The Bookman's Tale - Charlie Lovett

Peter Byerly is a shy, quiet young man who loves books and keeps to himself, but whilst away studying and working in the library at University in Ridgefield, North Carolina, in the 1980s, he one day notices a female student who he feels a strong and unprecedented attraction towards, and with whom he can finally be himself and find companionship. Amanda feels the same way; the two of them form a bond and a deep love grows between them. His other passion is formed at this time, too; he finds a joy in the repair and restoration of antiquarian books. 

As the novel opens, we meet Peter in the mid 1990s now living in a village called Kingham in Oxfordshire, England, without Amanda, who we know has now sadly died, and what happened is revealed over the course of the novel. Peter is bereft, and has been unable to face the routine of his daily life for many months. Eventually, now an antiquarian bookseller and on an outing to Hay-on-Wye, the famous book town in Wales, he uncovers a watercolour image, a portrait, in an old book. The image is of his wife, and yet it can't be; it's a Victorian picture. Shocked by the similarity, he endeavours to discover the history and origin of the portrait, and this search sets his life in motion again and leads him into the path of a potentially life-changing book-related mystery that takes him, and the reader, back to the days of Shakespeare. Whilst assessing the old book collection of a resident of Kingham, Peter stumbles across an incredible find that may just prove the provenance once and for all of what is, for some, one of the biggest mysteries in literary history; that Shakespeare really was the author of the plays attributed to him. The mystery plot in the novel explores whether Peter can prove the authenticity of his find, and if he will get himself and others killed trying to do so. 

This is an entertaining, suspenseful mystery tale that has a love of books at its very heart.  There is also a centuries-old rivalry, murder, forgery, and intrigue, with a strong and moving love story between Peter and Amanda underpinning it all; the discovery of the way they felt about each other was something neither of them had ever felt before and it changed their lives, bringing love and companionship to two previously lonely souls. It is touching how well the two relate to each other, how Amanda brings Peter out of his shell a little, and how he slowly comes to terms with her devastating loss. The author maintains Peter's social unease and effectively portrays how he gradually becomes braver and finds the strength that he will need if he is to see his quest through. 

I enjoyed the three different strands that make up the story; they were weaved together well and kept my interest. I liked the historical aspects and was entertained meeting characters from the past as we learned the history of the book in question; we are taken back to see whose hands it passed through, and where, and how it came to be where it was, and I really enjoyed this aspect of the narrative. This is an enticing story for bibliophiles. Also enjoyable was the journey around to different locations. It takes us from Hay-on-Wye, to the British Museum, via Oxfordshire, Yorkshire, Cornwall and North Carolina, too. 

It was a real escape and quite an adventure reading this novel. I read the bulk of it in the garden on a warm summer's day and it was ideal reading for escaping into and being entertained by; I was happy to allow for some of the convenient coincidences and twists in the story, and it was perhaps slightly too perfect an ending, but the adventure and history grabbed me and had me intrigued. I think reading it fairly quickly helped with keeping track of the three different time periods and holding the various events in my mind at once. It has encouraged me to want to go and read more about what is known of the lives of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 

The author evidently has a real passion for, and knowledge of, his subject here - he's a former bookseller - which comes through in his enthusiastic telling of this tale, weaving passages on restoring books and details about the clever ways of book forgers into the narrative. Overall,  I thought that The Bookman's Tale was a really good read, an absorbing and fun literary-themed mystery. 

Published by Alma Books 

Thanks to the publisher for kindly sending a proof copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

You can find the author on twitter @CharlieLovett42 and visit his website here.

The Crane Wife - Patrick Ness - guest review

Oh my word, Patrick Ness has done it again.  Like A Monster Calls and his Chaos Walking trilogy, The Crane Wife is a powerful and heart-stirring book with big themes.  It's both wise and funny, immensely readable and very memorable, this is one of those rare books that leaves me sad I've read it and don't still have it to look forward to.  I'm quite sure it will be one of my top 10 favourite books of 2013.

