What lawyers read on the beach

As a former prosecutor, I do like a crime novel, so I chose Where the Crawdads Sing (Corsair, £9.99), the debut novel by wildlife scientist Delia Owens, to read on a Seychelles beach. Published in 2018, it is a high-profile bestseller that I had been meaning to read for some time and finally did so to satisfy my ‘book-before-film rule’ (film released July 2022).

The back cover begins: ‘For years, rumours of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.’ And, at a basic level, there it is – a whodunnit! However, the slightly corny back cover summary underplays the inherent complexities of the book. While murder mystery is the central theme of the plot, the narrative is much more about love, loss, longing, and acceptance, with an engaging coming-of-age story at its heart. Alongside this, the author’s naturalist expertise effectively makes the evocative setting of ‘the marsh’ a character of the novel in its own right (cliche, I know).

Although there is some predictability and some reliance on stereotypes (see ‘handsome’ above), I found this a well-written, poignant, and most enjoyable holiday read.

Nick Clapham is a senior lecturer at the University of Surrey

 

 

Where the Crawdads Sing is a brilliant first novel by US wildlife scientist, Delia Owens. The power of her descriptive narratives clearly reflects her deep fascination with the natural world. The book is set in the coastal marshlands of North Carolina – clearly a land of rugged beauty with amazing bird and sea life (the land ‘where the crawdads sing’) but also a place where life is not easy for the subsistence fishermen and other people who make their lives there. In addition to the descriptions, the book has a very strong storyline. In many ways, it is a ‘rite-of-passage’ account of a girl who is the leading character and of her interactions with others who come in and out of her life. The book has quite a taut pace, which Owens manages to combine well with her lingering descriptions of how life is in the spread – out communities of the marshlands. The book really is an excellent read for any holiday.

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber, £8.99) was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 202. It is a series of vignettes of different people set at different stages of their imagined lives in England during the mid- to late-20^th century and beyond, had they survived the early trauma of war. The book does not spare the rod on the themes that it covers but at the same time provides so many deep insights into the lives of characters that the reader cannot fail to be absorbed. The book is intensely moving in many places and the quality of the writing is superb. Because of the book’s layout with separate stories in separate sections (though cleverly interlinked in subtle ways), this is a book that can be taken up or put down and fitted around one’s holiday plans without too much difficulty.

David Glass is a consultant solicitor at Excello Law

 

 

This summer was my first venture abroad since lockdown, accompanying my wife who was on a singing tour of Rome, Umbria and the Vatican. To get in the mood I read Paul Strathern’s The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior: Leonardo, Machiavelli, Borgia: A Fateful Collusion (Vintage, £16.99). The title is bit of a mouthful but the book tells exactly that tale, taking the reader through a period which saw extraordinary artistic creativity. But it is also a period, starting with the burning of Savonarola and ending with the 1527 sack of Rome, of extraordinary cruelty and destruction. All three protagonists are well known, even to non-historians, but with the modern tendency to over-specialise the links between all three are often passed over. Paul Strathern does an excellent job in reminding us that the silos constructed around human achievements are often a barrier to our comprehension of the past.

For those who do not want their view of the past mediated through modern historians, turning to Machiavelli’s own words in The Prince: Niccolo Machiavelli (independently published, £5.99) is a great starting point. It is a slim volume that can slip into a pocket – just the thing to whip out when you need to pass a few minutes in the inevitable queuing modern travel subjects us to. It is one of those books whose fame is far in excess of its actual readership, but nevertheless after half a millennia it is still worth reading.

From Renaissance Italy to a place that has as good a claim as any to be the last European flowering of the Renaissance ideal – 18th century Edinburgh. I missed James Buchan’s Capital of the Mind: How Edinburgh Changed the World (Birlinn Ltd, £10.99) when it first came out but picked up a paperback copy last year when passing through Ullapool but only got around to reading it this summer. The extraordinary explosion of learning across both science and the arts in 18th century Edinburgh does not get the recognition it deserves (especially south of the border) but Buchan does it justice. Having read it, I was left thirsty for more knowledge of some of the great thinkers of the period such as Lord Kames (and I never knew Lord Mansfield’s sister ran dancing sessions).

I am always conscious that I do not read enough fiction, apart from poetry and the odd witness statement. However, I did start the summer with Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. O’ Connor should be better known and deserves to be ranked with the greats of American literature. Who knows what masterpieces have been denied us when she died tragically young at 39, having suffered from lupus all her life? Wise Blood is a pretty strange little gem of a short story: I suspect literature departments would need to issue trigger warnings, especially when it comes to self-harming using caustic soda… but read it: It gives an insight into the strange psychology of the US Bible belt in the 1950s. Apparently the work has been made into a film, which is not surprising, but what is surprising is that the film is a comedy. Perhaps the producer had a strange sense of humour.

Here is a thought experiment to pass the time when the beach gets too boring: if there is a God, can you talk about him/her? The conceptual problem here is about the limits of (human) language to articulate the concept of transcendence. Hume, back in 18th century Edinburgh, would have split his sides laughing that anyone would think the question worth asking. However, you do not need hold particular religious views, or even believe in God to indulge in the thought experiment, one that treads a path leads from Augustine and Aquinas to Heidegger and Rorty. In Not Beyond Language: Wittgenstein and Lindbeck on the Problem of Speaking about God, Khay Tham Nehemiah Lim gives us some brilliant insights into the more mystical aspect of Wittgenstein’s work, and introduces (at least to me) the thinking of the American Lutheran theologian George A. Lindbeck. I first came across Wittgenstein in one of my earliest tribunal cases. I was inexperienced enough to think a closing submission was unnecessary in a particular case – the case was too straightforward to need it. Luckily for me the chairman (as employment judges used to be called) agreed, quoted the final paragraph of the Tractatus at me and found in my favour. I have had a soft spot for Wittgenstein ever since, notwithstanding he came from the other side of the Ringstrasse (Vienna’s historic inner ring) to my grandfather. Dr Lim has substantially increased my knowledge both of a broader range of Wittgenstein’s writing and his apophaticism.

Max D Winthrop is senior partner at Short Richardson & Forth, Newcastle