Category: History

How our minds work: Tyll & Human Traces

19/1/2020

Although these two historical novels are very different, both sparked some deep reflection about the workings of the human mind, and especially how our reasoning and problem-solving is influenced by beliefs and assumptions which, in turn, are shaped by the times and cultures in which we live. Both are set primarily in mainland Europe – the first in the seventeenth century and the second towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth – and feature – predominantly in the first and latterly in the second – countries ravaged by war.

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Short stories: Protest & The Best of Fiction on the Web

14/1/2020

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Having begun the year’s reviews with a Kindle catch-up, including a couple of single-author collections, my attention was drawn to another couple of multi-author short-story anthologies waiting on my physical shelf. I don’t know why I’d neglected them. Perhaps because anthologies are harder than novels to review? Whatever reason, I’ve finally read them. Enjoyed them. And now I’m here to tell you why.

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The challenge of cognitive difference: Census & The Heavens

29/12/2019

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Both these novels feature characters who are challenged and/or challenge others with their different-from-average minds. In the first, it’s a young man with Down’s syndrome, viewed from the perspective of his loving father. In the second, it’s a young woman, latterly diagnosed with schizophrenia, who inadvertently time travels to Elizabethan England. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of book, do give me the chance to persuade you otherwise!

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My 13 favourite reads of 2019

20/12/2019

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When’s the best time to share the year’s reading highlights? Too early and there’s a risk of omitting an as-yet-unread pinnacle of literary excellence; too late and the post gets lost in the Christmas excitement, panic or lethargy. Last year, I thought I’d cracked it by divvying up my nineteen favourites across four separate posts but, having been slightly more disciplined in my selection this year, I’m posting the whole feast in one go. So, whether it’s a crackerjack or a turkey of a day for social media, here are my thirteen best books of 2019. So far!

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The Black Death: Nobber & To Calais in Ordinary Time

26/11/2019

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If I’ve reviewed any other novels set during the Black Death that swept across Europe in 1348, I’ve forgotten them. These two, published in the UK this summer, are likely to stay in my mind for some time. The first set in Ireland, the second in southern England, they’re very different, although both original in their language and style. And disturbingly topical as we’re catapulted towards an apocalypse – both politically and climatically – of our own.

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Women behind and before the camera: Delayed Rays of a Star & The Girl with the Leica

15/11/2019

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Here we have two recently published novels about women caught on camera, or doing the catching, casting a wide-angle lens on the turbulent politics of the first half of the twentieth century, with Fascism on the rise. The first zooms in on movie stars and/or makers: Anna May Wong, Leni Riefenstahl, and Marlene Dietrich. The second on Gerda Taro, a lesser-known (at least to me) feminist photojournalist, who died documenting the Spanish Civil War.

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Shatterings from soil and sky: Aftershocks & Nightingale Point

8/11/2019

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Here I’ve paired two recent British novels inspired by real-life disasters affecting entire communities: the first being the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand; the second a plane crashing into a tower block in 1996 Amsterdam. I didn’t find either easy to get into, but both rewarded patient reading. See what you think!

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Keen observers: The Measure of a Man & Bird Cottage

17/10/2019

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Sometimes, the covers of books I’ve paired for review are so well matched, despite differences in genre, it appears I’ve put them together for aesthetic reasons. But, while I like to dress my blog attractively, it’s the content that counts. These two translated novels fictionalise real-life historical figures who were meticulous observers of the world around them. The first is still celebrated 500 years later; the second has been forgotten in the half-century since her death.

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Reign of terror: Beneath the Lion’s Gaze & Girl

13/10/2019

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Two novels, based on real events, about the impact on ordinary people of terrorising revolutions within two African countries. The first, a historical novel set in Ethiopia, is the author’s debut; the second, a fictionalised account of the schoolgirls abducted in northern Nigeria only a few years ago, comes from a writer with a career spanning almost six decades. Both are harrowing, empathetic and meticulously researched.

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Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

30/9/2019

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Two historical novels in which young people are subject to brutal institutional regimes: in the first as comfort women in Singapore under the Japanese invasion; in the second as supposed offenders in Jim-Crow-era Florida. Both novels contrast the main character’s aspirations prior to captivity with their struggle to survive unspeakable cruelties with their sanity intact, and the scars they carry for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, for the reader who can vicariously accompany them, there’s some hope of redemption by the end. Read on, or jump to the end of the post for this week’s 99-word story.

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Looking back: This Is Happiness & This Tilting World

14/9/2019

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Here are two novels in which the narrator looks back on past connections: the first a coming-of-age tale during Ireland’s electrification; the second a writer’s stream-of-consciousness(ish) look at her Tunisian roots. The colour-coordinated covers is pure coincidence. This week’s 99-word story in response to the prompt ‘the greatest gift’ follows my reviews.

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Observing and conserving: Tiger & The Museum of Broken Promises

2/9/2019

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While separated by style – the first literary lyrical, the second more off-the-peg – and setting – the first wilderness, the second three cityscapes – these two novels are united by more than a character named Tomas. The main characters of both stories are preoccupied with meticulous observation of the environment: for animal research in Tiger whereas in The Museum of Broken Promises, surveillance might be a more appropriate word. And while the latter is about conserving objects and memories, nature conservation is one of the themes of the first.

