Say Say Say
By Lila Savage
Serpent's Tail, £12.99
Savage writes from an unusual perspective with clarity, intelligence and remove, giving this novel about a young care worker and the two older people she becomes involved with an astute and questioning voice. Ella cares for 60-year-old Jill who is in the horrors of dementia following a car accident, while developing a friendship with Jill's husband, Bryn, once a carpenter but who now labours under years of care and solitude. In Ella's daily tasks there are the brutal revulsions of the body and the tender ministrations of love. Bryn and Ella's relationship examines not only ageing and desire, but loneliness, and all the ways in which we try – and fail – to alleviate it, through sex, companionship, religion: a visceral story, with a philosophical heart.
The Accidental Dictionary
By Paul Anthony Jones
Elliott & Thompson, £8.99
A brilliant and charming little book that will make a fine addition to any "bathroom reading" shelf. Jones has written a number of titles about language and trivia, and in this one he takes 100 words, from A to Z, and charts their evolution from original meanings to how we use them now. Jones covers each word in a couple of pages or so with just the right amount of humour and scholarliness to make it a book best for dipping into, rather than consuming whole. Some examples: brothel originally meant "a good-for-nothing"; flirt originally meant "sneer"; jargon originally "birdsong"; even those words whose etymology you might have an idea of – palaver having meant a conversation in different languages – are given added insight from Jones's research. Aficionado's starting journey as an "amateur", to its specificity within Spanish bullfighting, to its importation in English describing someone with a devoted knowledge shows how our languages continually develop. To bring things full circle, did you know "bumph" originally meant toilet paper? I'll leave you to unroll that one for yourself.