George, middle-aged and divorced, is woken in the night by an unearthly cry, "a mournful shatter of frozen midnight falling to earth to pierce his heart and lodge there forever, never to move, never to melt." On going out into the garden to investigate, he discovers  a large bird, a crane, wounded by an arrow through its wing.  George does what any decent man would do and removes the arrow, leaving the bird free to fly away.  The next day at work, as George mulls over these strange events, the elegant and mysterious Kumiko walks into his life, a woman who, like the cry heard in the night, will lodge in his heart, changing his life forever.

This is the hauntingly beautiful opening to a multifaceted story that's about love, imagination and beauty, and about stories. Central to the book is the love affair between George, a man who represents "safety and softness and kindness and respite" and the elusive Kumiko.  In the middle of his mundane and ordinary life, George finds something utterly extraordinary in his love for Kumiko, a love that alters not only his life, but the lives of those around him as well; and the book has something to teach all of us about love, about its possessiveness and its capacity for forgiveness, about the way love can be both selfish and selfless.

At one level, then, this is a beautiful and timeless love story with all the elements of hope, drama and despair to make your heart ache.  As Kumiko puts it, it's about "the extraordinary [that] happens all the time... Life and happiness and heartache and love."  However, rooted in the Japanese folktale of the Crane Wife, a tale that is interwoven through the story of George and Kumiko, this is also a very artfully constructed story about stories, about the stories shared and private that make up the lives of all of us.  The novel is based on age-old fables and legends, with echoes of George and the Dragon and Leda and the Swan as well as the Japanese crane wife fable, and it's a glorious hymn of praise the eternal power of story-telling, and to the sheer physical beauty of books.  George "loved physical books with the same avidity other people loved horses or wine or prog rock... What was more perfect an object than a book?" Ness also points out how every character in every story (real or fictional), and indeed every story teller, will give a slightly interpretation of the tale and, more than this, will keep the story alive with every telling. As George says, for any given incident "there were as many truths - overlapping, stewed together - as there were tellers. The truth mattered less than the story's life.  A story forgotten died. A story remembered not only lived, but grew. "  Thus Ness himself not only keeps alive the various fables that weave through The Crane Wife, but he adds in something of his own in the telling to create a new tale.  "Stories shift. They change, depending on who is doing the telling."

Of course, the way a tale is told also matters, and Ness has a genius for telling a story that captures both the reader's mind and his heart.  His writing is acute and devastatingly sharp with hardly a wasted word; it's dramatic, tender and witty, and although there is just the occasional phrase that jars slightly, for me this just highlighted the near perfection of the rest of the book.  All the way through I kept trying in vain to work out quite how he creates such yearningly, achingly beautiful stuff from mere ordinary words.  It's a marvellously alchemical gift, rather like the talent George and Kumiko have for creating mesmerisingly beautiful art from mere feathers and the pages of old books.  Although The Crane Wife is anchored very firmly in the mundane real world of George's prosaic job and narrow life, in "real life with all its disappointments", it opens windows to a world that is magical, timeless and wonderful and it stirred my heart in a way that few books can.  If you've any interest at all in love, beauty and what makes us human, you should read this book and let it work its magic on you.

Reviewed by Penny Tattersall

Published by Canongate

Thanks very much to the publisher for a review copy of this novel.

Many thanks to Penny for reading and reviewing this novel for The Little Reader Library

The Library of Unrequited Love - Sophie Divry

Translated from the French by Sian Reynolds

'To know your way round a library is to master the whole of culture, i.e. the whole world.'

I think this is a beautiful book inside and out. A lovely little hardback with a very attractively designed dust jacket, and inside a wonderful novella filled with remarkable, striking observations about books, libraries, love and life.

Sophie Divry's debut is written in the form of a monologue delivered by a librarian in the provinces who one morning discovers a reader in the library who has been locked in there all night. This reader is on the receiving end of the librarian's thoughts; subjected to hearing all about the things she loves, the things that anger and irritate her, and the person who has caught her eye. 

