This was my book flood book. I have read The Dressmaker and scene the movie (Kate Winslet is fabulous – best Australian accent I have heard).
Here’s the blurb …
It’s 1914 and Molly Dunnage wants to see at home, at work and in underwear.
Her burgeoning corsetry business is starting to take off, thanks to some high-profile supporters. She’s marching with Melbourne’s suffragists for better conditions for women everywhere. And her family – her eccentric, confounding, adored father and aunt – are turning their minds to country retirement.
But as the clouds of war gather and an ominous figure starts skulking in the shadows of her life, Molly’s dreams begin to falter. Then, when true love drops out of the sky and into her arms, her hopes for her life and the world are entirely upended.
With the dark humour, richly detailed settings and vividly drawn characters we’ve come to expect from Rosalie Ham, this prequel to the international bestseller The Dressmaker is an unforgettable story of hopes lost, love found – and corsets loosened.
From The Dressmaker, we know the end of Molly’s story, so I was interested in the start. Her family (father and aunt) are delightful, but life is tough, and despite being talented and ambitious, things don’t go well for Molly. I was captivated by the story – the descriptions of poverty, but also joy and comfort, the corsets and costumes, the suffragette movement, the lovely Leander, the flamboyant Horatio, and finally the small mindedness and cruelty of rural Australia. Rosalie Ham is a great writer and this shows a slice of Australia in the early twentieth century just prior to World War One.
This quote really stuck with me, I have a friend who always says ‘you just need someone to love you’.
As I read and enjoyed The Offing, I was keen to read this one.
Here’s the blurb …
Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England. Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras – from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity. Along the way we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages. And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections and communities.
This is definitely experimental – each section is written in a different style.
The first part is like the image above, plus there are quotes from (genuine) history books – that are ordered in a way that keeps the story moving.
There’s a section that’s in second person, a play, a diary, and contemporary fiction.
I think it’s successful, an alternative history of Durham Cathedral through the eyes of some of the people involved in its long history.
The writing is beautiful, here are some of my favourite quotes;
Down there, getting grubby on the bed of waxen leaves. Drunk on the flavour. Dizzy on the fist of it. Sweaty in the grip of it. Biting on the bone of it.
Sanctury is granted and the Galilee bell rung to mark the moment, and the seeker then made to wear a robe that bears the yellow sign of our Cuthbert sewn onto one shoulder to show the world the generosity of our saint who offers his home without judgement. The fugitive is then given quarters and food and the time in which to pray for forgiveness, give confession and make peace with himself, then say farewell to the city, for then he is made to leave and guaranteed safe passage by a chaperone acting on the king’s orders.
He made this for you, over many hours, days, many weeks, maybe. You have never before been given something that serves no purpose other than to express – what exactly? Love? His love for you?
Counting imposes a system of order and breaks the day into increments. Counting is a form of control. It is calming, like prayer.
I was a little bit disappointed it the ending. I wanted more for Michael, but I guess that is the point, events (history) moves inexorably forward. This is a fabulous book, full of great detail, characters and descriptions. Written (successfully) in a variety of styles.
I was browsing Borrowbox looking for a new audio book and this popped up. It was described as a fantasy version of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer – how could I resist?
Here’s the blurb …
On her eighteenth birthday, Lady Truthful, nicknamed “Newt,” will inherit her family’s treasure: the Newington Emerald. A dazzling heart-shaped gem, the Emerald also bestows its wearer with magical powers.
When the Emerald disappears one stormy night, Newt sets off to recover it. Her plan entails dressing up as a man, mustache included, as no well-bred young lady should be seen out and about on her own. While in disguise, Newt encounters the handsome but shrewd Major Harnett, who volunteers to help find the missing Emerald under the assumption that she is a man. Once she and her unsuspecting ally are caught up in a dangerous adventure that includes an evil sorceress, Newt realizes that something else is afoot: the beating of her heart.
In Newt’s Emerald, the bestselling author of Sabriel, Garth Nix, takes a waggish approach to the forever popular Regency romance and presents a charmed world where everyone has something to hide.
The description was true! Probably more Georgette Heyer than Jane Austen with all the cant terms (tiger, foxed, slowtop, etc.). I really enjoy it – so much fun. The description of the clothes was fabulous, and the balls, and the behaviour of the ton were exactly what you hope for in a regency romance. The magic added a bit of extra spice to the story.
