No. 1: A book based on a historic event The Night Ship / Jess Kidd
I went from Dublin to Dublin in my reading, and now from magical to (slightly) magical. It’s all connected and we’ll see where it’ll end up. For this book, it’s Beacon Island.
There are two stories here: Mayken’s, which starts in 1628 when she boards the Batavia ship. And Gil’s, which starts in 1989, when he arrives on Beacon Island, a tiny island (you can cross it in twenty minutes on foot) off the west coast of Australia. Mayken and Gil both lost their mothers due to unconventional / problematic lifestyles. Mayken and Gil live three hundred years apart, but their stories are mirrored: both live in/on confined spaces, are free spirits, cross dress, run into stories about monsters living in the water, and neither wants to be where they are.
Although it’s probably best known in Australia and the NL, the story of the Batavia has been told in documentaries and books, so I don’t consider it a spoiler when I say that its 1628 maiden voyage didn’t go entirely according to plan. Loaded with riches, and people, the ship was part of a fleet of East India Company ships travelling to what was then Batavia, and is now Indonesia. The sailors were literally sitting on top of chests full of silver coins, and with a skipper and upper-merchant that didn’t get along, tensions started rising all over the ship. The Batavia’s story is in the book, but told from Mayken’s perspective, which is that of a nine-year old girl. She notices the unrest, the tension, but doesn’t know what it means. Her focus is more on catching the monster said to be living in the hull of the ship. Gil is also living with tension and unrest caused by frayed relationships between the different families on the island. He also discovers he is causing tension and unrest, just by being different. Both stories build up to explosions of violence.
This book is a historical with gothic elements and hints of otherworldlyness. The build-up is nicely paced: it starts by calmly setting the scenes, the children exploring their new surroundings and getting settled in. Then, as story grows more urgent, the pace picks up, faster, faster. The story goes from hopeful new starts, to awful realities. The story of the Batavia is clearly well researched, making Mayken’s story a treat. I liked Gil’s story as much though, and was intrigued about the boy who, appropriately, and not coincidentally, gets nicknamed Gilgamesh. The story being told from the perspectives of children, gives it a slightly eerie sense, and I liked that most about it.
This book comes with plenty of blurbs: four on the front cover, and five on the back. More yet, on the inside. That can be annoying, but in this case, I have to agree with all of them: this book sweeps you off your feet.
I ended the year with a book that I’d bought in Dublin and I kicked off the year with a book that takes place in Dublin. It was by total accident, or maybe subconsciously I knew, but who has time to figure these things out? Onto the book!
The Lost Bookshop / Evie Woods
The Lost Bookshop is a magical story about three different people: Opaline, Martha, and Henry. The magical part is quite literal so if you’re a bit more skeptical, then maybe this book isn’t for you. I do love a bit of magic every now and then, and thought this book did it very well with just enough of it.
In nineteen-twenty-one, Opaline is being told that she needs to marry. She doesn’t like the idea one bit, and defies her mother and bully of a brother by selling a few rare books from the family library to fund her escape to Paris. She soon realizes she needs a job, and stumbles into one at the Shakespeare and Company bookshop. Here she meets James Joyce, in the process of writing Ulysses, and Ernest Hemmingway, in the process of flirting. She also meets Armand again, a man she’d met on the ferry, who had prevented her suitcase being stolen.
In the now, there’s Martha, escaping an abusive relationship, and the Irish countryside, and starting over in Dublin. She finds a job as a housekeeper for an elderly lady, and the best thing about the job is that it comes with a small basement apartment. On the first morning there, she wakes up to the sound and view of pacing feet in front of her window. When she goes to yell out of the window, she discovers that the feet belong to Henry, an English scholar, looking to find a bookshop at number eleven. Except the only houses there are numbers ten and twelve. Just as the title puts it: the bookshop’s lost.
Martha has the ability to read a person, so she knows Henry is in love with another woman. She also experiences sentences popping up in her head without context, hears sounds in the basement apartment, and discovers tree branches growing into shelves on the wall, complete with books that pop up. She accepts these things as they come along, trusting her instincts and the good vibes of the place. Henry has the focus on his research shifted when the funding of his project gets cancelled, and he travels home to England to rearrange things. Once there, he finds out that his father has been in rehab, and is really trying his best to stay sober this time. Having had an alcoholic father growing up, has however, left a dent in Henry. He’s not able to trust his father’s recovery, and is used to keeping his guard up. Even though they don’t seem to have much, if anything, in common, Martha and Henry quickly connect and become friends. They bring out the best in each other, with Henry introducing Martha to learning and reading, and Martha teaching Henry to approach his research and problem solving, from new and different angles. Slowly but surely, the two of them unravel the story of Opaline, and the different storylines start to come together. Opaline, Martha, and Henry all experienced trauma and refuse to let it define them: they have painful pasts but know they can only move forward, and do so. They are able to re-open their hearts again, and love, and grow.
