9 August 2014

The Road Between Us by Nigel Farndale


What's it all about?

This book is a wonderful example of storytelling, and despite it's often dark content, is a playful piece of narrative. The reader has to navigate between two timelines, the first being that of Charles Northcote and his lover Anselm. The year is 1939; Charles is an officer in the RAF, Anselm, a German Art student and their love is forbidden by the laws and social values of the time. As we are thrown into the midst of their relationship in a Piccadilly hotel room, I thought it seemed more like a casual fling, but once they have been separated and Anselm deported to a brutal Nazi re-education  camp, Charles dedicates every thought and action to finding and rescuing Anselm.

The second begins in April 2012, when a British diplomat, Edward Northcote, is unexpectedly released after having been held hostage in an Afghan cave for the previous eleven years.  He returns to London to find his young daughter is now an adult woman, and his beloved Danish wife has died after falling from a cliff, unsure if it was accidental or not. Straight away, I was intrigued to discover the connection between this dual narrative of the Northcote family.


5 August 2014

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created over at The Broke and the Bookish for bloggers to show off their favourite books, on a particular theme, each week.  This week, the theme is 'Top Ten Books I'd Give To Readers Who Have Never Read... YA' I've chosen YA, as firstly, that's what I've been mostly reading over the last couple of months, and secondly, because there has been quite a lot of sniffiness and snobbery about 'grown-ups' reading YA books. The most notable attack on adults reading books written for young people was written by Ruth Graham in The Slate Book Review. Many authors wrote back against this view, including Malorie Blackman who recently curated the UK's first ever YA Literature Convention (I was one of many adults in attendance).

So with out further ado, here are my picks:

1 August 2014

Close Your Pretty Eyes by Sally Nicholls

 
What's it all about?

Eleven-year-old Olivia has just moved into her sixteenth placement home, having grown-up in the care system. She is clearly a troubled child, damaged by the abuse she suffered at the hands of her own mother, and by her experiences of being 'given up on' by everyone who has looked after her so far. Nicholls uses her first person narration to weave several narrative threads together into one compelling storyline: flashbacks of Olivia's relationship with her mum, a history of her foster carers, and the present-day story of her latest home. This home is a secluded farm house that she shares with Jim, his own two children, an older fostered girl and her baby daughter. Oh, and the ghost of a notorious Victorian murderess.