Power and Thrones – Dan Jones

Power and Thrones – Dan Jones

This book has been languishing in my digital pile for quite some time (along with some of his other works, not to mention the novel Essex Dogs). I finally decided I had to read it, and I have a new regime of reading for 30 mins a day.

I really enjoyed it, it’s obviously well-researched, but easy and entertaining to read. I have also read/listened to Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler, so I feel that I am slowly building up an idea of the medieval western world. Now I am quite keen to read Femima by Janina Ramirez to get a feminist persepective on the middle ages, but I have a large number of unread history books in my pile.

Here is the Goodreads description

An epic reappraisal of the medieval world–and the rich and complicated legacy left to us by the rise of the West–from the New York Times bestselling author of The Templars.

When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era–and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names–from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine–Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes readers on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West, and culminates in the first contact between the old and new worlds in the sixteenth century.

The medieval world was forged by the big forces that still occupy us today: climate change, pandemic disease, mass migration, and technological revolutions. This was the time when the great European nationalities were formed; when our basic Western systems of law and governance were codified; when the Christian Churches matured as both powerful institutions and the regulators of Western public morality; and when art, architecture, philosophical inquiry and scientific invention went through periods of massive, revolutionary change. At each stage in this story, successive western powers thrived by attracting–or stealing–the most valuable resources, ideas, and people from the rest of the world.

The West was rebuilt on the ruins of an empire and emerged from a state of crisis and collapse to dominate the region and the world. Every sphere of human life and activity was transformed in the thousand years of Powers and Thrones. As we face a critical turning point in our own millennium, the legacy and lessons of how we got here matter more than ever.

A review

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Filed under 4, History, Non-Fiction

The Virgin in the Garden – AS Byatt

The Virgin in the Garden – AS Byatt

I read this years ago, in the 90s after reading Possession. I loved this series, I can remember waiting for the final one to be released. And I keep hoping she might bring out one more novel (she was born in 1936, so that might be a bit hopeful on my part).

This novel popped up as an audio book on Borrowbox, so I have been listening to it for the past few weeks (it’s 23 ish hours long).

I loved it again this time around, and I have since downloaded the second one Still Life.

Here’s the Goodreads blurb (which really doesn’t do this novel justice)

A new play, the highlight of a magnificent local festival celebrating the coronation of Elizabeth II, brings together the young playwright and a brilliant but eccentric family whose personal dramas soon eclipse the entire production.

Here’s a summary at enotes.

This novel is fabulous, the characters, the setting, all the literary and art talk.

A review

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The Sentence – Louise Erdrich

The Sentence – Louise Erdrich

My local library recommended this and I had read La Rose, so I thought I would give it a go.

Here’s the blurb …

The Sentence asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book.

A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls’ Day 2019 and ends on All Souls’ Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

This book slowed me down (as you can see by the length between posts). It is set during 2020 and I enjoyed the Covid and BLM (Black Lives Matter) references. Ghost stories are not my thing (even if you can read them metaphorically). I loved all the book talk and the list of novels at the end. It is about story in all its different forms (and family).

A review

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Romantic Comedy – Curtis Sittenfeld

Romantic Comedy – Curtis Sittenfeld

This came highly recommended by a friend and as I had just read and enjoyed You think it, I Will say It, I was keen to read this one.

Here’s the blurb …

A comedy writer thinks she’s sworn off love, until a dreamily handsome pop star flips the script on all her assumptions. Romantic Comedy is a hilarious, observant and deeply tender novel from New York Times–bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld.

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for “The Night Owls,” the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

But when Sally’s friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actor who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who’ve gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the “Danny Horst Rule,” poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week’s show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder whether there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn’t a romantic comedy; it’s real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her…right?

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

This novel was great; it’s a well-written, witty, sophisticated romantic comedy.

A review

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Filed under 4, Fiction, Romance

The Four Winds – Kristin Hannah

The Four Winds – Kristin Hannah

I listened to this on Borrowbox, I found it strangely compelling.

Here’s the blurb …

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

If you want to learn about America in the great depression, the drought (and the consequent dust bowl), and the start of unionisation, then this is the book for you. I had no idea it was such a terribly grim time with what essentially amounted to indentured servitude.

It is beautifully written, with a wonderful sense of place and truly alive characters. It is grim though with very few uplifting moments.

A review

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Filed under 3, Historical Fiction

Return to Valetto – Dominc Smith

Return to Valetto – Dominc Smith

As I loved The Last Painting of Sara De Vos, I was very keen to read this one.

Here’s the blurb …

A captivating and moving new novel from the international bestselling author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos.