Aside from the magic-magic, the story contains plenty of book-magic. The characters appreciate books, and what they can bring a reader. It’s about the hidden stories inside a bookshop, the hunt for rare books, and a missing manuscript. This book and I were a match made in book heaven, and I enjoyed every page of it.
Coincidence or magical interference? Last week I spotted an article in The Guardian about the Book of Kells and its new experience. Then a few hours after reading that article and texting friends about it, I was on the train, continuing my reading of The Lost Bookshop, and my mouth fell open when a scene happened where Henry takes Martha to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The way she describes seeing it for the first time, the experience of being in the library’s Long Room, made me smile because I could so relate to that. And I couldn’t believe the happenstance of reading about it, after reading and texting about it earlier in the day. “No way!” was my out-loud reaction to it (startling the woman sitting next to me). The universe works in mysterious ways I’m not smart enough to understand, but I do believe it is telling me I need to go to Dublin.
The days are dark and dreadful, literally and figuratively, and I’ve happily drawn the curtains to block it all out. Here, in my personal bubble of books, booze, music, and absolutely no news, I’m looking back on the year in reading that is now almost entirely behind me. This is, after all, the time of year where we look back and reflect. So, let the evaluation commence!
The Reading Challenge
17 of 25 boxes ended up being checked, which is a result even I didn’t see coming, as I only started the challenge in May. My willingness to drop everything in order to read, has finally paid off!
The worst book I read for this list was definitely no. 13 – a banned book which had me in a spin for a bit. And then I didn’t finish it. It’s also with great pleasure that I can announce that this is hands down the worst book I ever attempted to read.
The biggest stand-out ends up a triple tie between numbers 14 – a western, 20 – a book that prominently features an animal, and 6 – a book that was turned into a movie. The western was just a thrill-ride that sucked me in from the very first page, and the animal I read about, was a delightful octopus named Marcellus. Then there was scientist Elizabeth Zott, who figured if cooking on tv was the way to get her science across, then that was what she would do. Three very different books, but the common denominator was a kick-ass main character with an amazing voice.
The biggest surprise about a book was no. 10 – a retelling of a classic just because I was fearing a dry and complicated mythical read, and then it turned out to be a delightful, almost Dickensian, tale of love conquering greed and envy.
Books I learned the most from, are numbers 8 – a book with a one-word title, and 4 – a book with a city in the title. My entry-level knowledge of John Wilkes Booth was what I had learned through tv-show Timeless, but now I know enough to take a quiz on the guy. 1950’s Iran was something I knew equally little about, but reading a story set in that time and place, had me doing a deep-dive into the history books (and recipe books, because the way the cooking and the food was described, had my stomach growl).
The book I laughed the most about, was easily no. 22 – a book with more than 500 pages. Fucking stuff up is part of life, no matter what age you are, and I really enjoyed the way it was described that Nell came to that realization.
Other reads: Yes, I probably would have finished the reading challenge if I only had stuck to reading items that fitted the list. But, sometimes books that don’t fit a category, still had to be read: they were either borrowed from friends, I was the next reader on the library waiting list, or they just called out to me from their spot on the to-be-read pile. Then I also re-read some of my all-time favourites, just to get me going again when I got stuck in a reading rut or needed something to get me away from a book. How to kill men and get away with it , Everyone in my family killed someone, and Factory girls were the stand-out reads in this category. I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that these three books all have bright orange covers.
In numbers
31 – total number of books read that fell outside of the reading challenge category and/or were read before the reading challenge was started.
17 – total number of books read for the reading challenge
7 – books started but not finished because they were the wrong book at the wrong time
27 – books I borrowed from the library
5 – books I borrowed from friends
23 – books I bought
Overall conclusion I borrowed books, bought books, and donated books. I’ve talked about books, written about books, and took so many pictures of books-i-want-to-read that my phone’s memory is close to reaching full capacity. I got to know amazing characters, and discovered new places. 2023 was one heck of a book year.
My tbr pile is so big, that I lost a book in there. (Confession or brag: it’s a thin line. I guess it depends on who you ask. Just don’t ask my mom: she’ll only roll her eyes.) What happened, was that I started to read this book last year, and when for some reason I had to put it down, I accidentally put it on the wrong stack and it ended up on the tbr pile, instead of the “I’m currently reading these”-pile. When I was looking for a book to read for my reading challenge, I stumbled on this book instead, was so happy to have found it again, that I forgot about the reading challenge for a hot minute, and dove into this instead.
