Schlagwort: English

The Bookseller: The First Hugo Marston Novel – Mark Pryor

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AuthorMark Pryor
PublisherSeventh Street Books
Date9 October 2012
EditionKindle
Pages306 (print-edition)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB00C4B2LRI

“If peace had a smell, he thought, it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books.” (Quotation page 221)

Content

Hugo Marston, forty-two years old, a former FBI profiler and now security chief at the American embassy in Paris, loves Paris and old books. Therefore, on his first day of a vacation he did not ask for, he visits his friend Max, a bouquiniste who owns one of the traditional bookstalls on the bank of the Seine. His has to watch as Max is kidnapped at gunpoint. The Paris police does not show very interested in Marston’s observations, because some witnesses, other bouquinistes, confirm they had seen no violence. But soon more booksellers disappear and fortunately Tom Green, an old friend of Hugo Marston, former CIA agent, now kind of retired as he says, has come to Paris for a visit and together they immediately start their own investigations and researches. Is the disappearance of Max connected to one of his special antiquarian books, and who tries to take over the bookstalls? How can so many different traces fit together?

Theme and Genre

This first book of the Hugo Marston Series is a crime novel located in Paris. Themes are investigation, crime and books.

Characters

We meet different characters, they all have their own stories and background. Their actions and behavior are believable and plausible.

Plot and Writing

The story, based on crime and investigations, takes place within a tight time schedule and is an enjoyable mixture of action, researches and a lively description of Paris and everyday life in the vibrant, famous city Paris. The plot brings up different themes, some of them reaching back into the past, and has enough unpredictable turns to maintain the narrative tension.

Conclusion

An interesting, gripping crime novel with surprising twists, where some antiquarian books play an important role. Enjoyable read, not only for booklovers.

Reviews, Thriller & Crime , , , ,

The Bookman’s Tale: A Novel of Obsession – Charlie Lovett

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AuthorCharlie Lovett
PublisherPenguin Books
Date28 May 2013
EditionKindle-edition
Pages369 (print)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB00AFPVQN0

“But Amanda was dead – buried nine months ago in the red earth of North Carolina, an ocean away. A heartbeat away. And this painting, so much older than Amanda or her mother or her grandmother, could not possibly portray her. But it did.” (Quotation page 3)

Content

When Amanda Byerly dies at the age of only twenty-nine, she leaves her husband Peter, filled with deep grief. He leaves America and moves to the cottage in Kingham, England, which they had bought and renovated together. Here he leads a completely secluded life, withdrawn from everybody, friends and family. Until one cold February day he enters a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye and flipping through the pages of an old, beautifully bound book, he finds a piece of paper, a definitely Victorian watercolour. The painting shows a woman who looks like Amanda. His grief, together with his curiosity as an antiquarian bookseller tell him that he had to solve this mystery, to find out everything about a hundred-year-old portrait of his wife, born 1966, hidden in a first edition from 1796 about Shakespeare forgeries. Who was the artist of the watercolour, which shows only the initials B.B. and could this quest bring Peter Byerly back to real life?

Theme and Genre

This novel is about old books, bookbinding and restoring, about valuable collections of antiquarian books, but also about friendship, family, family secrets and love. It is a story of fiction with historical literary background.

Characters

The main character of the story is Peter Byerly, bibliophile, booklover and expert for antiquarian books. Historical characters, Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers, famous book collectors and librarians as well as famous forgers surround him.

Plot and Writing

The story moves between four storylines, the actual researches of Peter Byerly take place between February 15 and February 22, 1995, with an epilogue in June 1995. The second timeline is the story of Peter and Amanda, and takes place in Ridgefield between 1983 and 1994. The two historical timelines cover the period between 1592 and 1720 and from 1856 to 1876. This combination of fiction and facts is interesting and fascinating, lively and still believable.

Conclusion

An interesting, entertaining story and a cozy, enjoyable read, not only for booklovers.

Novel, Reviews , , , ,

The Christmas Bookshop – Jenny Colgan

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AuthorJenny Colgan
PublisherLittle, Brown Book Group
Date1 November 2022
EditionPaperback
Pages355
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0751584226

“Every time the bell dinged, Mr. McCredie would glance up in wonder and surprise, and Carmen would smile secretly to herself and make sure the lovely books were somewhere adults could pick them up and admire them.” (Quotation page 77)

Content

When her mother calls her in August, asking if she will come home for Christmas, Carmen June Hogan, nearly thirty years old, definitely is not ready to discuss a family meeting in Edinburgh at her sister’s new house. There is a simple reason: while her older sister Sofia is a successful lawyer, married, pregnant with her forth child, Carmen still works in the local department store, and compared to Sofia she always feels low. However, just three days later everything has changed, the store is going to close forever and Carmen has lost her job. Sofia of all people has found a new job for Carmen. Edinburgh is busy and shimmering in November, with every shop preparing for Christmas time. All shops but one: an ancient bookshop, owned by eccentric old Mr. McCredie. Without a Christmas miracle, he will lose the shop by January. Could it be Carmen to make this miracle come true and save the bookshop?

