THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY by Amber Towles
CHRONICLES OF A CAIRO BOOKSELLER by Nadia Wassef
And underlying it all a deep love of books and literature, the fundamental importance of reading and learning not just for the growth of the soul, but for the education of everyone, women and girls in particular. One of the many wonderful things about the chain of shops was how they became a safe haven for women and girls to enter and be themselves in. The challenges are enormous, not just from the patriarchy, but also from the government of the day in actually getting books in. Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef banned because it contravened censorship laws? It is almost comical if it wasn't true. And people believing that a bookshop is more like a library - why should I pay for a book, why can't I just borrow it? And bringing in non-Egyption books, classic books we consider common place in any Western bookshop.
Well worth a read.
THE DARKEST EVENING by Ann Cleeves
Anyway in this latest Vera, it is a week or so before Christmas. Vera is driving home, in the dark, it's snowing. She takes a wrong turn and comes across a car off the road, the door open, and a baby in his baby seat. Not a soul around. She does realise where she is - on the edge of the landed estate to which she is actually quite closely connected through her father. But where she is not particularly welcome. Then a few hours later, the body of young woman turns up on the estate. and Vera is plunged immediately into sorting all this out.
Classic Vera with conflicts overload, relationships galore with long and deeply complicated histories, jealousies, resentments, possible motives. Joe, Vera's long suffering detective sergeant, and Hollie, her detective constable are back, both showing great promise as Vera successors.
This is only the second Vera I have read, the first Vera being the very first of the books. There was a lot in the first one about Vera herself, her personality, what made her tick, and I remember she is much more abrasive, prickly and difficult in that first one. She has softened somewhat in this latest, more like the character Brenda Blethyn has created. Unless maybe we all love Vera in whatever guise she chooses to show herself.
It's terrific, it will be a tele series one day. Look forward to it.
THEROUX THE KEYHOLE by Louis Theroux
A world famous documentary maker finds himself living his own weird life in the yo-yo first 12 months of the pandemic. Stuck at home with his long suffering, tolerant and patient wife - I think it a miracle they are still married - and their three sons - 15, 12 and 5. Both parents working, 3 boys to school, manage, feed, keep healthy mentally, physically and emotionally. Along with millions of other families around the world doing the same hard yards.
Whether Louis actually kept a diary during this time who would know, but it all reads as very real. And here sitting on the other side of the world, without school age children and not in a situation where either of us had to work from home, I could still relate to much of what this family went through. Louis was so lucky in that he made two escapes to the US, working on his latest TV series featuring Joe Exotic, some rappers and a few others living their best lives. Sorry rest of the family - stuck in your London house for days and weeks on end.
Louis seems to be very self aware, self deprecating, seemingly happy to make a fool of himself - honest in his own emotional journey through all this. He struggles as a dad-at-home, agonises over how much time his boys spend on devices, and how little time they spend on school work. His relationships with his boys is really quite lovely, especially 5 year old Ray, who fortunately doesn't' fully understand what is going on. A child's imagination is a wonderful thing and Louis immerses himself completely in his boy's magical mind. I think I would too if I was living his home life - nothing like a bit of escapism.
I got to like this very much, Louis's ramblings, his attempts to be seen to be doing the right thing, his struggles at being the perfect husband and father. Just another weird human being, like his interview subjects. Inside the jar for a change. His year comes to an end, and I particularly liked his final chapter - a lovely reflection on what the year has done to and for him. It was not in any ways easy, but that old saying about tough times being character building, contributing to resilience and self awareness ring true here.
A LONG PETAL OF THE SEA by Isabel Allende
What a story teller this woman is. Beautiful stories she tells, most of them based on personal experience, almost aways against a violent historical background. There is intense pain and sadness in her stories, the tragedy of what it is to be human, finding one's way through the horror and helplessness of what is going on around. She does it again with this very personal story of Victor, a Spanish man who somehow navigates his way through the Spanish Civil War, his wife Roser who has her won war experience, making their way to the far old land of Chile - the long petal of the sea - on the Winnipeg, an old ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to rescue 2000-odd Spanish migrants with no where in Europe to go. As with all refugees, they were not welcomed with open arms, but over the years, Victor and Roser make good lives for themselves. Things are never calm for long in South America however, freedom and repression on repeat the name of the way things evolve in some of these countries. So it is in Chile. And yes despite the fear, the violence, the repression, us human beings, we keep going, living, loving those around us. So it is with Victor and Roser and those who are dear to them. It is a wonderfully uplifting story, perfect for the uncertainty, fear, loss and despair of the last two years. The book is dedicated to Victor who died shortly before this was published in 2019.
