Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays Find!
Today is August Bank Holiday Monday and true to form, the weather has been vile in south Cumbria!
A stiff breeze and patchy showers gave way to an even stiffer wind and a torrential downpour complete with thunder as the day progressed.
Having spent the morning catching up on chores, I passed the afternoon curled up with a book - The Anarchist's Angel by Gareth Thompson.
The book is by a writer who lives in Kendal, and it is set in Cumbria, so it was a valuable part of my Reading Detectives research.
I know that one or two other members of our Grange group have already read Gareth's two earlier titles - The Great Harlequin Grin and Sunshine for the Sunless - and they have enjoyed both of them, so don't be surprised if these titles appear as finds in future posts by other members of our group.
However, having finished The Anarchist's Angel I felt that this title more than qualified, and deserved to be mentioned as a real find, so here I am doing just that.
Gareth has a real writing talent and has produced a novel which is aimed at teens but is also a great read for adults.
The main character is Samson Ashburner who at the age of 11 was involved in a farm accident at a birthday party that left his face scarred and confidence shattered.
Samson undergoes years of cruel taunts from his peers at school because of his appearance. The one salvation he has is the woodland he has inherited, which gets him away from the demands of his parents' failing pub and the misery of his school life.
Samson has an old charcoal-burning hut in the woods and continues the ancient craft of his grandfather, producing his own charcoal.
In the wood he encounters Angel Obscura, a beautiful and captivating traveller girl. But as the story unfolds, it is obvious that Angel is concealing deep mental scars and secrets of her own, and Samson finds himself drawn into a web of deceit as he battles the plans of a new ambitious landowner, which threaten his safe haven and inheritance.
Set against this main plot is the troubled relationship between Samson and his mother - he blames her for his facial scarring as she insisted he went to the birthday party where the accident happened.
The book also explores what it is like to be a young person in Cumbria and there is one scene where a rave is held in the isolated Copper Mines area near Coniston.
The issue of second homes is also addressed as part of the plot.
So, a coming of age novel with tension, drama and ecological themes - lots going on and much to think about.
There is a really strong sense of place in this book, which is set in the fictional hamlet of Wolf Hill - somewhere off the Torver to Broughton road, near Coniston and in sight of Stickle Pike.
Throughout the book the Cumbrian landscape along with Cumbria's heritage and rural crafts are seen as vital and this is what Samson is fighting to preserve.
The book also explores the ongoing tension which really does exist in Cumbria -the need and desire to protect the landscape and heritage, and the need for local people to earn a living and have a vital and thriving rural economy - how to achieve both whilst avoiding turning the area into some kind of theme park or museum.
All in all, a page-turning read exploring lots of issues so relevant to the life of modern day Cumbria with a plot which both depicts and is shaped by our county's landscape and heritage.
Gareth Thompson is not yet one of the major, literary "household names", and so I feel qualifies as a hidden gem for this ReadinG Detectives project - but given the way he writes I feel that it won't be too much longer before he revceives the recognition which he deserves.
If you want to find out more about Gareth Thompson and his books, and also see photos connected with The Anarchist's Angel, go to: http://www.gareththompson.co.uk/index.html
31 August 2009 from Helen
Finds
- On Lindale Hill
- Grange-over-Sands: The Story of a Gentle Township
- The Silent Traveller: A Chinese Artist in Lakeland
- Red Ike
- Cumbrian Privies
- Ethel Fisher's West Cumbrian Dialect titles
- The Embalmer's Book of Recipes by Ann Lingard
- Nella Last's Peace
- Riding the Stang by Dawn Robertson
- Life on the Fell - a pictorial chronicle of a Lakeland community
- About Scout Scar
- William Wilberforce - A Summer Diary 1779
- Beatrix Potter - the unknown years
- Smoke over Shap by Margaret Potter
- Songs of a Cragsman by George Basterfield
- The Grasmere Dialect Plays
- The Grizedale Experience: Sculpture, Art & Theatre in a Lakeland Forest
- An Atlas of The English Lakes
- How Hall. Poetry and Memories. A Passion for Ennerdale by Tom Rawling
- Stumpy, Hero of the Lakes
- The High Places by A. Harry Griffin
- The Highest House in Wathendale
- Kendal by Roger Bingham
- Secrets and Legends of Old Westmorland
- Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmorland by Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley
- Little Gods by Jacob Polley
- A Lakeland Summer
- Hunter of Harter Fell by Joseph E Chipperfield
- And Nobody Woke Up Dead
- An accessible paradise
- The Fleming Family novels and Graham Sutton
- Excursion to Loweswater. A Lakeland Visit 1865
- Writing on the Wall
- Beyond Scafell by Alan Robinson
- Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole
- Kendal In The Nineteenth Century by A Wainwright
- In There Somewhere
- The Bondwomen by W G Collingwood
- "Ah'd Gaa Back Tomorra!"
- A Cumbrian Copper by Ray Huddart
- The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards
- Old Will Stories by Dudley Hoys
- The Shield Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff
- T'Bacca Queen by Theodora Wilson Wilson
- Furness and the Industrial Revolution
- The Shadow of Black Combe
- The Painted Letters of Percy Kelly
- Ivver Sen
- Lakeland in the 1830s
- Wasdale Climbing Book By Michael Cocker
- Riding High by Barbara Sneyd
- Deborah in Langdale
- Early Recollections of Grange
- Hazard's Way by Roger Hubank
- Yan, Tan, Tethera
- Talk of the Town
- Capturing the Mountains
- Hope On, Hope Ever
- Mildred Edwards: Our City Our People 1889 - 1978 Memories
- Lakeland Limericks
- Surrounding loveliness
- Haweswater by Sarah Hall
- Coast to Coast by Jan Minshull
- Sunshine To The Sunless
- Geese, cattle wallopers and secret Irish paths
- Anarchists, Angels and wet Bank Holiday Mondays
- A more unconventional kind of find...?
- Skiddaw Summit by Kathleen Jones
- Thorstein of the Mere: A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland
- Wednesday Early Closing
- Smoke Across The Fell
- The Sand Pilot of Morecambe Bay
- The Chronicles of Boggerthwaite
- Carrock Fell
- Feet in the Clouds
- Hercules and the Farmer's Wife
- Shepherd's Warning
- The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
- I've been so busy reading I haven't had time to blog!
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