Theme and Genre

This Christmas novel is about family, friendship, love, and the charming, vivid Victoria Street in the Old Town of Edinburgh, with colorful shops preparing for the Christmas season and a scent of cinnamon on the air.

Characters

The characters are empathetically developed, their thoughts and acting believable and they all are likeable and entertaining.

Plot and Writing

The story takes place during November and December in Edinburgh and is chronologically told. Especially the everyday chaos and confusion with Carmen and the bookshop in the heart of the events, her ideas and first achievements, but also the cohesion of all shop-owners, visitors and clients are atmospheric and very entertaining to read. At this special time of the year, there is also some magic in the air, which might be useful and needed. I have read novels of Jenny Colgan before and she is one of my favorite authors, when I want cozy, delightful and very British, but this one was going to be my favorite from the very first page.

Conclusion

A perfect, enjoyable Christmas-read, heart-warming, funny and romantic.

Novel, Reviews, Romance , ,

The Paris Bookseller – Kerri Maher

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AuthorKerri Maher
PublisherReview
Date11 January 2022
EditionKindle
Pages318 (print-Version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB097GF2B38
ISBN-13978-1472290786

“What if instead of a French shop in America, I open an American shop here in Paris? There seems to be a hunger here to read more works in the original language and no shop or library to supply them.” (Quotation page 28)

Content

Opening her own English bookshop in Paris, Sylvia Beach has made her dream come true. Together with Adrienne Monnier’s well known French bookshop, this literary cluster at rue de l’Odéon soon is highly acclaimed, well-known and almost daily visited by young and famous French and American writers of the 1920s and 1930s in a bohemian, sparkling Paris. When James Joyce tells her that his avant-garde novel Ulysses is officially banned and forbidden in America, before it even was published, she just has to do something, because she is absolutely convinced that readers could not be deprived of the possibility to read this innovative novel. There could be only one solution and she is ready to accept the challenge and risk everything.

Theme and Genre

This novel about Sylvia Beach, her friends and these exciting years between the two world wars in Paris is a very well balanced mixture between researched facts and fiction. It is about well-known bookshops, literature, artists, especially writers, but also about publishing, friendship, family and love.

Characters

Most characters are real and described in a vivid way, always based on reality.

Plot and Writing

The author tells the story of Sylvia Beach and her famous bookshop “Shakespeare and Company” during the most important years between 1917 and 1936, as these years are the years where Sylvia’s life as a bookseller and publisher takes place. This marvelous journey through literature, love and friendship is told from Sylvia’s point of view, but in the third-person-form, which made it possible to share not only Sylvia’s story, emotions and opinion, but add many other details that made the picture complete. Mostly written during the two years of the Covid pandemic, when libraries, publishing houses and bookstores with engaged staff made online events and information possible, this novel once again reveals the magic of books and reading.

Conclusion

A gripping, interesting, lively story about a famous bookshop, literature, artists und confident, modern women, set in the bohemian metropole Paris during the roaring twenties.

Novel, Reviews , , ,

The Winter House – Judith Lennox

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AuthorJudith Lennox
PublisherReview
Date9 April 2015
EditionKindle
Pages602 (print edition)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB00URUOT6O

Zitat Text

Content

Robin, Helen and Maia are childhood-friends. Yet, they want different things from life. The three of them have to learn during these years during the twenties and thirties of the last century in England, that it is almost impossible for women to lead an independent life, as different there own choices might be. However, they do not know, that the years still to come will ask them decisions that might cost their souls, their self-esteem and probably the most precious thing, their life.

Theme and Genre

This novel tales place in England between the two World Wars and is about growing up in a time far away from gender equality. Main topics are friendship, dreams for the future, love, loss and important decisions.

Characters

A different choice of main characters, very well developed, maybe not always believable and sometimes quite annoying in their behavior.

Plot and Writing

The story is told in four parts, each part leading over a certain period of the years between 1918 and 1938. We follow the main characters in alternating chapters, but without interruptions of a linear storyline. Open questions and own reflections during reading about missing gaps are solved near the end of the story. The language is enjoyable to read and gives a vivid picture of life in the period in which the novel takes place.

Conclusion

A gripping story about three women, growing up in rural England in the years between the two World Wars, searching for a place for their dreams and hopes in a world still dominated by men.

