Review: Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater

* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia *

Death of a Bookseller takes place in a Walthamstow bookshop in London called Spines and is told by two employees of the shop, Roach and Laura. These two book-loving protagonists couldn't be more different from each other. 

Brogan Roach has always been fascinated by death, and obsessively listens to true crime podcasts and purchases books about serial killers through the shop with no intention of paying for them. Roach has a Giant African Snail for a pet (which was fascinating) and an open disdain for people she terms 'normies'.

Laura on the other hand is the polar opposite of her colleague; wearing vintage tea dresses, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and leaving a trail of rose oil perfume wherever she goes. Laura is charismatic and popular with the staff and customers, and Roach becomes fixated:

"Laura Bunting. Her name was garden parties, and Wimbledon, and royal weddings. It was chintzy tea rooms, Blitz spirit, and bric-a-brac for sale in bright church halls. It was coconut shies and bake sales and guess-the-weight-of-the-fucking-cake." Page 1

Roach is socially awkward yet desperate to become friends with Laura, convinced they have much in common, including a shared interest in true crime. Roach's desperate attempts to befriend Laura and her subsequent awkward rejection reminded me a little of Single White Female (minus the violence) meets The Perfect Girlfriend by Karen Hamilton. The protagonists in both have an unhealthy obsession and go to lengths that make the average reader cringe with thoughts of "don't do that, you're going to get caught" or "stop, you're making it worse".

As the plot thickened, I didn't condone some of the escalating actions of our characters, but I equally couldn't look away as tensions at the bookshop boil over.

I liked the select use of the snail illustration at the bottom of the page, and initially thought this was a technique employed to indicate Roach was narrating the chapter. However, as we get into the story the snail begins to appear in both alternating chapters. If you've read this and have a theory on the snail illustration, please let me know.

Spines is a standout setting for the majority of Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater, however this reflection from Laura nixed any niggling fantasies about what it might be like to work in a bookshop:

"And the customers - oh, the customers. The customers are everywhere, like lice, crawling all over the shop, touching everything, knocking things over, dropping rubbish, leaving destruction in their wake. And they just keep coming, more and more every day. Customer enquiries, customer reservations, customer orders, customers lost, customers queuing, customers that need serving, customers that need the toilet, customers that want someone to yell at because their lives are spiralling out of control, because suddenly they're tired and it feels like only yesterday that they were still sleeping around and partying and couldn't care less about anything else, and now they're in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and everything hurts and no one cares and life hasn't worked out the way they'd expected it to, so all they have left is the dizzy power of punching down at the bookseller who's ordered in the wrong book on kindness. They dawdle and moan, always in the way, always wanting something, demanding attention and servitude with an anxious impatience, their expectations high and their fuses short." Pages 253-254

I love that, 'expectations high and their fuses short'. Snappy writing like this offsets the slowly building tension and allowed for a few thoughtful character insights. Here, Laura reflects on the grief she has for her mother's passing.

"I never got around to reading the rest of my mother's books, but the bitterness of losing her library faded when I understood the real power of reading. It's not the physical books, books as artefacts, as objects, that actually matter. The pages that my mother touched, turned, folded, read, don't hold the same reverence as her winter scarf, her handwriting. The books themselves are no more meaningful than the streets she walked on, the mugs she drank from, the sheets she slept in. It's the words that have power. Somewhere between the ink that's printed on each page and my understanding of the content is a plain across which my mother's mind has also wandered, and that landscape exists in every single edition, whether or not it has been touched by my mother's hand. That's the power of reading." Page 73

I love that! Yet, it's also the power of reading that demonstrates I can simultaneously agree and disagree with that quote and still find some reverence in physical books read by a loved one.

Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater is set in a bookshop I'd love to visit one day, although I don't think I'd like to be served by flawed and troubled staff like Roach or Laura. Slater's experience working for Waterstones in London has enabled her to take us behind the till of a busy bookshop to the drama simmering between the stacks and deliver an entertaining psychological thriller.

Recommended!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Therapist by Hugh Mackay

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin *

Australian Hugh Mackay is a psychologist and social researcher and he knows what makes us tick. Literally! Hugh Mackay is known for studying attitudes and behaviour and I thoroughly enjoyed his non fiction titles What Makes Us Tick in 2022 and The Inner Self in 2021.

In The Therapist, Martha Elliott is a Psychotherapist with a different approach to her treatments, often employing breathing techniques and foot massages within her sessions to help patients ease into their therapeutic discussions with her.

Martha's colleague and business partner Rob have consulting rooms in Chatswood Sydney. Rob has a different treatment style and I enjoyed his work discussions and business relationship with Martha.

The story kicks off with a few new patients for Martha and we seamlessly drop into her day-to-day life, learning about her from the very outset:

"Her handsome face radiated kindness, optimism and an eagerness to ease the pain of all those (well, almost all) who came to her for advice, support, guidance... or for nothing more than the comfort of her patiently listening ear. Perhaps for the reassurance that here was someone who was finally taking them seriously." Page 1

Reading a novel about a psychologist written by a psychologist was a little like Inception, and had me wondering how much of Martha - if any at all - was Mackay himself on the page. We're privileged to sit in with Martha on her treatments which offered an intriguing glimpse into the consulting room for those of us who haven't been to therapy lately/before.

The issues our characters are dealing with include loneliness, relationship breakdowns, IVF and in one case, a desire for revenge. These problems held my interest and while I was hoping the plot would take us into darker thriller territory - like The Family Doctor by fellow Australian author Debra Oswald - Mackay kept to the relative safety of domestic noir.

I enjoyed the brevity of the novel and with my copy coming in at less than 250 pages, many authors could learn from Mackay's concise writing style that still manages to deliver in depth character exploration and growth.

The Therapist by Hugh Mackay is recommended for readers who are curious about what really happens in a therapist's consulting room, and if you enjoyed Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb - also a psychotherapist -  this will be right up your alley.

Recommended!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Personal Effects by Robert A. Jensen

I'm a sucker for titles like this, and I was drawn to read Personal Effects - What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me About Caring for the Living by Robert A. Jensen in order to find out what Jensen has learned in his time recovering the dead.

Jensen has had a stand out career, beginning with a Bachelor of Science in Criminology - Law Enforcement and time spent at the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office as Deputy Sheriff. He then served 10 years as a US Army Officer where - among other military postings - he worked as the Commander of Mortuary Affairs and responded to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

In 1998, Jensen joined Kenyon International Emergency Services, the leading disaster management company in the world. Jensen later became the CEO of Kenyon, eventual owner and Chairman; later selling the business and stepping down in 2021. He also served in the California Army National Guard. Does this guy ever stop? (Short answer: no).

Dealing with just one mass fatality in a lifetime would be more than most of us could process, but Jensen was involved in many major events during his career, including: September 11 attacks in 2001; the Bali bombings in 2002; Boxing Day tsunami of 2004; Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Haiti earthquake in 2010, Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017 and too many plane crashes in between to mention.

