The Names – Florence Knapp

The Names – Florence Knapp

I know this author as a textile artist – I have her other book, so I was interested to read this one. And then there was a good review in The Australian.

Here’s the blurb …

The extraordinary novel that asks: Can a name change the course of a life?

In the wake of a catastrophic storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the infant after him. But when the registrar asks what she’d like to call the child, Cora hesitates…

Spanning thirty-five years, what follows are three alternate and alternating versions of Cora’s and her young son’s lives, shaped by her choice of name. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family, told through a prism of what-ifs, causing us to consider the “one . . . precious life” we are given. The book’s brilliantly imaginative structure, propulsive storytelling, and emotional, gut-wrenching power are certain to make The Names a modern classic.

This novel had a very interesting concept about names. Does our name effect our personality, life journey and the way other people treat us? There are lovely chapters on the various characters getting on with their lives – meeting people, finding a passion, etc.

I do think it should come with a trigger warning for domestic violence, and something happens to one of the versions of Cora’s son, which made me want to throw the book across the room. Originally I thought I would suggest it to my book club, but not now. Which isn’t to say it’s not beautifully written, moving and ultimately satisfying.

A review.

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Jane Austen’s Book Shelf – Rebecca Romney

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf – Rebecca Romney

I am not sure where I first heard about this? Maybe a JASNA newsletter?

My random number generator selected it. There has been a bit of a Jane Austen theme for me this year.

Here’s the blurb …

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice” came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.

I really enjoyed this – I promptly downloaded Evelina by Frances Burney, and I already have a copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho, and I will be sourcing the other authors as well.

Ms Romney has a lovely conversational style of writing. I always like a mixture of personal information and literary information, and her search for particular editions of novels was fascinating. How women authors have disappeared from the canon will make your blood boil.

A review.

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Lemon – Kwon Yeo-Sun

Lemon – Kwon Yeo-Sun

I won this book, and then it languished in the pile.

Here’s the blurb …

In the summer of 2002, when Korea is abuzz over hosting the FIFA World Cup, nineteen-year-old Kim Hae-on is killed in what becomes known as the High School Beauty Murder. Two suspects quickly emerge: rich kid Shin Jeongjun, whose car Hae-on was last seen in, and delivery boy Han Manu, who witnesses Hae-on in the passenger seat of Jeongjun’s car just a few hours before her death. But when Jeongjun’s alibi turns out to be solid, and no evidence can be pinned on Manu, the case goes cold.

Seventeen years pass without any resolution for those who knew and loved Hae-on, and the grief and uncertainty take a cruel toll on her younger sister, Da-on, in particular. Unable to move on with her life, Da-on tries in her own twisted way to recover some of what she’s lost, ultimately setting out to find the truth of what happened.

Told at different points in time from the perspectives of Da-on and two of Hae-on’s classmates, Lemon loosely follows the structure of a detective novel. But finding the perpetrator is not the main objective here. Instead, the work explores grief and trauma, raising important questions about guilt, retribution, and the meaning of death and life.

I don’t think I have read anything else like this. There are three narrators, but it can take a while to work out who is doing the narrating. For one of the narrators we have a one-sided conversation with a therapist or psychiatrist, and we can read between the lines. There are hints about who the murderer might be, and there might be another crime (well there is definitely another crime, but we might know who did it). However, mostly I would say it is about grief and trauma, and how to move on from terrible events. Two of the narrators Da-On and Yun Tareim are self-absorbed, selfish and obsessive about the murder.

A review.

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A Short History of the World According to Sheep – Sally Coulthard

A Short History of the World According to Sheep – Sally Coulthard

Using a random number generator to select my books is going well. I wanted to read this, but I suspect it would have languished in the pile.

Here’s the blurb …

‘This book deserves a place in your bookcase next to Harari’s Sapiens. It’s every bit as fascinating and is surely destined to be just as successful’ Julian Norton From the plains of ancient Mesopotamia to the vast sheep farms of modern-day Australia, sheep have been central to the human story. Since our our Neolithic ancestors’ first forays into sheep-rearing nearly 11,000 years ago, these remarkable animals have fed us, clothed us, changed our diet and language and financed the conquest of large swathes of the earth.Sally Coulthard weaves this fascinating story into a vivid and colourful tapestry of engaging anecdotes and extraordinary ovine facts, whose multiple strands celebrate just how pivotal these woolly animals are to almost every aspect of human society and culture.This title was published also in the United States under the title Follow the Flock.‘A snappy, stimulating book, and certainly not just for shepherds’ Mail on Sunday‘Full of fascinating social history’ Independent‘You won’t look at a sheep in the same way again’ Country Living.

I am a knitter and I am fascinated by sheep. I would like to know the source of my yarn (although that seems impossible in Australia), what type of sheep it came from, etc.

