A vesper is an evening song! This time we review Vesper Flights, a collection of the author’s best loved essays; Summer, unmissable finale to Ali Smith’s dazzling literary tour de force and Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. Take your pick here…
Vesper Flights
Author – Helen Macdonald
In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep.
Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences through her vesper: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. In Vesper Flights, she writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.
Summer
Author – Ali Smith
The unmissable finale to Ali Smith’s dazzling literary tour de force: The Seasonal quartet concludes in 2020 with Summer.
In the present, Sacha knows the world’s in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile, the world’s in meltdown—and the real meltdown has not even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they are living on borrowed time.
This is a story about people on the brink of change. They are family, but they think they’re strangers. So: Where does family begin? And what do people who think they have got nothing in common have in common? Summer.
Migrations
Author – Charlotte McConaghy
Franny Stone arrives in remote Greenland with one purpose: to find the world’s last flock of Arctic terns and track their final migration. She convinces Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani, to take her onboard, winning over his eccentric crew with promises that the birds will lead them to fish. As the Saghani fights its way south, Franny’s dark history begins to unspool. Battered by night terrors, accumulating a pile of unsent letters, and obsessed with pursuing the terns at any cost, Franny is full of secrets. When her quest threatens the safety of the entire crew, Franny must ask herself what she is really running toward – and running from.