Every so often I decide to call time on this blog. There are already so many voices out there competing for attention, and in the face of a pandemic, a worldwide climate emergency and a war so senseless and barbaric that it beggars belief, my thoughts on literature and life seem a bit pointless. Then I come across yet another book so intriguing, moving, or just downright cheering, that I just can't help myself...

When I finished A Gentleman in Moscow I wasn't expecting to find anything as enjoyable for a long time to come. But Nobel prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah's novel, By the Sea, is extraordinary. I knew nothing about Gurnah and very little about the history of Zanzibar, and a story of exile and old wrongs wasn't necessarily what I wanted to read right then, but a friend had lent it to me, so I did. And what an extraordinary book it turned out to be: beautifully written, at times almost unbearably moving, but always measured, fascinating, thoughtful, wise.

After that came the pleasures of Silverview, the late great John le Carre's last book; Alan Garner's quirky Treacle Walker; and Claire Keegan's wonderful Small Things Like These - a small Irish masterpiece dealing with other historic wrongs, in this case the Magdelene laundries. Like the Gurnah novel, it's beautifully written, unsentimental, haunting and humane.

Then there was Damon Galgut's The Promise. It's always a great pleasure when a fellow South African is acclaimed for a novel, and this book deserves every word of praise. A wonderfully readable story about the crumbling Swart family and their broken promise to Salome, the Black woman who has worked for them all her life. Powerful, funny, poignant and truthful - I can't recommend it highly enough.

I started reading The Promise - as I do any novel by a compatriot, or a writer I know and like - thinking that loyalty would probably keep me going to the end, even if it turned out not to be one of their best, but both Damon Galgut and Jan Carson were a pleasure from start to finish. In fact I can honestly say that The Raptures had me so enraptured from the start that I could hardly bear to finish. Utterly original, gloriously funny and heartbreaking to boot. And while I accept that magic realism isn't everyone's cup of tea, I'm beginning to think that it's the obvious way to write about Northern Ireland - a place simultaneously so beautiful, warm-hearted, bigoted and mad that you can be forgiven for sometimes thinking you're living in a peculiar parallel universe.

As if all that wasn't more than enough, Rules of Civility - the elegant first novel from Amor Towles - was nearly as enjoyable as his Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway is waiting. I've also got the Spring edition of my regular fix, Slightly Foxed, to enjoy, and I'm currently on Page 117 of A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee. This is turning out to be an exceptionally entertaining murder mystery set in Calcutta in 1919. I'm starting to run out of adjectives here, but really and truly, my literary cup runneth over...

Which is a good thing, considering the current state of the outside world. I suppose it's no surprise that so many recent novels deal with old hurts and historic wrongs, but at least the above all do so without bitterness or despair. And sometimes exile and displacement bring unexpected benefits. 40 years ago, I met a Ugandan doctor, newly-arrived in Zimbabwe with his teacher wife (who was in hospital, awaiting the birth of their third child) to begin a new life for their family. We were newly-arrived from troubled Belfast, with two small children of our own, and our four little ones took as instant a liking to each other as I had to their father. They came to play a few days later and when I met their mother, I knew at once that we'd be friends for life. And so we have been, despite the geographical distances between us, and our too-rare times together. Then, a week ago, we were stricken by the news of the death in Uganda of our dear friend. His wife and four daughters must now learn to live without this gentle, lovely man, but I can only be grateful for the disruptive currents of fate that once brought us all together, and so enriched our lives.

And one more happy ending - just to lighten the prevailing gloom: a few years ago a young Egyptian engineer walked into the Belfast bookshop I was running, to volunteer his services. He was in exile and alone over the Christmas holidays so I persuaded him to come and join our South African Irish English Indian family party. He duly arrived at our door with a rucksack strapped to his back and his most precious belonging, an Egyptian stringed Oud, strapped to his front. This instrument he played for us one evening that I will never forget. The desperate longing for home that welled up with the music could have broken your heart. But he and his lovely Greek girlfriend later made a new home in Scotland; they celebrated their Muslim wedding in Cairo a while back, and later this year they'll have an Orthodox ceremony in Greece - two people of different faiths and cultures happily brought together by the upheavals of our times.

