Micro review 15

 

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop (Headline)

I was very lucky to win an advance copy of this in a Twitter competition and it has to be said that I abandoned everything else and just got stuck straight in - I'd only been back from Greece a matter of weeks but I was already homesick for the people and place so this just ticked so many boxes!

I really enjoyed Hislop's sweeping history of Greece from 1941-1970s (Those Who Are Loved) told from a family perspective but I did find the ending abrupt, and it left me wanting to know a lot more about the military Junta rule of the 1970s.

The Figurine isn't quite a sequel to the earlier book in that all of the characters are new, but it does pretty much pick up historically from where Those Who Are Loved ended which was great.

In this novel we follow Helena first as a child where she spends summers with her maternal grandparents in Athens where she becomes fluent Greek speaker while observing the politics of the time without understanding them. Her family decide that it is too dangerous for her to continue these visits eventually, but while a career in the sciences beckons, Helena never forgets her Greek roots.

Life continues and Helena has the opportunity to return to Greece, first as a volunteer on an archaeological dig with her new boyfriend, and then thanks to an inheritance as an expat returning home and there discovering her family's past.

The title 'Figurine' refers to the second theme of the book and is about the topical subject of who owns ancient artefacts and the problem of their illegal trade.

I say topical as it was as I was reading The Figurine the story about the curator at the British Museum stealing items from the collection broke - sometimes books are incredibly timely and not written after the events to highlight a story!

I loved this book totally, I did spot the little twist in the tale coming, but this isn't a 'who dunnit' book, it is Helena's story and all of the events fit in totally with her narrative.

Another book for my best of 2023 list and I really need to re-read Hislop's earlier books to give myself that real Greek buzz as winter approaches!

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.

Micro Review 36

 

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (Viking Books)

advance reading copy

My love of Greece, and Greek set books, is probably clear to regular readers of this blog and a little while ago I had the chance to read two novels set in Greece in a row. Both of them had a mid 20th century setting and I enjoyed them both, however it is Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees that has stuck with me the most.

Ruth Padel's Daughters of the Labyrinth was very readable and although set in Crete during WW2 it was as different from Hislop's The Island as can be and gave me a new perspective on the Cretan occupation. It also came bang up to date the end with mentions of the Coronavirus pandemic, but unlike in some books this felt natural and not a way to shoe horn in the way the world changed in 2020.

However The Island of Trees takes up the post war history of Greece, and in particular that of Cyprus. Again this is a topic that Hislop has covered but this book is completely different and again adds a new dimension to the story.

It starts in modern day London with teenager Ada struggling with family secrets and history and slowly we learn how her family was impacted by post war unrest in Cyprus and then the Turkish/Greek conflict later in the century. More interestingly much of the story is narrated by a fig tree, who of course is old enough to have seen all of the history covered in the book.

It sounds trite but the device works completely and while I could see the broad arc of the story - two Cypriots falling in love but then torn apart as one is a Greek Christian and the other a Turkish Muslim - but I found it worked perfectly, and I loved the asides and recipes that the tree allowed us.

In my last volunteering session at the Royal Norfolk Regimental Museum before the pandemic I was looking at artefacts donated to the museum donated by soldiers who were on Cyprus during some of the timeframe covered in the book. Shafak's writing mirrored the items I'd handled so accurately I trusted her story telling completely, and even though I've never visited Cyprus I felt I could 'see' all of the action and could accept the fig tree as narrator even more willingly.

The one thing I wasn't so sure of was the target audience for the book - much of the time Ada was the lynchpin of the modern story and being a well drawn teen character I started the book thinking that this was for a YA audience. However as the novel progressed it became a much more adult tale and Ada's voice seemed just a little out of balance with the book for me. I can't quite explain what I mean but I fear that the opening will put off fans of Victoria Hislop, and that the later parts will alienate the YA readers and the book will fall down a hole and be lost - which it doesn't deserve.