Jensen has led an incredibly impressive and demanding career, and his empathy is evident when describing his work. I spent much of the book being shocked and outraged by just how poorly and insensitively many emergency situations have been managed in the past. In some cases, the total disregard for the feelings of the families made me absolutely furious. In one instance, all personal belongings from a plane crash had been frozen together in one big block in order to preserve them. Ummm, WTF?

There were some quieter revelations when learning more about the delicate process of recovering human remains at a site:

"When you're starting out, you don't know if a fragment is just one of many pieces you might find of a deceased person, or if it is the only part of that person you'll find. DNA testing takes time and we don't want to delay the system unnecessarily. Before we even do this, I will usually meet the Medical Examiner who will ultimately be in charge and who will issue the death certificates and ask, 'people or pieces'? I need to know if the goal is to account for every missing person, or to identify every bit of human remains that are recovered. It's a question most people have never thought of or could even conceive asking." Chapter 14: The Science and Emotion of Identification

Add me to the 'most people' category immediately with the gratitude that I'll never have to be the person making those big decisions. Jensen's approach to recovering the dead and their belongings is filled with respect and his lessons about caring for the living aren't immediately applicable to the average reader.

The life lessons he's learned along the way are more about preserving and maintaining dignity for the deceased at all stages of the process and employing common sense. E.g. In one case, Jensen refused to cut a body trapped in rubble in half in order to shield the distressing sight from view, instead laying a blanket over the remains. In another case, the hands of the deceased were cut off to facilitate quicker mass fingerprinting which caused unknown distress to the relatives and quite rightly upset the author.

In my opinion, the target audience for Jensen's memoir should be first responders, search and rescue, medical and law enforcement agencies and those in risk management. If a loved one was ever involved in a mass casualty event, I'd want Jensen overseeing the recovery process, however I believe he's best placed educating businesses, corporations and insurance companies on how best to respond in a mass casualty situation. It seems we still have much to learn.

If one type of man-made or natural disaster dominates Jensen's memoir, it's plane crashes. As it happens, I listened to the majority of this audiobook while at an airport or - ironically - flying to my destination. It did occur to me at one point (about an hour into a 90 minute flight) that perhaps listening to all this talk about plane crashes was bad karma when you're 30,000 feet in the air.

Back on the ground, I was full of admiration for Jensen and we desperately need more people like him - or people taught by him - on hand to prepare businesses and organisations for future disasters. As a reader fortunate enough never to have lost a loved one in a mass casualty event, my heart aches for those who have and are still navigating through the grief.

A difficult read.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: One Illumined Thread by Sally Colin-James

* Copy courtesy of Harper Collins *

One Illumined Thread by Sally Colin-James is an historical fiction novel about the lives of three women linked across three very different timelines. In Hebron, 41 BCE Elisheva is a married woman ostracised by her community because she's been unable to bear a child. Antonia is the wife of an artist in Renaissance Florence and we pick up her thread (pun intended) in 1497. Our contemporary narrator is Doctor Reed, a textile conservator living in Adelaide in 2018 and all three characters were compelling.

Establishing the unique identity of each of the three main characters was a little tough at first, but I was helped along by the talented writing of Colin-James and her ability to keep re-introducing characters to the reader in a helpful manner reminiscent of Philippa Gregory.

Fertility, motherhood and womanhood are key themes in each of the narrative arcs:

"That's us women. Often invisible. But strong like the wind. And most men, if asked for the truth, would say that when it comes to the household they sail to conditions." I didn't understand what she meant until many years later. Page 226

Connecting the lives of these women across the centuries are artisan crafts, primarily glassblowing and painting. In the Judean timeline, Elisheva shakes off the disapproval of the women in her village to become a talented glassblower, with her work based on the history of Hebron glass.

The narrative set in Florence is based heavily around the painting La Visitazione by Mariotto Albertinelli (1503) which features the visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. Antonia is married to Albertinelli and friends with Michel (Michelangelo) and is passionate about her pursuit of the perfect white.

"Without white there is no moon," he declaimed. "No stars in our night sky, no flour for our bread, no lilies for our vases. No clouds, no mists, no sudden snowstorms, no mountains of marble." ... "White is where a painter begins and where his brush ends, on the gleam of an eye: a touch of white on that black pupil is what brings the portrait to life. Without white there is no art!" Page 271

Flitting between chapters about artists in Florence grinding pigments in the time of Savonarola, and the threats of violence by King Herod's Army, it was a relief to rejoin our conservator in the somewhat safer space at the Adelaide International Gallery.

Each of the women is striving to reach their inner potential, and the reader will identify with the struggles they face, even if they're of another time and place. There is plenty of character growth and development here with character insights along the way. I particularly related to this one:

"Sometimes, as children, we make too much of the people who pass through our lives. They seem grand and beautiful in the context of our world, but really they're just like every other human. Preposterous and vain." Page 193

Those familiar with their history will be rewarded when reading the narrative set in Judea under King Herod's rule, and it's clear - although not obvious - how much time and effort has been invested in the research for this novel. 

One Illumined Thread by Sally Colin-James is a solid debut and I agree with the publisher's recommendation that it will appeal to readers of Maggie O'Farrell and Pip Williams. Here's a phrase I particularly enjoyed that immediately put me in mind of Hamnet or The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell.

"My mother casts me a glance sharp enough to slice onions." Page 18

When I see sharp (pun intended) writing like this by a debut author - and an Australian author no less - I'm excited to imagine the pages she will write in the future. Sally Colin-James expertly weaves (sorry, couldn't help it) all three narratives of One Illumined Thread together in a meaningful and satisfying conclusion that I can highly recommend to fans of historical fiction.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Storm in a Teacup by Helen Czerski

Reading Storm in a Teacup - The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski is akin to dipping your toe into the world of physics and thankfully Czerski provides a steady hand for the layperson. Czerski looks at everyday occurrences like why a buttered piece of toast will usually fall butter side down when dropped and what happens when you add milk to coffee informs the book's title.

The audiobook was expertly read by Chloe Massey who shares her northern accent with actress Joanne Froggatt - who plays Anna Bates from Downton Abbey - which is to say I loved listening to her narration.

I found many of the topics interesting including how coffee rings develop and why it's hard to get tomato sauce out of the bottle until all of a sudden it comes glugging out. I was also curious to learn why pigeons bob their heads when they walk.

The author references a study of pigeons that was undertaken in order to understand why these birds bob their heads forwards and backwards when they walk. When the pigeon was walking on a treadmill, the researcher noticed it wasn't bobbing its head.

"The bird obviously didn't need to do it in order to walk, so it wasn't anything to do with the physics of locomotion. The head bobbing was about what it could see. On the treadmill, even though the pigeon was walking, the surroundings stayed in the same place. If the pigeon held its head still, it saw exactly the same view all the time. That made the surroundings nice and easy to see. But when a pigeon is walking on land, the scenery is constantly changing as it goes past. It turns out, these birds can't see fast enough to catch the changing scene. So they're not really bobbing their heads forwards and backwards at all, they thrust their head forward and then take a step that lets their body catch up and then thrust their head forwards again. The head stays in the same position throughout the step so the pigeon has more time to analyse this scene before moving on to the next one." Chapter 5

Fascinating isn't it? I've been wanting to observe this for myself, but the only pigeon I've seen since finishing this audiobook was asleep. Hopefully I'll have better luck soon. 

