Kentish Book Boy returns - part six

 

The Monkey Who Fell from the Future by Ross Welford (Harper Collins)

Synopsis

The year is 2425. Centuries after a catastrophic meteor collision, nature has retaken the earth. In a small town in what was once Englnd, young Ocean Mooney and the monkey-owning Duke Smiff have just dug up a 400-year old table computer.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Thomas Reeve and his genius cousin Kylie create the Time Tablet - a device which they hope will allow them to communicate with the future.

But when the Time Tablet malfunctions live on television, Thomas and Kylie are sucked in to the tear 2425 - and only have 24 hours to return home, and save the future of humanity...

My views on the book

I really enjoyed this book; my favourite part was the prologue - so descriptive and it really paints a picture in my head. I felt the epilogue was kind of funny as it linked back to the middle of the book!

Recommendation

Really recommend this book.
No other words for it.

Another one for me to borrow I feel - KBB has interesting (and great) taste in books!

Post holiday reading round up

 

A fortnight doing nothing.

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just spent two glorious weeks in Corfu. We did absolutely nothing except a few gentle walks, lie on the beach, swim in the sea and visit lovely restaurants. Oh and I did some reading...in fact I did a lot of reading as I got through 27 books in the fortnight!

A quick list of books and thoughts follow!

An Astronomer in Love - Antoine Laurain (Gallic Books) - a beautiful whimsical tale about love, Paris and the transit of Venus.

Greek Lessons - Han Kan, tr. Deborah Smith & Emily Yae Won (Hamish Hamilton) - an odd little book about a man losing his sight and woman who has become mute, not quite sure I understood all of it.

In Memoriam - Alice Winn (Random House) - a WW1 novel that draws inspiration from public school magazines from the era and also Journey's End. I loved this, a contender for best of the year!

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir - Daniel Finkelstein (Harper Collins) - a book that tied in with my reading from just before our holiday as well as covering a far less talked about WW2 experience of being Russian prisoners of war. Incredibly moving.

Madame Pommery: Creator of Brut Champagne - Rebecca Rosenberg (Lion Heart Publishing) - a fun historical fiction novel based around real people. Definitely made me want a glass of bubbles while I was reading it!

The Air Raid Book Club - Annie Lyons (Harper Collins) - an enjoyable WW2 novel set around a bookshop/bookclub.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - T Kingfisher (Argyll Productions) - a fun fantasy novel that owes a lot to Tamora Pierce and Terry Pratchett.

The Half Life of Valery K - Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury) - Wow! What a book! Not an easy read and one that gave me some pretty vivid dreams but was an edge of your seat read - another contender for book of the year!

Yellowface - Rebecca F Kuang (Harper Collins) - This is one of the most talked about books of the year but for me it was all hype and the book was a disappointment.

Hazardous Spirits - Anbara Salam (Hachette) - for an advance project, can't talk about yet!

The Moon Represents My Heart - Pim Wangtechawat (Simon & Schuster) - another much talked about book that left me cold. All things I like in a book - time travel, mystery and strong family ties but I just didn't see the point of this one.

Last House Before the Mountain - Monika Helfer tr. Gillian Davidson (Bloomsbury) - a multi generational novel from Austria which included a strand about WW1 in Austria which isn't a common setting. For me it felt more style than substance but an interesting read.

The Farmer's Wife - Helen Rebanks (Faber and Faber) - I liked the recipes and insights in to farming but to me the rest of the book just felt a bit weird and more like a conversation she should have been having with her husband or a therapist.

Moderate Becoming Good Later: Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast - Katie Carr and Toby Carr (Hachette) - a wonderfully moving travel memoir of Toby's journey around the UK in his kayak.

The Shadow Of Perseus - Claire Heywood (Hodder & Stoughton) - I love the way that Heywood retells the Greek legends but seeing how they might have played out with no divine intervention.

House of Odysseus - Claire North (Little Brown) - A sequel to Ithaca which I read last year. Another retelling of some of the classic stories and I read this while overlooking a rock that is supposed to be Odysseus's ship so very apt!

The Fire - Daniela Krien tr. Jamie Bulloch (Hachette) - This was an interesting look at how the fall of the Berlin Wall has impacted through the generations in the former East Germany and how despite the publicity integration isn't as easy as it is said. I didn't like all the strands of the story but it was a book I could absolutely 'see' as I was reading it.

The Rich - Rachel Lynch (Canelo) - for an advance project so can't talk about yet.

Maame - Jessica George (St Martin's) - I thought that this might be too much of a Sally Rooney-esque 'millennial' novel for me but instead it was incredibly moving and had a lot more depth than I expected, another book of the year contender!

