Reading in the time of Covid

 

Well after two years avoiding Covid, being super cautious, working from home, wearing masks and being fully vaccinated our luck finally ran out and we both caught it.

Luckily we weren't too ill but at the very start when I found my concentration shot and my inability to read/remember what I'd read I was taken back to the months after my brain hemorrhage and it wasn't very pleasant at all.

My (fortunately temporary) inability to read doesn't seem to have affected my ability to buy and acquire books and the postman has been a little busy. The good (?) thing is that post Covid I am still really suffering from fatigue so I'm not feeling too guilty about curling up on the sofa after work and just reading.

Also helping to relieve the guilt is knowing that all of the books I've brought are from independent publishers and ordered through independent bookshops!

I have now finished Lesley Parr's When the War Came Home as recommended to me by Kentishbookboy's mum and I though that this was a brilliant read - it was so nice to read a book about the First World War that wasn't just about the fighting but had the focus on what came next for those returning from the front and those who'd held everything together on the home front.

Next up as a recommendation from Kentishbookboy is When The Sky Falls by Phil Earle which has made it on to the short list for lots of book awards, including the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Medal. I have been warned I'll need tissues for this one so perhaps I'll save it until I'm fully recovered!

Micro Review 57

 

Heritage by Miguel Bonnefoy, trans. Emily Boyce (Gallic Books)

Bonnefoy has managed something incredible in Heritage - a sweeping, multi-generational, family saga told in just 200 pages. It also repeatedly takes you by surprise, the blurb for the book is also a masterclass in understatement:

A winegrower ruined by the Great French Vine Blight takes his one surviving vine stock and boards a ship for California. But the new life he has in store is not the one he had imagined – taken ill aboard ship, he is forced to disembark at Valparaíso, where a misunderstanding at the customs post finds him rebaptized after his birthplace, Lons-le-Saunier: the Lonsonier family is born in Chile.

Making the journey in reverse, his sons return to defend the motherland in 1914, and the ghosts of the war live on across the Atlantic, in a house with three lemon trees and a garden filled with birds, for years to come.

It is only in the very last paragraph of this are you given a hint that there is more to the book than a simple family saga:

From the depths of the trenches to the soaring peaks of the Andes and the shadow of dictatorship, the personal stories of the Lonsoniers collide with key moments in a century of global history, painting a vivid picture of what is both gained and lost through migration. 

I confess that I was lulled in to a false sense of security by the first two thirds of the book, it was a good read but with the exception of a few magical realism flights of fantasy I thought it was 'just' another multi-generational family book - all be it one looking at WW1 & WW2 from the point of view of the colonies.

Then there comes the last part and boy was that an eye opener and shocking read - I knew a little of Chile's history but this packs no punches.

Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy of the book (which I was under no obligation to review), it is published on 14th April and is well worth a read. 

Micro Review 56

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Transworld Publisher/ Net Galley)

After seeing a lot of chatter about this book on Twitter I was really pleased to be approved for an advance copy on Net Galley and it really didn't disappoint - in fact it is already a contender for being one of my top 2022 reads.

Set in the 1950s and 1960s it follows the story of Elizabeth Zott and her family. Nothing about Elizabeth is conventional and this definitely isn't a nostalgic look back at the 1950s by any stretch of the imagination! 

Elizabeth is a woman ahead of her time in so many ways, and while at first you think that this could tip in to the Eleanor Oliphant genre of books it really doesn't. 

It is about making it as a woman in a man's world, being true to who you are, love, experimentation, family and bravery. Some reviews have said they couldn't find a likeable character in the book but I didn't find that - I loved them all and laughed/cried my way through it. What made me cross is the opposition & discrimination Elizabeth faced in every area of her life and how little this has changed in the 50 years since the book's setting.

Lessons in Chemistry is published on April 5th and I recommend reserving it at your local library (or preordering) as soon as possible

Micro review 55

 

Nisha's War by Dan Smith (Chicken House)

Kentishbookboy and I (plus his mum & nan)  have been talking books again and recommending lots of titles to each other, we've also been loaning books around the family and it does feel wonderful to be able to catch up in person and talk about them.

I have my sister's copy Lesley Parr's When the War Came Home about to reach the top of my TBR pile and the last time I was in Kent with them all KBB lent me his prized (signed) copy of Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell. This loan came with conditions however as I had to read it while in Kent and under no circumstances could I bring it back to Norfolk to finish. (It was a fabulously funny book and I did fit it in around other family activities).

The book I added to the mix was Nisha's War by Dan Smith a book set during the Second World War. This one came with a difference however as it was partly set in the Far East theatre of war, during the  invasion of the area by the Japanese at the end of 1941/ start of 1942. While being written from a child's point of view the horrors of this campaign are not soft soaped and it was an emotional read.

The other thing I liked about this book was the inclusion of non white characters - Nisha's dad was white British but had married a local woman while he was working in the Far East. There is a lot of curiosity about Nisha's colour and some racism/colonial ideas expressed towards her Amma but no overt racist behaviour on their arrival back in England - I hope that is how such refugees would have been treated but I have my doubts.

Amma and Nisha make it back to England on an evacuation ship and the story opens with their arrival at Nisha's grandmother's house, which is not very welcoming. Slowly the story unfolds and we learn more about the experiences of the family in Singapore and why the family house is so rule bound and forbidding.

There is also a ghost story/mystery element to the book which marries the plot together nicely, without being too off the wall. It is a book about hope, friendship, and reconciling yourself with the past - whilst definitely being a children's book. 

It is hard to discuss the book without any spoilers and I think coming to it knowing just the barebones is ideal. I saw it being mentioned on Twitter to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the Fall of Singapore and I was drawn to it because of the unusual wartime setting - the war in the Far East is so often overlooked that anything using this as a plot is going to appeal to me.