I bought this book in Dublin last year as a souvenir, and it’s very Irish. Factory Girls is set in Northern Ireland, 1994. It’s about Maeve Murray, who has two best friends, Aoife, and Caroline. They live in “a shitty wee border town” near Derry, and the girls have just finished school. They have all summer to wait for their exam results, and use the thirteen weeks to work at the local clothing factory, to save up money for university. Maeve dreams about studying journalism in London, where nobody will know her, and nobody will care about the fact that she’s Catholic and has a sister who died. Because they can’t wait to leave home, Maeve and Caroline rent a small apartment above a shop, across from the factory. The factory workforce consists of Catholics and Protestants alike, and even inside the small factory community, there is a strong divide that has tensions rising at times. The peace talks that are happening, are only cause for more tension. Maeve is relieved to finally find one thing they have in common: both Catholics and Protestants sing the happy birthday song exactly the same. Their boss is Andy, who is called Handy Andy by the workers. He’s a creep who unhooks the women’s bras as he walks his rounds on the factory floor, and regularly calls women into his office alone. Maeve becomes one of his victims, but when she finds out she’s comped an extra ten pounds in her weekly pay for it, she only cares that in thirteen weeks, that would add up to an extra hundred-and-thirty pounds. It is Andy who gives her the book How to Make Friends and Influence People which she applies in the funniest and darkest ways. Maeve is aware that survival in their corner of the world, depends on being able to stay out of the spotlight, to keep your head down, and not make any outspoken friends or enemies. Yet just as she is about to make a clean get-away, she breaks her own rules and gets herself into trouble.
The book is written in accent, and I don’t know about you, but I generally find reading accents difficult, it slows me down, and words or expressions can leave me stumped, or require reading out loud. But when accent writing is done right, it adds an extra layer to the characters and the setting. I thought this book was an excellent example; the accents are used to mark the difference between the standings in society, and I could just hear these girls talk. And Maeve talks the best talk. She’s rough around the edges, a sharp observer, and aware that her working-class, Catholic background, is not working in her favour. Maeve is also aware that her normalcy about living with terror all the time, is actually not normal. Not only has she witnessed, and experienced, the violence of the Troubles, but plenty of “normal” violence and sexual abuse too. As she says: life is tough on men, but it’s always tougher on women. Despite its serious setting and the roughness, there are plenty of (dark) laughs to find in this book as well. This book gives off Derry Girls vibes (if you haven’t seen it: this is a gem of a show that streams on Netflix in the NL, not sure about other areas) but it’s way more real than that and has a darker sense of humour. I liked this book a whole lot and it is a perfect example of why books make excellent souvenirs.
Book review – The Little Bookshop On The Seine / Rebecca Raisin
The Little Bookshop on the Seine / Rebecca Raisin
Boy-oh-boy, do I have things to say about this book. After all the happy-sigh reviews, and, I admit, the pretty covers for the different editions, I had such high hopes. Bookshops. Paris. Christmas. What could go wrong? Unlikeable characters, that is. You can have the nicest settings but if the main characters aren’t appealing, it drags down the story. And not be a total grinch, but the minor characters didn’t win me over either as they never really seemed more than stereotypes. Ye be warned: I’m in no mood to hold back so spoilers ahead.
The story goes as follows: Sarah is the owner of a bookshop in small-town America. Her best friend runs the café/bakery across the road, which is used as the hangout spot for their friend group (I cannot remember the others). Sarah doesn’t really step beyond the two locations, but she does have a boyfriend about whom I learned two things: 1) he’s superhot and 2) he’s a freelance journalist and away ninety per cent of the time, chasing stories in Indonesia, Russia, and anywhere in between.
Rant: it wasn’t until I finished the book that I learned that the second book in the binding was actually the first book story-wise. Who does that?! Seriously, I wish non-stop papercuts to the person who came up with that. I thought this was a standalone and so annoyed that I never even bothered to read that second-but-chronologically-first book (“The bookshop on the corner”). So yes, it’s entirely my own fault that I have no idea what on earth brought Sarah and her boyfriend together in the first place, but based on the book I read, they didn’t seem to have compatible lives or even that much in common, aside from the fact that they seemed equally hot for each other. I didn’t root for their happily ever after, and was too chagrined to continue with the prequel to figure them out.