Anyhow if you are missing your Greek fix as much as me this summer I recommend both of these books - but be warned they won't help with the longing for Greece!

Micro Reviews 16 & 17

 

The Island & One August Night by Victoria Hislop

I read The Island years ago, possibly not that long after it came out and absolutely loved it. Novels in set in Greece are always going to catch my eye and then to discover that this one was set somewhere I'd visited was even better. 

Mr Norfolkbookworm & I visited Spinalonga (and stayed in the village near by) on our very first holiday together back in the late 1990s, although on returning a few years ago we didn't go back to Spinalonga, it was far too windy & rough! As an aside the one thing I don't think that Hislop did capture was just how darned cold it can get in Crete out of tourist season - we had snow!

Although parts of The Island had stuck in my mind since I read it when I heard there was a sequel coming I knew that I had to reread it first - and again I discovered that it was actually the book shadow that had stuck. I remembered the broad sweep of the story but very little of the detail, but as soon as I started reading I felt relaxed and happy to be back with an old friend.

I moved straight on to One August Night and unlike the curse of many sequels I'm pleased to say that I loved this book as much as the first one. It was like the feeling I always get when I step off a plane in Greece and take that first breath of warm air - scented with aviation fuel and herbs - knowing that I am back in my happy place.

The sequel touches very briefly on one of the plot strands from The Island but is definitely a new story, that being said I am glad I reread The Island first as I am not sure that it would work quite so well as a stand alone but it was a great book and just what was needed in the autumn of 2020.

Ooops!

I had no idea that it was nearly 2 months since my last update - it has been a busy time but I think that I blame the heat/humidity since our return mostly for this big gap.

We had an amazing time on holiday, we were incredibly lazy while there and spent 13 out of the 14 days lounging around catching up on sleep, reading and sampling the wonderful local food & wine.

While by no means reaching pre-haemorrhage book totals I had made the right choice in saving up some of the fiction releases from the past few months and I think that these two in particular will feature highly on my end of the year round ups...


Those Who Were Loved by Victoria Hislop

Hislop has returned to modern Greek history for this book, and it charts the story of one Athenian family through the turbulent twentieth century. I knew that Greece had swung from right to left politically as well as from monarchy to junta but not a lot of the detail.
Hislop has told this tale through the story of four siblings and their grandmother and this allows all sides of the political spectrum to be explored as each character has different ideals.

My one reservation with the book is that I found the ending a little rushed, I wish that it was a two-parter. I wanted to spend more time with all of the characters!

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

This is another Greek book but this one took me back to the end of the Trojan War and was everything that Pat Barker's Silence of the Girls wasn't.  The premise in this retelling is that the poet Homer is trying to compose his epic tales but is a little stuck for inspiration, he has called on a muse to help and she is telling him the tale but from the viewpoint of all the women swept up in the chaos. 

This was a great retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey and I liked the way the stories wove themselves together in a way that was utterly modern (and very funny at times) and yet reminiscent of the classics from Homer onwards. I'm loving this vogue for retelling the classics and hope that there are lots more to come.

Now we're back home a lot of my reservations from the library have come in, and I'm reading for one of my non-bloggable projects, so hopefully I'll have more books to talk about soon.

Theatre 2017: Review Ten - Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia! Theatre Royal, Norwich. March 2017.

I wrote about seeing this show, with my mum, when we went to New York and in that review I explained why, however cheesy the show is, I am always going to think of it fondly. I was wary of a return visit to the show - what if it was all location, location, location that made me enjoy it before?

I'm pleased to say that the slightly scaled down tour version made just as fun event as before, and in fact with a better behaved audience it might have even been just a little bit better as nothing got drowned out.

What really impressed me was just how much like Greece the set looked, and also just how well some lighting and a backdrop created absolutely the light and feel of a Greek island in summer.  The shutters were thrown open and with a simple cloth, a cut out tree and the lights I believed I was looking out over the Aegean sea.