I read this book in just a couple of sittings, and many readers would probably finish it in just one. It's a charming and insightful little story featuring a passionate but anxious, troubled and lonely lady. The librarian feels invisible and is unhappy with the Geography section that she has been allocated, longing for her preferred section, History; indeed she divulges some of her views about this topic too. She shares her disapproval of the hierarchy of staff within the library, and her disgruntlement at readers who come to the library and simply make a mess. Whilst she complains about many things to her captive listener, she nevertheless has a strong affection for libraries and books and this shines through.

She has been hurt in love and tells us she avoids it now, with her job helping her cope with all that bothers her: 'the library works like an anaesthetic for my hang-ups.' She reveals that she has noticed a man, Martin, who has been coming to the library, and he is evidently in her thoughts a good deal - she movingly discloses how beautiful she finds him, but her past hurt holds her back, and she seeks safety and solace in books:

'So men, no, that's all over. Love, for me, is something I find in books. I read a lot, it's comforting. You're never alone if you live surrounded by books. They lift my spirit. The main thing is to be uplifted.'

The author has captured the magic and joy of books and reading and the pleasure found in a library and conveyed this so well through the librarian. Her voice held my attention throughout. I think most bookworms will find elements here that they agree with, or that make them smile or chuckle, or ponder - I certainly did. All in all this is a lovely little book with much that will resonate with keen readers.

I marked and noted so many little passages as I read this book that I must share a couple more of my favourites here at the end of this review - there are so many perceptive gems to be discovered in Sophie Divry's writing.

'You know, in my job, there's nothing more exciting, to make you feel more wanted, than to be able to size up the person in front of you, guess what they're after, find the book they need on the shelves and bring the two together. Book and reader, if they meet up at the right moment in a person's life, it can make sparks fly, set you alight, change your life.'

'I prefer the company of books. When I'm reading, I'm never alone, I have a conversation with the book. It can be very intimate. Perhaps you know this feeling yourself? The sense that you're having an intellectual exchange with the author, following his or her train of thought and you can accompany each other for weeks on end.'

Published by Maclehose Press

Thanks very much to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 

This book is another read for me in the 2013 Translation Challenge

Women of a Dangerous Age - Fanny Blake - Guest Author Q&A!

I am thrilled to welcome author Fanny Blake to the blog today!

Fanny is the Books Editor of Women & Home magazine, and recently her second novel, Women of a Dangerous Age, was published by Blue Door, an imprint of HarperCollins. 

You can connect with Fanny Blake on Twitter @FannyBlake1 and through www.facebook.com/FannyBlakeBooks

My review of Women of a Dangerous Age is coming soon.

Synopsis from the publisher:

Can you ever truly escape from the mistakes of the past?
Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Buchan, Elizabeth Noble and Katie Fforde this is a warm and witty novel about women, relationships and why it’s never too late to change.
Lou is married to a man who no longer loves her. It’s time to move on, to begin a new business venture and to start her life over.
To celebrate her new-found freedom, she travels to India, where, in front of the Taj Mahal, she befriends Ali after taking each other’s photographs on ‘that’ bench.
Ali is a serial mistress. But when she returns home, she discovers her latest lover is not the man she took him for. She too needs a new beginning.
As Lou and Ali put their pasts behind them, they start to discover new possibilities for life and for love, until the shocking realisation that they have far more in common than they thought.

* Q&A with Fanny Blake *

·         ‘Women of a Dangerous Age’, your new novel, depicts two women, Lou and Ali, who are both facing major changes or turning points in their lives when they become friends. Could you tell us a little more about your inspiration for the novel and your motivation for writing it please?

I wanted to write about a woman who had reached one of those turning points when she looks at her life and thinks, ‘Is this it?’ Does there come a point when it’s too late to change? As I mulled it over, Lou and Ali came into my head, two women at quite different turning points. Lou is leaving her marriage and wanting independence while Ali is looking for commitment. They make friends in India but when they get home, a revelation threatens their friendship. I wanted to write about women of a certain age, about the importance of friendship and the possibilities for change.