Then there’s Sophie, who is the owner of a bookshop in Paris, and not just any bookshop in Paris, but the one from the title. She’s heartbroken because her ex-boyfriend has a new girlfriend who owns a shop on the same street as Sophie’s bookshop, and she has to see them together all the time. She’s so desperate to get away from it all, that she contacts her online friend Sarah, and proposes they swap shop, and fast. It seemed a tad extreme, especially the hurry with which this all had to happen, but this happened within the first chapter and I was still on board. The women have a couple of video calls to figure stuff out and three days later, Sarah is on her way to Paris, while Sophie is jetting the opposite direction. Sarah’s enthusiasm for a change of scenery isn’t shared by family and friends, who aren’t as supportive as one would think, and they all seem Very Worried about her ability to deal with stepping out of her comfort zone. It’s explained that Sarah went through a traumatic event when she was young and this is why she grew up to be a shy introvert who is afraid of anything new and just wants to spend her days reading. Having people in your inner circle that keep reminding you that you are scared of things and don’t like to do much, is not helpful. Sarah deserved therapy, instead of this borderline gaslighting. Once she has touched down in Paris, Sarah needs to take the metro into town and acts like she’s never been on a busy mode of public transportation. Even if she hadn’t before, she just travelled from one international airport to another, so she must at least have been on an airport shuttle or something? In any case, she needs two tries to get on board which has her completely stressed out. It felt like such a cliché way to describe the fish-out-of-water situation and did not establish Sarah as the most capable person. But, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, and blamed jetlag. When she finally makes it to the bookshop, she promptly has her luggage stolen there. Because no, you shouldn’t leave your luggage unattended anywhere, least of all not in a busy shop in a big city. As quickly as Sarah was annoyed with Paris, I was annoyed with her.
So many stereotypes are thrown around that it’s almost insulting: the French are arrogant and eat weird food. Nobody wants to help lost tourists. Of course, the shy guy sitting in the corner all day, every day, turns out to be Sarah’s favourite author. Of course, the haughty employee who steals money turns out to be a loving single mom, struggling to make ends meet. None of it was surprising or original. Sarah is disappointed when none of the staff jumps up to become her new best friend right away. Sarah is disappointed about life in Paris because she had pictured herself reading in the parks, walking along the Seine and sipping wine in cafés. Sarah sure is great at moping around and doesn’t do much self-reflection: building a life in a new place, requires some actual input. And Sarah is not investing time in making friends or exploring the city because she’s too flustered about the bustling shop, and the disorganized mess it all is. The staff is giving her a hard time and her doormat personality has them walking over her schedules and plans. When one of the shop girls finally feels sorry for Sarah and starts taking her out for lunches and shopping trips, she also provides her with some much-needed insider information, but basically tells Sarah to put on her big girl pants and get on with it. Then on top of everything, Sophie, all the way over in the US, gets mad because the reports indicate sales numbers are dropping every month. While understandable, this anger seemed weird to me because she decided to leave a shy, timid, woman in charge, one who barely manages to keep her own little shop afloat. At the same time, Sarah is surprised to learn that Sophie managed to turn her shop around because yes, that’s what happens when you stop reading behind the register and actually run a business. Sophie came across as a bit of a ball-buster and not particularly friendly, but I think that’s mostly caused by the story being told from Sarah’s opposite-personality perspective. These women had an online friendship and are quickly learning that they might not have known each other all that well after all. Sarah’s big solution for the shop is bringing Christmas into it. Because when didn’t a string of pretty lights solve all problems? Although everyone is dragging their feet, they do get into it and that is how she somehow saves the shop from nearly going under and all problems are wrapped up with pretty bows. The problems felt petty to begin with, and the ending was too easy. In between the bookshop drama, there is boyfriend drama for Sarah because while her superhot boyfriend had promised to stop by in Paris regularly, he doesn’t, and is instead continuing his Amazing Race-style chase around the globe, going from one news story to the next. His carbon footprint is not little. (I kept forgetting his name, and can’t be bothered to look it up now. It’s something soap opera-y.) Sarah feels abandoned but instead of telling him that, she pouts and passive aggressively ignores his calls and messages for a couple of days. Guess what: that actually gets his attention, and he travels to Paris right away to apologize and jump into bed with her. A relationship involves talking, even if that is or gets uncomfortable. This relationship felt very immature and unbalanced and they didn’t come across as a couple at all.
Oh, and there’s a second storyline about love letters Sarah and her favourite author find hidden in the shop but that did not create the intrigue it seemed designed to do. All in all, it felt like this book wanted to be more than it ended up being. As mentioned, I only realized this book was a follow-up and maybe that’s why things felt off and unbalanced in some places. It might be better to digest for those who read and liked the first book, but as a stand-alone this one, for me, was a big disappointment.