This book has 14 chapters with different aspects of sheep history and evolution (breeding), the way humans have used sheep, and the way sheep have been fundamental to human development. Also, what should happen now? In this world of climate change? Wool is a wonder material, which must have a part to play in the future.

I found this a bit icky

The only way to do this [domesticate a sheep] would be to take a lamb from its mother as soon as it was born and breastfeed it. And so, astonishingly, the history of sheep may indeed have started with a woman nursing a newborn lamb.

And I guess this is the lot of archaeologists

At the end of the 1990s, archaeologists had the rather unusual privilege of being allowed to sift through the remains of a seventeenth-century toilet at Dudley Castle in the West Midlands.

They found sheep’s gut condoms.

A review.

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A Song for the Dark Times – Ian Rankin

A Song for the Dark Times – Ian Rankin

This has languished in the ‘pile of death’ as my daughter refers to my storage of unread books. And then its number was selected (number 190).

Here’s the blurb …

‘He’s gone…’

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days.

Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect.

He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?

As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…

I have read and enjoyed other Rebus novels. Not all of them and not in order, but I don’t think it is necessary to read them in order. I like the characters and the world-building and the twisty plots. These are some of the best crime novels I have read.

A review

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A Trick of the Light – Louise Penny

A Trick of the Light – Louise Penny

Another Inspector Gamache novel – number 7 (I still have plenty to go)

Here’s the blurb …

“Hearts are broken,” Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead.”

But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow’s garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara’s solo show at the famed Musée in Montréal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Québec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they’ve found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.

I do like these novels and all of the characters (well most of the characters – I still haven’t warmed to Peter (Clara’s husband)). I love the writing and the settings, and I am hoping for a bit of romance in the next one. For me these novels aren’t really about the crime, but how the characters live together with kindness and empathy.

A review

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Who Will Run the Frog Hospital – Lorrie Moore

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital – Lorrie Moore

I had heard about this novel – who can forget that title? – and, so when I saw it at Readings I had to buy it.

Here’s the blurb …

In this moving, poignant novel by the bestselling author of Birds of America we share a grown woman’s bittersweet nostalgia for the wildness of her youth.
 
The summer Berie was fifteen, she and her best friend Sils had jobs at Storyland in upstate New York where Berie sold tickets to see the beautiful Sils portray Cinderella in a strapless evening gown. They spent their breaks smoking, joking, and gossiping. After work they followed their own reckless rules, teasing the fun out of small town life, sleeping in the family station wagon, and drinking borrowed liquor from old mayonnaise jars. But no matter how wild, they always managed to escape any real danger—until the adoring Berie sees that Sils really does need her help—and then everything changes.

First, this book is beautifully written – witty and thoughtful. For me, it was about the intense friendships and expectations of young women countered by the disillusions of middle-age. Ordinary people living their lives and have the occasional extraordinary experience. This is one of my favourite novels this year.

Here are some of my favourite quotes:

I often think that at the centre of me is a voice that at last did split, a house in my heart so invaded with other people and their speech, friends I believed I was devoted to, people whose lives I can only guess at now, that it leaves me with the impression I am simply a collection of them, that they all existed for themselves, but had inadvertently formed me, then vanished. But, what: Should I have been expected to create my own self, out of nothing, out of thin, thin air and alone?

In his iconic way our father remained very much ours, And in the long shadows of his neglect, we fashioned our own selves, quietly improvised our own rules, as kids did in America, in the fatherless fifties and sixties.

When later in life she [Sils] would appear – in a dream with a group of people; or in a thought about friends I never saw anymore, those I had consented to lose and live without…

She was, probably, the nicest person I had ever known. Yet in the years following, for myself, I abandoned even believing in niceness or being nice. I could scarcely control myself, wherever I was, from telling everyone, anyone, what I thought of them. It was an urge, a compulsion, my tongue bitten a futile blue.

I read in this article, that the novel’s title comes from a painting Ms Moore bought.

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Practice Makes Perfect – Sarah Adams

Practice Makes Perfect – Sarah Adams

I have been on a holiday, so I wanted some fun, light and easy reads.

Here’s the blurb …

Annie Walker is on a quest to find her perfect match—someone who complements her happy, quiet life running the local flower shop in Rome, Kentucky. But finding her dream man may be harder than Annie imagined. Everyone knows everyone in her hometown, and the dating prospects are getting fewer by the day. After she overhears her latest date say she is “so unbelievably boring,” Annie starts to think the problem might be her. Is it too late to become flirtatious and fun like the leading ladies in her favorite romance movies? Maybe she only needs a little practice . . . and Annie has the perfect person in mind to be her tutor: Will Griffin.