I also noticed a lot more of the peripheral action this time, perhaps because we had such excellent seats in the circle, however there did seem to be a lot of character acting from the support cast which really added to the main characters.

All of the cast seemed in fine voice this week and once more my admiration for anyone who can sing, dance and act in ridiculous costumes is total.

However I think that my favourite bit of the evening came from the audience. Just in front of us was a family of mum and three teenagers. When it came to the last number/curtain call where audience participation is encouraged these three teenagers sat there literally head in hand in embarrassment as their mum danced and sang along - they really didn't want to be there at that point.

Mamma Mia! has a daft plot but it is great fun and I can even recommend it as a cold cure - I felt really quite rough with my first cold of the winter when I saw this but for the 2 1/2 hours I forgot everything and had a super trouper time, well worth the money. money, money!

Postcards from a happy place in book form

Book review: Cartes Postales from Greece by Victoria Hislop

A couple of years ago I read and reviewed Victoria Hislop's last book The Sunrise and was left a little wanting at the end.  I was therefore looking forward to this one nervously.

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to get a beautiful sampler to this book and my fears were allayed. This book made me think I was back in Greece throughout.

It has a clever structure that allows Hislop to pull together all of the little stories you hear in a place (but aren't enough for a full plot) along with the stories of two other people - all linked thought postcards.

The ending was a little too predictable and trite for me but it didn't ruin the overall effect and the whole time I was reading this book I felt like I was sitting on a harbour-side taverna in the Greek sunshine.  My copy came from the library and  I loved this so much I've asked for a copy for Christmas.  Greece is my happy place and this book took me there on a day I didn't feel well (and had to miss a trip to London).

Holiday Reading

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just returned from Greece where we've spent two weeks absolutely falling in love with the island of Kefaloni/Cephallonia.  It has been an island we've wanted to visit for a while but we thought we'd let the 'Captain Corelli' effect die down.

While we had lots of time for reading and relaxing the beauty of the island sent us our exploring more than usual and so (for me) I did read less than usual during a two week break.  However this is all relative as I did still read 17 books!

In no particular order:

• A Different Class - Joanne Harris: This was really dark and about how events from the past echo into the future. It is set in a school and felt horribly topical. Not a pleasant read in some ways but very good.
• The House by the Lake - Thomas Harding: A non fiction book about one house built on the edge of a Berlin lake, a lake which saw the Berlin Wall run down the middle of it...This book covered the social history of Germany from 1900 to 2014 and was compelling from page one.
• The After Party - Anton DiSclafani: I loved this author's first book but felt that this one really suffered from second book syndrome as it was decidedly 'meh' and one that is quickly forgotten.
• The Improbability of Love - Hannah Rothschild: This was a recommend from a friend on Facebook and while I liked both strands of the story I wasn't convinced they actually came together and I really hated the narrator.
• The Shepherd's Life - James Rebank: Another recommendation from a friend and this one I loved. An autobiography and philosophical musing on life as a shepherd.  Sounds dull but it was beautiful.
• Leave Me - Gayle Forman: I've really enjoyed her teen books and found this adult novel to be a good holiday read but not one that I'll revisit or remember much about in a few weeks.
• Vinegar Girl - Anne Tyler: A reworking of Taming of the Shrew and a book that managed to keep the spirit of the original play while removing some of the nastiest mysoginistic threads with a believable strong female lead.
• Foxlowe - Eleanor Wasserburg:Another recommendation from a friend and another book that I liked the main idea but not the final product.
• Super Sushi Ramen Express - Michael Booth: A book about traveling around Japan in search of the food, a brilliant book but one that made me crave the food which wasn't so good as sushi in Greece isn't often found (or wanted the Greek food was delicious).
• Dust that Falls from Dreams - Louis de Bernieres: I know I should have read Captain Corelli but the new book won, it was beautifully written with some lovely use of language but it didn't have the depth of his earlier novels and I missed this.
• Five Rivers Meeting - Barney Norris: An unexpected gem! Five seemingly unrelated people find their lives meeting just as tributaries of a river do...
• The Museum of You - Carys Bray: Another book with second novel-itis. A good story but I didn't love the characters or ever quite beleive in them.
• The Apprentice Witch - James Nichol: A friend's novel which I approached with trepidation as usual for the pressure to like this book was immense.  I'm pleased to say I loved it, and will try to review it in depth soon.
• This Must be the Place - Maggie O'Farrell: A really good 'chick-lit' read for a holiday, again nothing special but an enjoyable read.
• Chasing Stars - Malorie Blackman: This was another reworking of Shakespeare, this time Othello but with a space setting.  This is published as a young adult novel but it is certainly good enough to be considered an adult book too.  It has some nice twists on the original plot and a Star Trek feel.
• Birds, Beasts and Relatives - Gerald Durrell: Corfu is in the same island chain as Kefalonia and as the resort we were staying in felt so old-world Greece this book was just right for a holiday read - I just wish we'd seen some of the creatures Durrell found!
• The Garden of the Gods - Gerald Durrell: After Birds, Beasts I just had to keep in the Greek moment and so instantly read the final part of the trilogy.