A nearly abandoned Italian village, the family that stayed, and long-buried secrets from World War II.

On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village-and a hub of resistance and refuge during World War II-centuries of earthquakes, landslides and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only ten residents remain, including the widows Serafino – three eccentric sisters and their steely centenarian mother – who live quietly in their medieval villa. Then their nephew and grandson, Hugh, a historian, returns.

But someone else has arrived before him, laying claim to the cottage where Hugh spent his childhood summers. The unwelcome guest is the captivating and no-nonsense Elisa Tomassi, who asserts that the family patriarch, Aldo Serafino, a resistance fighter whom her own family harboured, gave the cottage to them in gratitude. Like so many threads of history, this revelation unravels a secret – a betrayal, a disappearance and an unspeakable act of violence – that has impacted Valetto across generations. Who will answer for the crimes of the past?

I enjoyed it, but not as much as The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos. It is very evocative of place, I could almost taste the food they were eating. Beautifully written, I really wanted everything to work out for Hugh, Elisa and Elisa’s mother.

A review

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Filed under 3, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan

Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan

I had been tempted to read this book for a while and then it popped up on Borrowbox as an audio book. It’s very short – about two hours.

I loved it, I think it’s my favourite read (so far) for the year.

Here’s the blurb …

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

This is a beautifully written story. It’s about family, community and kindness, but it is also about cruelty and judgement and meanness

A review

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These Precious Days – Ann Patchett

These Precious Days – Ann Patchett

I bought this as a present for a friend (I don’t think she was that impressed), but I was keen to read it, so when I saw the book on Borrowbox I downloaded it.

Here’s the blurb …

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays.  

“Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. 

At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a suprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. 

A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. 

From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

I have listened to Ann Patchett on various book programmes and I have read The Dutch House and Commonwealth, so I was keen to read these personal essays. I enjoyed it, particularly the knitting one and the one about the friend with cancer coming to stay.

A review

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Filed under 3, Miscellaneous, Non-Fiction

The Land Before Avocado – Richard Glover

The Land Before Avocado – Richard Glover

I received this book as part of a book club christmas exchange, but in the end I ended up listening to it on Borrowbox (Richard Glover is the reader, so I recommend it).

Here’s the blurb …

The new book from the bestselling author of Flesh Wounds. A funny and frank look at the way Australia used to be – and just how far we have come. “It was simpler time”. We had more fun back then”. “Everyone could afford a house”. There’s plenty of nostalgia right now for the Australia of the past, but what was it really like? In The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover takes a journey to an almost unrecognisable Australia. It’s a vivid portrait of a quite peculiar land: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and, now and then, surprisingly appealing. It’s the Australia of his childhood. The Australia of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Let’s break the news now: they didn’t have avocado. It’s a place of funny clothing and food that was appalling, but amusingly so. It also the land of staggeringly awful attitudes – often enshrined in law – towards anybody who didn’t fit in. The Land Before Avocado will make you laugh and cry, be angry and inspired. And leave you wondering how bizarre things were, not so long ago. Most of all it will make you realise how far we’ve come – and how much further we can go.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Australia and I remember much of what he talks about. What I remember distinctly is how mean adults were to children – including parents and grand parents (and no one ever believed the child). Adults felt they could say (and possibly do) anything to children. I remember my neighbour always commenting on my weight. My mother trained my budgie to say ‘[my name] is a nuisance’. I have never thought it was better in the past. This book is both hilarious and sobering; no avocado or alfresco tables, the road toll and treatment of women and children (well anyone that wasn’t a white man).

A review

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Filed under 4, History, Memoir

Any Ordinary Day – Leigh Sales

Any Ordinary Day – Leigh Sales

I have become a fan of listening to books on Borrowbox and I noticed that this one was available (years ago I gave it to someone as a gift). The audio books is read by Leigh Sales, so it feels like you’re just having a chat with her.

Here’s the blurb

As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters people experiencing the worst moments of their lives in the full glare of the media. But one particular string of bad news stories – and a terrifying brush with her own mortality – sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?

In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who’ve faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she’s learned about coping with life’s unexpected blows.

Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.

Terrible things happen to people (losing your entire family, losing both your first and second wives) and some people bounce back and get on with living and others don’t. What does it take to keep going after an enormous, life change? This book tries to answer that question. She also reflects on her role as a journalist and the times when she might have, inadvertently, done harm. Which is something we should all think about.

What I took away from this book is that terrible events are random and unexpected (also reasonably rare), so its probably best to appreciate the moment right now.

A review.

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Filed under 4, Non-Fiction, Recommended