Hello! Happy Saturday!! What a week it has been! Saw a lovely barn owl and then also got to see the Northern Lights in my own back garden!! Nature is blooming wonderful!!
And books are wonderful too!! It’s been another good bookish week – I managed to finish 4 books and just added 1 to my Netgalley Shelf!! Very controlled this week! Just seem to have a lot of reviews to catch up on now… if only my brain would snap into action!! Here’s my look back!
A dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.
Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.
Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other.
A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.
A stunning piece of work!! One of those quietly powerful novels, that you lose track of time when you’re reading as you’re completely caught up in the worlds created by an author who is a genius!!
Set in Essex, where else!, we are introduced to the 2 main characters Thomas and Grace, who are at different stages in life but invariably linked through experiences. This is a book that looks into love, faith and science and how each is viewed by people with different outlooks on the world.
Thomas writes articles for the local paper and has done so for years. Very set in his ways, he focuses his attention on history and supernatural experiences, often based on his past with the church where his father was a Pastor. And then his editor gives him a new ‘brief’ by giving him a Planisphere which opens up the world of astronomy to him, which leads him to become obsessed and in awe of space and the infection rubs off on you as a reader!
Grace is a young woman, whose mother died in childbirth, and Thomas has always been there to help her father. She’s discovering what it is to be a young woman with acts of rebellion and wanting to find her own meaning and place in the world. She looks at the world quite differently than Thomas, but always seems to seek him out for advice and are both drawn into the history of a local woman, Maria, which then adds more depth to the story. Alongside that of James who works at the museum and helps with the research and has his own fascinating storyline.
You get the sense that all these characters are just searching for meaning, be it personally or professionally, and that uncertainty about themselves really strikes a chord. Is it faith that will bring them that validation or should they be looking elsewhere and I loved all the various journeys that the storyline takes us on. The character of Maria too was another masterstroke in storytelling and has those links to The Essex Serpent too!
Another mesmerizing read from Sarah Perry – and one of my books of the year for 2024!! highly highly recommended!!
Everywhere, the birds: sparrows and skylarks and thrushes, starlings and bellbirds, fantails and pipits – but above them all and louder, the magpies. We are here and this is our tree and we’re staying and it is ours and you need to leave and now.
Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by Marnie, and this is where his story might have ended. ‘If it keeps me awake,’ says Marnie’s husband Rob, a farmer, ‘I’ll have to wring its neck.’ But with Tama come new possibilities for the couple’s future. Tama can speak, and his fame is growing. Outside, in the pines, his father warns him of the wickedness wrought by humans. Indoors, Marnie confides in him about her violent marriage. The more Tama sees, the more the animal and the human worlds – and all of the precarity, darkness and hope within them – bleed into one another. Like a stock truck filled with live cargo, the story moves inexorably towards its dramatic conclusion: the annual Axeman’s Carnival.
Part trickster, part surrogate child, part witness, Tama the magpie is the star of this story. Though what he says aloud to humans is often nonsensical (and hilarious with it), the tale he tells us weaves a disturbingly human sense. The Axeman’s Carnival is Catherine Chidgey at her finest – comic, profound, poetic and true.
Just glorious!! The author manages to create such wonderful scenarios and characters that I just immediately fall straight into the world on the pages and live every piece of drama that goes on from page 1 to the last!
And who would have thought that a story told from the point of view of a talking magpie would be so wonderful! We meet Tama, who is the baby magpie rescued by Marnie and what follows is a wonderful observation of a family beset by dark secrets, and showing the world we live in through social media and the good, and bad, that can create.
Marnie is a wholly sympathetic character – she’s recently lost a baby so you understand her push to take care of this young bird, while those around her worry that she’s lost her mind. Her husband, a farmer, is facing tough times but it’s very difficult to feel any sympathy for as he treats Marnie awfully. Tama observes all this and sees this side of humanity close up, while Marnie confides in him and seeks comfort from him
With a talking magpie, the interest online starts to spiral and that’s where dollar signs begin to spring up in her husbands eyes. We then begin to see the impact of creating an online ‘creation’ where the audience craves more and more access, with boundaries being stepped over and definitely shows how quickly that love can turn to hate when people don’t get what they want.