It’s quite short – more of a novella – and easy to read. There is adventure, magic, a beautiful heroine, and a handsome (titled and wealthy) hero, why wouldn’t anyone want to read it?
I finished the trilogy – although I think there might be plans for it to continue.
Here’s the blurb …
Chaos. Fury. Destruction.
The Great Change is upon us…
Some say that to change the world you must first burn it down. Now that belief will be tested in the crucible of revolution: the Breakers and Burners have seized the levers of power, the smoke of riots has replaced the smog of industry, and all must submit to the wisdom of crowds.
With nothing left to lose, Citizen Brock is determined to become a new hero for the new age, while Citizeness Savine must turn her talents from profit to survival before she can claw her way to redemption. Orso will find that when the world is turned upside down, no one is lower than a monarch. And in the bloody North, Rikke and her fragile Protectorate are running out of allies… while Black Calder gathers his forces and plots his vengeance.
The banks have fallen, the sun of the Union has been torn down, and in the darkness behind the scenes, the threads of the Weaver’s ruthless plan are slowly being drawn together…
I listened to this and I must say again how great the narrator is (Steven Pacey). Each novel was longer than the last, and, for me, this one dragged a bit. Possibly because I binged all three.
What I like about these novels is the complexity of the characters. The narrative point of view changes from character to character and you can understand and sympathise with their motivations and consequent behaviour. You can also understand how experiences and circumstances affect someone’s choices. There were some surprises in this one – one being the identity of the Weaver. Also, crowds aren’t that wise.
I am pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of these characters.
I moved straight onto this one after finishing A Little Hatred. That way it will all still be fresh in my mind.
Here is the blurb …
Conspiracy. Betrayal. Rebellion. Peace is just another kind of battlefield…
Savine dan Glokta, once Adua’s most powerful investor, finds her judgement, fortune and reputation in tatters. But she still has all her ambitions, and no scruple will be permitted to stand in her way.
For heroes like Leo dan Brock and Stour Nightfall, only happy with swords drawn, peace is an ordeal to end as soon as possible. But grievances must be nursed, power seized and allies gathered first, while Rikke must master the power of the Long Eye . . . before it kills her.
The Breakers still lurk in the shadows, plotting to free the common man from his shackles, while noblemen bicker for their own advantage. Orso struggles to find a safe path through the maze of knives that is politics, only for his enemies, and his debts, to multiply.
The old ways are swept aside, and the old leaders with them, but those who would seize the reins of power will find no alliance, no friendship, and no peace, lasts forever.
These novels are very interesting. We follow a few characters; Orso, Leo, Savine, Broad, Vic and Rikke. All of the characters are likeable (except maybe Savine) and it easy to follow their thoughts and to understand why they end up doing what they do (betrayal, sedition, etc.). My sympathies change depending on the point of view. Although, I will always have a soft spot for Orso – he seems to be reaping the rewards for other people’s mismanagement and poor judgement. And he is charming.
This novel is funny, violent and thought-provoking plus there are some astonishing, unexpected sneaky plans.
Once again, the world building is amazing – the battle scenes in particular.
I a very dear friend lent this one to me. I didn’t know what to expect, but I trust her judgement. It is great – one of my favourite reads of the year (so far).
Here’s the blurb …
From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time. “Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf… you won’t regret it.” (Arundhati Roy)
In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.
In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.
In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.
A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”
This novel has the structure of a water molecule – H2O. The two Hs are Narin and Zaleekah, and the O is Arthur. Their stories are separated by time, but connected. This is a watery novel with multitudes of water descriptions, metaphors and similes.
[about a rain drop] Inside its miniature orb, it holds the secret of infinity, a story uniquely its own.
But now a sense of foreboding tugs at his [Arthur] insides, like the pull of a river’s undercurrent
Just as a drop of rain or a pellet of hail, water in whatever form, will always remember, he too, will never forget.
It is as if love, by its fluid nature, its riverine force, is all about the melding of markers, to the extent that you can no longer tell where your being ends and another’s begins.
Yet the key element for her is, and always has been water. She says it washes away disease, purifies the mind, calms the heart. Water is the best cure for melancholy.
Time is a river that meanders, branching out into tributaries and rivulets, depositing sediments of stories along its shows in the hope that someday, someone, somewhere, will find them.
It’s also about women and their place (or lack of place) in the world. Nisaba, the goddess of storytelling, replaced by Nabu. ISIS taking the Yasidi women and girls making them slaves (all kinds of slavery).