WE WALKED THE SKY by Lisa Fielder
Life is actually quite tough for 17 year old Victoria, and the arrival of the circus in her home town in 1965, the opportunities it throws up, the magic, the chance to recreate herself is just too good to let pass. And off she goes. Oh, what a life it is. She discovers a pure talent for the high wire, finding love and a new family, who love and care for her, welcoming her into their unique and very different world.
Running parallel to Victoria's story is that of her fifteen year old grand daughter Callie, a child of the circus, and just like her grandmother a tight rope walker too. Only problem is that times have changed, and her mother has accepted a job in an animal sanctuary where retired circus animals go. All the lives of both Callie and her mother have only ever been in the circus, and some major readjustments need to take place, first with Callie accepting that her days of tightrope walking are over. And being a teenage girl, she has myriad other problems too, such as fitting in at a new school. Feeling isolated and alone, Callie begins going through some of her grandmother's bits and pieces, finding a story of another teenage girl.
This is a good story although I found it quite simplistic, which I think makes it a great read for the teen/young adult market. The circus life is fascinating, how one learns to walk a tightrope- makes it seem easier than it looks! We don't really have circuses now, and the way of life has largely gone. So there is plenty of social history in here too as well as the importance of family bonds, even when those bonds aren't necessarily blood bonds.
THE PEARL THIEF by Fiona McIntosh
It's 1963, London, 35 year old antique jewellery expert Severine Kassel is on loan from the Louvre to the British Museum to assist the latter in the provenance of its jewellery collection. She is asked to look at a most unusual and glorious Byzantine pearl necklace. The unexpected shock of seeing this item immediately propels her back to her past, threatening to destroy the carefully built up veneer and person that is Severine Kassel. Severine is really Katarina, born in Prague, of Jewish descent. Her family is cultured, reasonably wealthy and Katarina has a blessed early life. All that changes of course in 1938 when Czechoslovakia is annexed by Hitler. No need to give a history lesson here. Katarina, at 14, suffers and lives through terrible trauma and disaster. She comes through, in the process creating a brand new persona, known to only a few people. In the years since the war, however, she retains a burning hatred for the man responsible for what happened to her and her family. The appearance of the pearls unlocks the war time trauma, setting her on a path of revenge. She teams up with another Jewish survivor of the war, Daniel, who has his own agenda in the hunt for this man.
A real page turner of a book, which I make to sound like a thriller but it is not really that at all. You could easily see this as yet another novel about WWII, the Holocaust and how the Jews were treated - it is, but it is also a very good novel with these themes. The hunt for the war criminal propels the action along, but there is so much more going on with Katarina's early life before the war, leading up to the catastrophe, her war time years, the closed off and distant persona she has made of herself. The characters themselves are wonderfully drawn, all of them - their physical descriptions, how they dress in those opening up years of the early 1960s. And the places they lived - what a beautiful city Prague was, how London and Paris were in the early 1960s, how people dined, how they lived, their interactions with each other, the observations in the world. It is fascinating to see how the characters grow and change as the story unfolds, especially the changes in Katarina as her war time demons are laid to rest. If you are going on holiday - a restful holiday - then take this, especially if you are going to the English city of York and the surrounding area. Your inbuilt travel guide.
