Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel

Synopsis

DAY ONE

The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb.

News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%.

WEEK TWO

Civilization has crumbled.

YEAR TWENTY

A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe.

But now a new danger looms, and he threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan - warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'.

Thrilling, unique and deeply moving, this is a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything - even the end of the world. 

Review

'We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all.'

What an amazing read. 

I absolutely loved this novel, it is incredibly thought-provoking, shocking, sad, yet also strangely uplifting at times. It's clever, inventive, impressive, at times chilling and haunting, at times heartwarming, and quite unlike anything I think I have ever read before really. I think I was unsure whether it would be a book for me, and I'm so glad I started reading it because I would have missed out on such a captivating, important book if I hadn't. 

The narrative is so beautifully knitted together over the course of the book. I was absorbed by this story, it deserves all the praise and plaudits it has received. 

I loved each of the characters - I think my favourites were Jeevan, Kirsten and Clark though - and I just loved how the author brought their stories together. Her evident storytelling skills and marvellous imagination bring us a frighteningly vivid and conceivable scenario for our planet's future, her understanding of the best and worst of human behaviour gives us an insight into a strange, unfamiliar version of our world, yet with common bonds of friendship and love, appreciation of music and theatre - most of all Shakespeare, cleverly woven into the story - , families and beauty, living on. 

By sharing these catastrophic times with the reader through poignant details of several individuals' lives, we can identify with them, and the momentous changes are almost given more impact through the small yet devastating details we learn (I hope that makes sense). So when I read 'Jeevan was standing by the window when the lights went out. There was a stupid moment or two when he stood near the front door, flipping the light switches. On/off, on/off', I knew that this small thing, an action we all do so many times per day, was actually huge, life-changing, now, because that was the last time, because the power was gone, full stop. 

It’s an extremely memorable book. The characters and some of the circumstances are still vividly in my mind now and it feels like they'll be there for some time to come. For me it was a page-turner yet I did actually sometimes put it down because I wanted to savour it, and to save some of it a bit longer; I didn't want the experience of reading it to be over too quickly.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the book even when I wasn't reading it though; I was either thinking about the situations one or the other of the characters were in, or thinking about how I might feel if I actually was one of them. I don't want to say much about what happens or how things change because you need to discover that as you read, but I was particularly fascinated by the airport and life there after the pandemic, as well as life on the road for the Travelling Symphony, and for Jeevan. 

It's beyond hard to comprehend the level of devastation that has occurred in the world of this story, to image a life continuing without so very many of the people and things that we treasure. 

It really made me think about our lives and our world, it made me appreciate a lot of things in the world anew - definitely a good thing - and it beautifully highlights what is most important to humanity. 

I don't think I can get anywhere near doing it justice, please do try it though and don't be put off by the 'dystopian' tag - I am not a reader of post-apocalyptic fiction, or anything particularly futuristic, but I thought this was amazingly good. If this review comes off as overly enthusiastic it's because that's how I feel about this book. 

I love the cover design too. It was really hard to know what to read next after this book because it was superlative in so many ways, everything else seemed not quite right for a while afterwards.