Kefalonia was a beautiful island, we're planning a return visit in a few years - more of my photos can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkbookworm/albums/72157670924505955

Reading binge

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just spent two weeks on the Greek island of Mykonos. It was an interesting time to be in Greece with all of their financial troubles and the referendum but at no point were we ever greeted with anything other than smiles. We certainly added to the economy by eating and drinking lots of wonderful items - although we'll gloss over the sea urchins...

While we did do lots of exploring the main purpose of the trip was to unwind and spend lots of time reading.  I certainly managed this as in 2 weeks I read 23 books as well as plenty of relaxing.

• Boston Girl by Anita Diamant - a great read all about first generation immigrants to Boston in the 1900s. 

• Sagan 1954 by Anne Berest (tr. Heather Lloyd) - an imagined biography about the year in which teenager Sagan wrote and published Bonjour Tristesse.

• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend* by Katarina Bivald (tr. Alice Menzies) - a young Swedish girl visits her pen pal in the States to find she has died. Books were the link between the two and might just save the Iowan town of Broken Wheel.

• Early One Morning* by Virginia Bailey - set in Rome during the German occupation an impulsive decision to save a Jewish boy from being deported has repercussions for decades.

• Grey by E L James  - no words to explain why I read this.  It is dire.

• Hearts of Stone* by Simon Scarrow - before WW2 a German boy makes friends with two Greek teenagers on Lefkas during an archaeological dig. He is posted back to the island during the war...

• The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club* by Marlena de Blasi - I thought this was going to be fiction but was in fact the story of five women and their family who meet to have supper. The stories were interesting and the recipes had me drooling.

• Let Me Explain You* by Annie Liontas - a dysfunctional Greek family are contacted by their father to say he is dying and spend the time trying to unravel their relationships with him and each other.

• One* by Sarah Crossan - a young adult novel about a pair of conjoined twins. A bit predictable but still moving.

• The Summer of Good Intentions* by Wendy Frances - three sisters and their families return to their beach summer home but the summer doesn't work out as planned. A good holiday read.

• In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume - in the 1950s three planes crashed on one small New Jersey town and the novel imagines the effects this had on some of the inhabitants.

• Anything to Declare by Jon Frost - a former Custom and Excise officer talks about some of his jobs.

• A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson - I wasn't blown away by Life After Life but this companion novel enthralled me from the start and I liked that Teddy was a pilot in Bomber Command and not a fighter pilot.

• The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean Paul Didierlaurent - a very odd book that I don't think I 'got'. I am still not sure if it is a dystopian novel, a love story or a fable that I missed the point of.

• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne DuMaurier - A gripping psychological thriller, glad that a friend recommended it to me.