·         I love reading which books have been recommended and featured every month in Woman & Home Magazine. As the Books Editor of the magazine, do you have a large number of new books to read all year round, and is it difficult choosing what to feature in each issue?

Thanks. That’s really good to hear. Yes, the postman arrives with anything between three to ten proofs of new novels to be published later in the year. Opening them means it’s a bit like Christmas every day. It is difficult to choose what to feature, because there’s never enough room to include all I’d like. However, I try to feature as many different kinds of novel as possible – eg crime, historical, literary debuts, brand-name fiction – so there’s something on there for everyone. Selecting them that way does help narrow it down.

·         Have you always loved to read since being a child? Have you noticed your reading tastes change over the years?

I remember once my sister and I were put to sleep in a caravan parked in the drive of my parents’ friends’ house. While they had dinner, I was left with a pile of Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven books. I’d never heard of them but I was completely gripped. After that, I never looked back. I’ve always had a very wide-ranging taste in reading. If anything, it grew even wider over the many years I worked as an editor and publisher. The only fiction I’m not very comfortable with is science fiction and fantasy. I was taught by one of my bosses that what matters, isn’t the category into which a book falls, but the quality of the writing and/or storytelling. If it’s good enough, the chances are you’ll be won over.

·         Have you always wanted to write fiction?

I didn’t think about it until I did so I suppose not. Not consciously anyway. When I worked in publishing, writing fiction was definitely what other people did. They wrote and I edited. It wasn’t until I’d become a journalist and written several non-fiction books that I began to think that I could write a novel. I had several false starts. Perhaps because I didn’t really know what I wanted to write about. But eventually I hit on the characters and the theme of What Women Want, a novel about the importance of women’s friendship.

·         Which writers have inspired you, whether present day or past?

That’s so difficult to answer because there are so many I love to read. I couldn’t say who in particular has inspired me. At university I read and loved all those classics, Mrs Gaskell, George Elliot, the Brontes, Jane Austen and Dickens. But now, I tend to read and admire contemporary novelists such as Anne Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, Ian McEwan, Mark Haddon, Anne Michaels, Hilary Mantel, William Boyd, Susan Hill to name but a very few. I also read a lot of crime from Ruth Rendell and PD James through to Jo Nesbo  or Karin Slaughter.

·         What do you enjoy most about writing? What is the most difficult thing about it?

I love sitting down and escaping into a world populated by the characters I’ve created. There’s nothing more satisfying than making a particular scene work. At the same time there’s nothing more frustrating when I can’t get it right. The most difficult thing is making myself sit down and do it when I’m going through a bad patch. The worst point for me seems to be at about a third of the way through when I’ve got all the balls in the air and I feel like they’re all going to come crashing down. That’s when doing almost anything else, even the ironing, is preferable.

·         What is your ideal or perfect environment for writing? Is there such a place for you?

I can write anywhere - on a plane, a train, in someone’s spare room – but I prefer being in my tiny work room at home, especially when I’ve got the house to myself. The book proofs that keep arriving mean that the room’s a constant mess and it’s dangerously near the kitchen and the biscuit tin but … it’s very peaceful and overlooks the garden (which, to be honest, is a bit of a jungle) and I can hear the birds and the children playing next door. I’ve got my computer and an endless supply of peppermint tea to keep me happy. If I want a change of scene, or the kitchen’s full of people (a hazard if you’ve got grown kids still living at home), then I’ve just discovered the joys of working in bed. Always great – so long as no one else is in it!

·         Can you tell us what you are working on at the moment, in terms of writing – are you working on another novel?

I’ve almost finished my third novel. After that I’ve got ideas for the fourth and fifth as well, which I’m looking forward to getting to in due course.

·         If you could meet any fictional character, who would you choose?

Again, so many to choose from. But, today, I’ll plump for Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. She’s strong-willed, independent-minded and straight-talking. I think she’d be pretty interesting and fun to spend some time with.

Thanks so much for taking part in the Q&A, Fanny!