THE ECHO CHAMBER by John Boyne
This modern day morality tale is told through the Cleverley family. George is a very famous broadcaster, a 'national treasure', a man who claims to be a good person, liberal and embracing in his views. And so famous he can say and do what he wants. But also of the establishment. And bullet proof. And having an affair with a therapist. He is married to Beverley, a famous romantic novelist, possibly on the wane and would seem not to have written an original word or phrase for several books now, who employs a ghost writer - always nameless. Beverley has recently appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, her partner the devastating sex bomb Pylyp from the Ukraine. George and Beverley have three young adult children - Nelson, a sensitive soul who is a school teacher, Elizabeth who does nothing except live through her Twitter and Instagram accounts, focussed entirely on becoming an influencer. At all costs. Then there is is 17 year old Achilles, a boy of dubious morals who thinks blackmailing middle aged men into the idea of a relationship with him is a good way to get rich. Rather surprisingly they were, until quite recently it would seem, a functioning happy and communicative family. What changed you may well ask.... you don't need to look too far to see...
Over the course of a few weeks these entitled, boorish, greedy and selfish individuals (with the possible exception of Nelson), find their carefully constructed world blows up. A lot happens of course, to get to the point where it all comes crashing down, and it is a very entertaining ride getting there. At the centre of it all? The disconnection with the real world through that smart phone. This may well make you question your relationship with the digital world, and how we use it. You may not walk away from your device but you may look at it with a little more respect!
HAPPY HOUR by Jacquie Byron
One day a new family moves in next door. To Franny's surprise, Sallyanne Salerno and her two children - 8 year old Josh and 15 year old Dee - somehow get under her skin, and slowly work their ways into her life. Naturally it all begins to come undone at a certain point, Franny having to confront some unwanted demons emanating from her frozen in grief state. She has to learn to live again, but does she really want to.
It really is quite a delightful and fun story to read and enjoy. The two children are excellent characters. Josh is a divine little boy, already wrestling with not being the stereotyped 8 year old, preferring Franny's gorgeous collection of old clothes, silks, shoes, feather boas to playing cricket, rugby and doing boy stuff. Dee is a teenager caught between being a little girl and a young woman, trying to be something she is not yet ready for, very drawn to the sophisticated and glamorous Franny. Sallyanne is trying to be the best mother she can, getting away from her abusive husband and working full time. No wonder the children seek refuge with Franny and the dogs. But does she want them in her life?
There is some great dialogue, Franny has a mouth on her that I am sure any 65 year old woman would be proud of. She has never had children herself so approaches the whole business of relating to children differently from any other adults in Dee and Josh's lives, with some very funny and unexpected results. I liked this a lot - it is not in any way great literature, but it is funny, light and very enjoyable.
RED ROULETTE by Desmond Shum
Shum, like so many of those who got rich during the '90s and '00s, when the Chinese government began to open up its economy to the West and to western economic models, came from a family that suffered much during the leadership of Mao Tse Tung. He was a bright boy and won a scholarship to the US where he saw for himself how fantastic life was under a capitalist and democratic system. Taking these influences back to China he set about making it happen, with his girl friend Whitney, who it turned out to be, was the more driven and dangerous half of this partnership. Their entire existence revolved around developing connections, working those connections with communist party leaders and other influential people, those descended from the original communist party founders/leaders the most highly prized. These connections were essential in making things happen - building projects, business restructures, getting permits and permissions. So many levels of government that needed to be persuaded. The money that changed hands, the international trips and ostentatious spending to massage these processes was immense, obscene. Yet Shum and Whitney and many many others went for it as if it was all going to be taken away tomorrow. Which it eventually was.
It seems that a change in China's leadership in 2013 was the beginning of the end, the current paramount leader Xi Jinping determined to root out all this corruption. His powers are sweeping and we have seen it in the suppression of free speech in Hong Kong, as well as the criminal trials for government leaders and officials who have fallen out of favour. The way Shum describes all this, it seems more like a witch hunt, the pinning of anything onto the hapless victim, true or not.
The book is fascinating from all this point of view, written it would seem, by someone who knows what they are talking about. To get ahead in China, you have to be ruthless, determined, slightly crazy and ready to do anything to reach your goal. Shum and Whitney were outstanding successes at the projects they undertook, and made millions and millions from their actions. But at what cost? And moreover Shum knows he can never set foot in China or Hong Kong again. I am just so thankful that I live in a country that values democracy, freedom of speech, with little support or approval for any hint of corruption. We may not be the richest nation in terms of economic factors but we are certainly rich in the quality of human relationships and connections.