I was totally absorbed in this book from start to finish. The author has a brilliant way in making something that sounds so crazy, seem so totally normal and it’s definitely already one of my favourite books of the year!! A must read!!!
The paper is stiff and brittle with age as Kate unfolds it with trembling hands. She gasps at the pencil sketch of a rippling waterway, lined by tall buildings, curving towards the dome of a cathedral. She feels a connection deep in her heart. Venice.
England, 1941. When Kate Arden discovers a secret stash of drawings hidden in the pages of an old volume of poetry given to her as a baby, her breath catches. All her life, she has felt like an outsider in her aristocratic adoptive family, who refuse to answer any questions about her past. But the drawings spark a forgotten memory: a long journey by boat… warm arms that held her tight, and then let go.
Could these pictures unlock the secret of who she is? Why her mother left her? With war raging around the continent, she will brave everything to find out…
A gripping, emotional historical novel of love and art that will captivate fans of The Venice Sketchbook, The Woman on the Bridge and The Nightingale.
I adored this family driven historical drama! It’s really cleverly told from the perspective of 2 characters, from the same timeline!, so you’re really absorbed in the discoveries they make and how that will connect them as the time moves on.
Set too against the backdrop of the War, we meet some fascinating female characters and their storylines were so evocative and absorbing that I was invested straight away in both threads! The flipflopping of the stories works really well against each other, so you’re never losing interest in either as there’s just so much going on and lots to be revealed!
The character of Kate is really cleverly written. She’s not doing the normal thing of settling down and isn’t happy to go along with a role that isn’t her, but she’s always felt a little different from her family and never felt settled. She’s searching for who she is, and she knows that the artistic world is her true love. She’s also determined to help more with the war effort so that takes her off on other adventures. The war setting also allows you to see the reality of war and the destruction caused in various forms and the characters really help you connect.
She starts uncovering little clues to her past and that takes her on a a journey of discovery in Italy and starts to give her a real sense of connecting with her heritage. A beautifully written story and one I highly recommend to all!!
He’s going to kill you. He just doesn’t know it yet. There’s something wrong with me. For years I’ve hidden it. Suppressed it. Blended into society. But The Test awoke something within me. It was just a routine application designed to get to know me better – with results that would show me everything I was capable of. But it showed me that the wickedness is still inside me – and that I am capable of the worst possible things. And now that I know that, there’s no telling what I’ll do next…
If you’re looking for a book that grabs you from the get go, then look no further!! I was immediately gripped by the story from the first few pages as the drama unfolds and the storyline doesn’t let go of you until the final page!!
This is quite a dark and twisted story, featuring some very interesting characters! At the heart of it is Midnight who is trained to get in the mind of the ‘evil’ out in the world, and as soon as she spots the case of ‘Profile K’ she knows she needs to stop this monster before he attacks again. And when he finds out that someone is on to him, he starts to track her down to be his next victim.
I loved the way the action switches from watching Midnight profiling the killer, to that of seeing the story from the point of view of the victims, how they meet their killer and how his twisted mind works and you just want him caught ASAP before he strikes again.
We see the home life of Midnight as well, as primary carer for her sister so you really get that sense of her just wanting to do the bst for her, and finding out why she’s been left in charge in the first place. Setting the darkness of the murders, against the normality of a woman just looking out for her sister is a real masterstroke and really just proves how dark and light life really can be! Highly recommended!
Happy Saturday!! And the sunshine seems to have remembered how to stay out!! Yay! Making the most of it as I’m sure the rain clouds will return soon! Nice to see the butterflies about again too! And the sunshine seems to have made me read more!! Managed to finish 6 books this week, have added 1newbie to my Netgalley shelf and was lucky to win a book via Twitter/X! Here’s my look back!
It’s that time of year ALREADY!! I was super happy to see the lovely Cathy at 746Books posting up the other day that it’s the return of 20 Books of Summer!! My favourite time of year haha!!
If you’ve not joined in before the premise is very simple!
Do you fancy getting 20 books off your TBR in three months? Think of the joys that this challenge brings:
Want to swap a book? Go for it.
Fancy changing your list half way through? No problem.
Deciding to drop your goal from 20 to 15 (or even 10)?
Choosing your list of books is half the fun, as is following along with everyone’s progress on this years new #20booksofsummer24 hashtag.