• Adeline* by Norah Vincent - a novel about Virginia Woolf that probably would probably have been lot more enjoyable if I'd known more about the relationships within the Bloomsbury Group.

• A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre - another great read about the British spying world, this time with Kim Philby as the focus.

• The Martian* by Andy Weir - a gripping space thriller about a man left alone on  Mars after an accident.

• Finding Audrey* by Sophie Kinsella - a young adult novel which starts quite well but by the end seems to be too simplistically dealing with mental illness.

• Motherland* by Jo McMillan - the mother and daughter protagonists of this novel set in the 1970s and 80s are fervent communists and given the chance to visit the DDR, will they be disillusioned?

• The Bees by Laline Paull - a fascinating tale told from a bee's point of view. Hard to explain the charm of this but I always knew I didn't like wasps!

• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins - a thriller like Gone Girl or Before I Go to Sleep.  I spotted the twist in this one but it did still give me nightmares.

• The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay by Andrea Gillies - Nina is involved in a serious accident while on a Greek island but we only learn why she is there as she talks to her doctor, but is he who he seems? A bit self indulgent and also the constant Americanisms really jarred for a book that is set in Scotland as well as Greece.

Not a bad collection of books, none that I gave up on this time.  Now I have to go to the library and pick up all the books I've reserved and are now ready to read...I'll need another holiday to get through them all!

All of these books except Sagan 1954 were read as eBooks and those marked  * were proofs provided by Netgalley.com

Greek Delight?

The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop

proof supplied by Headline and the Reading Agency

When an email dropped into my work inbox offering me the chance to apply for an advance copy of Victoria Hislop's new novel I leapt at it and was lucky enough to get one of the copies on offer.

I read The Island when it first came out and loved it - possibly because I knew the setting, mainly because it was a great book - and have read Hislop's new books avidly since.

The Sunrise is set in Cyprus in 1974, before, during and after the failed coup and the subsequent Turkish invasion and partition of the island.  Cleverly following two families and the way they are linked both sides of the argument are clearly put whilst at the same time making the point that there are very few differences between them. I knew that Cyprus was still a divided nation but not really how or why it happened and the idea of an abandoned city right in the middle of the divide was intriguing.

I'm not sure why but for me this book just didn't have the resonance of Hislop's others.  There didn't seem to be quite the depth of history that I've found in her other novels and also I never felt that I got to know any of the characters despite the length of the book. It all seemed very rushed and at the same time terribly plodding.

I do wonder if this is my fault as I started this book shortly after reading some quite 'heavy' literary fiction and perhaps I hadn't managed to switch my brain around for lighter reading.  Perhaps this really is holiday book and if I re-read it next year on a beach (possibly in Greece) I'll enjoy it more?

A recent photo of Famagusta - a modern ghost town

This is a review of an advance copy, the book is published in September 2014.

Book Binge

Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have just come back from 2 glorious weeks in Crete. We did a little sightseeing and a lot of relaxing, eating and drinking.

In fact over the course of the holiday I finished 25 books - this might actually be a record for me and once more I am grateful for the existence of eReaders as due to luggage weight limits and a lack of English books in the book swaps I'd have been stuck without it!


The books I read:

1. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont - Elizabeth Taylor
2. When You are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
3. Wars of the Roses: Stormbird - Conn Iggulden (eProof)
4. Flowers of the Field - Sarah Harrison
5. A Flower That's Free - Sarah Harrison
6. Stone - John Williams (eProof)
7. Instructions for a Heatwave - Maggie O'Farrell
8. The Old Ways - Robert Macfarlane
9. Dear Lupin - Roger Mortimer
10. Longbourn - Jo Baker (eProof)
11. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
12. Canvey Island - James Runcie
13. Why be happy when you can be normal - Jeanette Winterson
14. Big Brother - Lionel Shriver
15. A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor
16. Testament of Mary - Colm Toibin
17. The Suicide Shop - Jean Teule
18. Hector and the Search for Happiness - Francois Lelord
19. Harvest - Jim Crace
20. Ranger Confidential - Andrea Lankford
21. Lucy Maud Montgomery - Mary Henley Rubio
22. Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson
23. Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery
24. The Interestings - Meg Wolitzer
25. Transatlantic - Colum McCann

I did start a couple of others but they didn't capture me after 70 pages - I'm not sure if they just didn't fit my mood or if they aren't for me...I'll give them a go again sometime to make a decision.

