Indulgent Reading

Longterm blog readers will recall that pre pandemic Mr Norfolkbookworm and I often have a winter holiday around now and spend a week somewhere warmer than Norfolk. Our main activities were reading, sleeping, eating, reading, gentle exploring, and reading some more.

We're still not comfortable enough to travel as yet but I have just had a week off and I have spent a lot of it reading, and rather than reading for forthcoming projects I have spent the time revisiting old favourites as well as some good old romantic fiction.

First up was a reread of Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea and I was so pleased that it did live up to my memories. In many ways is it a very old fashioned tale, along the lines of Nesbit or Hodgson Burnett, but at the same time is as a fresh and modern as anything else being written for this age bracket. Thanks to Net Galley I have just been granted access to the official sequel, Escape to the River Sea by Emma Carroll, and I will be starting this very soon!

A new book next and Cressida McLaughlin's The Staycation. This was just what I needed after a couple of heavier reads and unlike most of Cressie's books this is a standalone novel published in one go, rather than in monthly instalments and then as a full novel which is how I've read her previous books. While the overall plot of this book was clear from the outset it was just how delightful the journey to get there was that made this such a great read. And yes the pun is intentional! My favourite part about this book was the descriptions of the British locations - I knew them all and they were spot on, I felt like I was able to follow Hester and her friends completely as they roamed London and Norfolk.

A reread and a new book made up my last two books - Rachel's Holiday and Again, Rachel by the wonderful Marian Keyes. Looking back through my reading journal I can see that I read Rachel's Holiday back in 2005, and after that all of Keyes' other books. While I could remember the general gist of the book I thought that a reread was a good idea as Again, Rachel was going to be a direct sequel (although set 20-ish years after the first book). Both were brilliant.

Reading these two books (and if I'm honest The Staycation too) reminds me of why I get so cross the way  that this genre of books is dismissed as 'romantic fiction' or 'women's fiction.' The topics covered in Keyes' books don't make easy reading, although the writing makes them pure page turners, and the plotting is so tight it puts a lot of thrillers (or men's fiction) to shame. They are also funny - oh another genre that is dismissed all too often...

But as I'm typing this I can see that I have brought into this narrative. While I read quite a lot of 'women's fiction' I do tend to only review the more literary end, and the fun books like the ones mentioned I do only include in holiday round ups or under the heading 'indulgent reading.'

I think that because I don't review anything like all of the books that I read on my blog I do neglect to mention the books that are like a comfy sofa and a hot cup of tea. I need to start talking about the books that make me happy as well as the ones that make me think, that take me by surprise or that challenge me. I've never hidden the fact that I read and enjoy kidlit why don't I champion romantic/comic/women's fiction in the same way?

I'm too late for a New Year's resolution (and even a Chinese New Year's resolution) but I will try to do better.

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A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe (Faber)

I'd seen and heard this book being talked about a lot at the start of the year and each time I heard about it I became more intrigued. 

At first I thought that a book about an embalmer who helps with the emergency response after the Aberfan disaster just didn't seem like it would be for me but I added it to my I want to read these books list regardless and then entered a Twitter competition run by @TwoFondOfBooks.

I was lucky and won a signed copy of the novel and last weekend with iffy weather and an under-the-weather husband changing our plans I curled up with the book and didn't really surface until I'd read it all!

It isn't an easy read in many ways, the topics it covers are (occasionally) bleak but the writing and characterisations are so good that the bleakness is balanced with light and humour. The non judgmental narration along with the message of acceptance was also refreshing and made a nice way to keep the focus on William's story.

William himself is an odd character and at times I wanted to reach in to the book and give him a good shake but that is again testament to the writing in that I found him to be so real.

The other delight with the book was Browning Wroe's accuracy in describing locations - all too often you can be pulled out of a book when a description of something/somewhere you know is wrong but the Cambridge of this book is spot on!

I can see why this book is being talked about everywhere and I hope it continues to do well and features on at least some of the literary prize lists this year.

Thanks to the Two Fond of Books team, Faber and Jo Browning Wroe for my signed copy as a prize- you were all right and I loved it!

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The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray (Penguin Random House)

This was a book I got for Christmas after seeing it mentioned in lots of different places - I mean a book about a librarian specialising in rare, antiquarian books was always going to pique my curiosity!

