CULTURE EDITION May Book Club Charlotte Griffiths showcases the work of three critically acclaimed women writers
A Flat Place
NOREEN MASUD
This meditative, absorbing non-fiction work follows author Noreen Masud as she moves through some of the UK’s flattest landscapes, while also processing memories of her challenging childhood in Pakistan and dealing with the ripples that continue to echo through her life as a young adult. Only when she’s surrounded by nothingness does she feel most herself, and able to handle the complex inner landscape left by her upbringing. She seeks out the most iconic unbroken horizons around our country to help handle her turbulent mental health: including some beautiful sections set in the local landscapes of East Anglia. Her book segues seamlessly between finely drawn nature writing, haunting childhood memoir, meditations on academic research into PTSD and modern methods of healing trauma. At times, you might not even notice the change of genre happening – it’s like gazing out of a window while riding a King’s Lynn train, as it slices through the flat Fenland fields, slipping from hedge to open farmland and back again in mere moments. Reminiscent of Educated by Tara Westover, Noreen’s confident, candid approach to sharing her story is completely engrossing and charming, and A Flat Place has been deservedly laden with awards of all kinds – including being shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction last year. This is a calm, collected book that reads like slipping into cool, still water on the hottest summer’s day: you’ll emerge deeply refreshed and carrying with you a newfound respect for the vast, horizontal landscapes around our city.
SPIRITUAL PLAINS In her memoir, Noreen Masud writes about her childhood traumas and their ongoing resonance in her day-to-day life, sharing how she draws on the vastness of flat landscapes for healing
So Thrilled For You
HOLLY BOURNE
child-free Steffi is forging ahead with her career, but feels judged by her supposedly dearest pals and doesn’t know if she still has anything in common with them. Events soon take a dramatic turn for the worse, and the finger of suspicion is pointed at each of the four women – but which of them is to blame, or are they all at fault in some way? This is an eye-openingly extreme look at what it is to be a woman and a friend in the modern age, told from four corners of the female experience. Brutal descriptions of savagely plausible experiences mean this might not be one for imminently expectant mothers, but it’s a great summer whodunnit novel for other readers.
Buckle up for this rollercoaster of a dark-comedy thriller, in which four thirtysomething friends all reunite at a baby shower in the countryside during an absolutely sweltering heatwave; but it’s not just the climate that’s making them all hot under their collars. Mum-to-be Nikki is heavily pregnant, yet uncertain it’s what she actually wants for herself. Charlotte – who’s throwing the shower for Nikki – can’t become pregnant, but is absolutely desperate to be a mother, and is funnelling all that emotion into making sure the event is perfect (with a capital P). Lauren has a young baby, but is finding motherhood harder than she ever could have imagined, while happily
26 MAY 2025 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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