Novel, Reviews ,

Mexican Gothic – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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AuthorSilvia Moreno-Garcia
PublisherJo Fletcher Books
Date15 June 2021
EditionPaperback
Pages336
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-1529402681

“The shape, gray and lacking definition, a blur of darkness against the mist, did not move toward Noemí. It remained still. It might be nothing but a statue.” (Quotation page 96)

Content

Parties at the Tuñóns’ house never end up before one A.M. But this time, Noemí Taboada, leaves at ten P.M., because her father had called her home. Virgil Doyle, the husband of her cousin Catalina, has invited Noemí to visit Catalina. A few weeks ago, Catalina had written a quite disturbing letter to Noemí’s father. So Noemí has to find out, what really is happening in that old mansion called High Place, situated in the foggy, chilling countryside, which gives Catalina such a deep fright. Soon Noemí too feels a gripping, terrifying presence in that house and her nightmares convince her, that she has to leave that place as soon as possible, but certainly not without her cousin. Therefore, she first has to find a way to save Catalina from what seems a kind of spell coming from the house that makes it almost impossible to leave.

Theme and Genre

This story is written in the tradition of a typical English gothic story, mixed with Mexican ghost stories and elements of fantasy. We find ghosts, supernatural apparitions and a remote, old, haunted house, connected to dark family secrets.

Characters

Noemí is twenty-two years old and a glamorous, socialite, who takes live easy, likes to flirt and party. Nevertheless, when her five years older cousin Catalina needs her, courageously she begins to dig into the secrets deep in the past of the Doyle family and not even terrifying nightmares can stop her.

Plot and Writing

Noemí is the main character and the story is told chronologically. It shows all elements of Gothic Literature, from mystery, fear, curses, atmosphere, setting to villains, anti-hero, suffering women and romance. It is clear that Gothic Stories have to go beyond scientific understanding, leading to mysteries and strange, fearful events. However, as the story develops, the supernatural and paranormal activities are just too much, missing the elegance of the authentic English Gothic Fiction.

Conclusion

A gripping novel, a modern gothic tale with elements of horror and fantasy.

Gothic, Reviews , ,

Howards End is on the Landing: A year of reading from home – Susan Hill

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AuthorSusan Hill
PublisherProfile Books
Date6 August 2010
EditionKindle
Pages244 (print-version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB003ZDNWMC

“I found the book I was looking for in the end, but by then it had become far more than a book. It marked the start of a journey through my own library.” (Quotation page 1)

Theme and Content

It was an early autumn afternoon, when Susan Hill’s travel through the shelves begins. She was looking for this one book and found many others, long forgotten or never read.

Therefore, she makes the decision to begin a special reading year, reading just books from her shelves, without buying new ones. During this reading year, the author would also shorten the internet hours. It was not a kind of resolution or mission for her, just a personal decision to re-explore read and unread books in her house, although she soon finds out, that there are books for much longer than one year.

Plot and Writing

This book is a kind of diary, a story about Susan Hill’s life as reader, as author of fiction and non-fiction, and her own publishing company, Long Barn Books. She shares with us her memories about her childhood and youth in Scarborough and about the related books she still loves and keeps on her shelves, together with the newer children books that her daughters loved when they were children. There are memories of interesting BBC interviews for “Bookshelf” and of enriching conversations with other well-known authors. One chapter is about writing fiction and she remembers: “Writing fiction was not regarded as something you did as a set task at a set time every day, let alone with a regular target of words. Those who saw things this way had never, of course, tried either and certainly never had to work to a deadline, let alone earn a living by writing.” (Quotation page 184). While sharing her stories and memories with us, she takes books out of the different shelves to find forty books for this reading year, finally sharing her list of the “Final Forty” with us. “I am taking out far too many books. I need at least another year of reading from home. But now I have reached the landing and here it is. Howard’s End.” (Quotation page 234)

Conclusion

Howards End is on the Landing is a book about a lifetime of reading and writing, an interesting, enjoyable read for passionate readers where one will find inspiring titles not yet read but could also, like me, feel confirmed to do the same, start a year of reading through your own shelves of still unread books.

Non-fiction, Reviews , , ,

Summer on the Little Cornish Isles – Phillippa Ashley

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AuthorPhillippa Ashley
PublisherAvon Fiction
Date18 August 2018
Editionpaperback
Pages400
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0008253417

“It was such a lovely name; so evocative and catchy. Who could possibly resist popping into a place called ‘The Starfish Studio’?” (Quotation pos. 68)

Content

The moment Poppy McGregor sees the gallery “The Starfish Studio” for the first time during a holiday week with her boyfriend Dan at the Isles of Scilly; she immediately falls in love because it reminds her of her dreams to one day run a gallery. Now, three years later, Poppy and Dan are taking on the almost closed Starfish Studio on St. Piran´s, just the now it I is only Polly moving to the small island, because Dan has left her just one week ago and is now going to live with Eve. Poppy still is determined to re-open The Starfish Studio, making it successful again. The owner’s grandson, the charismatic, famous nature photographer Jake Pendower, soon is a reliable friend, but he has lost his fiancée four years ago and still mourning and Poppy is sure there never could be more, or could there?

