Reservoir 13: A Novel

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However, normal life slowly starts to resume and the rhythms of life take over. Relationships start and fail, people move away and new people arrive, businesses struggle, farmers go about their business, secrets are uncovered, the wildlife hibernates and reawakens as the seasons change and roll around - life goes on. Unlike Lanny, there’s no suggestion of magic or myth, although it does have strong elemental vibes, often with sinister undercurrents. A very good review but reviewer gives away too much. Refrain from reading the review until after reading the book. Trust me, she liked it! https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

I suspect the book will jump from Man Book long list to shortlist because the judges will like this juxtaposition. For me I'm still not convinced both work in the same book, but I still can't sort it all out. This is decidedly not the read for someone looking for a thrill. Writing the second and third acts of the book involved McGregor researching aphasia, the impairment in the ability to communicate that follows an injury to the brain. As well as speaking directly to speech and language therapists, he began to go to a monthly self-help group for people living with aphasia, an experience that evidently had a profound impact on him. Partly, he says, it was that the members of the group – including carers and family – were so welcoming to him; and also the extent to which he realised how complex and varied aphasia is. “I think there’s almost as many different versions of aphasia as there are people with aphasia,” he explains; it manifests itself in semantic, cognitive and expressive difficulties, which often become tangled up.Starred Review. McGregor's ( This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You) writing is extraordinary, and while the narrative technique is initially wearing in the way village life can be - the monotony, the knowledge of everybody's business - it coheres remarkably into a knowable, comforting, ultimately compelling world." - Library Journal I was completely caught up in the life of this village, its people, their concerns, and their lives. I loved how this was written – the small repetitions to trigger key events in our memories, the relationships and how they altered over time, the village concerns and how they were handled – all of it was so well done I had a vivid movie playing behind my eyes throughout. Even today, almost half a century on, time is the cornerstone of the modern village tale. It’s there in Lucy Wood’s Weathering, a haunted house saga of sorts in which a family inheritance weighs like a damp burden. It’s there in Harrison’s At Hawthorn Time, a sharp evocation of a collapsed rural community, where the tractor drivers now work as Uber drivers and the “new estates [are] named after the places the developers had destroyed”. It can also be found in Tom Cox’s rambunctious, non-fiction 21st Century Yokel, in which the freewheeling author attempts (with varied success) to anchor himself in old traditions; swinging between the May Day festivals, fetes and scarecrow competitions in both Norfolk and Devon. Then there is one recent book that looms above all the rest. Starred Review. McGregor masterfully employs a free, indirect style that forgoes quotation marks and seamlessly blends narrative, dialogue, and wonderfully observant, poetic musings. ... Longlisted for the Man Booker, McGregor's novel's subtly devastating impact ultimately imparts wisdom about the tenuous and priceless gift of life. For fans of Elizabeth Strout and Richard Russo." - Booklist

It takes rare authorial alchemy to make this immersive, believable, and captivating, rather than confusing or irritating. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? A wonderful book. [Jon McGregor]'s an extraordinary writer, unlike anyone else." - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water I liked this book although it was one of those books where, as I approached the end, I felt very creeped out…i.e., ‘who committed the terrible crime?’. I stressed “very” in “very creeped out” because throughout the whole novel I was creeped out. So, a word of warning — read this book during a period of time when you can accept being creeped out while reading it and while being away from it (your thoughts will return to the book). I have finished reading the book, and I don’t feel creeped out anymore, so the effects are short-term (at least for me). If that is of any use to you. 🙃

I loved this wonderfully written novel with it’s beautifully detailed prose and unusual style. Winner of the Costa Book Award and Booker nominee, Reservoir 13 was such a fulfilling read. Fascinating... McGregor is a writer with extraordinary control… Reservoir 13 is an enthralling and brilliant investigation of disturbing elements embedded deeply in our story tradition." - Tessa Hadley, The Guardian