The book is the story of J. P. Morgan's private librarian and how between them they created one of the most interesting private collections of books (and art) and then made them accessible to the public.

While this story is fascinating in itself there is another strand to the story in that Belle, the librarian, is in fact passing as white due to her family's light skin tone. Her father was the first Black graduate from Harvard and was very prominent in the integration movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In having a main character that crossed into both communities allowed a lot of history to be told without ever descending into bald exposition. I found it profoundly sad that society has not progressed as much in the past 100 years as we'd like to think as many of the events could (and probably do) still happening today.

While I really enjoyed the novel and how all of the story wove together I did find myself wishing that it was a little more of a biography with slightly less of the imaginings of Belle's romantic entanglements. I will now be looking out for other books about her and her achievements.

One thing I did like about the book was the openness of Marie Benedict as she realised that by being a white author she couldn't authentically tell Belle's story and so worked with Victoria Christopher Murray to create a more rounded book. This co-authorship worked wonderfully and at no point could I pick out one voice from the other - it was just a good book.

In that way that sometimes happens the theme of 'passing' has cropped up in a few other things I've come across recently, most noticeably in the film Passing which is nominated for several BAFTAs next month and I do recommend both the film and The Personal Librarian for an insight into pre-WW2 New York society.

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The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan (Harper Collins)

Long term followers of my reviews know that books about the Holocaust feature reasonably regularly in my reading. It has been well over 30 years since I first read the The Diary of Anne Frank and since then I've read quite a few books about her, the helpers and her family but I've never been obsessed with knowing who did betray those in the Secret Annexe.

This book treats the events of August 1944 as a cold crime and a team of researchers, historians, computer programmers and criminologists is formed to work through as many documents and sources as possible to try and work out who was ultimately behind the arrest of the Frank family and the others hiding with them.

Systematically the team work through different theories and show all of their research as they exonerate (or not) those who have been named as possible betrayers over time. In the main each strand is followed from start to finish which I really did like as theories didn't get confused, and with so many names to remember it didn't become overwhelming.

This choice of narrative style did however make me think that the chapters were each written as podcast chapters as at times they did feel a little cliff hanger-ish and overly dramatic.

The book has proved to be controversial with the ultimate reveal of who this team think did betray those in hiding, and publication has been stopped in Holland. 

The team do seem very convinced that they have cracked the case but I think I agree with the critics. For me it felt that they'd decided 'who dunnit' and worked all of their research to show this. I felt that some of the other threads were dismissed as being too flimsy yet the one that they fixed on didn't seem to have any more definitive evidence than the others.

 

The team are also always very clear to say that none of us in 2022 can understand the pressure those in occupied Holland were under, and we can't judge their actions by today's standards. Who knows what any of us would do to survive, or to ensure that our families did?

I'm pleased I read this from a curiosity point of view but I don't think it is the definitive solving of the case that the authors would like it to be. It is also quite telling that they were not given permission to quote from any of the original documents/diary or from any correspondence between Otto Frank and the other helpers.

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I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons (Cornerstone)

I love books with interesting narrators and as this one is told from the point of view of the painted Mona Lisa I was quickly drawn in.

The conceit is that Da Vinci was such a skilled painter that he actually created a sentient being with the Mona Lisa and so this book is actually her autobiography.

This Mona Lisa was firmly in love with Da Vinci and the bulk of the book is her recounting her life with him during Renaissance Italy and France. After his death we hear smaller parts of what happened to her/the painting in pre Revolutionary France, during her theft/kidnap at the start of the twentieth century and then how she was kept hidden from the Nazis during World War Two.

Because this Lisa had few people to talk to (exceptional artists/art lovers can also hear her, as can one other painting by Da Vinci) during these latter historical periods there is less detail in them and I did want to know more about them in a historical sense.

Solomon's Mona Lisa is quite a snob, very scathing and acerbic and also very unimpressed with most of the people who came to see her through history. At the same time she is quite amusing and her view point on history is different from other historical fiction set in similar time frames (such as The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone).

I feel that I would be one of the people that Mona Lisa would disparage as when I did see the painting in Paris she was smaller than I expected and hard to see because of the crowds, I never got close enough to see her in detail and failed to fall under her spell. The room was full of people trying to take selfies with her even before the camera phone became ubiquitous. I was much more impressed with the picture she was looking at...

Many thanks to Cornerstone and Net Galley for my advance copy of the book, it is published later this month.