100 Books for 2018: 11 to 15

Book 11 - Conundrum (Jan Morris) [Audio]
I first encountered Jan Morris when I was looking for a book about Trieste (there aren't many in English!). I loved her book as well as the city, and became intrigued by her own story as it was made casually clear in the book that when she first discovered Trieste it was as a young soldier named James.  The young James Morris was a choirboy at Christchurch Cathedral in Oxford. He joined the Army just after the Second World War and served in the Middle East in an intelligence role. After leaving the Army he became a journalist and was foreign correspondent for a series of major newspapers, including several years based in Egypt. He was part of Sir Edmund Hillary's Everest expedition and was the journalist who broke the news to the world that Everest had been conquered (in code, to maintain the scoop). He became a prolific travel writer, with books including classics about Oxford, Venice and New York. He married the love of his life and had five children, then in his forties he underwent sex change surgery. Forced by the law to divorce his beloved Elizabeth, they lived separately for a while, but continued to function as a family. When same-sex marriage was legalised in the UK they remarried, and are still together in their nineties. Conundrum is Jan's account of her experience of her gender (the conviction that she should be a girl came to her at the age of four, while sitting under her mother's piano stool), and her experiences before and after undergoing her physical change of sex. It was written in the 1970s, at a time when even the word  transgender was largely unknown. The story of one of the more extraordinary aspects of an extraordinary life, written by a master of her craft.
**** 4 stars

Book 12 - A Book of Silence (Sara Maitland)
Divorced and with her children grown up, author Sara Maitland found herself increasingly drawn to a life of silence, spending time in remote places with either no or minimal contact with other people. An "Anglo-Catholic socialist feminist" who converted to Roman Catholicism, this book explores her attempts to understand the meaning and spirituality of silence, and to work out the place of silence in her own life. Beautifully and thoughtfully written.
**** 4 stars

Book 13 - The Merchant's Tale (Ann Swinfen)
The fourth in Ann Swinfen's series set in 14th century Oxford. Like the first three, an enjoyable and easy read.
**** 4 stars

Book 14 - Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools 1939-1979 (Ysenda Maxtone Graham)
I was intrigued by this one as I was a boarding school girl myself in the late 60s and 70s. The book is based on interviews with former boarding school girls rather than any detailed research. Boarding schools and their pupils both varied widely, and the experience as a whole tended to depend on whether there was a good match between the individual and the school. Given the casual way in which some parents chose a school this could be very much a matter of luck! No startling insights, but quite readable.
*** 3 stars

Book 15 - The Secret Life of Bletchley Park (Sinclair McKay) [Audio]
We live very close to Bletchley Park, the centre of British code-breaking in the Second World War. The achievements at Bletchley are now thought to have contributed significantly to shortening the war. I have read quite a few books about the Park and its personnel, which included Alan Turing.  Listening to the audio version I had a feeling I had read this book a few years ago, but I can't remember for sure. Whatever, it is a good introduction to the story of Bletchley Park.
**** 4 stars