This is a fluffy read about death and ghosts. Strange as that may seem, it works. Florence Day is in her late twenties and working as a ghost writer for a successful romance novelist. She lives in New York with roommate Rose, whose sassy and go-getter attitude are the opposite of Florence’s insecure and angsty nature. Rose is the one out partying, and Florence is moping around the apartment with writer’s block. Florence’s lack of ‘tude and inspiration stems from a terrible relationship she was smart enough to walk away from. See, Florence can see dead people. And she sees them all the time, on the subway, in shops, they’re everywhere. I didn’t think a big city would be the place to go if you suffer from this quirk, but it’s still a step up when you consider the fact that back in small-town North-Carolina, her family runs a funeral business. The business has been in the family for generations, and every generation has at least one person who can see the ghosts. Florence is the only one of her generation that can. After she helped a ghost solve his own murder when she was just thirteen, it opened up a can of worms and she was basically run out of town (not literally, just the worst way: via social media). A death in the family brings her back, and it’s not easy. Especially, when Benji, her new editor, and recent make-out partner, shows up at her door, freshly dead. He gives a whole new meaning to “ghosting someone”. In between hanging out at the local cemetary at midnight, Florence is dealing with a lot of family drama: she and her sister haven’t really talked in a long time and so things are uncomfortable as can be while they process the death of a beloved family member. Florence isn’t making things easier by insisting on staying at the B&B down the street, so of course, she keeps missing out on things. Not sure why she’s surprised about that, but not coming home for ten years is a long time, and there are a lot of unsolved issues there. Most of which could have been resolved by at least putting in a phone call every now and then, and asking each other “what’s up?”. This is a predictable story, up to the end, and a chapter too long. But, Benji and Florence have great chemistry, and they gleefully share puns. Florence and her family also have a wonderful sense of dark humour, and puns and jokes relating to death are all around. The puns and jokes are what made this book a fun read for me, landing it as a middle-of-the-pack palette cleanser, with bonus points for the chapter titles.
Okay, so this book wasn’t made into a movie, but a drama series (streaming on Apple TV in the NL), so I’m taking some flexibility for this entry, but trust me, it’s worth it. I had my eye on this book for a long time, but because the word chemistry is in the title, and from the description I learned it’s about a scientist, and my brain starts to short-circuit whenever science is involved, I didn’t buy it until I found it with a “second book half-price” sticker on it. Mostly, because this meant I got to buy another book as well, but still. Picture my surprise when I learned that yes, this book is about chemistry, but it’s about so much more! Because main character Elizabeth Zott is a kick-ass lady, who has the unfortunate timing of being a scientist in 1950’s America. She gets belittled, discriminated, undermined, and harassed, on a daily basis. The fact that she’s smarter than any of the men in her lab, doesn’t help. The only person who is interested in her intellect, is oblivious to her daily struggles, and women’s struggles in general, and is surprised to learn that women would actually like to study and work in STEM, but are held back by the men that rule the field. Calvin Evans is the male version of Elizabeth, and despite his young age, has been up for a Nobel prize multiple times, and his fame and wunderkind status provides the institute they both work at, with generous funding. Calvin and Elizabeth are in a relationship that is considered unconventional and strange, and therefore frowned upon: they live together, and despite his proposals, Elizabeth refuses to marry Calvin, not wanting to be forced to quit working, changing her name, and getting stuck in the background, only to be known as the supporter of her husband. Elizabeth doesn’t even consider herself to be modern, to her this is just common sense. Elizabeth teaches Calvin that anything a man can do, a woman can too, and Calvin uses this theory to teach Elizabeth to row. Calvin considers rowing the ultimate sport, but Elizabeth isn’t an athlete and it isn’t until she applies science to rowing that they stop toppling over. They find a dog and adopt it, and give it the wonderful name of Six-Thirty, because that was the time they came home with him. Of course, this leads to a running gag of people confusing the name with the time, and subsequent dead-pan responses from Calvin and Elizabeth. But Six-Thirty is as smart as they are, and his observations are a great addition to the story. When Elizabeth suffers a major loss, she has to pivot to keep afloat. She does what she has to, and if that means going on television and presenting a cooking show, so be it. Elizabeth can cook and bake really well because she applies science to it, as she does to anything in life. She refuses to present a “fun” show though, rationalizing it’s not just demeaning to her, but to the women watching, and makes her director faint when during the first show she invites the audience to come down to the stage and take anything from the carefully designed set they like. Within minutes the set is near-empty and Elizabeth has the clean work surface she asked for. She uses the scientific names of products, acetic acid instead of vinegar and sodium chloride instead of salt, and to the director’s amazement viewers don’t seem to mind that the cooking show turns into chemistry lessons. The show becomes a success locally first, and soon nationally as well. Elizabeth learns a hard lesson herself, when she discovers that despite everything, her fame is considered different from Calvin’s, and she still cannot get a decent job at any lab.