Theme and Genre

A romantic story about art, family, loss, love and new beginnings

Characters

The characters are well drawn and likeable, and who would not love Leo, the headstrong cat.

Plot and Writing

The story is settled on the Isles of Scilly, although St. Piran’s and most of the local places exist only in the author’s imagination, and the storyline is told chronologically. The plot of the novel is an entertaining mixture between funny and thought provoking. The language is enjoyable to read.

Conclusion

A funny, romantic feel-good story, a perfect read to bring summer in your thoughts.  

Novel, Reviews, Romance , ,

How The Light Gets In – Louise Penny

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AuthorLouise Penny
PublisherHodder And Stoughton Ltd.
Date1 October 2021
EditionPaperback
Pages534
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13ISBN-13: 978-1529386363

“Four days. And she had two gay sons, a large black mother, a demented poet for a friend and was considering getting a duck.” (Citation page 10)

Content

December in Three Pines, a small, hidden village in Québec, means lots of snow and Christmas preparations. Seventy-seven years old Constance Pineault comes for a visit and stays at Myrna’s, who invites her to come back and stay over Christmas. But Constance does not arrive and does not answer her phone at home and Myrna calls an old friend, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, homicide department Sûreté du Québec. When Gamache finds out the real identity of Constance, he starts to investigate. For him this comes very convenient, as he at the same time secretly is conducting internal investigations and digging deeper and deeper into old, powerful connections, who are prepared to whatever it takes to stop him.

Theme and Genre

This Canadian crime fiction novel is book nine of the Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery series.

Characters

Three Pines is a special place and community and its inhabitants are loveable. Who would not like Ruth Zardo, the hard, edgy, old poet and her duck Rosa? Chief Inspector Armand Gamache looks more like a professor than a cop and is a brilliant investigator and a deeply caring person. When other investigators look for clues to the killer, he looks for clues to the life of the victim.

Plot and Writing

This novel is everything, a story about love, family and friendship, about life in a rural village, but also about crime, murder and deadly danger. Louise Penny perfectly knows how to write a gripping and thrilling plot with many twists, but also colorful descriptions of the beautiful surroundings in December and at the same time look at human behavior with empathy and humanity. Funny dialogs such as “‘Are you telling me the elite of the Sûreté followed Santa Claus through downtown Montréal?‘ ‘Not Santa. It was Snow White.’” (citation page 508), make you laugh out loud while breathless reading through the absorbing story full of intrigue.

Conclusion

A gripping, wonderful, perfect page-turner. For me this was the first book of the series, but I will definitely follow Armand Gamache to his next cases and also go back for some of the older cases.

Reviews, Thriller & Crime , ,

Dark Matter – Michelle Paver

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AuthorMichelle Paver
PublisherWeidenfeld & Nicolson
Date21 October 2010
EditionKindle
Pages255 (print)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB0047CPB1K

“I don’t think we will ever learn the truth of what happened at Gruhuken. However I know enough to be convinced that something terrible took place.” (Citation page 2)

Content

Jack Miller always wanted to be a physicist, but there had just been money for the University College. Now he is twenty-eight years old and when he is asked to join an Arctic expedition as communications man, he takes his chance. Their camp will be at Gruhuken, in the Nord-East corner of Spitsbergen, which means one year in an uninhabited region, including four months of complete winter-darkness. As Teddy, their medico, had to stay in London and Hugo, the glaciologist, had broken his leg during the journey and had to go back to Tromsø, only three of them, Algie, the geologist, Gus, the biologist and leader of the team, and Jack as their communications man arrive at Gruhuken the 7th August 1937. It seems that their Norwegian skipper knows more about the lonely wilderness of Gruhuken, than he wants to tell them, he just mentions that Gruhuken is a place where strange things had happened and could happen again.

Theme and Genre

This novel, set in lonely, dark Arctic nights, is a gripping ghost story with strong psychological elements.

Characters

There are three main characters, wealthy upper class Oxford studied Gus and Alchie, and Jack. At the beginning, Jack feels the social difference between them and himself, but soon they work together as a team. When the story expands and at the end of October the darkest part of the year begins, the period of endless nights, the events focus on Jack.