DANGEROUS WOMEN by Hope Adams
All this information is readily available, and the author of this novel has created a whodunnit out of the death of the one aforementioned convict. A young woman, who was allowed to take her six year old son with her on her transportation, is murdered about half way through the voyage. It falls upon Kezia, the captain, the doctor and the vicar to try and figure out what happened, why it happened, and who did it. The fears amongst the women would have been immense - they all sleep together, eat together, in very close confines with each other. Through the novel, we get the back stories of many of the women, the tragedies in their lives, children and families they have left behind, what women will do to feed and protect their children, all in a time of no contraception, women having no powers of any sort or ability to seek legal redress.
The story is written in a very linear fashion, it is easy to read, the investigation into the murder is perhaps a little drawn out. I did like how the women who worked on the quilt found meaning in their lives, in their friendships, that camaraderie that develops between women. I don't know how the lives of the women on the real Rajah panned out once they arrived in Hobart. It is unlikely any of them would ever have seen their families in England again, and that must have been heartbreaking for those who had to leave children behind. But women are tough and I would like to think that they did find successful lives for themselves, and were able to start again. If you have an interest in Australia's convict history, this is a good story and gives great accounts of what ship life would have been like.
CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by Anthony Doerr
I barely know where to start with describing the plot. At its core is a fable about a humble shepherd on a journey, in search of what it thinks is a better life, written by the ancient Greek (made-up) philosopher Antonius Diogenes. This thread that travels through the whole story is similar to the very famous modern parable of The Alchemist. Around this tale are the stories of five other characters at various times in history. First up is Anna, an orphaned teenage girl, who with her older sister, is struggling to survive in 15th century Constantinople. The Ottomans are descending on Constantinople, which young oxherd Oemir, has been forced to join. In the present day we meet Seymour, a young man, a damaged loner who has been radicalised and is now on a mission to blow up the local library. Inside the library is the elderly Zeno, himself damaged by what life has thrown at him, but still looking up and out. Lastly, we go to the future, to the life of a young girl called Konstance, who lives with her parents in some sort of space station, along with hundreds of others, zooming through space to a distant planet where life as it was on a now decimated Earth will begin again.
It is a marvellous, triumphal, exhilarating read. Somehow all these threads are linked and worked together like magic to create this fabulous book. If I could give more than 5 stars I would.
THE STATIONERY SHOP OF TEHERAN by Marian Kamali
I feel much the same about this book, and a movie would probably engender the same response. It tapped at the heart strings, rather than tugged. A teenage love affair is ripped apart at a time of violence, danger and political turmoil. I wonder if it is the loss of the beloved which burns in the heart or if it was the social backdrop of the times that was the greater trauma.
Aside from the slightly soppy story line, this is actually a lovely story to read and immerse oneself in. Opening in Teheran in 1953, Roya is 17 years old, a typical teenage girl, full of curiosity, questions, smart, sassy, determined, a loving daughter and sister. She lives with her parents and older sister at a time in Iran when, yet again in its long history, the times are a-changing. The democratically elected government is on the way out, thanks to the US and military support of the former monarchy.
Roya meets Bahman, a year or two older than her, in her favourite shop - the stationery shop, the owner taking a kind and benevolent interest in the young people coming into his shop. Bahman is an agent for change, outraged by what is going on. Roya is captivated by this handsome, dynamic and romantic young man. They pledge eternal love - very Romeo and Juliet - going so far as to get engaged much to the horror of Bahman's mother.
Their decision to elope is the beginning of the end for these two, greater forces working to ensure this does not happen. It would seem that neither Roya nor Bahman ever get over this tragedy in their lives. I am not giving anything away by saying the two meet again, because that is how the novel begins. But it is what happens in the years between that make the story.