Sadly, the Four Horsemen of conquest, famine, war and death continue to ride, as they have done for centuries. Like the rest of the world I am currently holding my breath and hoping against hope that somehow Peace will return to Europe, and that all those recently displaced people will regain some sort of life. We also very much hope that later in the year we'll be in Greece to celebrate our young friends' marriage, and to enjoy a reunion with our Greek family. For now though, it's back to Calcutta for me, and the immeasurable comfort of a good book...

A BLYTED CHILDHOOD

Someone famous admitted the other day that she still had her old Enid Blyton children's books, but hid her shameful secret in the garage, away from the eyes of the world. Well, I have mine too, in plain view - along with many other out-of-favour authors - and I'll be damned if I ever apologise for the pleasure they gave me. The Magic Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, The Island of Adventure  - just listing them, decades later, takes me back to a place of warmth and safety.

I'm reminded of my long-ago days as a conscientious school librarian, when I devoted a great deal of time to finding books that my Zimbabwean students could relate to. One particular morning I directed the attention of two 13 year-old boys to the possible contenders on the counter. No, they said, what we really want is some more of those Barbara Cartland books. (We had a slightly strange collection at the time, mostly donations from local well-wishers.) Why these two children of the new Zimbabwe wanted to read this entirely white, English, upper-class, romantic froth still flummoxes me, but possibly they just rolled around laughing.

My point is that there's no knowing what childhood books will contribute to our happier memories, but every book that gives you pleasure leads to your reading others, and sooner or later, with any luck, the pattern of your reading grows wider, richer, more sustaining. I grew up in a very different and more dangerous society than the English villages of Blyton, and many of my friends come from deprived or marginalised backgrounds, but it is precisely because those books took us away from our worlds that we enjoyed the stories - as I loved the worlds of Narnia, of E. Nesbit, of George MacDonald's Princess Irene. Places full of magic, where fear and evil could be vanquished by a stout heart; and even if the little, twinkling light in a cottage in the woods led to a witch or ogre, luck and pluck would keep you safe. 

We were lucky enough to have parents who read to us every night: our father opted for Just William, Dr Dolittle, The Jungle Book; our mother for Eleanor Farjeon and The Wind in the Willows. She didn't really approve of Blyton but she respected our choices, and tried to raise the standard with reams of poetry. Years later I read to my own children. Tolkien was a particular favourite for long African car journeys, and I prided myself on doing all the voices, not always easy with his sprawling cast: I can still hear a little voice from the back seat, objecting, 'That's not an orc, that's an elf.'

My own children now read to theirs, and long may this tradition continue. But it saddens me that people are made to feel ashamed of what they used to love. So many children's books, now shunned, are guilty of nothing worse than being of their time; while so many of the new - also of their time - reflect our bleak obsessions with political correctness and the world's wrongs. Even grown-ups (I use the term loosely) seem to be suffering: 'Why does every detective have to be in emotional turmoil these days?' Gloom demands. 'Why does everything have to be so grim?' And he goes back with relief to Moomin Valley, where the worst that ever happens is a temporary chill cast by the Groke. 

Fortunately, there are still plenty of wonderful books to be found, even for adults. The ever-blessed Slightly Foxed put me onto A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles, the story of a Russian aristocrat sentenced to indefinite house-arrest (in a hotel attic room) by a Bolshevik tribunal. Now there is a book that celebrates the human spirit, as our hero confronts the world's tumultuous turning with courage, humour, charm and wit. Not to mention the beauty of the language and the occasional glorious description of food. I'm only half-way through but that's because I'm reading it very slowly to make it last.

It's been a horrible year in so many ways, and has ended for us with the death of a much-loved cat and the cancellation of all our Christmas plans. But we have a house full of books, plenty of wine, and the example of the philosophical Count Alexander Rostov to sustain us. I wish you all a safe and happy season, and the comfort of good books.