Plot and Writing

The story is told by Jack Miller as first-person narrator, as it is based on his personal journal with almost daily entries, and therefore written chronologically. The setting in the dark, cold, foggy, snowy Arctic loneliness and isolation together with some secrets and shadows to be seen and felt is perfect for an atmospheric fearful story. “The Arctic calls”, or cabin fever, the Norwegians call it “rar”, when men go mad from the dark might be one psychological, logical explanation, or, as Jack says to himself: “But the thing to remember, Jack, is that it’s only an echo. It’s like a footprint or a shadow.” (Citation page 120). However, the days reveal that the main problem for Jack is not to be there alone, but the question, whether he is really alone. Impressionistic, scenic descriptions complete the story, leading you immediately into the beautiful, but merciless and dangerous Arctic wilderness.

Conclusion

A gripping, suspenseful story that sends a shudder down your spine, an enjoyable read especially for dark evenings.

Gothic, Reviews , , ,

The Last Library – Freya Sampson

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AuthorFreya Sampson
PublisherZaffre
Date19 August 2021
EditionKindle
Pages302 (print version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB092S7S43D

„What these management consultants with their calculators and spreadsheets will never work out is that the library is about so much more than simply books. Libraries are like a net, there to catch those of us in danger of falling through the cracks.” (Quotation page 76)

Content

Beverly Jones had been the librarian of Chalcot Library and her daughter June was always found immersed in a book. Since ten years June herself works as a Library Assistant works at. She loves her work and the small little village Chalcot, but eight years ago, her mum has died and she still is missing her so much. Now June’s live is quiet, surrounded by books and her cat Alan Bennett, pretending to be happy alone with her memories. When it comes to the council’s announcement that there are six libraries to be closed in the county and Chalcot is one of them, June is asked to join the FOCL – Friends of Chalcot Library protest group, to start a campaign to save the library that means so much to everybody. But will she be able to finally make a step forward and open to real life?

Theme and Genre

This story is about loss, friendship, family and love. An important topic is life in small villages, caring about the needs of the inhabitants when investors in search for maximum profit are waiting who would change everything. Most of all it is about books, reading and the magic of libraries.

Characters

The different characters are likeable, a bit old-fashioned and sometimes quite funny with their tics. June is very shy, always trying to hide somewhere in the back, hoping to be overseen. But she cares a lot about the regulars coming to the library, offering much more than just perfect book recommendations.

Plot and Writing

The very-well-written story takes place during summer and early autumn and is told in a third person narrative perspective with June Jones as main character. It is a romantic, heartwarming plot that gets depth with themes like the social role of public spaces such as a library in small communities, politics, missing funds and personal courage.

Conclusion

An enjoyable, uplifting read – not only for booklovers.

Novel, Reviews , , ,

Ghostly Winter Tales: A Fourth Collection of Classic Ghost Stories for Christmas

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Author23 classical authors
PublisherBlack Heath Editions
EditorsB.M. Croker, Dick Donovan,
Fergus Hume, W.J. Wintle
Date11 November 2018
EditionKindle Edition
Pages235 (print version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB07KFHWRL8

“It was about a fortnight before Christmas, when the days were at their shortest and darkest.” (Quotation page 129, from “Christmas Eve at Beach House” by Eliza Lynn Linton)

Content, Theme and Genre

This fourth collection of Classic Ghost Stories contains twenty-three stories by different authors, written in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. All stories take place during foggy winter days and dark winter nights around Christmas, where guests are invited to celebrate happy, festive Christmas days and New Years Eve in the beautiful manors and old country houses of their hosts. At this time of the year everything can happen, ghosts are to be seen, mostly unfriendly, and some of the invited guests might listen amused to the stories about haunted houses and rooms, definitely not believing in such supernatural things, and then may awake or not awake one morning, just having experienced otherwise, without any logical and possible explanation. “Much still remains obscure and cannot now be cleared up; for the only man who could perhaps throw further light on it is no longer with us.” (Quotation page 215, from “The Black Cat” by W. J. Wintle). Very interesting for me was the story “The Christmas Eve Vigil” by James Bowker, as I know the theme of the ghostly procession of figures towards a church, revealing the faces of the persons going to die during the following year, from a famous theatre play, “Der Müller und sein Kind”, written 1830 by the German writer Ernst Raupach.

Conclusion

A perfect collection for gripping, enjoyable reading hours during dark winter evenings.  

Reviews, Short Stories , , , , , , ,

The Christmas Wish – Tilly Tennant

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AuthorTilly Tennant
PublisherSphere
Date28 November 2019
EditionPaperback
Pages352
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0751578010

“Then stop second-guessing all the time and learn to live for the moment. You won’t see any of these people again after this week so who cares what they think?” (Page 174)

Content

Three years ago, Esme Greenwood had left for London, to live with her fiancée Warren. Three months ago she found out that he is married and went back to stay with her grandmother Mathilde at Thimble Cottage in Little Dove Morton, a small village. Soon it will be Christmas when grandmother Mathilde suddenly dies. This makes it easy for Warren to persuade her to come back to him. However, there are still two tickets for a Christmas week in Lapland, her Christmas present from her grandmother, but over-controlling, egoistic Warren refuses. Therefore, one day, when Warrren has left for work, she just packs her suitcase and takes a cab to the airport. Lapland, the place of her childhood dreams, is waiting, together with a fantastic scenery, lots of snow, Santa’s village and some surprises too.