Belittling, shaming, discriminating, harassing, is still happening today as well of course. In any field, to anybody who is different from the majority. It’s scary and it’s frustrating. This book is about all that, and probably should come with trigger warnings for harassment and assault, because the book contains plenty of incidents, and horrible people that make life ever so complicated and painful. Elizabeth’s frustration seeps off the pages, and you have to be made of stone not to get frustrated on her behalf. The way she is treated is horrific. The fact that victim blaming happened back then, is ridiculous. The fact that victim blaming is still happening today, is downright shameful. But this story isn’t just about the injustice Elizabeth encounters, Calvin, and chemistry though. It’s about family, acceptance, support, and mostly, love. The story has wonderful side characters in neighbour Harriet, Mad, doctor Mason, and director Walter. It’s not only Elizabeth that needs these people in her life, but as a reader, you need them too, in order not to forget that there are generous, caring, and wonderful people in the world. And don’t think this book is all doom and disaster; it’s clever and funny and a treat to read!
Well, it happened again. First, I wanted more Australian authors and promptly read three in a row. Then, I asked for more not-your-typical animal sidekicks et voila: Pandora delivers me a pet magpie.
Pandora / Susan Stokes-Chapman
I guess I should think of other reading wishes to come true but I don’t want to be too greedy. And first things first: this retelling of a classic. I didn’t learn about the Greek classics in school, and only know some of the Greek and Roman mythology from doing crossword puzzles. All I know of Norse mythology, is with thanks to the Marvel movies. A few years ago I decided to dive into the subject, but honestly, the big books were scaring me off. So, I settled for Stephen Fry’s Mythos to cover the basics. It was a fun read and I learned a lot! I’m not sure if that was the book that set off the flow of modern retellings of those classic stories, or if it was just part of the early wave, but since then so many stories based on (mainly) Greek mythology have been published, that I was spoiled for choice for this entry. In the end I settled for Pandora. I’m being honest here and will admit that size of the book was part of its appeal: some of these books are just so big and it was the end of October and with so many items on my reading list still unchecked, I wanted to make as short work of it as possible. This book came in at just shy of 400 pages, so still a decent size.
Main character is Dora. Her full name is Pandora and she was named after the first woman created by the Greek gods. Her mother was Greek and slightly obsessed with the story. As a child, Dora travelled along with her parents, archeologists, all over southern Europe to dig, and find antiquities, but when she was eight, her parents were killed when a dig site collapsed. She was pulled out of the rubble and shipped back to London with her uncle. At twenty-one she still lives with that uncle, Hezekiah, in the attic above the antique shop he took over from her parents. Lottie is their housekeeper, although she’s mostly Hezekiah’s live-in lover, and both Lottie and Hezekiah have great dislike of Dora. The feeling is completely mutual, and they exist in the same space but that’s about it. Whenever she has to work in the shop Dora mostly dreams about designing jewelry, sketching her designs in-between tending to the few customers that come in. Hermes is her pet magpie (with an amazing Greek God name), who delivers her the necessary trinkets to use for making mock-up versions of those jewelry designs. Hermes resides either in his cage, or on Dora’s shoulder. The two have an incredible bond, and honestly, it’s changed my opinion of the birds a bit (their caw is just something that’s not my favorite sound in the world). Dora is aware that Hezekiah is mostly conning his customers by selling forgeries, but doesn’t care enough to stop him or warn the customers. The story takes place in 1799 which means that as a woman without other family, she is completely reliant on him and cannot afford to rock the boat.