Of the 25 my favourites were Longbourn, The Interestings, Stoner, Stormbird and A Time of Gifts. When we first got back I included Life After Life in this list but since then the feeling of enjoyment has remained but the plot has faded.

Just to finish this post off this is the view from where I did most of my reading...

Ancient Rome in London

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum, The British Museum, London. June 2013.

The European ancient world has long fascinated me.  I think I was in the first or second year at primary school when we studied the Ancient Greeks, I know we'd already 'done' the Egyptians and while it was fun learning to write hieroglyphs it took the Greeks to really capture my interest.

Visits to Greece and Italy in the decades since, plus a love of historical fiction (for children and adults) has kept the love alive and although a trip to Pompeii and Herculaneum is high on the to do list we weren't going to miss the chance to see this exhibition in the Reading Room at the British Museum.

We picked an early timed entry slot but even then the exhibition was busy.  We snuck past the introductory film - we've watched a lot of BBC documentaries on this bit of history and wanted just a little bit more room to look at everything!

The exhibition is very cleverly laid out, you start with a general idea of what 79AD life in the area was like  - things like inn signs, graffiti and murals as well as shopping artifacts are all displayed and then slowly you realise that you are entering a Roman house. You take a tour around the house popping in and out of rooms and the garden and each one is fully of frescoes, mosaics and household items which really bring the period to life.  Mr Norfolkbookworm had read the accompanying catalogue in advance of our visit and so it was like having my own private guide - I'm afraid my point of reference were the Roman Mystery books by Caroline Lawrence.  Both references really did complement each other and the exhibition.

Once you've wandered around the house the exhibition becomes a little darker - it is like the ash cloud from Vesuvius is descending over the exhibition. The first things you see are some of the molten and burned items then there are some of the preserved bodies from the area.  There aren't many but they are incredibly moving and one that has been preserved in resin not plaster and in that you can see the tendons, muscles and bones.

Despite there being lots of people in the space I didn't feel cramped and could always see the items I was interested in. In such a small place the exhibition organisers have done a great job in bringing Ancient Rome to life and now I really want to visit the 'real thing' more than ever.

Plaster cast of a dog

(NB for the faint hearted some of the 'restricted' items are on show including the infamous Pan and Goat statue)

A long time ago

Heffers Classic Festival, Cambridge, November 2012.

While theatre and Shakespeare appear to be my new favourite things my love of Greece and Italy and of the stories from antiquity are still high on my agenda

Retellings of Greek and Roman myths and legends are books that I am always drawn to. Just this year it became clear that I wasn't the only one as Madeline Miller won the Orange Prize for Fiction with her retelling of the story of Achilles, Patroculus and the Iliad. I've blogged before about my love of the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence too.

It isn't just the stories that I like, the histories and architecture also captivate.  Seeing that there was going to be a dedicated to the classics nearby I booked tickets as soon as they were available.

The day was well organised and scheduled, with several sessions though out the day all featuring 3 or 4 speakers. Limiting the talks to 15-25 minutes was good in many ways - if the topic didn't appeal you knew it was only short, and also you got to hear loads of ideas. BUT every so often I really wanted to listen to all the ideas the speaker had!

What I liked most about the day (apart from the chance to chat to one of my favourite authors!) was that the talks were pitched perfectly - they were neither too simple and thus patronising nor were they so academic that I was lost at any point.

My book list has grown incredibly, and I now want to travel extensively through the Greek and Roman world. I don't think I'll try to learn Latin though!

Roll on the 2013 festival.