Theme and Genre

A heartwarming, typical Christmas romance, which takes place in Lapland.

Characters

Esme is likeable and witty, but when it comes to Warren, she still believes his promises, and still struggles to understand that Warren definitely is not good for her.

Plot and Writing

The story is romantic, with amazing portrayals of Lapland, Rovaniemi, the Northers lights and traditional Christmas festivities. The main part are the days in Lapland, Esme making new friends with other single travelers, and enjoying spectacular experiences of nature and romantic Christmas sceneries. But there are many, in my opinion too many, pages about Esme thinking about Warren, how much he needs her, still finding new excuses for his behavior and feeling guilty, again insecure and worthless, and this began to annoy me a bit, dimming the Christmassy, enjoyable mood of the story.

Conclusion

An entertaining, romantic Christmas read with lively and impressive descriptions of Lapland in December, but a sometimes-annoying heroine.

Reviews, Romance , , ,

Christmas on the Little Cornish Isles: The Driftwood Inn – Phillipa Ashley

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AuthorPhillipa Ashley
PublisherAvon
Date18 September 2017
EditionKindle
Pages402 (print version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB074M2H758

“Every piece of tinsel, tree decoration and Santa/snowman/robin ornament they had had been dragged out of storage and used to adorn the rooms, private and public.” (Quotation page 229)

Content

Maisie Samson, forty years old on New Years Eve, which will be soon, is back at the family owned The Driftwood Inn on Gull Island, a small, quiet island, part of the Isles of Scilly. Used to work in a pub, she is now going to help her parents and taking over Driftwood inn. One year ago, everything had been very different, together with Keegan, their baby would be born in summer, but then she lost her baby and Keegan left her too. Business in winter is not easy at Gull Island, cold, rainy, all tourists have left and the staff to. Therefore, when charming Patrick McKinnon from Melbourne asks for a job until March, he seems the perfect solution, almost heaven-sent for Gull Island. Romance is in the air, but also a secret around Patrick.

Theme and Genre

A romantic, seasonal story that takes place on a small Cornish Island around Christmas. Book one of a series of three.

Characters

The characters are likeable, caring, and show a wide range of different persons living on such a small island, trying to make ends meet to earn a living.

Plot and Writing

The main character of the story is Maisie and this is a funny, cozy story about friendship, love, but also problems in a small community, living on a quiet island. Most of all it is a story about the magical Christmas time, and people who know how to come together and celebrate. Not all events are joyful because not everybody wants to keep a tourism that is related to nature and the beauty of this small Cornish island, but to go for modern, sophisticated, expanded tourism. Repeated hints about Patrick’s secret are obviously written to bring more suspense in the storyline, in my opinion not necessary in this kind of pleasant Christmassy story.

Conclusion

A cosy, enjoyable story, likeable characters, lots of Christmas spirit, perfect reading for dark winter evenings around Christmas time.

Reviews, Romance , , , ,

The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 – by Carmen Callil and Colm Tóibín

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AuthorCarmen Callil
AuthorColm Tóibín
PublisherRobinson
Date23 June 2011, reprint 2019
EditionPaperback
Pages304
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-1849016766

“While we differ in our response to literary theory – one of us is hostile to it, the other cannot have enough of it – we were as one in our determination to ignore the distinction between so-called popular fiction and literary fiction (also so-called.) … The critical dividing line between popular and literary also ignores the reader and the writer, who rarely contemplate the novel in this way.” (Two original quotations, Introduction, page 6)

Theme and Content

Colm Tóibín and Carmen Callil are well-known authors. This book includes two hundred novels written since 1950 by English-speaking authors from all over the world.  

Implementation

The books begins with an introduction where the two authors explain their intention to show that the modern novel flourishes more than ever before, but that it too has changed during these fifty years between 1950 and 2000. Their intense research led to one hundred and ninety-four own choices for readers of every age and taste, and six novels chosen by their readers. As the two authors are from different countries and they have different preferences, any list of this kind is also somehow personal, but they always have looked for a certain quality, an excitement in the reading and the feeling to want to give this book to someone else to read.

The introduction is followed by a list of titles in order of publication, because the entries are alphabetical under the name of the author. Each recommended novel has one page with descriptions of genre, themes, form, characters, content and the intentions of the author. On the bottom of each page, there you can find information about the author. This main part is followed by lists of Autobiographies and memoirs, Literary biographies, Poetry, Autobiographies and memoirs by novelists chosen in this book, Literary biographies of novelists chosen in this book and several lists of Literary Prizewinners from Bookers Prize to Novel Awards, ending with the Index of Titles.

