August 6, 2023 · 8:30 pm

Behind the Seams – Esme Young

Behind the Seams – Esme Young

This was given to me as a gift, and as a fan of The Great British Sewing Bee, I was very keen to read this book.

From adventures at Central Saint Martins to The Great British Sewing Bee , go behind the scenes of Esme Young’s amazing life…

At age five, Esme was asked to write in her notebook, but instead, she filled it with drawings – the only way she knew to express herself. At seven, when it was discovered she was partially deaf, she found refuge in her sketchbooks. Shortly after, Esme made her first garment and a passion for sewing and designing was born. As a teenager, she made her way to London where her creative journey truly began.

Living in a squat with other young creatives, Esme made the most of her time; studying at Central Saint Martins, launching a clothing line called Swanky Modes with three friends and £50 each, watching Notting Hill Carnival with David Bowie, and altering a dress for Cher. The ’90s saw a career move into costumes for films, where she designed outfits for Trainspotting , Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Beach , before she moved onto the small screen herself.

A celebration of a creative life lived differently, Behind the Seams is a reminder that it’s never too early, or too late to pick up a needle and start stitching in a new direction.

This was great, so much that I didn’t know or expect. From the sewing bee, I knew about her work at Central Saint Martins, but nothing about the rest of her career. And what an amazing career it is; fashion and costume design, fabulous collaborations.

The driving impulse seems to be to say yes (almost all the time) to all opportunities.

If you’re interested in textiles, fashion, sewing, pattern cutting or the sewing bee, then this book will interest you.

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August 1, 2023 · 6:21 am

The Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese

The Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese

I had about this novel at book club and I bought a copy as a gift, which came back to me so I could read it too – perfect gift.

Here’s the blurb …

A stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret.
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life. All of Verghese’s great gifts are on display in this new work: there are astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

I read Cutting for Stone – a few years ago and enjoyed it, so I was keen to read this one. It is quite the epic, over 700 pages, but, unusually, I didn’t think it could do with some editing. It’s beautifully evocative. The settings, the characters, the family “condition” where every generation someone (or multiple people) drown were intriguing and compelling. At its heart it’s about love and family.

A review

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July 30, 2023 · 2:45 pm

Anne’s World – A New Century of Anne of Green Gables, edited by Irene Gammel and Benjamin Lefebvre

Anne’s world – A New Century of Anne of Green Gables

I bought this soon after it was published (way back in 2010) and I finally read it. It’s a series of papers written around the time of the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Anne of Green Gables.

Here’s the blurb …

The recent 100 year anniversary of the first publication of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables has inspired renewed interest in one of Canada’s most beloved fictional icons. The international appeal of the red-haired orphan has not diminished over the past century, and the cultural meanings of her story continue to grow and change. The original essays in Anne’s World offer fresh and timely approaches to issues of culture, identity, health, and globalization as they apply to Montgomery’s famous character and to today’s readers.

In conversation with each other and with the work of previous experts, the contributors to Anne’s World discuss topics as diverse as Anne in fashion, the global industry surrounding Anne, how the novel can be used as a tool to counteract depression, and the possibility that Anne suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Anne in translation and its adaptation for film and television are also considered. By establishing new ways to examine one of popular culture’s most beloved characters, the essays of Anne’s World demonstrate the timeless and ongoing appeal of L.M. Montgomery’s writing.

It covers a diverse range of topics; from translations to adaptations, bibliotherapy, etc. I skipped some of the chapters – the one on Fetal Alcohol syndrome for example, if anything I think Anne has ADHD. But this was an interesting selection of papers, and made me want to read the novel again and dig into LM Montgomery’s journals.

It is quite an academic book, but don’t let that put you off, it’s easy to read. And there are lots of foot notes you can explorer for extra reading.

I can’t find a review of this book, but here is a link to an article Margaret Atwood wrote about Anne of Green Gables.

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July 25, 2023 · 5:01 pm

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone – Benjamin Stevenson

Everyone in my Family has Tried to Kill Someone – Benjamin Stevenson

I needed a new audible book, so I scrolled through my husband’s audible account and selected this one. My new way of selecting is to choose the first thing that appeals to me. The audible book is narrated by Barton Welch.

