Category: History

Nannies and fault-lines: Lullaby & Latitudes of Longing

27/5/2020

Realising I needed a stronger reason for pairing these recent reads than the alliterative letter L, I nevertheless feel shabby to have linked them through the childminder role. Okay, the nanny is the protagonist of the first, although she remains a shadowy figure, but only one of many characters in the second where it’s as a mother, rather than as a parent substitute, that she advances the story. But, as was noted at the Zoom meeting of my book group discussion of Lullaby, nannies are as invisible in literature as they are in life. Rather belatedly, I also see that they’re both about fault-lines: the first metaphorically, the second geologically.

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Shadowed by violence: The Revolt & The Disaster Tourist

14/5/2020

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Strange bedfellows these two translations: the first an historical novel from France; the second a contemporary slipstream novel from South Korea. My excuse for linking them is an issue that was on my mind the day I finished the first and started the second, thanks to a non-fiction book I had ordered. Although women being blamed for sexual abuse and harassment is only a minor issue in these novels, it’s so important I make no apology for ushering it into the limelight.

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Moral issues: The Strange Adventures of H & Upturned Earth

6/5/2020

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I’ve recently read two historical novels about morality with surprising echoes of our current pandemic. The first is a fun story set in 17th-century London about a young woman concerned about losing the respect of her relatives when she turns to prostitution after becoming homeless during the Great Plague. The second is set in a copper mining community in 1850s South Africa, where lives are lost because the owners put profit before people.

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A perfectly cathartic political satire: Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony (#review and #giveaway)

23/4/2020

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In those innocent days before Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, Republican Congressman Alexander Wilson might have seemed a cartoon caricature, but I found his fictional hypocrisy and narcissism – and unwarranted optimism – immensely consoling in these rage-inducing times. We join him as the doorbell rings at his comfortable home in Virginia, on a hot day in August at the start of his re-election campaign. He’s surprised at the size of the parcel left by the FedEx delivery driver, and even more so when he unwraps it to find a stuffed aardvark and an unsigned card from his ‘lover’ (Congressman Wilson is incapable of love) Greg Tampico, President of the Namibian charity, The Happiness Foundation.

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Connected through music and literature: The Weight of a Piano & A Bookshop in Algiers

20/4/2020

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If you’re reading through the lockdown, or listening to more music, you might be interested in these two books featuring dual narratives connected via an “instrument” of the arts. The second is a translated novella set in and around a real-life bookshop and publishing house; the first is about heartbreak compounded by the fear of letting go from a publisher who mostly does translations.

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Darkness brought to light: The Sin Eater & Soot

15/4/2020

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I’ve recently read two alternative histories about what we do with the darker or unwanted parts of ourselves: how we reveal them to, or hide them from, ourselves and others; how societies develop rituals to manage the exposure and cleansing; how power effects what’s allowed. If that sounds overly intellectual, don’t worry; both of these have story at the heart.

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The Return: Shooting Down Heaven & The Great Homecoming

3/4/2020

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I’ve recently read two novels in translation featuring a homecoming to troubled parts of the world. The first is about the son of a Colombian drug baron; the second about three friends in a divided Korea. Both are firmly grounded in those countries’ painful histories; the violence and anxious atmosphere makes me grateful I’ve only the coronavirus pandemic to worry about.

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16 novels about Women’s History #WomensHistoryMonth

7/3/2020

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I’ve read a lot of excellent historical novels by female authors, but they don’t always (and this isn’t necessarily a criticism) forefront the female experience. For Women’s History Month I’ve plucked from my shelves, real and virtual, a few that particularly highlight the lives of women in days gone by. Firstly, I’m recommending 8 novels fictionalising famous and relatively unknown women; secondly I’ve selected 8 (from potentially hundreds) exploring historical happenings through a female perspective. All are from female authors who might yet become historical figures themselves!

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Staying afloat in choppy waters: Just after the Wave & On Wilder Seas

4/3/2020

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Allow me to introduce you to a pair of novels about literally and metaphorically staying afloat in choppy waters. The first is a cli-fi translated novel about abandoned children; the second a historical debut about a woman at sea in a man’s world. Both are page-turners, so read on!

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History with meddlesome jinns and fairies: The Ninth Child & The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

29/2/2020

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My two final reviews for February are of historical novels with touches of culturally-appropriate magic realism. They also feature the losses and gains of relocating from a major city to a rural area in a period of rapid social change. The first is about public health and engineering in nineteenth century Scotland; the second is set between the late twentieth century and the present in post-revolutionary Iran.

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Dislocation: The Lost Lights of St Kilda & Gun Island

21/2/2020

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These two novels feature the displacement of people and the unique cultures and environments they left behind. The first introduces us to the remote Scottish island of St Kilda whose depleted population was evacuated to the mainland in 1930. The second links Venice with the Sunderbans in the Bay of Bengal via folklore and cli-fi. Despite their complementary covers, they’re very different books.

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Survival skills for wintry weather: The Year without Summer & Snow, Dog, Foot

14/2/2020

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These two recent reads explore physical and psychological survival, or otherwise, in extreme weather conditions. The first is a historical novel about the devastating human, climactic and economic consequences of a volcanic eruption in Indonesia. The second is a translated novella about vulnerable hermit overwintering in the Italian Alps. If you choose to read either of these, you won’t be disappointed.

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Slavery’s shadow: A Tall History of Sugar & Tender Is the Flesh

10/2/2020

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Both of these novels defy easy classification, but I’ve chosen to pair them for their themes of the legacy of slavery, or the way in which owning another person demeans us all. In the first, we follow a young man, marked by his unusual appearance, from babyhood in Jamaica shortly before independence to England and back. The second is a translated Argentinian dystopian novel about cannibalism. In both novels, a character, or characters, withhold or are denied their voice.

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No prizes for guessing why I’ve paired The Slaughterman’s Daughter with The Island Child

4/2/2020

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That’s right, both novels are about daughters: the first a debut about the claustrophobic bond between mothers and daughters exacerbated by the claustrophobic island setting; the second a translation from Hebrew set in late 19th-century Russia about the consequences of a father teaching his younger daughter his unusual trade. Of course there might be other connections but, as you’ll see if you read to the end, right now, I’ve got fictional daughters on the brain.

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Women stepping in and out of traditional roles: The Shadow King & The Mercies

30/1/2020

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In what circumstances is it acceptable for women to abandon their traditional roles? What are the consequences if they should do so ill-advisedly? Although these two novels are set in different times and cultures to my own, they raised questions for me as to how far we can safely step out of line. The first novel pays homage to the forgotten women of Ethiopia who took up arms when the country was invaded by Mussolini’s troops. In the second, set in seventeenth century north Norway, the women have no choice but to do the jobs previously carried out by their menfolk when a storm at sea wipes out most of the male population, only for some to find themselves accused of witchcraft a few years later.

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Exile: A Long Petal of the Sea & Little Bandaged Days

24/1/2020

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What could these two novels possibly have in common other than the similar colours on the covers, and that I read them consecutively in the week they were published in the UK? The first is a family saga spanning six decades from the Spanish Civil War to the defeat of Pinochet in 1990s Chile from a doyenne of Latin American literature. The second is a debut about madness and motherhood. Both are concerned with exile, to and from Europe and the Americas; the latter also addressing psychological exile from the self.

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How our minds work: Tyll & Human Traces

19/1/2020

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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.