THE TRICK TO TIME by Kit de Waal

The trick to time is not that difficult really - how it contracts and expands seemingly at will, but in actual fact it is our perception of how it moves that determines how we treat it. If that makes any sense...in my head it does... and I get what the author is saying too - life and our place in it is fluid, always moving and changing, as we do.

Irish born, Mona is about to go through a big change - she is turning 60 years old, wondering if this is the beginning of the end, where else can she go with her life. She lives alone in a town in England, putting her immense creative talent into making dolls, collector's items - made from wood by a local carpenter, beautifully and delicately dressed in clothes made from materials found in op shops, bricabrac. She thinks she might have another go at looking for love, but at her age uncertain where to find it. She becomes intrigued by a gentleman who lives opposite her.

Her story is not a happy one. Life in the town she lives with her father in 1970s Ireland is never going to be enough, so she moves to Birmingham where she meets William. The two of them fall madly in love, marry, have a child. Life goes tragically wrong for Mona and William, with nary a recovery or moving on in sight. Despite a sad story being at the centre of the novel, the story never feels completely tragic. Mona has a strength that gets her through a lot, still has her looking on the bright side, even if she is starting to feel a little isolated by her impending birthday.

There is so much humanity in this story, not only in the scope of the very real characters, but also in kindness to others, and healing in the relationships one builds. I read the author's first book My Name is Leon, an absolute stunner about a little boy in the fostering system. Beautiful story, beautifully told, and this has many of the same elements. Although it is dealing with adult trauma, and so Mona's world is not viewed with the same sense of wonder that Leon's world is viewed. I did love this book. 

WHITE CHRYSANTHEMUM by Mary Lynn Bracht

This book is a novel, but is based 100% on fact, a subject we really know little about, one of great cruelty, pain, brutality perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese army from the early 1930s through to 1945. Despite the diplomatic and political squirming that still seems to go on between Japan and the many countries they decimated over these years, the 'comfort women' policy did happen. The girls and young women of Korea were swept up in their thousands to 'comfort' the soldiers of the Japanese army, raped up to 30-40 times a day. It was only in 1993 that the Japanese government finally acknowledged the existence of comfort women.

This novel tells the story of two Korean sisters, Hana and Emi, separated during the war. Hana is dragged away by a Japanese soldier to a life of sexual slavery; Emi is left to grow up wondering what happened to her sister. Hana’s narrative covers the war years, while in Emi’s chapters it is 2011, and the elderly Emi is still looking for her sister.

The subject matter is quite brutal, you want to cry for Hana and what she goes through, and for Emi who blames herself for her sister's disappearance. War is a terrible thing, as we have seen with the accounts coming out of post war Europe. And here is another part of the world that suffered equally awful things; finally we are hearing their stories too. The author herself is of South Korean descent. It was on a trip back to her mother's village that she first learnt about the fate of girls as young as 14, possibly even younger, who found themselves in a living hell. The writing, told entirely in the present tense, is incredibly compassionate and kind towards these girls/women, most never surviving the war, and those who did treated as outcasts and damaged goods when they did return to their homelands. And white chrysanthemums? This flower is a symbol of mourning in Korea, placed on coffins at funerals, laid on graves, placed at the water's edge. So unbearably sad.

TINMAN by Sarah Winman

This would have to be one of the most beautiful books I have read in recent times. An exquisitely written bittersweet and divine story about friendship, love and loss. Three characters - Ellis, Michael and Annie. Now only Ellis is still alive. It is 1996, a town in Ireland. Ellis is 46, living on his own, working at the local car assembly plant. He had been married to Annie, who five years earlier had died in a car accident. Life stopped for Ellis. He is alone, and lonely. He thinks about his youth, his childhood. An only child, he was a quiet boy, a gifted drawer, encouraged by his mother to make something of himself. Ellis finds friendship in Michael, a boy his own age who comes to live with his grandmother. They are inseparable, Ellis' quiet personality a perfect match for Michael's joyful and energetic one. Young boys grow into young men, and their relationship grows too into one of love and intimacy.

Life interferes, the two are separated, Ellis meets Annie with whom he falls head over heels in love. They marry, and Micheal magically re enters Ellis' life, the three of them creating the most perfect friendship ever. Annie fully understands the relationship between the two men she loves more than anything and yet is never threatened by it. Perfection. Life interferes again, hence Ellis being on his own.