Here’s the blurb …

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.

I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let’s get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me

I had seen this book in various book stores, but for some reason had been a bit dismissive. That was a mistake, I really enjoyed this novel. And, the ending, which I won’t spoil, was unexpected. This novel has a lovely chatty style, with a classic Poirot type reveal at the end. The audible narration is fabulous.

If you like crime or detective stories, then I think you will enjoy this novel.

A review

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July 20, 2023 · 5:16 pm

A Whistling Woman – AS Byatt

A Whistling Woman – A S Byatt

The last of the Frederica Potter series. I enjoyed this one more than number 3 (Babel Tower).

Here’s the blurb …

The Booker Prize-winning author of Possession delivers a brilliant and thought-provoking novel about the 1960s and how the psychology, science, religion, ethics, and radicalism of the times affected ordinary lives. 

“Rich, acerbic, wise…. [Byatt] tackles nothing less than what it means to be human.” — Vogue

Frederica Potter, a smart, spirited 33-year-old single mother, lucks into a job hosting a groundbreaking television talk show based in London. Meanwhile, in her native Yorkshire where her lover is involved in academic research, the university is planning a prestigious conference on body and mind, and a group of students and agitators is establishing an “anti-university.” And nearby a therapeutic community is beginning to take the shape of a religious cult under the influence of its charismatic religious leader.

A Whistling Woman portrays the antic, thrilling, and dangerous period of the late ‘60s as seen through the eyes of a woman whose life is forever changed by her times.

These novels are full of detail and information, which I love. I read a review where someone was complaining about the description of clothes, but I love that. These novels are rich in description, literary allusions, science, etc.

A review

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July 13, 2023 · 12:29 pm

Mrs Gaskell and Me – Nell Stevens

Mrs Gaskell and Me – Nell Stevens

I first heard of Nell Stevens on the Backlisted podcast – they were discussing Mrs Gaskell’s North and South (one of my favourite books – and there is a fabulous television adaptation). And this sounded right up my alley – I have already read something similar about George Eliot, and there was My Salinger Year, not to forget My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead. Now I need someone to write one about Austen.

Here’s the blurb …

In 1857, after two years of writing The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell fled England for Rome on the eve of publication. The project had become so fraught with criticism, with different truths and different lies, that Mrs Gaskell couldn’t stand it any more. She threw her book out into the world and disappeared to Italy with her two eldest daughters. In Rome she found excitement, inspiration, and love: a group of artists and writers who would become lifelong friends, and a man – Charles Norton – who would become the love of Mrs Gaskell’s life, though they would never be together.

In 2013, Nell Stevens is embarking on her Ph.D. – about the community of artists and writers living in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century – and falling drastically in love with a man who lives in another city. As Nell chases her heart around the world, and as Mrs Gaskell forms the greatest connection of her life, these two women, though centuries apart, are drawn together.

Mrs Gaskell and Me is about unrequited love and the romance of friendship, it is about forming a way of life outside the conventions of your time, and it offers Nell the opportunity – even as her own relationship falls apart – to give Mrs Gaskell the ending she deserved.

I enjoyed both stories – Mrs Gaskell’s and Nell’s. I had no idea that Mrs Gaskell was in love with a man who was not her husband. I have always pictured her as a religious women who lived through some tragedies (didn’t her son die young?). Both Nell and Mrs Gaskell were longing for me who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) return their feelings. It’s about keeping going when you can’t have what you want and you don’t know what to want instead.

A review

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July 12, 2023 · 4:05 pm

Babel Tower – AS Byatt

Babel Tower – AS Byatt

I am still listening to the Frederica Potter series of novels, this one is number three. These novels have so much going on – there is stories within stories. There is the plot of the novel and then there is bits of Babel Tower (a novel written by one of the characters) and there is another story written by yet another character. The novels are full of literary, scientific and art references. The characters are articulate.

