Chuffed Store Book Club: Summer

As Summer draws to a close, we thought it would be nice to find out what our artist makers have been reading…

 

 

I have recently read Careless by Kirsty Capes. It’s about a girl growing up in foster care, and the author herself is a care leaver. She was mentored by Bernardine Evaristo and represents a voice that is little heard in fiction. A really gripping and thought provoking read!

Jade Ogden, The Handloom Room

 

 

The Enchanted April is a 1922 novel by British writer Elizabeth von Arnim. The work was inspired by a month-long holiday to the Italian Riviera.

The discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed ‘To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine’, offers a small medieval castle for rent, above a bay on the Italian Riviera. Four very different women – the dishevelled and downtrodden Mrs Wilkins, the sad, sweet-faced Mrs Arbuthnot, the formidable widow Mrs Fisher and the ravishing socialite Lady Caroline Dester – are drawn to the shores of the Mediterranean that April. As each, in turn, blossoms in the warmth of the Italian spring and finds their spirits stirring, quite unexpected changes occur.

Eleanor Dale, The Naked Weaver

 

 

I’ve just finished reading This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain’s Knitted History by Esther Rutter.

If you’re interested in our woollen textile history, this book is a lovely knitted tour around the UK, including my favourite Shetland Islands. The author writes in a way that immerses you into her journey but also gives you loads of knowledge about the British wool trade. Perhaps a bit of a busman’s holiday for a knitwear designer, but I loved it!

Ria Burns

 

 

My Favourite book I have read all year! Moving from the Tuscan Hills and piazzas of Florence, to the smog of London’s East End, Still Life is a sweeping, joyful novel about beauty, love, family and fate.  The book is filled with lovable characters, you are completely transported and it is beautifully written. I didn’t want it to end and haven’t stopped banging on about it.

Millie Cowie, The Chuffed Store

 

 

A classic, really fun and quite gossipy-  like an old fashioned chick flick!

Maud Boothby, Fungus & Mold

 

 

The autumn of 1933 is the most beautiful Edie Mather can remember, although the Great War still casts its shadow over the fields and villages around her beloved home, Wych Farm. Constance FitzAllen arrives from London to document fading rural traditions and beliefs. For Edie, who must soon face the unsettling pressures of adulthood, the glamorous and worldly outsider appears to be a godsend. But there is more to the older woman than meets the eye. As harvest time approaches and pressures mount on the entire community, Edie must find a way to trust her instincts and save herself from disaster.

Alice Clark

 

 

Loved The Bolter. The only book I finished and then immediately went to the beginning and read it again.

Emma Black

 

 

After a chance meeting in the pub, Roger Morgan-Grenville and his friend Duncan decide to take up beekeeping. Their enthusiasm matched only by their ignorance, they are pitched into an arcane world of unexpected challenges. Coping with many setbacks along the way, they manage to create a colony of beehives, finishing two years later with more honey than anyone knows what to do with. By standing back from their normal lives and working with the cycle of the seasons, they emerge with a new-found understanding of nature and a respect for the honeybee and the threats it faces.

Wryly humorous and surprisingly moving, Liquid Gold is the story of a friendship between two unlikely men at very different stages of their lives. It is also an uplifting account of the author’s own midlife journey: coming to terms with an empty nest, getting older, looking for something new.

Katja Huth

 

 

My partner John, bought a pile of books in a charity shop- he bought The Orientalist on a whim. You don’t have to worry too much at £1 each. Luckily he loves reading, so he reads to me. I think this is nearly top of my list of favourite things. Being dyslexic, being read too is like magic.

The Orientalist  is the most incredible journey, with so many things happening. You really cant believe it is true and it is funny. I love the edge of fact and fiction.

Sally Hampson

 

 

The son of an English father and Russian mother, Charlie Doig is a big man – big in stature and big in spirit. Trapped by the snow with Doig and Elizaveta are a motley collection of old aristocrats, their servants and hangers-on – and the two soldiers, one of whom Doig is convinced is a Bolshevik out to destroy them all.

Oscar Davidson, Pirate Farms

 

 

Recently, I’ve been reading English Pastoral, by James Rebanks; Cantoras, by Carolina de Robertis; and Many Hands Make a Quilt, the new zine by Jess Bailey of Public Library Quilts. I’m currently reading Detransition, Baby, by Torrey Peters with my book club and loving it so far. I really recommend them all! 

Ellioté Long, North Sea Stationery