Will—the sexy, tattooed, and absolutely gorgeous bodyguard—is temporarily back in Rome, providing security for Amelia Rose as excitement builds for her upcoming marriage to Noah Walker, Annie’s brother. He has one personal objective while on the job: stay away from Annie Walker and any other possible attachments to this sleepy town. But no sooner than he gets settled, Will finds himself tasked with helping Annie find the love of her life by becoming the next leading lady of Rome, Kentucky. Will wants no part in changing the sweet and lovely Annie. He knows for a fact that some stuffy, straitlaced guy won’t make her happy, but he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

Amid steamy practice dates and strictly “educational” tutoring lessons, Annie discovers there are more layers to Will’s usual stoic attitude. As the lines of their friendship become dangerously blurred, Annie reconsiders her dream guy. Maybe her love life doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be real.

I haven’t read the first in this series – When in Rome, but it’s not necessary. This was fun, I enjoyed the banter between Will and Annie, and the set-up (Will being Annie’s dating coach). I did find it a bit long, and the reasons for keeping them apart a bit flimsy.

Having said that, it is just a mismatch between me and this novel. People must love it, it has four stars on goodreads.

A review (they feel like I do)

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Without Further Ado – Jessica Dettman

Without Further Ado – Jessica Dettman

This languished in my pile, but now that I have my random number generating plan it popped up.

Here’s the blurb …

Can a modern woman take lessons in love from Shakespeare? Book Lovers meets 10 Things I Hate About You in this sparkling romantic comedy from beloved Aussie author Jessica Dettmann.
‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever …’ Since she was sixteen, Willa’s curious touchstone in life and work has been the 1993 film Much Ado About Nothing . She’s always looking for The Feeling, the stirring in her heart – and loins – that she gets when watching the opening scenes. Now she’s navigating her mid-thirties, her career as a romance publisher in an unusual family business, and her determination to remain child-free, while quietly holding out for a love as big as Beatrice and Benedick’s. But when relationships start to get complicated between Willa, her cousin Imogen and the four sons of the family she works for, and the events of her own life begin to mirror the plot of her beloved comedy, Willa must consider whether there is such a thing as too much ado. A delightfully Shakespearean romantic comedy about modern love, women’s roles and how the films and stories we grow up with shape us. ‘An absolute delight! With its witty dialogue, relatable characters, and laugh-out-loud moments, this book is the perfect escape.

I am also a fan of Much Ado About Nothing, probably not as much as Willa. This does loosely follow the plot – I did spend a bit of time wondering who the ‘Benedick’ would be. I found Willa to be a bit more caustic than witty at times, but overall this is a fun, well-written novel. And it is always nice to read an Australian novel, set somewhere that I recognise.

A review.

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Wives and Daughters – ELizabeth Gaskell

Wives and Daughters – Elizabeth Gaskell

I have read this before and watched the BBC adaptation. The theme for my book club is ‘wives’ and so, this seemed an appropriate choice.

Here’s the blurb …

Molly Gibson is a young girl who has been raised by her widowed father. During a visit to the local aristocratic ‘great house’ of Lord and Lady Cumnor, she loses her way in the estate and falls asleep under a tree. When she wakes up, she gets distressed at the thought of spending the night at the mansion, but to her relief, her father arrives to collect her. Seven years later, Molly is an attractive and rather unworldly young woman, which arouses the interest of one of her father’s apprentices. Mr. Gibson discovers the young man’s secret affection and sends Molly to stay with the Hamleys of Hamley Hall. Molly falls in love with Roger, the younger son of Mrs. Hamley, but it appears that he is more interested in Cynthia, Molly’s new stepsister from her father’s second marriage.
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) was an English novelist and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature. Some of Gaskell’s best known novels are Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters.

I listened to this, it was read by Prunella Scales, read very well, but I kept thinking of Fawlty Towers.

This was fabulous – the characters in particular. I think we all know people like Mrs. Kirkpatrick, and then Mrs. Gibson, self-serving and jealous, but with a veneer of kindness. The blustering Lady Cumnor who knows how everyone should live and tells them so (shades of Lady Catherine De Burgh, but much kinder). And then there are the lovely characters, Roger, Molly, Lady Harriet and Mrs Hamley. Kind and thoughtful.

The setting is good too – I could see Hamley Hall and The Towers, as well as the village of Hollingford.

What was it about? People chosing their life partners. Some of the partnerships were good – Lord and Lady Cumnor, Squire Hamley and his wife, the Browning sisters, but Dr and Mrs. Gibson were ill-suited. She wanted to be supported financially and he wanted a mother for his daughter. They didn’t get to know each other well enough to see how very ill-suited they were. Cynthia is a flirt and broke some hearts (including Roger), but might settle in the end. I think the key message is not to rush into anything, but take time to get to know someone well.

There is a read-along happening here.

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Filed under 5, Audio, Fiction, Recommended, Romance, Serious