My attention was caught by a couple of newly released books this month so, instead of making them wait their turn on my TBR pile, I’ve made them this weeks FridayReads. Both of them are very English books, taking a close look at life as white, middleclass Englishwomen in their thirties currently live it. One of them has some smiles in it but is mostly a serious book. The other is meant to be humorous although it is largely about bereavement following a sudden death.

I’m looking forward to immersing myself in these relatable contemporary stories and hoping they’ll make me smile and make me think.

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“Ordinary Time“ (2024) by Cathy Rentzenbrink

I heard Cathy Rentzenbrink being interviewd about ‘Ordinary Time‘ on Woman’s Hour on BBC sounds and decided I had to have book. ‘Ordinary Time’ is a novel that reflects on what people in a marriage owe each other, It looks at the world through the eyes of a vicar’s wife who, at a point when she has begun to feel that she is less important, less necessary, to her husband than his work and his parishioners, is taken out of the day-to-day rythms of her life and becomes tempted to have an affair. What called to me about the story is that it sounded very human and real.

The title also called to me because it captures that making-it-through-the-unspectacluar-but-necessary-and-unavoidable that takes up so much of our lives. Ordinary Time is the term used to describe the points on the Anglican liturgical cycle when there’s nothing special going on. The fancy Purple, Gold or White vestments of the big feasts give way to a simple green vestmens. Most of the year is Ordinary Time, exerything except the Easter cycle (Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost) and the Christmas cycle (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany)

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“Probably Nothing” (2024) by Lauren Bravo

I came across ‘Probably Nothing‘ while I was buying ‘Ordinary Time’. It was one of those ‘Other people who bought ‘Ordinary Time’ also bought…’ that I normally ignore but the title was so English and the cover so cute that I read the synopsis and bought the book.

I pulled to this book because it looks at someone digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves by trying to be polite and most of all, by trying to avoid embarrassment. The cascading failure that comes from avoiding speaking the embarrassing truth at the beginning seems a common English thing to me. I also feel some empathy for a woman who is used to spending most of her time alone or with one or two friends being overwhelmed by a large family that live in one another’s pockets and assume that you want to liver there too.

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