Roya and her sister end up in the US, both at college together - I actually really liked this section - these two young Iranian women learning English, migrants and aliens to the America of the 1950s. Their navigation of all this is great, as they try to maintain and celebrate their Iranian identity and yet work so hard to fit in with the California culture. Roya meets Walter, what a lovely man, and yet she continues to carry a torch for Bahman through the years, the decades. The one galling character is Walter's sister - why there always has to be someone in the dominant culture who takes extreme exception to someone from another culture coming into the family I just do not know - such an unnecessary stereotype.
What I also loved was reading about Iranian culture, love of literature and poetry, festivals and important dates in the calendar, and the food - so many beautiful descriptions of the delicious food and how important food is in relationships with people, as well as for the soul.
So there are many many good points about this book, and definitely worth a read, but it was perhaps just a bit too 'movie worthy' for me.
THE PRINCE OF THE SKIES by Antonio Iturbe, Translated by Llilit Thwaites
The story focuses on three pioneering pilots, including the world famous writer/aristocrat/journalist/poet but introverted, ungainly, possibly slightly odd Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - he who wrote the children's story for adults The Little Prince; the rash, bold, crazy fearless Jean Mermoz, and the gentlemanly, classy, good all rounder Henri Guillaumet. These men were all expert and gifted pilots, flying initially in the early days of the novel the flimsiest of machines with only a compass for a navigational aid. Talk about flying by the seat of your pants! And of course don't forget the saying 'There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots'. We take all the engineering genius of airplanes for granted now, but in the early days of the 21st century, lady luck played a much greater role, possibly the biggest role in whether a pilot and his plane returned to land each day.
So throughout this book there is an essence of danger, tragedy lurking, things going wrong. And they go wrong aplenty - in the Andes, in the desert spaces of Algeria and Morocco - producing great stories of survival, determination and sheer grit.
The three men all meet when they end up working for a flying mail company based in Toulouse and so begins a beautiful friendship. The other main character in the novel, also a real person, is Didier Daurat, a WWI flying ace who becomes the Operations Manager for the mail company that employs the three pilots, eventually renamed Aéropostale, then later Air France.
The lives and achievements of these four men can all be found on-line so won't elaborate on that here. But none of them tell the reader what is going on in their souls, and that is the beauty of this story - we get to know these men, their dreams, their hopes, their crushing disappointments, their loves, and to live every day as if it was your last. The story is more about Saint-Exupéry, but not by a huge margin, than any of the others, and his life story is exceptional, his career as a pilot and writer intermingling and moving together all the time. This quote from Saint-Exupéry is what his life in this book is all about -"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things."
I don't fly, but have lived for 35 years with a man whose entire life has been flight. He is not a reader, but he related to some of the bits I read out to him, and maybe this is why I loved this book so much, because after all these years, I too can feel the magic of what it is like to be above the ground, flitting around the clouds, being removed from the trivia of daily life, transported in your head to another place. There is magic in flight, and this writer and translator have captured that magic, fearlessness and sheer joy of mastering a machine in the sky.
THE QUIET PEOPLE by Paul Cleave
NZ crime writer author Paul Cleave is more famous out of NZ than in NZ. He has published a number of novels in the crime/thriller genre, has won and been short listed for numerous crime publishing awards around the world. Translated into 18 languages! All his novels are set in Christchurch, his home town, but I didn't feel that the NZ setting gave this story - the first one I have read - any particular NZ flavour. A universal urban setting, with characters that could also be anywhere in the world.
Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful crime writers, well known and feted around the world. They are old hands on the book/writing/reading festival circuit, well used to questions and interviews on how they work together, how they come up with their murderous plots, and the subsequent solving of them. They also have a son, seven year old Zach, who is not the easiest child in the world to deal with. One Sunday, Cameron takes Zach to a fair at the local park. As any parent with a young child will attest, sometimes a happy fun outing just goes completely pear shaped, for no apparent reason, it just does. Zach, being the tricky child he is, attracts all the wrong attention, as does his dad, resulting in Cameron forcibly taking Zach home. That night Zach threatens to run away from home, and the next morning when Cameron goes to wake him up, he is not in his bed, his room is empty, the window is open.