Conclusion

An entertaining, delightful and interesting guide that leads us through fifty years of modern fiction and books we might know and love and others, new for us, that make us curious and immediately end up on our “want-to-read”-list. A timeless, enjoyable read.

Non-fiction, Reviews , , ,

Another Country – James Baldwin

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AuthorJames Baldwin
PublisherPenguin Classics
Date11 September 2001
EditionPaperback
Pages448
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0141186375

 “People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you’re dead, when they’ve killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn’t have any character.” (Quotation page 261)

Content

Rufus Scott is a musician and the evening he meets Leona, he plays a gig in one of the new Harlem spots. It was meant to be just one night, but soon they move in together, Rufus, charming, but also violent and full of hate, black, and the white lady from the South. Now, seven months later, Rufus is broken and lost and for him there is just one step forward left. Then things restart, but in a different setting, as Vivaldo, Rufus’s best friend, and Ida, the younger sister of Rufus, fall in love. Vivaldo, an Irish-Italian writer, as well as his friends, the now successful writer Richard and his wife Cass, are white New York Bohemians, having been friends of Rufus too, as well as Eric, a young actor, who is now comng back from Paris.

Theme and Genre

“Another Country” was written between 1956 and 1961 and is a famous, timeless classic novel about racism, discrimination, the life of Black people in the white American society of the vivid city New York in the fifties. It is about music, love, dreams, hope, destructive relationships, sexuality and gender, betrayal and hate.

Characters

Rufus, one of the main characters, carries the first chapter of the story and disappears, but now comes Ida, his younger sister. There is a bit of brilliant, violent, charming and self-destructive Rufus in every main character of this novel: Vivaldo, Ida, Richard, Cass and Eric. They all are looking for changes, trying to find out who they are and who they could be.

Plot and Writing

The novel is told in three main parts, with different characters in the center of the events. Book One, Easy Rider, moves between darkness, rage and philosophy. It starts with Rufus, who comes to meet his friend Vivaldo, but as they speak about what had happened, we learn from their memories and flashbacks what had happened and led to the present situation. The second book shows a profound situation of American life in that time. “And each man or woman that passed seemed also to be carrying some intolerable burden; their private lives screamed from their hot and discontented faces.” (Quotation page 265). In this Book Two, Any Day Now, we learn more about the actual situation and life of Vivaldo, Ida, Richard, Cass and Eric. Book Three is about decisions, possible future solutions, but lets us readers to think about it, offering only the possibility of changes. The powerful language is everything between realistic, clear, compassionate and profoundly touching.

Conclusion

A powerful, timeless classic novel, beautifully written.

Novel, Reviews ,

History of Wolves – Emily Fridlund

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AuthorEmily Fridlund
Publisher W&N
Date22 February 2018
EditionPaperback
Pages288
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13‎978-1474602969

“Maybe if I’d been someone else I’d see it differently. But isn’t that the crux of the problem? Wouldn’t we all act differently if we were someone else?” (Quotation pos. 1939)

Content

Madelaine Furston, called Linda, grows up in a small cabin at a lake somewhere in the rural woods of northern Minnesota. Her parents, old hippies, treat her like an adult person, letting her make her own decisions and ideas about live. In school, they call her “freak”.

When she is fourteen, almost fifteen years old, everything changes. Across the lake, which is very narrow at this point, one late winter day a family from the city with a small child arrives at their new summerhouse. The father soon leaves but the mother and the little boy stay. Linda begins to visit and soon she is Paul’s babysitter and feels like a girl friend to his twentysix years old mother Patra. She seems to have found a happy family who cares. Linda feels that something changes when Patra’s husband Leo, a Christian Scientist, returns, but she could not explain what was wrong because Patra and Leo are still exceptionally friendly, making it easy to assume that they are happy and everything is fine.

Theme and Genre

This novel, shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize, is about the difference between a truth that you create for yourself and desperately want to believe, and a reality where you should act. Important topics are outsiders, family, growing up in the lonely nature, and the strong influence of religion.

Characters

The characters of this story are not always likeable and understandable in their behavior and thinking. Linda, who is trying to find out if she is still just a kid, longing for a real family, or a teenage girl with all her worries, trying too hard to be an adult. As an outsider, she is interested in the lives of other outsiders, pretending to understand what happiness in their lives or just making things up.

Plot and Writing

Madelaine “Linda”, now thirtyseven years old, tells the story of her childhood and youth as the first person narrator. Not always chronological, her memories switch between years and ages, persons, incidents, and some events that happened, and this leaves us readers with some loose ends and implausibilities. Delightful to read are the poetical descriptions of the nature, the lakes and woods, but tough, sad and sometimes depressing, when it comes to the dreams, invented stories and real living conditions of the female main characters.

