The Sunday Times Magazine • 49a debut novel by Megha
Majumdar. Through the eyes of
three characters — Jivan, a young
Muslim girl whose post on social
media sees her accused of
terrorism; Lovely, a hijra (a south
Asian term for intersex and trans
people), whose acting ambitions
corrupt her loyalty to her friend;
and PT Sir, a teacher whose vanity
leads him to commit an act of
betrayal — it zooms in on life at
the very bottom of the heap in
Calcutta. I know there are those
who want to see their own lives
reflected in the pages of the stories
they read, but I’m not one of them.
Transportation is my goal — and
to travel far from the confines of
your existence, this short novel
with its emotional punch could
be just the ticket.
If you do want a reflection of life
as you’re living it, look no further
than Lucy Caldwell’s award-
winning short story collection
Intimacies. The opening tale is
a fast-paced exposé of the fears,
irrational and otherwise, that
take root in a new mother’s mind.
And finally a wonderful book
rich with meaning and sustenance
by Nan Shepherd, one of our
greatest female explorers despite
never leaving her beloved
Cairngorms. In The Living
Mountain she documents her
meditations on foot. A valuable
reminder that so long as we make
space for our minds to travel, we
barely need to leave home nMariella Frostrup helps a bewildered new mum recharge her batteries
Escape from Motherland
Books to Live By
KATE MARTIN, LLUSTRATION BY LUKE WALLER
— it’s one of those books that
might normally make me shudder:
a collection of poems and prose
about a woman’s journey with a
waft of Paulo Coelho mysticism.
But I have to admit there is
wisdom among the irritating
aphorisms — and some
timely reminders to
prioritise your own needs.
Indeed, Bowman could
well be describing your
predicament when she
writes: “The heart
will blossom/ With
little assistance/ It
is the mind/ That
needs tending to/
Weeds pulled/
Seeds planted/
Tireless attention/
Given everyday.”
She has a point!
The most
recent time that
my reading life
went on pause
was after 20 years
of presenting my
Radio 4 book show,
which involved a weekly
reading diet of one novel
and a skim-read of three
more. After I left to join
Times Radio in 2020, weeks
led to months before I
found a book that kept me
reading to the last page.
For that reason can I
recommend a compulsive
page-turner: A Burning,Q
Since having my first
child over a year ago I feel
a bomb has exploded in my life.
My freedom, my relationships
and my career have all been
impacted. I’m incredibly
fulfilled as a mother but I am
plagued by a sense of
overwhelming responsibility,
and with so many demands
on my time I’m no longer sure
of my identity. Could you
recommend some books that
might offer consolation?A
First of all, respect. To
contemplate even a
collection of haikus shows
ambition in your situation. There
have only been two periods in
my life when I came close to
abandoning books. The first
was when I had my own babies,
two in the space of 13 months
in my early forties. During
that time the tower of titles
that built on my bedside
table felt like an oppression.
So I’m not joking when
I mention haikus: short-
form writing is your friend
now that your downtime
is squeezed. I devoured
the poems of Seamus
Heaney when I was
adrift in the fog of
new parenting, losing
myself in visceral
descriptions of my
Irish childhood;
Heaney’s bogs and
granite and the
smell of damp
leaves transporting
me far from my
nursing chair. Sylvia
Plath’s poetry on
motherhood also
offered an unlikely
comfort: her
melodramatic, tortured
psyche as she wrestles with
the anxieties of her lost self
made me feel positively
well adjusted in comparison,
despite most days being
anything but.
I barely dare mention LE
Bowman’s The Evolution of
a Girl in the same breath as
titans such as Heaney and PlathWRITE TO
MARIELLA
Got a dilemma about
work, love, life or
family? Mariella can
find a book to help
you through. Email
mariella@sunday-
times.co.uk and she
will choose one
question a week to
answer. Anonymity
on requestIntimacies by Lucy
Caldwell is published
by Faber at £12.99