Here’s the blurb …

Babel Tower follows The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life in tracing Frederica Potter, a lover of books who reflects the author’s life and times. It centers around two lawsuits: in one, Frederica — a young intellectual who has married outside her social set — is challenging her wealthy and violent husband for custody of their child; in the other, an unkempt but charismatic rebel is charged with having written an obscene book, a novel-within-a-novel about a small band of revolutionaries who attempt to set up an ideal community. And in the background, rebellion gains a major toehold in the London of the Sixties, and society will never be the same.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading these novels – I remember waiting impatiently for the final one to be released. They’re interesting; there are a variety of characters of all sorts (weird, clever, violent, angry, kind, mad) and I think it gives the reader an insight into life in the 1960s and 70s as a clever and ambitious woman.

It’s also about language and its slipperiness.

A review

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July 11, 2023 · 6:34 pm

The Wind Knows My Name – Isabel Allende

The Wind Knows My Name – Isabel Allende

A friend lent me this novel. I wouldn’t have read it otherwise – I read something by her years ago and wasn’t that taken with it. However, I really enjoyed this one, so I am glad I read it.

Here’s the blurb …

This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.

Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.

Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

This is a novel about child refugees; a small boy fleeing Germany, a young girl and her dad leaving El Salvador, a mother and daughter also leaving El Salvador. It’s about acts of cruelty (both thoughtless and deliberate) and acts of kindness. It is about families – biological and the ones we make for ourselves. But, at its heart, it is about the strength of the human spiriit.

A review

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July 1, 2023 · 2:32 pm

Love By Design – Elizabeth Everett

Love by Design – Elizabeth Everett
My new book bag (it’s from Redbubble)

This was a mothers day gift from the lovely Miss A. I have already read A Perfect Equation and was keen to read more of Ms Everett’s work.

Here’s the blurb …

You couldn’t design a better hero than the very eligible and extremely charming Earl Grantham. Unless, of course, you are Margaret Gault, who wants nothing to do with the man who broke her youthful heart.

Widowed and determined, Margaret Gault has returned to Athena’s Retreat and the welcoming arms of her fellow secret scientists with an ambitious plan in mind: to establish England’s first woman-owned engineering firm. But from the moment she sets foot in London her plans are threatened by greedy investors and–at literally every turn–the irritatingly attractive Earl Grantham, a man she can never forgive.

George Willis, the Earl Grantham, is thrilled that the woman he has loved since childhood has returned to London. Not as thrilling, however, is her decision to undertake an engineering commission from his political archnemesis. When Margaret’s future and Grantham’s parliamentary reforms come into conflict, Grantham must use every ounce of charm he possesses–along with his stunning good looks and flawless physique, of course–to win Margaret over to his cause.

Facing obstacles seemingly too large to dismantle, will Grantham and Margaret remain forever disconnected or can they find a way to bridge their differences, rekindle the passion of their youth, and construct a love built to last?

I would describe this novel as a grown-up romance; Margaret is independent and self-reliant, she is not looking to be rescued or swept off her feet. In this series, the women are scientists, engineers, mathematicians, biologists, etc who want to participate in the world. Having said that, there are still traditional romance elements; the hero is an earl, Margaret is beautiful.

If you enjoy romance and romantic comedies, than this novel is for you.

A review

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June 27, 2023 · 5:07 pm

The Curfew – T M Logan

The Curfew T M Logan

I heard about this on Jen Campbell’s booktube – in particular the audio version read by Richard Armitage. Surprisingly, it was available on Borrowbox.

Here’s the blurb …

Your son said he was home. WHY DID HE LIE?

It’s time to preorder the brand new up-all-night thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Richard and Judy pick The Holiday, now a major TV Drama.

I should have known something was wrong. I should have sensed it. Felt it in the air, like the build-up of pressure before a thunderstorm, that heavy, loaded calm.

The curfew
Andy and Laura are good parents. They tell their son Connor that he can go out with friends to celebrate completing his exams, but he must be home by midnight.

The lie
When Connor misses his curfew, it sets off a series of events that will change the lives of five families forever.

The truth?
Because five teenagers went into the woods that night, but only four came out. And telling the truth might mean losing everything…

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

First, T M Logan writes excellently about teenagers and being a parent of teenagers and how things change over time. Secondly, Richard Armitage is a fabulous narrator.

The plot is a little bit predictable, but how it all gets discovered is not. It’s quite the page turner – some of Andy’s actions (he’s the dad) annoyed me (quite a few of the things he did just made things worse).

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