Just a superb, brilliant book and one of my absolute favourite reads this year so far. 

~~~~~

Reviews by other bloggers: Curiosity Killed the Bookworm | For Winter Nights | Pamreader | Sarah's Book Shelves | Lit Nerd |

Black Chalk - Albert Alla - Guest Book Review

Published by Garnet Publishing

Guest review by Janice Lazell-Wood

This is the unsettling story of how Nate Dillingham’s life changed one afternoon, when his classmate, Eric Knight, walked into their physics class and started shooting. 

Nate is the sole survivor and only witness. While he is recuperating in hospital from a stomach wound he received that day, journalists and police are at him wanting to know the truth. Trying desperately to repress unwanted memories, and dealing with crippling guilt, Nate feels the only way he can cope is to run away, and, on his 18^th birthday, he does just that.

After eight years of travelling and trying to hide from the truth, he finally returns to face his demons to find he’s not the only one who’s been affected by the traumatic events of that day, those that he loves have been through hell as well. 

When he meets Leona, a grounded 19 year old, who fascinates him, Nate is smitten and they begin a passionate relationship. However, when the realisation dawns as to just who she is, all the memories, pain and guilt he has tried to quash are brought to the forefront once more. He finally opens up to her (and the reader), and we get the whole shocking story of that day. 

Told by Nate himself, this is a gripping and affecting story.  I wanted to know the reasons behind the shooting, what Nate saw, and how things were going to work out for him and Lorna.  When the end comes, I was left wanting more.  An excellent debut novel, and one which comes recommended. 

My thanks goes to Lindsay for giving me the chance to review this novel.

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

Elizabeth is Missing - Emma Healey

'There's so much I can't remember, perhaps I have got it completely wrong,...'

Maud is 82 and has dementia, she forgets a lot of things, unable to recall what she's just done, what she was intending to do, which results in cups of tea left standing forgotten, trips to the shop that leave her baffled as to what she went for, and even more sadly, the inability at times to even recognise her daughter Helen or her granddaughter Katy. Maud keeps scribbled notes, crumpled in her pocket, lying around her house, or in her bag, but she can't even rely on these when she can't recall what they meant, or why she'd written them. 

Something that keeps recurring in her thoughts though, is the notion that her friend Elizabeth, who she worked with at the Oxfam shop and who she gets on well with, is missing. Her mind keeps returning to this thought, she is certain about it, and keeps mentioning it again and again, it's a mystery that keeps nagging at her mind, breaking through even when so much else cannot. And there's something else, something in the back of her mind, a deep sadness from her past, where another mystery hides, without an answer, unless Maud can manage to break through the confusion and uncover it. 

Elizabeth is Missing is cleverly written and poignant. It offers an unflinching, frank portrayal of a person with dementia and at the same time an engaging storyline. I loved how the narrative skipped between the present and the past, and sometimes they ran into each other, people or events were muddled just like in Maud's mind. It is moving and honest in its exploration of dementia, offering a powerful and frank depiction of the effects of this illness. 

It is so sad because there are moments when Maud has a self-awareness and is conscious of how she must come across, sad when even the most mundane of situations becomes very difficult and the times when the reader fears she may end up in danger, and so sad when she is unable to recognise her loved ones, her daughter Helen who does so much for her and endures so much. I felt as I read that I understood a little of how desperately difficult it was for Maud, and for Helen, Emma Healey has conveyed this vividly through her writing, by depicting a lot of everyday occurences and showing how they are affected or complicated by Maud's illness. 

Yet the story is not without humour, there are light touches and moments that made me smile; a moment I particularly liked was when Maud was at the library, uninterested in reading mystery novels, her thoughts are that 'I don't think I'm quite up to that. I have enough mystery in my life as it is.'

As to the mystery elements, there are clues that allow us to suppose we might know what could have happened, in the present and the past, and I was interested to read on and discover the resolution to both parts, though I had an idea of what the truth might be with regard to the past before it was revealed. I enjoyed revisiting the past with Maud, hearing about her in her younger days just after the Second World War and the mystery surrounding the disappearance of her sister Sukey. 

For me though the strongest part of the novel is the depiction of Maud herself, a memorable character who made me smile, made me feel very sad, whose determination I admired, whose memory loss I mourned. There are lovely, clever and relevant little illustrations heading up each chapter and are worth paying attention to as the thread of the mystery progresses. This is an insightful, moving, at times heartbreaking debut novel of memory, families, love and loss.  I didn't want to put it down and feel glad to have read it.

Thanks to the publisher for kindly sending me a review copy of this novel.

Published by Penguin
Author links - twitter @ECHealey | website |

There's a great post on JacquiWine's Journal about an evening at Waterstones Picadilly with the author discussing the novel. 

Ghostwritten - Isabel Wolff

'...we should embrace all our memories, whether joyful or painful. They're all we ever really own in this life.'

Jenni is a ghostwriter; she loses herself in the details and intricacies of the lives of others partly to avoid facing up to aspects of her own life in the present and the past. At her friend Nina's wedding, Jenni meets someone who suggests his mother, Klara, now approaching her eightieth birthday, may be ready to record her memoirs; she has a traumatic, moving, life story to share, and has thus far never divulged many of the details to anyone else, even her family. Jenni is keen to follow-up on this, but when she discovers exactly where Klara lives, a little village in Cornwall named Polvarth, she hesitates to take the job on, as the place holds distressing memories. 