Coming in at a listening time of 10 hrs and 14 mins, Storm in a Teacup took me a while to get through and when I got to the end and did a stocktake of the notes I'd written in preparation for this review, I noticed pickings were slim.

While I've never been one for physics, I was in safe hands here. Storm in a Teacup - The Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski was a nice jumping off point that held my attention throughout, despite not knowing much about the topics covered.

Czerski's enthusiasm for physics shines through and this was an informative listen.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Built to Move by Kelly Starrett & Juliet Starrett

* Copy courtesy of Hachette Australia *

Like many of you, I've been working hard to improve my physical health and wellbeing for years, and this book has come at just the right time.

In Built To Move, authors Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett introduce the 'The 10 Essential Habits to Help you Move Freely and Live Fully'. Their joint focus centres around mobilisations in favour of stretching or exercising and the appeal of Built to Move is that it caters to all types of physical activity and capability levels.

There's something here for every single reader, from elite athletes to sedentary workers, the injured and the disabled, the elderly and the young.

"And, contrary to what you might expect, achieving good mobility doesn't call for exercise. No cardio. No strength training. Instead, it's a series of simple activities that enhance your capacity for free and easy movement, and in doing so also improve all the systems in your body (digestive, circulatory, immune, lymphatic) that are impacted by putting yourself in motion. You use your body's infrastructure, so you don't lose your body's infrastructure. Mobility also primes the body for exercise, if that's what you want to do. But more important, it primes the body for life." Page 6

I'm fortunate enough to see a Personal Trainer and Exercise Physiologist and enjoyed chatting about this book with each of them. The authors were already known to one, and much of what they've each taught me over the years is in this book. It was terrific to cement their teachings by reading Built to Move, and some key points to remember included the importance of using the big toe to walk and the huge benefits of sitting on the floor, squatting and extending the hips.

My health program consists of many exercises across these categories which has enabled me to improve strength and flexibility and subsequently reduce pain and stiffness in my back, shins, calves, achilles and plantar fascia. This requires constant focus and discipline and the merest deviation can often result in pain and stiffness, which serves as a reminder for next time.

It was interesting to learn more about wearing thongs and specifically why wearing thongs for too long or walking too far in slippers exacerbates my plantar fasciitis.

"But if you're walking any distance in them, you will feel the consequences. Flip-flops don't allow the big toe to flex, which allows the foot to push off the ground. So the body compensates, hyperstiffening the plantar fascia (tissue connecting the heel bone to the toes) and ankle, which can cause pain down the line. Slides present the same problem. Make sure the shoes you're walking in have a back." Page 122

Sometimes an explanation like that helps remind us to alter our behaviour accordingly, while others can provide a whole new angle, like this tidbit about the importance of your glutes:

"Research shows that glute weakness is associated with knee injuries, chronic lower back pain, shin pain, falls among the elderly, and more. Glute strength, on the other hand, has been shown to remedy many of these same situations." Page 86

Who knew a few butt clenches could help relieve or alleviate all of that? C'mon, do a couple with me right now.

I wasn't expecting to read anything controversial here, but this husband and wife team don't believe in icing. They point out the fact that Dr. Gabe Mirkin (the sports medicine physician who came up with RICE - rest, ice, compression, elevation) no longer endorses icing, which was complete news to me.

"Here was the upshot: Don't ice sore or injured muscles. Ever." Page 191

According to the authors, icing interrupts the body's natural reaction, possibly even delaying the healing process and they also question the use of anti-inflammatories. Their points are convincing, but given how hardwired we are to ice a sprained ankle, it's hard to accept.

I learned plenty of new and unexpected things about the body too, including this shocker:

"...but consider that jumping not only keeps your balance systems in shape, it also gets the organs in your viscera cavity moving around, which is beneficial for the health of pretty much all the crucial systems keeping you alive." Page 221

Hang on, what? My viscera needs to 'move' for good health? I knew jumping was good for the heart rate, circulation, cardio fitness, bone strength, balance and more, but I didn't know it was also good for my internal organs. For those that can't jump, I learned that bouncing without lifting your feet off the ground still achieves great benefits for the body, so there's something for everyone. 

I've read many books on sleep, so it was good to be reminded of the impact our sleep habits have on our health and the relationship it has with pain.

"How much pain you feel from any musculoskeletal issues you're dealing with can also be influenced by your sleep habits. With sleep deprivation, two things can happen. One is that the part of the brain that telegraphs pain to your consciousness becomes more sensitive. At the same time, the areas that dull the perception of pain - kind of like your body's own inner aspirin - become less active. ...Sleep is the first line of defense against pain." Page 252

I know this first hand, and it's a key tool in my own management of a chronic pain condition.

Reading Built to Move - The 10 Essential Habits to Help you Move Freely and Live Fully by Kelly Starrett & Juliet Starrett inspired me to move in the same way that watching Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds on the ABC did; which can only be a good thing.

It also incorporates key lessons and teachings from my physio, personal trainer and exercise physiologist and I'm sure they would like more of their patients to improve their own self knowledge and awareness through reading books like this one.

I found this highly valuable and recommend it to all readers.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Homecoming by Kate Morton

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin *

Homecoming by Kate Morton is one of my most highly anticipated releases for 2023. This distinctly Australian historical fiction novel starts strong with a refreshingly different setting - for Morton - on Christmas Eve in 1959. It's here in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia that a terrible tragedy takes place that will reverberate through the Turner family for generations to come.

Meanwhile in the present, Jess returns to Darling House in Sydney after learning her grandmother Nora is in hospital. Jess is estranged from her mother Polly but finds a true crime book at Darling House that covers a family tragedy Jess has never heard of.

Familiar in all of Kate Morton's novels is a sense of connection between the past and present and the haunting of the present by tragic events and people from the past. The author's strength is also in creating homes, manors and mansions with character, and Homecoming had two homes to explore and enjoy.

"You'll see what I mean. It's a house that rewards the curious. Have you explored the nook under the east stairs yet? I used to love playing in there. I dare say it's been lonely all these years, just waiting for a child to claim it as her own." Page 90

Told in a dual narrative style, the nature writing was evocative. I enjoyed mentions of the little township of Hahndorf which reminded me of Devotion by fellow Australian author Hannah Kent set in the same region more than a century earlier. The Australian landscape is wild and beautiful yet also dangerous, as the next excerpt demonstrates:

"The story had given her chills, but of recognition rather than fear. Mythical though the creature might have been, inherent in her children's description was a recognizable truth about this place: the uncomfortable but certain sense that danger, the unknown, was always lurking in the dark spaces 'out there'. This continent was one where beauty and terror were inextricably linked. People died here from thirst if they took a wrong turn. A single spark of fire could grow to consume an entire town. Children who wandered beyond the back fence disappeared into thin air." Page 201

I was reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett earlier this year, and almost mentioned in my review that I was sure the writing style and infectious appreciation of nature in this classic went on to inspire some of my favourite authors in Kate Forsyth and Kate Morton. This thought bubble didn't make the final edit of the review, however I was reminded of it when I saw this quote very early on in Homecoming by Kate Morton:

"Curious, Percy urged Prince onwards up the dense, wooded slope. He felt like a character in a book. He thought of Mary Lennox as she discovered her secret garden." Page 23

Speaking of curiosities, the very next paragraph had a reference to 'Sir Gawain on the lookout for the Green Knight', a direct reference to a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English, that inspired The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro that I read just recently. I think it's remarkable how many books reference other works and how authors can inspire others - sometimes from the grave - to create new stories for eager readers.

