Doris Lemming, “The Fifth Child”
Lemming is a powerful storyteller, and this short novel is no exception. It tells the story of Harriet and David, two normal people who have one goal: to be happy. To achieve this, they want to have a big house and fill it with lots of children and family members and joy. All starts out well, with child 1, child 2, child 3, and child 4 being ‘normal’. The problems start with child number 5, who from even before he born was giving his mother pains she had never felt before. Ultimately called a ‘Neanderthal’ upon his birth and throughout the short time he lives with his family, the story shines a light upon the things we accept and the things that tear us apart.
Lucia Graves, “A Woman Unknown: Voices from a Spanish Life”
Graves grew up on the Spanish island of Mallorca and later married a Barcelona native and lived there for many years before returning to her native England. She gives her impressions—sometimes naïve, sometimes insightful, but curiously, almost always from the view of an outsider looking in—through the women who had an effect on her while she was growing up. I found this book in an Oxfam second hand shop, and have to admit only scooped it up because of where she grown up. If she had grown up, say, in France, I would not have been interested enough to read it at all: I am always curious as to other people’s experiences of Spain as their adopted country.