Conclusion

An interesting, but not always plausible coming-of-age-story, a demanding read with only partly coherent figures, leaving the reader with some open questions.

Contemporary literature, Novel, Reviews , , ,

Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin

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AuthorJames Baldwin
PublisherPenguin Classics
Date2 August 2007
EditionPaperback
Pages160
LanguageEnglish
ISBN-13978-0141032948

„It became, in a way, every room I had ever been in and every room I find myself hereafter will remind me of Giovanni’s room.” (Quotation page 76)  

Content

David’s mother dies when he is only five years old and he grows up with his father and his aunt Ellen, the unmarried sister of his father. As soon as possible, he leaves and lives on his own. When he feels weary of every part of his life in New York, he moves to Paris, where he meets Hella. When he asks her to marry him, she leaves him, travels to Spain to think about her future. David stays in Paris. One evening he meets the bartender Giovanni, and from the first moment, there is a deep attraction between them. Giovanni lives in a small one-room-apartment and David moves in the same evening. When Hella comes back, David leaves Giovanni on that same day, pretending that this love affair never has happened.

Theme and Genre

This novel, written 1956, is about living between truth and lies, bisexuality, love, lost innocence, shame and guilt. An important topic for Baldwin’s persons is their search for their sexual identity and the related insecurity.

Characters

David, the young American, hides his feelings for men and feels sure about Hella, wants to marry, settle down and have children. His life is a perfect vision, created for the others, but a vision, he desperately tries to believe to be true. He knows that Hella will probably come back.

Giovanni is Italian, emotional and lives his feelings. That David, whom he trusts and loves, just leaves without a word destroys him.

Plot and Writing

David, the first person narrator tells the story during one night, and thinking about the next day, just in the present time. The first pages contain the whole story, revealing the major points, themes and conflict. Doing so, the author is free of any timeline and suspense level. The story moves between memories and significant events in David’s childhood, teenage years, and his years in Paris, and the hours of the present night and morning. A central point of the story is Guilleaume’s bar, a place for bohemians living their sexual diversity. Baldwin uses the scenes to describe a different live, working or without work at daytime, but waiting for the evenings and living during the night. He shows a very special picture of early Parisian mornings and the locations still open or just opening, for example the famous Les Halles.

Conclusion

Not always highly acclaimed by literary critics, this novel for a long time now is a timeless classic. Written with empathy and sensivity, in a poetic narrative language, the story gives many questions to reflect on them, about human life, decisions, possible guilt and fate.

Novel, Reviews , ,

Devotions, The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

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AuthorMary Oliver
PublisherPenguin Books
Date10 October 2017
EditionKindle edition
Pages477 (print-version)
LanguageEnglish
ASINB01MZHR2P7

“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? / While the soul, after all, is only a window, / and the opening of the window no more difficult / than the wakening from a little sleep.” (Quotation from “Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches, pos. 2487)

Content

These more than two-hundred poems are a personal selection of her poems, selected by Mary Oliver herself. She begins with her latest collection, Felicity, 2015, followed by Blue Horses 2014, Dog Songs, 2013, A Thousand Mornings 2012, Swan, 2010, Evidence, 2009, The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, 2008, Red Bird, 2008, Thirst, 2006, New and Selected Poems, Volume Two, 2005, Blue Iris, 2004, Why I wake Early, 2004, Long Life, 2004, Owls and Other Fantasies, 2003, What do we know, 2002, The Leaf and the Cloud, 2000, West Wind, 1997, White Pine, 1994, New and Selected Poems: Volume One, 1992, House of Light, 1990, Dream Work, 1986, American Primitive, 1983, Three Rivers Poetry Journal, 1980, Twelve Moons, 1979, The River Styx, Ohio, 1972, and ends with her first poetry collection No Voyage and Other Poems, 1963 and 1965.

Theme and Writing

These poems are moments of observations and thoughts about nature, rivers, even stones, sun, snow, roses; we meet animals like foxes, horses, birds, especially herons, and her beloved dogs in her Dog Songs. Just simple moments, calm afternoons, evenings, sunny mornings in a quiet special surrounding of the beautiful nature and the poet wants to share these special moments, thoughts and feelings with us. Every single poem wants to show us the beauty of our world, to protect it and just enjoy every day of our life and be grateful for it.

Conclusion

“The poem is not the world. / It isn’t the first page of the world. / But the poem wants to flower, like a flower. / It knows that much. (Quotation from “Flare” 8., pos. 2361) These poems by Mary Oliver flower and touch our mind and souls.

Poetry, Reviews , , , ,
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