If you've skipped ahead or noticed the three star rating I'm giving to this novel, you might be wondering why. My primary issue with Homecoming was the use of a book within a book to provide an insight into the 1959 family tragedy. I usually love this writing technique, however in this particular case, the true crime book 'As If They Were Asleep' by Daniel Miller was unconvincing. Excerpts from the book were included in the body of the novel, however the writing style was not that typically found in this genre of non fiction.

"As Nancy had foreshadowed, some of the scenes were written in close third person, as if Daniel Miller had listened to Nora speak about herself and then, rather than write down the interviews precisely as they'd occurred, with his questions followed by her answers, taken the next step of interpreting the memories, history and personal feelings she'd shared, showing the things she'd described. The resulting scenes spoke of many conversations, not just one or two; there were too many diverse details - some of which Jess recognised from Nora's stories, others that were new to her - to have been gleaned in the formal setting of an initial interview." Page 376

This just didn't work for me. The resulting excerpts from Daniel Miller's book read as pure fiction and not a new style of narrative non fiction.

"The scene also showed the intimate way in which Daniel Miller had come to know his 'characters'." Page 346

This writing technique is ineffective if you need to have the character ponder Daniel's writing style within the novel, and then need Daniel Miller's niece to explain how he composed the 'scenes' from his interviews. The resulting effect and mixed tense was confusing and often took me out of the story. The idea of including a true crime element was definitely on trend, but I wished the author had stuck to her tried and true method of revealing secrets and unveiling long held mysteries.

My other gripe was the length of Homecoming. I love a chunky novel and am not deterred by a hefty page count, but at 640 pages in length, this could have been edited down by at least 100 pages. There were moments of terrific writing like this:

"Her grandmother was being very kind to her, which had the effect, as kindness often does, of making Jess feel terribly sad and lonely." Page 90

Wow, so insightful! However, these reading highlights were diluted by the above concerns.

Before I close out this review, I'll leave you with another quote I enjoyed, that provides insight into two siblings arguing:

"Silence fell. A stalemate had seemingly been reached, and with no further shots fired, the room's thick ambience briefly settled. But there is nothing surer than that two siblings, each nursing a problem, will seek refuge in the familiar comforts of quarreling, and so it was with John and Matilda in that moment." Page 309

Homecoming by Kate Morton contains themes of home and belonging, and explores the often rocky relationships between mothers and daughters.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Shoes by Rebecca Shawcross

* Copy courtesy of Bloomsbury *

I've always been interested in shoes, and as each year passes I find an increasing interest in history and social history in particular. Fortunately, these interests collide in Shoes: An Illustrated History by Rebecca Shawcross.

First, let me start this review with my impressions of the design and presentation, because this is a stunning hardback book with a beautiful dust jacket featuring a pair of shoes designed by Noritaka Tatehana in 2013. Filled with museum quality photographs on high quality paper and considerably weighty, Shoes: An Illustrated History by Rebecca Shawcross is a treasure to read and would make the perfect gift for those with an interest in fashion or history.

Shawcross gives us an entertaining tour through the fashion choices of the middle classes, wealthy and elite across Europe over the centuries, and it never ceases to amuse me how fashion cycles around, and every new design or trend is inspired by an old one. Typically speaking, those at the forefront of the trend are usually the young, while those approaching middle age and their senior years are less likely to keep up with the Joneses and tend to stick to what they like, which is often what they wore when they themselves were young. Hearing that an old man was referred to as 'old square toes' because he was still wearing square-toed shoes long after they were fashionable, reminded me of older men I knew growing up who were never seen without a hat.

Armed with only a basic knowledge of shoes and their construction, I was eager to understand the ins and outs - and rights and lefts - of the shoes being presented, but was occasionally left scratching my head. Did buckles really pierce the silk fabric of the latchet ties each and every time they were secured? And what's a vamp?* Many of my questions would have been easily answered if there had been a diagram or two pointing out the basics of footwear construction. As it was, I had to Google all of my queries which interrupted the reading flow and slowed down the overall reading process. *The vamp is the part of the shoe that covers the toes, also called the upper.

You might have heard about pattens - elevated clogs that you wear over your existing flat-soled footwear like snow shoes to keep your feet clean and dry - but have you heard of the slap shoe?

When high heels became popular, wearers could no longer wear pattens (which have a flat sole) however the high heel of their shoes sunk easily into the muck if it was the slightest bit wet. In the 1600s, in an effort to combat the problem without having to give up their heels, people started wearing their high heels slipped into a backless shoe, which we would call a slipper or a mule. Understandably, this made it cumbersome - and arguably dangerous - to walk, so a new shoe was designed, the slap shoe. If you can image a high heel shoe with the ball of the shoe stuck to a raised sole and the heel of the shoe free to lift from it, you have the slap shoe. Wearers would make a slap sound or clacking noise when they walked, similar to the sound some people make when they slap their thongs or flip-flops, hence the name. The sound indicated wealth and prosperity and became the height of fashion. Some slap shoes even had velvet on the sole to soften the sound. Sounds counterintuitive, but altogether fascinating doesn't it?

I was reminded reading this that shoes were once uniform in design and called 'straights' until the early thirteenth century. They could be worn on either foot, here's more:

"In the early thirteenth century, a shaped or waisted sole (the waist being the narrow part under the arch of the foot) appeared, which meant that shoes could now be made with left and right versions. Such an innovation probably increased the comfort of wearing shoes, too." Page 25

I can't imagine wearing straights now, I hope that fashion trend never resurfaces.

Another new to me shoe fact I loved learning about was the WWII invention of the escape boot. The escape boot was:

"... a high-legged leather boot with a fleece layer over a shrapnel-proof lining consisting of loose layers of silk. The boot's unique feature was that the leg section could be cut away from the vamp using a knife that was concealed in a pocket inside one of the boots." Page 190

Wearing these boots, British pilots were instantly recognisable to the enemy. However, if a British pilot was shot down or landed in enemy territory, they could take the knife from its hidden location and cut the tops off each boot. This transformed the boots into a normal looking pair of black shoes, giving the pilot a better chance of escape. Ingenious!

Other personal highlights in Shoes: An Illustrated History by Rebecca Shawcross included learning Terry De Havilland designed the shoes Tim Curry wore in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I'm going to see this show in June and am keen to check out the shoes worn by the show's new star, Jason Donovan. In fact I was surprised how many times I thought about this book in the normal course of my day while reading it. I attended the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the NGV this month, and was excited to see several pairs of McQueen's infamous 'Armadillo' boots worn most memorably by Lady Gaga in her Bad Romance music video in 2009.