Then there’s Edward, who very much needs to rock the boat if he ever wants to get accepted into the Society of Antiquaries. So far, his attempts to get in have not been received well and he’s been told to come with something strong, something truly interesting. When Dora finds out that Hezekiah is hiding a magnificent vase in the basement and is being incredibly secretive about it or its origins, she sets out to discover if it is another forgery, or the real deal. For this, she needs someone with an expert eye, and she finds her way to Edward. For Edward, this is a win-win: if the vase is real, he’s got an incredible subject to write about. If it’s a fake, his subject will be forgeries, which will still be interesting enough. Edward has a dark past that results in him suffering from claustrophobia and a fear of the dark, so working in the dark and damp basement of the shop in the middle of the night, is not within his comfort zone. However, he’s aware that they have to sneak around Hezekiah, and this is the only time and place available for research. So, he confronts his fears and gets to it. Edward’s benefactor and best friend, is Cornelius Ashmole, an idle gentleman and delightful grudge. The first half of the book I kept misreading his name as Asshole which seemed fitting because Cornelius doesn’t hide the fact that he is suspicious about Dora’s motives and does not like that Edward is so committed to the research. The moment Edward and Dora start to ask around about the vase and its origins, it sets a series of events in motion and I kept wanting to remind them about the story of Pandora’s box, thinking these two should know better. There’s a hint of the mystique surrounding the story, befitting of the myth. The way the characters and their environment are described, is so vivid and clear, that it all easily comes alive. It also fits especially the two main characters, Dora and Edward, who have observant personalities, and spent most of their lives living in the background. With books like this, you don’t need a time machine. (Also, it kind of puts you off time travel, because the way the stink is described…oof, I feel I can do without that experience in person.) Every character in this book has motives, reasons for their behavior, even if they’re not immediately clear. The characters also aren’t perfect and have flaws, but they grow and develop, and it makes them all the more real. Nobody is just grumpy, or mean.
This is a Greek myth, wrapped in a Dickensian story. Strange as that might sound, it totally works. I don’t know enough about the Greek myths to know if I missed references, names or the likes, but I was too immersed to care, and even without knowing, this book was a great read.
The title of this book makes no false claims: the most important location of this book, is a stationary shop in Tehran, Iran.
The main character of this story is Roya, a senior citizen living in the US. She’s invited to meet an old friend living in a nearby assisted-living facility, and the invitation has her flashing back to their first meeting. This takes place in 1953, Tehran, when she is a seventeen-year old high school student, focused on graduating with high marks so she can pursue a university study. Her father wants the best for his two daughters, starting each morning with a declaration on the importance of education, and how he wishes them to become famous scientists or authors, like Madame Curie and Helen Keller.
On Tuesdays after class, Roya hangs out at the stationary shop across from her school, because not only do they sell pencils and notebooks, but books and poetry bundles as well. This is where Roya meets Bahman, a boy with charisma-a-plenty, who is passionate about politics. Roya learns that the stationary shop is used as a message portal for those involved in politics: people drop off letters, and leave with messages hidden inside books.
In 1953 politics is as hot, and dangerous, a topic as it is now: the country is on the verge of a change and the two sides of the argument are coming to clashes as they grapple for power.
Roya’s parents have modern views which makes it easy for them to connect with Bahman, who quickly becomes her boyfriend, and not much later, fiancé. Bahman’s parents are less progressive and had lined up an arranged marriage for their son, so they do not like Roya, who interrupted their chance to get ahead in society, and blame her for getting Bahman involved in politics. Bahman, however, was already deeply involved in politics before he even met her, and is the one to take Roya to a political rally. She is horrified when she witnesses him getting attacked by police there, and tries to persuade him to stop his involvement.
The attack only makes it clearer to Bahman that he cannot stop though, and so he even increases his involvement.
This story is one of heartbreak: there is a failed elopement, death, a failed suicide, and emotional blackmail. It’s about missed chances, and lost love.
Happy-go-lucky Roya is not, and it all felt very heavy. Of course, I understand that revolution, generations of secrets, and devastating loss, are very heavy topics. The only characters in the story that have a positive and can-do energy, are Roya’s father and sister. And Roya does not understand them, and assumes they don’t understand her either. Her experiences made Roya who she is, but I have a feeling, she’s one of those people who even in the best of circumstances, would just drag down on your energy, and hold onto the negatives.
That’s not how I roll, so I found her a difficult character to connect with.
The story itself was okay (the cooking scenes were amazing and had me drooling), with an interesting setting in Iran first, and following the lives of immigrants settling in the US later. I was even willing to accept the ending, even though the coincidence of it, was on the verge of too much.
I love, love, love western stuff: the movies (Giant, The Bravados, The Big Country) and country & western music. I don’t know why, but my best guess is, that I was a rancher in a previous life. On second guess, a rodeo clown would be more fitting. But, that’s a different topic. While the music and movies are easy to get to, the books are a bit more complicated to get one’s hands on here; an online search mostly results in the kind of westerns that have half-naked cowboys on the cover. Interesting for sure, but not what I was looking for. (No worries: titles were safely taken down for future reference.) So, I stuck with browsing the library shelves until I spotted a book with a western symbol on its spine instead. It felt like striking gold (yup, I went there): not easy but worth the effort because wowee what a book it turned out to be!