The nightmare of a missing child begins. The story switches back and forth between Cameron as the main narrator in the first person, and the police investigator DI Rebecca Kent, narrated in the third person. Of course, the parents are the main suspects, even more so when the parents are crime writers, who in the past have proudly and publicly said they would know exactly how to create the perfect murder and make someone disappear. Not a good start for Cameron and Lisa.
The media circus is crazy, and all the nut jobs in any community pour out of their computer rooms with their placards, on line commenting, protests, and mass movements of guilty, guilty, guilty. It is quite frightening how much power the mob mentality has, and how little it takes for things to get out of control. As they do for Cam, Lisa, and DI Kent.
Plenty of suspense, and easy too for the reader to see themselves in the place of the Murdochs - we will all have had frightening thoughts and maybe real events where our child simply disappears. Not a good scenario at all. Terrific story, I really liked it, and for much of the plot the reader really does not know whether Cameron and/or his wife, or a paedophile on the loose, someone at the fair, or someone else entirely is responsible for the disappearance of the child.
Time to hunt out some other Paul Cleaves!
A THREE DOG PROBLEM by S.J. Bennett
The story opens in Buck Pal, with the discovery of the body of a long time Palace employee lying beside the indoor swimming pool. A murder in the Palace! The Queen has a terrific secretary called Rosie, a young woman with a defence background, smart, resourceful and, best of all, trusted by the Queen. Together these two work around the rules and very tight Palace protocols, careful not to tread on all those toes planting themselves in their way, to find out what is really going on below stairs at the Palace.
At the same time the Queen notices, quite by chance, that a favourite painting of the royal yacht Britannia is no longer hanging outside her bedroom. Where has it gone?
This is a clever story, witty dialogue, lots of intrigues, gossip, rumour, distrust and paranoia lurking everywhere. And all that protocol and etiquette to have to deal with! It is clear the author adores the Queen and everything she stands for, and how refreshing to see the royal family portrayed in a glowing, personable and delightful way. This is a delight to read, I loved it, lots of fun. Looking forward to number 3 in the series!
ALL IN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Billie Jean King
Billie Jean is now in her late 70s, although in no way does she look it. Understated well groomed glamour and that fantastic smile that, in our average eyes, makes her so human, approachable and likeable. Her story begins in the early 1940s, Long Beach, California, born to possibly the most wonderful self-sacrificing and adoring parents ever, committed to giving their two athletic and bright children every opportunity they can, encouraging and developing in them the self belief that made them both exceptional athletes, her brother Randy in baseball. She also highlights the huge influence other adults had in her life - her first tennis teacher and the previously famous player, Alice Marble, who took her under her wing and for a period of time was the most important adult in her young life. A lack of money was never going to stop this dynamo from achieving her goals, which she drew up at a young age, and in swash buckling style set about taking the tennis world by storm.
It seems to me, that aside from her talent, work ethic and her endless optimism, her greatest talent is her intense interest in people, getting on with them, building and maintaining friendships, tennis partnerships, getting the best out of people. She marries Larry King, and together these two should get medals for what they have done for professional and team tennis competition. More importantly they, with Billie Jean as the face of everything they do, created the Women's Tennis Association - the WTA - with 8 other women players, taking on the male tennis establishment resulting, eventually, in prize money for money equalling that for men. Magnificent.
Then there is the campaigning and tireless work she has done for the LGBTQ+ community, again a labour of love, intense focus, energy. The energy and tirelessness this woman has is jaw dropping, even she admits at times she is too much! She shares her personal life, her marriage and enduring love for Larry, their commitment to each other, her internal sexuality conflict, her love relationships and the fall out at a time when being a gay sports star was the kiss of death. Then her meeting and relationship with the love of her life.
What stands out is how in the very abnormal world of top level professional sport, she seems to be so normal, so grounded, so straight forward and endearing. This is a big book, because she has had, and continues to have a big life. A truly outstanding legacy she is leaving, having used herself as the prime leverage for what she has achieved. She would be the last one to say these achievements are hers alone, she would have lists of names and organisations of everyone and everything that has led to the successes attached to her. Fabulous book, fabulous woman. Oh, and there is also plenty about tennis!
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