He does not look at her. It does not occur to him that he might frighten her with his proximity, having never had cause to feel such fear himself.
It’s about family and what people are prepared to do for family.
It’s about colonialism and who owns the ancient artifacts.
Westerners take our past, our memories. And then they say, “Don’t worry, you can come and see them anytime”.
He [Arthur] firmly believes that he is here to help excavate and preserve antiquities that will surely be better off in the hands of Europeans than the natives.
This novel is breath-taking in its scope; Mesopotamia, Victorian London, modern London and modern Iraq. The writing is beautiful, the sense of place exquisite. Like all good writing, I feel like I have been on an adventure; trying to decipher cuneiform with Arthur, listening to Narin’s grand mother’s stories about their culture and heritage, cheering Zaleekah on as she explores new options (and realising just how far her family is prepared to go to protect one of its own).
I have read The Women Upstairs and The emperor’s Children – I enjoyed the former more than the latter, but was keen to give this one a go. And then it was nominated for the Booker Prize (but didn’t make the shortlist), which was my project this year.
Here’s the blurb …
An immersive, masterful story of a family born on the wrong side of history, from one of our finest contemporary novelists.
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’s union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.
First, I knew nothing about Algeria (I knew it had been a French colony, but nothing about its independence). It sounds like a beautiful place, although I suspect it’s a bit troubled now as many former colonies are. This is a story about Gaston and Lucienne, their children and their grandchildren. It’s about life, love and family. It’s based on the author’s own family.
A few bits I highlighted
I know also that everything is connected, the constellations of our lives moving together in harmony and disharmony.
A story is not a line; it is a richer thing, one that circles and eddies, rises and falls, repeats upon itself.
We were on the one hand interchangeable and on the other each our selves.
[…] we had agency over only some small aspects of our stories
This strange eventful history that made a life. Not good or bad – rather, both good and bad – but that was not the point. Above all, they had been, for so long, wildly curious. Just to see, to experience all that they could, to set foot anywhere, to speak to anyone, taste anything, to learn, to know.
The writing is beautiful, I can see why it was nominated.
This is my fifth book from the Booker short list (2024).
Here’s the blurb …
‘A house is a precious thing…’An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge – for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan’s AtonementIt’s 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel’s life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel’s doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season… Eva is Isabel’s sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn’t. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house-a spoon, a knife, a bowl-Isabel’s suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to desire – leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva – nor the house in which they live – are what they seem.
I bought this solely because it was on the short list. I knew nothing about the author or the novel – I didn’t even read the blurb before I started.
At first I thought this novel was probably not for me, Isabel is a very unsympathetic character (rude and judgmental). She seems to be paranoid – is the maid stealing things? And then Eva moved in, and gradually things changed. However, it was Eva’s diary that really captured me – and made me realise the background history of the house (I was a bit slow there). In the end I was enthralled and this novel needs to be read by more people.
It made me think about things I had never considered before, about houses and ownership, but also about the limited opportunities for women, and what happens when your life (and education) has been disrupted by war?
This one might win, I am now torn between James and this one.
I am back on my Booker shortlist reading task – three down and three to go (and I am halfway through Creation Lake). I was loathe to read this one, I thought it was ticking too many boxes, but I read it (listened to it) and it was very good.
Here is the blurb …
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Brimming with electrifying humor and lacerating observations, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
I think I had to read Tom Sawyer when I was at school, but I haven’t read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
First, I just want to say that this was beautifully narrated by Dominic Hoffman,
As I mentioned above, I came to this as a new story with no pre-conceived notions of the characters; the judge, Mrs Anderson, etc. I think this is beautifully written – the setting, the characters and the dialogue are all fabulous. James is articulate, witty, intelligent, principled and determined to find a better life for himself and his family.
I am sure if you are familiar with Huckleberry Finn, you will get even more out of this novel.
As an Australian, I hope Charlotte Wood wins, but I think this will be the winner.
The triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning Fugitive Pieces : a soaring and luminous story of chance and change
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .
So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.
Held is a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.
This was beautifully written, poetical with beautiful sentences. The structure reminds me of Jenny Offil – seemingly unrelated paragraphs and chapters, but somehow all connected and telling a story. Having only read three of the longlist, I am going to go out on a limb and say this one is going to win. Not because I didn’t like Stone Yard Devotional or Enlightenment (this is one of my favourite reads of the year), but I think the structure and the writing will appeal to judges.