I will say Shoes by Rebecca Shawcross isn't a quick read, you definitely need to take your time and I challenge you to read 30 pages without Googling. While I would have loved some diagrams laced throughout the book, I do understand the editing choice to leave this type of material out. The author covers a specialised topic, and most readers may already be familiar with the 'basics', however it would have made a huge difference for the layperson reader like me, particularly when it came to construction.

Shoes: An Illustrated History by Rebecca Shawcross gave me what I wanted from High Heel by Summer Brennan and was a luxurious and indulgent reading experience. From wide-toed footbags to long-toed poulaines; stilettos to winklepickers; plimsolls to pattens; and brogues to Birkenstocks, Shawcross has cobbled together a comprehensive overview of the history of shoes here and I loved it.

Highly recommended!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone by Audrey Burges

* Copy courtesy of Pan Macmillan *

In January 2022 I attended the Doll House: Miniature Worlds of Wonder exhibition at Como House in Melbourne which featured over 40 dollhouses from the 1890s to the present day. The dollhouses in this exhibition were front and centre in my mind while reading this delightful debut novel by Audrey Burges.

The premise of The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone instantly captured my imagination. Myra Malone of the title is a reclusive blogger who writes from her attic in Arizona about the Mansion; a miniature dolls' house given to her by a loved one. Myra is an online sensation with thousands of subscribers and fans who enjoy her blog posts about the Mansion, the rooms and their decoration and subsequent redecoration. Fans send her items hoping they'll be featured in one of the rooms and Myra has cultivated a safe and fulfilling existence for herself.

The house is a huge hinged trunk with brass buckles and originally belonged to her step grandmother Trixie. The descriptions of the Mansion in the novel were so detailed I could easily visualise the structure.

"It's hinged, by the way." Lou pointed to brass buckles on the house's backside, shut tight. Myra already knew. "It opens up like a clam on its side, and there are little rooms on hinges inside, too - it kind of unfurls. Damnedest thing I've ever seen." Page 18

More than just a dollhouse, the Mansion has a touch of magic Myra has never understood but which she associates with the original owner Trixie. Sometimes Myra can hear music coming from the Mansion and rooms in the house can suddenly appear or disappear without warning.

"The Mansion is a miniature house - some might say a dollhouse, but please don't, it takes slights very personally - in an eclectic architectural style that embraces Victorian and Gothic influences, as well as a few other mishmashed elements thrown in just for the hell of it." Page 99

We're soon introduced to Alex who works in his father's furniture business and he's a likeable character. However Alex is shocked beyond belief when he inadvertently stumbles across Myra's blog because the Mansion looks exactly like his house! Why does Myra Malone have a miniature model of his house and a replica bedroom with his furniture inside?

The plot is driven by a mystery surrounding the original owner of the Mansion and I enjoyed the dual timelines and touch of 'other'. The novel cleverly incorporates Myra's blog posts to tell some of the story (as in the quote from page 99 above), although I did find the connection between the characters across time a little hazy at times, but thankfully it became clear.

Presented in a delightfully designed cover, and containing a very light romance with strong generational links, I fell in love with this uplifting, feel good tale.

Highly recommended!

P.S. If you're into miniatures, check out my review of Dolls' Houses from the V&A Museum of Childhood by Halina Pasierbska.

P.P.S In writing this review, I've just discovered that the exhibition I mentioned (Doll House: Miniature Worlds of Wonder) is now an online immersive experience. Organised by the National Trust, you can find out more here.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Sorry, Sorry, Sorry - The Case for Good Apologies by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy

Apologies are complex. A well-worded apology can soothe hurt feelings, save a failing relationship or repair one, while a bad apology can exacerbate the situation or end up causing further insult. Hopefully we've all been recipients of a good apology and remember how it made us feel. I can still remember an unexpected apology at a reunion once that blew me away and healed a hurt I'd long since forgotten I even had. I've also been the recipient of terrible non-apologies, some of which still make my blood boil if I pause to think of them again.

Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy are the brains behind SorryWatch, a website dedicated to analysing apologies in the news, media, history and literature. They 'condemn the bad and exalt the good' and it's easy to spend an age on their website, browsing everything from sports apologies and political apologies, to bropologies and true crime apologies.

Together, Ingall and McCarthy have published Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies in an attempt to educate the reader on what constitutes a good apology and the pitfalls to avoid delivering a bad one.

Some highlights on the do's and don'ts of apologising include apologising without rehashing past insults, like: "I'm sorry I criticised your terrible new hairstyle".* Another pitfall to avoid was the 'sorry you', for example "well I'm sorry you keep forgetting our anniversary". Time was also spent on avoiding the 'if' and 'but' apology: "I'm sorry if I made you feel that way", or "I'm sorry, but I never meant to offend anyone".

Attempts like: "anyone who knows me knows I'm not a racist / homophobe / insert slur here" also indicate efforts to dodge responsibility or accountability for our actions. These always sound like weasel words to me, but now I have a clearer understanding of why they never sound like genuine apologies.

In Chapter 3 (Sorry If, Sorry But, Sorry You: Things Not to Say), I learned about performative utterances. A performative utterance is a statement where the words are the action, like "I insist" or "I promise" or "I swear". "I'm sorry" is a performative utterance and saying it feels like an admission of wrongdoing. This makes us feel uncomfortable and we often don't want to admit fault, especially if we don't believe we've done anything wrong. Just ask any 4yo. Another strategy is the sarcastic apology: "well sorry for not checking with you first, I guess nobody's perfect," is a passive aggressive apology.

I do believe public apologies have changed over the decades, with PR companies and spin doctors writing statements and apologies that address an incident, event, oversight or mistake while not directly admitting any fault. Sorry, Sorry, Sorry includes some interesting examples of bad apologies like this from CEOs, police officials and politicians. I listened to the audiobook, which meant I was unable to visually enjoy the apology bingo tables that frequently accompanied the text. Since finishing the book though, I'm recognising lame apologies all around me, with plenty of 'sorry if' and 'I regret' and 'it was never my intention' examples.

No doubt we've all delivered a range of apologies that have missed the mark ourselves. So, how do we do better?

Here's the SorryWatch approach:
1. Use the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologise.”
2. Say specifically what you’re sorry for.
3. Show you understand why the thing you said or did was bad.
4. Be very careful if you want to provide explanation; don’t let it shade into excuse.
5. Explain the actions you’re taking to insure this won’t happen again.
6. Can you make reparations? Make reparations.

Sounds simple enough doesn't it? When the topic of the apology is emotive, or the insult very grave, it can be hard to take the six steps outlined above. Fortunately I wasn't reading Sorry, Sorry, Sorry - The Case for Good Apologies by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy in preparation for a huge apology in my own life, but we can all improve the interactions we have with people, and I don't think I'll ever stop wanting to do that.