I was soon drawn deeply into this moving, compelling story, it offered me an insight into a setting and a part of history and the world that I knew little about. Klara was Dutch and spent her childhood in Java (now Indonesia) where her father had gone to run a rubber plantation. She grew up happily there at first, with friends amongst other workers' families and amongst the locals too. Then the Second World War, which at first seemed distant from them, arrived on Java, and brought with it huge changes for them all, and terrifying times, her father taken away, then Klara and her mother and brother Peter interned in a camp and kept there in deprivation by the occupying Japanese troops. I learned about tenko, the experience of the roll-call faced by the women and children, and I read how badly people were treated; some of their experiences are very upsetting and harrowing indeed to read about. I was interested, and saddened, to learn not only of these times, but also the period immediately following the end of the war, when it was still so difficult for some of the survivors to find a place to call home where they would be welcomed - neither Indonesia nor Holland seemed entirely hospitable.

Isabel Wolff has evidently researched the period and the setting thoroughly to authenticate her story of Klara’s experiences. In Klara, she has created a strong, admirable and brave woman who has endured and thrived despite her terrible experiences as a girl. I felt that having read this story I had been through it with her, the time and place is brought to life by the author and I got to know them. The voice is clever too, though Klara is an older lady now, she recounts her childhood experiences very much with that child's voice I felt, which felt right. 

Jenni’s story also grabbed me. I wondered if she would ever be able to discuss and reconcile herself to the events of her past, and move forwards. Would her relationship with her partner, schoolteacher Rick, be strong enough, would they be able to reconcile over the fact that Rick would like to have children and Jenni doesn't. I felt an understanding of her, and also very sad for her, that she still carried such a burden regarding events when she was a child, and that they still affected her life so deeply, keeping her in the background of her own life. The author touches insightfully on the experiences of those with a close family bond as a child versus those who have a lonely childhood.

The friendship and trust that grew between these two women was wonderful to witness, I loved how they got on. They share a common bond, how the past has affected them both; both had aspects of their childhoods in effect stolen away from them and are carrying a deep sadness from the past, and the novel explores the gradual facing up to what happened. Memories are recalled, painful, difficult, at times awful, but there is hope and friendship, love and the opportunity for overcoming loss and tragedy to move forwards. Klara is inspiring to Jenni: 

'She'd coped with her memories, in silence, and despite her sadness had made a good life for herself. I needed to do the same.'

I was impressed by this novel, it was a fascinating, absorbing and well-researched read with the historical and present day aspects combining well, and with two engaging, resilient lead female characters, the kind of story that will linger in my mind. I loved the beautiful book cover design which fitted the story very well. The title is fitting; as well as Jenni's career, there are the ghosts of the past in both women's lives which still haunt them.

Thank you to the author for kindly sending me a copy of this novel for an honest review. 

Author links - twitter @IsabelWolff | facebook 

Published by HarperCollins

Road Ends - Mary Lawson

(This is a book I read and wrote the review for a little while ago, but kept back until nearer the publication date.)


This is the third novel by Canadian-born writer Mary Lawson. It tells of twenty-five-year-old Tom Cartwright, his sister Megan, and their father Edward, and the rest of their large family, in Struan, a small town in northern Canada. The paths of the three characters that Lawson focuses on run parallel, moving back and forwards in time a few years apart, each strand gradually reveals itself, and then the three are brought together as events very cleverly converge.

It’s the 1960s, Tom is intelligent and had a promising career ahead of him as an aeronautical engineer, but is withdrawn and hides himself away after the tragic death of his friend. Megan has at last escaped, to London, but worries for the welfare of her mother and brothers; as the only daughter, and with her mother only managing to care for her latest baby, the rest of the family of boys and men were under her care before she left. Edward looks back on his difficult memories of a violent father, and explores the remaining extracts of his mother’s diaries that recall the Ontario silver rush of the 1900s. He struggles to connect with his own family; he has regrets and wonders how his life got to where it is now, he hides away in his study and dreams of traveling, not noticing what is happening to his family.

Each of the three main characters is honestly, convincingly and roundly portrayed. Road Ends is beautifully written; a well-crafted, evocative tale that slowly captivates the reader, an eloquent, measured and touching story of tragedy, regret but also hope, and of the longing for independence and the chance to follow individual dreams, versus a sense of duty and responsibility.

I felt warmth and compassion towards these people; Mary Lawson conveys their dreams and sadness with poignancy and sincerity. I was intrigued by Edward’s past, by whether Tom’s life would change, and by Megan’s strength, her bravery and independence in coming to England and forging her own career. The locations are vividly realised; I could almost feel the wintery weather in Canada; she brings the surroundings to life and the landscape has a real part to play. I loved Mary Lawson’s previous novels and I relished the fine storytelling by her here once again. It is a captivating novel and a joy to read.

Published by Chatto and Windus
Reviewed for WeLoveThisBook

Book Beginnings - Gillespie and I - Jane Harris

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays - The idea is 'to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.' Hash tag #BookBeginnings for twitter and a master linky list on the host's blog.

I haven't managed to join in for a little while, and I'm not sure what week number I got to so I'll leave that out, but I do love this meme, and it's nice to be taking part again.

I'm reading Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, published by Faber and Faber.

Isn't the cover beautiful? 

(This is the UK paperback edition. The hardback also has a lovely cover design, different to this but incorporating some of the same elements.)

Here's the beginning...

Preface

Tuesday, 11 April 1933

London

It would appear that I am to be the first to write a book on Gillespie. Who, if not me, was dealt that hand? Indeed, one might say, who else is left to tell the tale? Ned Gillespie: artist, innovator, and forgotten genius; my dear friend and soul mate. I first became acquainted with Gillespie in the spring of 1888 and during the course of several years thereafter we were connected through the most intimate of friendships.