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Consequences: The Man Who Saw Everything & Things That Fall from the Sky

27/8/2019

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So often our actions, or inactions, have dramatic consequences, impossible to foresee. In very different ways, these two novels address this issue, the first in relation to carelessness, the second in life-transforming chance events. Each also explores the non-linearity of time. In addition, while the first includes a translator as character, the second is a translation itself – from the Finnish, my fourth for Women in Translation month.

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Clergymen on a quest: The Wind That Lays Waste & Beastings

20/8/2019

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Too many clergymen, in my experience, set themselves above the hoi polloi, considering themselves above criticism due to their “direct line” to God. I certainly found that in the Catholic response to John Boyne’s novel on sexual abuse in the church. The Reverend Pearson, in The Wind That Lays Waste, set in rural Argentina in the recent past, is guilty of not much more than arrogance, while the Priest in Beastings, set in Cumbria in more God-fearing times, is plain evil. Both men are on a geographical and psychological mission: Pearson’s itinerant evangelism interrupted when his car breaks down, while the Priest leaves his cosy cottage for the Lake District fells on the trail of a runaway girl who knows too many of his secrets.

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Unethical experiments: The Rabbit Girls & The Confessions of Frannie Langton

18/8/2019

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Two debut novels from female British writers featuring dodgy scientific experiments on nonconsenting participants within very dark periods of history: the holocaust in the first and the transatlantic slave trade in the second. Yet, despite both also featuring women disempowered by their husbands, and voluntary and involuntary drug abuse, each contains a thread of hope in a love story.

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Fighting for reform: The Parisian & The Song of Peterloo

8/8/2019

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Two historical novels about the fight for political reform, in which a peaceful gathering of protesters is savagely put down. The first is about the Palestinian people’s struggle for independence in the years between the two world wars. The second is set in Britain a century earlier and focuses on the working-class battle for basic human rights. Of course, both are packed with interesting characters too!

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Kicking off Women in Translation Month with 8 recommendations from previous years and a new review: The Faculty of Dreams

4/8/2019

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As August is Women in Translation Month, I’m delighted that my first review of the month is a woman’s translation of a female author’s novel. It’s the twenty-first female translation I’ve read since the end of August last year, and I’ll be celebrating the other twenty – and maybe more – at the end of this month. Meanwhile, you can check out my opinion of The Faculty of Dreams, plus an overview of eight favourites from previous years.

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Three-handers between Britain and the Indian subcontinent: Dignity & The Runaways

21/7/2019

4 Comments

As my next novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, has three point-of-view characters, I’m always curious to see how others handle three-handers. But that’s not the main reason I chose to read these two novels. Both are set against the backdrop of the tangled web of history tying the Indian subcontinent with Britain. The first links the dying days of the Raj to a British-born woman of Bengali heritage settled in Wales. The second brings characters from Karachi, London and Portsmouth to the deserts of war-torn Iraq.

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Systemic infanticide: The Woman in the White Kimono & Remembered

9/7/2019

2 Comments

It’s a touchy subject, understandably, but I think there are ‘good’ psychological reasons by some women kill their babies. But the mothers in these two novels would very much have liked to have kept theirs had circumstances allowed. In the first, set in a bruised post-war Japan, Naoko is sent to an extremely dodgy maternity home when she becomes pregnant by an American sailor. In the second, set between 1860 and 1910, the women on a Maryland plantation will do anything to avoid their children growing up as slaves.

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Mothers watching over their offspring from a distance: Zeina & She Would Be King

21/5/2019

4 Comments

Two novels, set primarily in the continent of Africa, in which women are separated from a child and must resort to looking on from a distance. In the first, set in Egypt, Bodour can’t admit that a famous singer is her illegitimate child. But at least they’re in the same city. And both alive. Which is not the case in the second novel, set in Jamaica, the USA and Liberia, where the deceased mother’s voice is carried on the wind. So she does get to guide her son and his two companions, all of whom have supernatural gifts. Intrigued? Read on!

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<<Previous

How our minds work: Tyll & Human Traces

Short stories: Protest & The Best of Fiction on the Web

The challenge of cognitive difference: Census & The Heavens

My 13 favourite reads of 2019

The Black Death: Nobber & To Calais in Ordinary Time

Women behind and before the camera: Delayed Rays of a Star & The Girl with the Leica

Shatterings from soil and sky: Aftershocks & Nightingale Point

Keen observers: The Measure of a Man & Bird Cottage

Reign of terror: Beneath the Lion’s Gaze & Girl

Teenagers trapped in houses of no hope: How We Disappeared & The Nickel Boys

Looking back: This Is Happiness & This Tilting World

Observing and conserving: Tiger & The Museum of Broken Promises

Consequences: The Man Who Saw Everything & Things That Fall from the Sky

Clergymen on a quest: The Wind That Lays Waste & Beastings

Unethical experiments: The Rabbit Girls & The Confessions of Frannie Langton

Fighting for reform: The Parisian & The Song of Peterloo

Kicking off Women in Translation Month with 8 recommendations from previous years and a new review: The Faculty of Dreams

Three-handers between Britain and the Indian subcontinent: Dignity & The Runaways

Systemic infanticide: The Woman in the White Kimono & Remembered

Mothers watching over their offspring from a distance: Zeina & She Would Be King

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