Sweet Bean Paste - Durian Sukegawa tr. Alison Watts (Simon & Schuster) I loved this tale about second chances, unexpected friendships and Japanese food, and also an unexpected link to a favourite Greek set novel.

Morgan is My Name - Sophie Keetch (Simon & Schuster) - I've not read many Arthurian legends and this was a great introduction to the new strand of stories and being a feminist retelling I was instantly hooked and I can't wait for the next book!

A Spell of Good Things - Ayobami Adebayo (Canongate) - I loved Adebayo's first book (Stay With Me) and had really been looking forward to this one. While I loved the setting and found the story interesting, the (over)use of Nigerian phrases and words meant I wanted subtitles as I read the book which kept it at a distance.

Safiyyah's War - Hiba Noor Khan (Andersen Press) - A YA novel about a Muslim family in Paris during WW2 and how the mosque was a centre of resistance and survival. While not a retelling of anyone specific family this is based on research and real life and was a really powerful read.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa tr. Eric Ozawa (Manilla Press) - billed as being perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and I agree with this and for me the book was just a bit too slight and convenient to become one of my favourite Japan set books.

The Girl with the Red Hair - Buzzy Jackson (Random House) - another Dutch set WW2 book, this time fiction but taking true like happenings as the base. The Girl with the Red Hair was an active member of the resistance and as well as helping Jews to hide from the Nazis she also comminted huge acts of sabotage and violence to help defeat the Germans. Definietly a story that needs to be told, and a Hannie Schaft should be as well known as Anne Frank.

Yours from the Tower - Sally Nicholls (Andersen Press) - a fun epistoloary novel about three 18 year olds in the 1890s, it didn't quite conjure the period for me as it was just a bit modern but I loved spotting the books that had inspired Nicholls' writing!

The Heroines - Laura Shepperson (Little Brown) - My last book that I finished on the plane home and another retelling of a Greek myth. Sadly this wasn't a great novel and it needed a much better editor and fact checker.

Kentish Book Boy returns - part five

 

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant (Faber and Faber)

Synopsis

To Bea and Raffy, Ravenwood is home. To Noa, it is a welcome refuge. In its own way, the house rescued them, even with a fallen tree taking up most of the kitchen. But now they're about to lose it and there is nothing they can do...or is there?

We all have choices.

Bea can stow away across Europe on a train.

Raffy can keep climbing the tree.

And Noa can find out who started the fire.

My views on the book

I find it a very powerful and symbolic novel. To me, there is a deep family connection.

Recommendation

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good, meaningful book.

Once more KBB manages to pique my curiosity with his book choice/review and I'm hoping I can sneak this one of his book case next time I visit!

Micro Reviews - connected books (10 & 11)

 

Changing the way we think about the Dutch experiences of World War Two

A few years ago I read and reviewed Bart van Es's book The Cut Out Girl which opened my eyes to another side of the Dutch experience in WW2, as I said then the prevailing feeling is that the Dutch had a good war, protected the Jews and stood up for the Nazis but this really isn't the case.

Nina Siegal's The Diary Keepers (William Collins) uses the extensive archives of WW2 Diaries held in Amsterdam to tell a rounded story of WW2 as people recorded at the time.

The book includes many voices but concentrates on diaries from a Nazi-sympathising Dutch policeman, an ardent  female Nazi party supporter, an ordinary factory worker, a Jewish woman working for the Jewish Council, a Jewish journalist held in Westerbork Concentration Camp for well over a year, and a Christian woman at the heart of a resistance ring who protected dozens of Jewish people.

With Siegal's commentary framing entries a much fuller picture of Holland between 1940 and 1945 this was eye opening, even for me who has read so much around the Holocaust. There's lots of balancing views given but the reader is left to draw their own conclusions overall - and who knows how any of us would actually act if we were in the same situation.

After finishing this book I was approved for a book on NetGalley called My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar (Ebury Publishing). Pick-Goslar was, like Anne Frank, a German Jewish girl who's family had moved to Amsterdam in the 1930s. She was good friends with Frank and lived next door to them- she is mentioned in several times in Anne's diary.

However this book is so much more than someone tagging on to Frank's fame. While Pick-Goslar did survive the war, and Belsen-Bergen, her account of her experiences is one of the most moving Holocaust accounts I've read and I think that it does the incredible story a disservice to market it in terms of being about Anne Frank.

It tied in so nicely with The Diary Keepers  as many of the people Pick-Goslar talks about in Amsterdam are also featured in depth is Siegal's book and both narratives help build a full picture of the choices people had to make and of how life was at the time.

Pick-Goslar's account of liberation from the camps and her physical recuperation was as gripping as her actual wartime life, and filled in more of the "what came next" narrative for me. I really hope that this book does become as important in the Holocaust memoir cannon as Anne Frank's Diary.