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry - The Case for Good Apologies by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy was an informative read and met the requirement for the Non Fiction 2023 Reader Challenge prompt for relationships.

*All examples in this review in italics are my own.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I was on holiday recently and put the word out to see if there were any fellow Aussie reviewers who'd like to do a buddy read for The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It's always fun to read a classic with a buddy so you can chat about it, but it turned out many of us have had this book sitting on our shelves for far too long!

Joining me in the buddy read was: Veronica Joy - The Burgeoning Bookshelf,  Ashleigh Meikle - The Book Muse (with her Grandmother's copy), Claire - Claire's Reads and Reviews and Suzie Eisfelder - Suz's Space. We were also joined by Andrea and Liz over on GoodReads. Thanks to you all for joining me, it was loads of fun!

When reading The Secret Garden, a few words caught me by surprise, including the frequent use of the words 'fat' and 'ugly'. As I write this, the media is full of articles about the censorship of Roald Dahl's books. While it's a shock to see words you wouldn't ordinarily read in children's dialogue published today, it's a timely reminder that this book was published more than 100 years ago in 1911. I don't think publishers should be attempting to apply today's sensitivity standards retrospectively to a book published so long ago and I do hope The Secret Garden is safe from censorship in the future. That said, onto the book!

Precocious young Mary is orphaned in India and sent to live with her Uncle in his English mansion on the moor. Spoiled and sickly, Mary is a sour faced young brat who slowly starts to turn her lonely little life around. One of the first people Mary meets is the gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and the scenes between him and Mary in the beginning were sublime:

'Tha' an' me are a good bit alike,' he said. 'We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're neither of us goodlookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant.' Page 45

Published in 1911, Mary's story has gone on to become a children's classic, so I'm going to be reviewing this story in full, with spoilers. If you are sensitive to spoilers and have yet to read the book, and honestly believe you'll do so one day, and that you'll remember the spoilers in this review, and readily recall I was the one who did that to you, then please close this tab.

Misselthwaite Manor has more than a hundred rooms, all of which are out of bounds until Mary covertly discovers a young boy also living in the house. The big family secret is that Colin is ill and bed bound and vulnerable to the most terrible tantrums. The children are cousins and both have had a privileged and indulgent upbringing as only children while also experiencing loss. Colin's mother is dead and Mary has recently lost both of her parents. The coming together of Mary and Colin was my favourite part of the book.

Both characters realise they're lonely and decide to become friends, despite a few false starts. The children begin enjoying each other's company which is a surprise to them both.

"And they both began to laugh over nothing as children will when they are happy together. And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary, healthy, natural, two-year-old creatures - instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die." Page 168

Colin is ill and believes he'll die, making everyone's life a misery until he befriends Mary and meets her friend Dickon. Mary tells Colin there's nothing wrong with him and convinces him to get out of bed and outside in a wheelchair to live life and experience nature. Mary has discovered a secret garden and together with Dickon, the trio seek to bring it back to life.

The secret garden of the title is the walled garden where Colin's mother died, after which it was locked and abandoned for 10 years until a robin shows Mary the door and the key. As the children overcome their vast differences in class to help bring the garden back to life, Mary blossoms into a thoughtful and caring young girl, and Colin grows to believe he will live and is determined to show everyone he can walk again!

The entire time this is going on, Colin's father (Mary's uncle) is away on business, and I was worried he would return any minute and go ballistic about the garden, which was off limits. This created a sense of dread as eventually household members discover the children's secret and join the plan for Colin's big reveal moment.

Dickon's mother is the Mrs Weasley of the book and Mary and Colin gravitate toward her generosity of spirit and maternal love in the same way a sunflower follows the sun.

It's clear to the reader that the driving force behind Colin's recovery is the relationships between each of the characters - which boils down to love - as well as the garden, but Colin refers to it all as 'magic'. The author seems to have combined the laws of attraction, the power of positivity, and worship of nature to produce the essence of the 'magic'. To ask for your heart's desire, you just need to chant in a prayer like fashion and all the characters pull together to aid in Colin's restoration.

The 'magic' becomes a symbol or marker for nature, love and faith that is immediately obvious to mature readers, but innocuous for young children in the same way The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis does. The young characters in the novel reminded me of Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter and if you loved that, then you'll definitely enjoy this.

I love a good makeover, and in The Secret Garden we have three! Mary's transformation is the first to begin, then the garden is discovered before change is afoot to restore it to its earlier magnificence. Colin's recovery is the most radiant of makeovers, as he goes from being a spoiled, hysterical hypochondriac who thinks he's dying to a confident and enthusiastic young man, respectful of his elders and kind to all staff with the desire to carry out scientific experiments and live life to the fullest!

If you're a fan of up-lit (uplifting literature), feel good stories about nature as medicine and the power of friendship then The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett will enchant you.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

My first impression after reading On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, is just how hard the author has worked to get where he is today. Many readers know Stephen King was raised by his single Mum and grew up poor, but he also worked his arse off from a very early age doing all kinds of jobs; working in a laundry and washing sheets being one of them.

I enjoyed the stories he shared of his childhood antics with older brother David, and in recounting his upbringing, I'm reminded just how old King's references are. His US centric pop culture references are decades before my time, and his love of old movies and books lead me to suspect that even those within his immediate generation might miss a few titles here and there. This is a memoir as much as a treatise on the craft of writing and it was an enjoyable read.

There's a tonne of advice in here for aspiring and established writers, like this:

"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open." Page 56

King is a powerhouse and an absolute work horse, even when the writing isn't going well:

"Stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position." Page 82

Stephen King is incredibly relatable, and this is a conversational how-to from a willing mentor rather than a dry rule book or style guide from a fusty professor.

The author is up front about his years of addiction although few lines are dedicated to it. His wife Tabitha King is an established author in her own right, and together with family members staged an intervention. There is no pity party and no excuses. Eventually King got clean, but it was a hard road to sobriety. Throughout his life, Stephen King has dedicated his all to his writing, and after receiving more rejections in his career than we can possibly imagine, started seeing success. He soaked up every piece of advice along the way and readily shares lessons large and small with the reader.

"What follows is everything I know about how to write good fiction. I'll be as brief as possible, because your time is valuable and so is mine, and we both understand that the hours we spend talking about writing is time we don't spend actually doing it. I'll be as encouraging as possible, because it's my nature and because I love this job. I want you to love it, too. But if you don't want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well." Page 163

There are some basic rules on grammar, but above all, King's message is that you learn by reading and by doing. By writing.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut." Page 164

When reading, watching or listening to author interviews - or conducting them for Carpe Librum - I'm always surprised when a writer says they don't have time to read. Some say they're too busy writing, or they don't want to be accused of plagiarism or stealing another person's work, but I'm not buying that. Some writers choose to read a different genre from their own while working, or switch to non fiction or the reverse if applicable. I agree with the author, if you want to improve your vocabulary and writing style, you must read and you must write. You must evolve. There are some helpful examples of good writing and bad writing, and I was able to learn a lot from these comparisons.