Whiskey When We’re Dry / John Larison
I’ll try my best not to tell about the book in an “and then…and then…and then…” manner, but forgive me if I slip because a lot happens in this book and I haven’t had a chance to talk about it with anybody yet. Let’s start with the best thing about this book: main character Jessilyn. She is telling her own story, and she is amazing. As a character she felt authentic and original and she had me at hello. Jessilyn is raised by her father and brother after her mother didn’t survive her birth. The family place is a small homestead on the outskirts of a town in the south/west of the US. The men take care of the animals and hunt, while Jessilyn takes on the womanly tasks of cleaning, washing, and cooking from the moment she can walk. Her father is addicted to cough syrup which doesn’t make life easier for any of them. Her older brother Noah almost kills their father with a single punch during a fight, and flees home. Jessilyn is left taking care of their permanently injured father and when they realize Noah isn’t coming back, her father starts teaching Jessilyn the additionally useful skills of reading and writing, and shooting, thinking it might increase her chances of a marriage proposal, or in the worst case, increase her chances of survival. When her father dies when she is only seventeen, Jessilyn figures she needs to find her brother, so he can help her running the farm. Her first stop is in town, where she discovers a wanted poster with her brother’s face on it: it turns out that Noah has become a notorious gang leader, and he and the Wild Bunch gang have robbed banks and trains, and there is a big bounty on their heads, dead or alive. The local men are only interested in her because they figure she might lead them to her brother and bring in good money. Not keen on playing that part, Jessilyn quickly leaves town. Because life for women, let alone women of mixed race like her, is tough in the west, she realizes she needs a disguise and chops off her long hair, binds her chest, exchanges her dress for trousers, and shortens her name to Jesse. She rides out following the Wild Bunch’s trail based on newspaper reports and chooses the paths less travelled to avoid other people as much as possible out of fear to be discovered a poser, but she soon realizes that thanks to her observation skills she can behave like a man enough to pass. If people dare to cast doubt, she bluffs her way through the situation thanks to her big-mouthing skills. Another skill that comes in handy, is her shooting. She earns money with shooting tricks and bets on shoot-outs. There’s an incident that leaves her killing a man in self-defense. Horrible as that is, Jesse can justify it. Later someone tries to steal her horse, and without hesitation she aims at the disappearing figure, shooting them in the back. This is more difficult to deal with, as she feels she not just killed, but became a killer by shooting like a coward. The fact that this victim turned out to be a girl dressed as a boy, just like herself, doesn’t make it any easier. She wants to burry her victim, but can’t, and leaving the body out in the open to be eaten by animals, creates an open wound on her soul. With her brother being one of the most wanted men in the west, with bounty hunters on his tail that will only get in her way, Jesse figures the best chance to track him down is to follow the governor’s militia who are chasing him, as they will have the most accurate information on his whereabouts. But she accidentally gets herself into an even better position: she becomes part of the militia after winning a shoot-out against the governor’s best shooter. The job has her trained in battle, and honing her shooting skills with different guns, and it makes her better and faster. She wears the uniform, bunks with one of the other guys, and realizes she is making more money than she ever dreamt possible. She soon finds out that life at the governor’s place isn’t all that it seems though, and she gets frustrated because the job isn’t leading her where she thought it would. Then by complete accident she finds her brother and leaves all securities behind to follow him and his gang to their hide-out. She now is the one being chased, by her old friends in the militia no less, but she’s with family again and that is all that matters to her. It’s a slippery slope though, with the violence of a life lived on the run becoming the norm. Jesse is aware of the ease with which she ends up killing, and knows that she won’t be able to live another life anymore, will never be able to return to the family land and run a farm. Even her most trusted companion, horse Ingrid, doesn’t recognize her anymore: she is a changed woman. It’s a sad realization, and one that makes her even more reckless to a point where both Jesse and you as a reader, know this cannot end well. I don’t think I ever felt so much empathy for a killer.
This story contains everything a western should: chases across the rough lands of the American west. Tough guys, and tougher girls who will do anything to survive. Whiskey, wanted posters, and shoot-outs. The blurring of lines between right and wrong. Heartbreak, vulnerability, and love. This story sucked me in from the very first page: it had me on a ride-along with Jesse, and I held my breath during the shoot-outs, wondering if this was the moment where things would go awry or not, where things could possibly go next. I had difficulty letting go of this story to the point where I wasn’t able to start a new book for a while. Although that is not a productive feeling with regards to the to be read-pile, I love it when a book has this effect.
Bookworm in the City 