This year I am kicking off on Saturday 1 June and finishing on Sunday 1 September.
So it’s a no brainer that I’m in and I do like to set myself a ‘theme’ for my reading challenge!! And this year I’m going for BOOKS WITH ANIMALS IN THE TITLE! I was thinking I would split this between physical books and e-books but, very scarily!, I discovered that there are 20 books on my Netgalley TBR shelves that fit the challenge!!! So decision made then!! And it’s going to be a good thing to clear these books from my overcrowded Netgalley shelves so win win!! Here’s my initial list… changes may be made over the Summer but I’m normally pretty good at sticking to my original list! Click on the heading for more info on each book.
So there’s my list!! Liking the look of them as they seem to cover a variety of genres…. have you read any of these?! Which one should I start with?! And are you taking part in 20 Books this year?! If so, good luck!!
The ‘shadow line’ is a term Royle uses to describe the faint line on the top edge of the text block that allows him to see whether a book on a shelf contains an inclusion – those items inserted into books and long forgotten.
The shadow line is a constant reminder of how Royle started to think of books as more than just the printed stories or information they contain. He is always looking for shadow lines when scanning the shelves of second-hand bookstores, charity shops, hotels, Little Free Libraries and Airbnbs.
He’s no longer only looking for books that are just books. He’s looking for the book that contains a hand-drawn map of an unnamed town in Ireland that he can try to identify so he can read the book while walking the streets depicted on the map. He’s looking for the book that contains a 1957 delivery note for an address in Bristol, so that he can send the book, complete with delivery note, to whoever lives there now and invite them to welcome it back into its former home.
He’s also looking, beyond the bookshelves, for books dumped in the street, for books used as props in art installations, for books left on bedside tables in films. He’s looking for books that are Doppelgängers of other books, for books that are named after places (where they might not be set), for books with two-word titles the first of which is London. He’s looking for books that don’t exist.
This follow-up to White Spines, Royle’s instant classic published in 2021, shows his search takes many forms, giving a shape and a structure to this compelling new work, just as the search for the Picadors informed the former. Strange, haunting, comic and poignant, Shadow Lines is the perfect book for those who love physical books and the stories beyond their pages.
Books about Books! I love them! And I loved White Spines, which was the authors’ first exploration into his obsession with buying books and searching them out across the land, so I’ve been eager to read more from him, and Shadow Lines is a wonderful follow up!
This continues his obsession with second hand bookshops and charity shops, looking to add to his bookish collection but this time round looks more at those books we’ve all found on our travels with a scribbled note inside, an address, a map and it spurs him on to a quest to search out those books and maybe ring that telephone number inside, or post a book back to someone to return it ‘back home’. I loved the randomness of his journey as he finds himself seeing what he can find on shelves – alongside still looking to add to his beloved Picador collection!
There’s also a number of different side topics which keep the book theme going – such as books he sees in movies that he searches out for now and wondering what the significance is, and also the art of reading while walking!! I’ve seen a number of people do this recently and am now tempted to give it a go myself!!
I really wish I had his recall for details as there’s so much information shared be it about a book plot, the author and their background or details from films he’s seen. And I also found this book to be quite poignant reading it when I did, as he talks a lot about the author Paul Auster (who I’ve still not read but will be hunting out his work now!) who sadly just passed away – April 2024.
This was a wonderful read that looks at the journey that each book can take you on, alongside the journey the author went on to find that book and what can be found inside. I’m definitely going to be paying more attention when browsing secondhand books now to see what treasures I can discover!!
Hello! Happy Star Wars Day!! And let’s hope it’s a lovely month ahead for us all! Some settled weather would be nice! Rather nice thunderstorms overnight this week kept me awake!
On to books, and it’s been a productive week! Managed to finish 4 books, avoided Netgalley, but had a little bookish spending spree – whoops! Here’s my look back!
Hello and Happy Saturday!! I am now another year older so please bare with me!! My reflexes are slower and I want to go to bed even earlier than before lol!! Had a lovely birthday, spent bookshopping and eating cake!! The perfect combination!!
So my bookhaul is looking ‘healthy’ this week, and I’ve managed to read 2 books off my TBR pile so that pace needs to pick up! 1 newbie has been added to my Netgalley shelf too! Here’s my look back! Click on the book titles for more info!