"In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling." Page 207

Yes! This explains how King can make a 500 page novel such a page turner. He isn't vain or 'self indulgent' and believes in cutting content that isn't necessary.

Hit by a van while out for his regular walk in 1999, I was reminded of just how lucky King was to survive the accident. King's injuries included a collapsed lung; 4 broken ribs; a spine chipped in 8 places; hip fracture (his lap looked sideways); broken left leg (in 9 places); broken right knee cap and a scalp laceration that took 20-30 stitches. I was interested in the author's recovery from multiple surgeries and subsequent rehab but didn't learn if he has any residual injuries or ongoing chronic pain.

Like me, King reads 70-80 books per year, and this 2012 edition of On Writing includes two lists comprising more than 180 books he personally recommends. King is generous with his time and praise for his peers but I was surprised to find how few I've read.

Known to fans and members of the publishing world as the King of Horror, he's also the King of Persistence. This is a recommended read for those interested in the man or his craft.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville

I didn't get on with Moby Dick at University. I was far more interested in reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett at the time and found Herman Melville's writing to be inaccessible and a tiresome bore. Melville is a classic American writer though, and 20 years on I thought I'd give him a second chance by reading Bartleby, the Scrivener.

This is a short story narrated by an elderly lawyer about the office politics where he works. Here's a little about him in his own words:

"I am one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgagees and title deeds. All who know me consider me an eminently safe man." Page 6

Our narrator has a legal firm in an office on Wall Street in New York, and the novella begins with an overview of his two employees. These character studies of Turkey and Nippers were insightful and Bartleby of the title is a new hire and addition to the team that doesn't pan out well.

We learn that Bartleby is very good at his job as a Clerk, but when asked to do a specific task or run a particular errand he doesn't want to do, he responds with "I prefer not to".

The modern reader can immediately relate and no doubt knows someone in their own circle of friends, family or work colleagues just like Bartleby. Bartleby's attitude of passive resistance and the fact that he'd 'prefer not to' do as he is instructed wound me up immediately and was instantly relatable.

Published in 1853, it was surprisingly reassuring to know that people haven't changed that much over the intervening decades and century. The staffing problems faced in the workplace 170 years ago resonate immediately with the modern reader today.

Bartleby soon causes our narrator great tribulation, and while the narrator remains unnamed throughout the novella, his plight is compelling. There are chuckle worthy moments of dialogue and inner reflection as our lawyer attempts to navigate his way out of his problem with varying degrees of success. I wanted to shout out suggestions to him which is a sure sign of evocative writing, however I did wish for a different ending.

Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville is a timeless novella about office politics and in 2019 it featured on the BBC News list of the 100 Most Inspiring Novels. I'm not sure I'd agree it's inspiring, but it's certainly an accessible entry point for readers of Herman Melville.

You can access the novella for free on Project Gutenberg. 

Of course you might 'prefer not to' and that's okay too.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is a young adult urban fantasy novel about adventure, stories, portals, travel and change. I knew I was going to be in safe hands very early on when our narrator quotes her father on Page 2:

"If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between worlds, that stories happen." Page 2

And that's precisely what happens here. Our narrator is young January Scaller and her life changes forever when she finds a door at the age of seven. January is a difficult child with an absent father, and was given a number of nursemaids, who soon quit their position. Here's a robust character description of a new nursemaid from our narrator:

"The newest one [nursemaid] was a German immigrant named Miss Wilda, who wore heavy black woolen gowns and an expression that said she hadn't seen much of the twentieth century yet but heartily disapproved of it thus far. She liked hymns and freshly folded laundry, and detested fuss, mess, and cheek. We were natural enemies." Page 16-17

Don't you just love that? I can picture Miss Wilda perfectly, and even more, I want to read about all the ways they disagreed. Growing up as the ward of Mr William Cornelius Locke - a self-made almost-billionaire and chairman of the New England Archaeological Society - January lives in a mansion full of antiques and rare collectibles, yet is restless. She doesn't interact with anyone her own age, with the occasional exception of Sam, the son of the local grocer.

"I used my most grown-up voice, as if I had never once chased him across the lawn howling for his surrender or fed him magic potions made of pine needles and lake water." Page 33

This is an historical fiction adventure story, and like many great adventure stories before it, there's a book and on finding it, the reader - along with January - is plunged into the story of young Adelaide:

"Standing beside her grandmother's deathbed, woolen dress still smelling of black logwood dye, Ade had felt the way a sapling might as it watched one of the old forest giants come crashing magnificently to rest: awed, and perhaps a little frightened. But when Mama Larson's final breath rattled from her ribs, Ade discovered the same thing the young sapling would have: in the absence of the old tree, there was a hole in the canopy above her." Pages 97-98

Early on it was difficult to separate the stories of Ade (Adelaide) and January in my mind, and the third person narration was briefly confusing, but thankfully it improved as the novel progressed. Harrow's exquisite writing more than compensated for the flow, and I marvelled at her ability to convey so much in just one sentence:

"She took another gulp from the brown glass bottle and muttered herself into silence, complaining about rich folk, young folk, nosy folk, Yankees, and foreigners." Page 338

The Ten Thousand Doors of January reminded me of Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor a little, in the shared coming of age quest of sorts that leads to danger, adventure and eventually self discovery. The existence of portals that lead to other worlds isn't new in fiction, and I've enjoyed The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and more recently Fairy Tale by Stephen King.

In this particular portal fantasy novel, the doors represent change and characters very quickly decide whether that change is good or not. The doors create an inevitable 'leakage between worlds' (the author's words, not mine) which includes people and objects travelling between them. My mind was racing at this point, imagining how this theory could apply to some of the mysteries in our own world as we know it. Perhaps the Voynich manuscript came from one of these worlds, who knows?

Naturally, this gives rise to themes of ethnicity and multiculturalism, as does the idea of preserving each world in its current state and slowing or preventing the use of doorways to freely travel. Younger readers will take this at face value, while mature readers will see how these attitudes and prejudices are reflected in our history and in our present.

I'll leave you with one last quote I hope you might like:

"Those of you who are more than casually familiar with books - those of you who spend your free afternoons in fusty bookshops, who offer furtive, kindly strokes along the spines of familiar titles - understand that page riffling is an essential element in the process of introducing oneself to a new book. .. It might smell expensive and well bound, or it might smell of tissue-thin paper and blurred two-color prints, or of fifty years unread in the home of a tobacco-smoking old man. Books can smell of cheap thrills or painstaking scholarship, of literary weight or unsolved mysteries. 
This one smelled unlike any book I'd ever held. Cinnamon and coal smoke, catacombs and loam. Damp seaside evenings and sweat-slick noontimes beneath palm fronds. It smelled as if it had been in the mail for longer than any one parcel could be, circling the world for years and accumulating layers of smells like a tramp wearing too many clothes." Pages 22-23

I just love that quote! I recently learned that bildungsroman is a term used to describe a coming of age story; thanks to Sam for that little pearl. This book was a gift for Christmas and The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is a bildungsroman for those who prefer their reading material to be full of adventure and fantasy with a touch of historical fiction. 

Highly recommended. 