The story is narrated in two parts - the first half by Ellis, and the second by Michael. And at the centre of the story is Dora, Ellis' mother who also loved Michael and welcomed him into her son's life. Not easy in 1960s Ireland. Dora is not part of the story for long, but her influence and love for Ellis is a constant, as was her love for a painting of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, won in a raffle, symbolising life and beauty.

This book was a joy to read. Less than 200 pages, it is a love story that you never want to end. 

SAPIENS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MANKIND by Yuval Noah Harari

Talk about chock full of information, every possible subject covered - biology, genetics, politics, sociology, theology, cultural history, religion, economics, industrialisation, war - everything you can think of related to the human condition. A truly fascinating whirlwind of the history of human beings going back, far too back for us to even begin to comprehend. And all in 464 pages. Immensely readable, the author must be a genius to cram so much into so few pages.

I can't even begin to think how much I learnt from this book. I am sure there will be plenty of experts out there to dispute bits and pieces of this enormous history, but even so, every page is a page turner. The author divides his book into three parts - the Cognitive Revolution where we learnt how to think - some 70,000 years ago; the Agricultural Revolution - some 12,000 years ago, and finally the Industrial Revolution - some 500 years ago. He looks at how we evolved from wandering nomads into settled communities, farming and growing our own food, then into larger communities - towns/cities/kingdoms from which law and order evolved. He looks at why and how the concept of religion and gods came to dominate societal order universally through human kind. How a society can never embrace the idea of equality and freedom because once you dig deeper, they cancel each other out. And what about money - how did that evolve? Or the idea of measuring time as a way to manage our lives? Neither of these were around in the days of the Neanderthal  and yet now we cannot possibly imagine living without either of these. Intriguing and challenging arguments put forward for many of the subjects he raises.

I loved this, it is an absolute treasure trove of all sorts of interesting stuff. I read it in sections, too much to take in all at once. I now need to get my own copy so I can turn down page corners, pick up and randomly open at any page to be reminded of what amazing and unique creatures we are. And for how much will we be here too, before we destroy the environment around us that has taken millions of years to create. Are we happy? Will there be a second Cognitive Revolution to address the changing world we are living in? Read this and have your mind challenged. 

TRANSCRIPTION by Kate Atkinson

It disappoints me to say that I was a little disappointed with the wonderful Kate Atkinson's latest novel. I think she is a master writer, both in her storytelling and in her craft of writing. Over the years I have read all her books, and immersed in her characters, deeply involved in their lives, adventures, good times and bad. This - ho hum. I felt dislocated from the lead character, a young woman called Juliet Armstrong. There was nothing wrong with her or unlikeable, I just could not get that usual feeling of character love that this writer normally creates in the reader.

Such a promising story line. Juliet is 18 years old in 1940, no father, her mother recently deceased, no siblings. All alone in the world, and so ripe for the picking by MI5 to become a spy of sorts in the ongoing hunt for fascists and Nazi supporters in wartime London. Does she even feel fully engaged in the process? At 18 maybe not - naive, trusting, unsure of her purpose in the world. This is all a bit of an adventure and a lark. She is responsible for transcribing - typing - voice recordings of meetings between an MI5 agent masquerading as a Nazi and fascist sympathisers. All fairly inane one would think, but of course part of a much bigger picture. Her fellow spies are interesting and unusual people as one would expect in this type of work, Juliet trying to find her place amongst them. One day things go horribly wrong, and Juliet's spying career - for now- is over.

The second half of the story begins 10 years later. Juliet is now working for the BBC, a producer for children's radio programmes. But she is still involved in the spying game; it seems once they have you, you are never free. People from 1940 begin popping up again around London, strange messages are left for her at reception, she suspects she is being followed. How much of the past is going to come back to haunt her? Like all good spy stories there are twists and surprises, and this one was unexpected.

So what was the problem with this? I think it comes down to a lack of tension. A good spy/espionage story has tension and conflict within the characters - why are they doing what they are doing. Their personal lives are often in a bit of a mess and yet other than Juliet we learn nothing about the lives or inner workings of her fellow spies. There is no lingering sense of fear or danger despite the feeling that the reader knows something is going to happen. One review I have read sums the characters up as dull and uninteresting, and I totally agree. There is also to much moving back and forth between 1940 and 1950, not confusing, just simply too much. I always go back to John Le Carre as the master writer of spy/espionage stories and this comes nowhere close.