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

I enjoyed The Remains of the Day, the story of an ageing butler reminiscing about serving Lord Darlington between WWI and WWII, while Klara and the Sun was an interesting science fiction novel about artificial intelligence. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro was published in 2015, however it was a disappointing read for me. Australian author Ben Hobson recently shared his love for this book but wondered why so many readers didn't enjoy it. Here's why.

This is the story of Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple in a fictional post-Arthurian Britain where people across the land suffer from forgetfulness and a type of collective amnesia. The pair set off on a quest to find their son and discuss the mist causing the memory loss with others they meet along the way. What I found instantly irritating and relentlessly repetitive was the overkill with regard to the characters using each other's names ALL the time. Axl calls Beatrice princess and it drove me up the wall. I've flipped to a random page to share an example with you:

"It can wait till the morning, Axl. It's not even a pain I notice till we're speaking of it." "Even so, princess, now we're here, why not go and see the wise woman?" Page 55

Stilted dialogue aside, The Buried Giant is a post-Roman fantasy with touches of Tolkien complete with pixies, ogres and even a dragon. Intergenerational conflict is an important topic in the novel with the hatred and distrust between the Saxons and the Britons sure to resurface if the memory dampening mist is dispersed. Axl and Beatrice contemplate whether it's better not to remember at all if there's a risk the traumatic memories of war and genocide could come tumbling back with the years of separation, love and loss.

I might have cared for all of this - the vicious cycle of hate and violence and the hopelessness of war - but the overarching narrative was unclear. I was unable to decipher the meaning of the ogres or the purpose of the pixies; if indeed there was any. Did they represent foreign powers? The mixed tense was often confusing and what was that about the black birdlike hags/women? Is the boatman death? Or does the island represent death? Or am I wrong on both counts? The mysteriously omniscient narrator who revealed themselves at the end (I think?) as part of a frustratingly ambiguous ending only served to increase my ire.

It would seem I don't belong to the literary 'in crowd' for whom this was written, but in my opinion, there was too much expectation on the reader to pick up on the hidden meanings, subtext and literary devices that must be holding this up. If I have to work hard in order to figure a book out, then it needs to deliver, otherwise the reading joy ebbs away and that's what happened here.

If you've been following Carpe Librum for any length of time, you'll know I'm not a fan of an ambiguous ending, and boy do we have a doozy here. Published in 2015, and with many of you having no doubt read this before me, I think I can safely ask... What do you think happened at the very end? After being questioned, did they stay together or not? Did Axl? Or didn't he? Someone put me out of my misery, quick!

After reading The Buried Giant, I think Ishiguro and I are done for now.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Confluence Giveaway Winners Announced

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway last week to win 1 of 2 signed copies of Confluence by Gemma Chilton. It's true, Gemma is from Southern Tasmania and everyone answered correctly. Entries closed at midnight last night and the lucky winners were drawn today. Congratulations to:

Lindsay & Pam Swain

You've both won a signed copy of Confluence valued at $24.99AUD thanks to the author. You will receive an email from me shortly and will have 7 days to provide your postal address and preferred inscription from Gemma. You'll then receive your prize direct from the author so I hope you enjoy! 

Review: The Death of John Lacey by Ben Hobson

* Copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin *

Snake Island by Ben Hobson was a ripper read in August 2019 and it made it onto my Top 5 Books of 2019 list. I had the pleasure of interviewing the author as well, which you can check out here.

Ben Hobson is back with his new book called The Death of John Lacey which will always be special to me, because guess what? I'm mentioned in the praise section with an excerpt from my Snake Island review! It's so exciting when this happens and I predict I'll never tire of the thrill. What an honour! Now, onto the book.

The Death of John Lacey is set in the Ballarat goldfields of colonial Australia and Hobson cleverly avoids any flack for the inherent racism some of his characters possess. The author is clear at the beginning that his writing is true to the period but understands readers might find the views of his characters abhorrent and unacceptable by our contemporary standards. It's a shame authors need to stipulate that they don't share the views of their characters, but better safe than sorry.

The book is set in 1847, 1853 and 1870 but begins in 1847 with Ernst James Montague and later his brother Joe Montague. These early pages reminded me of the last half of Devotion by Hannah Kent, although on reflection, I guess that shouldn't come as a shock. Both books were written by Australian authors and set in 1800s Australia for a start. Furthermore, the interactions between the new settlers and the indigenous population were interesting, engaging and sensitively handled and the landscape was incredibly evocative in both novels.

I would happily have dwelt here in Ernst's entire life story and I was deeply invested in the life he was living with his father as they tried to eke out a living from the land. Meanwhile, Ernst's mother was bitterly homesick and longed to return to her homeland. Unfortunately things don't go to plan but that's where we leave them.

We're then introduced to the Lacey brothers in 1853, but I couldn't make space for them as I was left wondering what happened to Ernst and Joe. We join them again later, but having been robbed of the aftermath of their earlier circumstances the connection to them as characters was lost.

When we meet him, John Lacey - of the title - is a formidable man on a power trip and not a character the reader is likely to care too much about. John has a brother Gray and while we spend some time in their story, I was indifferent to their plight.

The Death of John Lacey is divided into seven parts, during which time we get a glimpse of the lives of brothers Ernst and Joe Montague, brothers Gray and John Lacey and Father Gilbert Delaney. While Hobson brings all of the plot threads together in the conclusion, I found myself not caring too much about any of the characters; their demise or their salvation. But perhaps that was the point. It was a deplorable time in history and Hobson has given us some pretty heartless characters to despise.

John Lacey isn't an important or compelling character in the novel and his death didn't seem to be the focus of the book. As a result, I found myself puzzling over the title and wondering at its significance other than providing a logical starting and finish point for the overall narrative.

Historical fiction is my favourite genre, although I'll admit reading very few books set in colonial Australia. This is just a personal reading preference and I wouldn't have picked this up if it wasn't for the fact that Hobson absolutely blew me away with Snake Island. The Death of John Lacey is completely different and props to the author for his ability to write two completely different books and deploy a different writing style for each. I know it's a minor point, but I don't enjoy it when authors, editors or publishers decide to do away with punctuation for dialogue, but such is the case here and it definitely diminished my reading pleasure.

Covering themes of race, faith, greed, violence, ambition, law and order and the value of human life, there is much here to get stuck into. The writing is distinctly Australian, the landscape evocative and there were some great character insights, like this one from Father Gilbert:

"Gilbert understood that all death was like this, having presided over so many. There was always great wailing and sorrow, but in the end, after the dying had been done, there was pragmatism, and great relief in the work it required. Even so, he could not help but picture Joe's face as each nail was struck and the thought of Christ crucified on the cross and how those nails might sink into flesh." Page 242

The Death of John Lacey by Ben Hobson is recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction set in the goldfields of Australia, fans of Ned Kelly or bushranger fiction and readers who love a good western but won't get snooty when there is no dialogue punctuation. Ben Hobson is clearly an Aussie talent to watch and I can't wait to see what he turns his pen to next. Guaranteed I'll be there to be an early reader.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★