~~~~~

Have you read this novel? What did you think of it? 

I am so glad to finally be reading this book. In fact I've been reading it for the past few days and I'm very close to the end now - it's a brilliant read. The characters have me fascinated, none more so than Harriet herself, who is the narrator in the above excerpt from the start of the novel. 

I loved The Observations, the first novel by this writer, in fact that's one of my favourite books. I intended to read this second novel a long time before now. I'm not sure what stopped me, a combination of things, but it's an excellent book and here I am finally near to finishing it, hooray!

Here's the author's website if you're interested in finding out more.

Have a great weekend whatever you are reading!

~~~~~

About the book...

As she sits in her Bloomsbury home, with her two birds for company, elderly Harriet Baxter sets out to relate the story of her acquaintance, nearly four decades previously, with Ned Gillespie, a talented artist who never achieved the fame that she maintains he deserved.

Back in 1888, the young, art-loving Harriet arrives in Glasgow at the time of the International Exhibition. After a chance encounter, she befriends the Gillespie family and soon becomes a fixture in all of their lives. But when tragedy strikes - leading to a notorious criminal trial - the promise and certainties of this world all too rapidly disintegrate into mystery and deception.

Featuring a memorable cast of characters, infused with atmosphere and period detail, and shot through with wicked humour, Gillespie and I is a powerful and haunting second novel from one of today’s most striking new voices.

The Moon Field - Judith Allnatt

The novel opens with an intriguing prologue in which a tin box and its contents are described; immediately the reader is keen to discover the provenance of these objects. It is 1914, and eighteen-year-old George Farrell is a postman who has befriended, and secretly fallen for, Violet Walter, a young woman whose grand home he delivers to on his rounds in the villages around the fells in the Northern Lake District. One day, he delivers a letter to Violet, preparing to declare his true emotions to her, however, when she reveals the contents of the letter - she is in love with another man - he knows he cannot. Desperately disappointed, he flees, makes some new friends, drowns his sorrows, and against his peace-loving family’s wishes, and indeed his own prior pacifist beliefs, he enlists to fight in the war. Those he leaves behind, his family and his colleagues at the post office, including the owner’s daughter, George’s dear best friend Kitty, await anxiously for news.

The Moon Field is a moving story of the innocence, joy and pain of young love and of a changing society in a world altered forever, told through understated yet powerful prose. Judith Allnatt writes beautifully, with honesty and compassion, about 1914-15, the bravery of George in going to fight, the tragedy and futility he sees, his loved ones at home always fearing the worst but hoping for the best.

I loved the strong evocation of time and place, the feeling of an ordinary, decent young man’s innocence being lost forever so that he no longer recognises in himself the man he was before, and the idea of whether it is possible to rediscover joy in life after witnessing such senseless loss and experiencing desperate sadness. 

The Moon Field is a very good read, and a timely and fitting novel with 2014 seeing the centenary of the start of World War One – it reminds us of what must have been the terrible reality of those times; ordinary young men like George heroically offering themselves up in the patriotic defence of their country, only to discover the cruel realities and horror of the war.

Source - We Love This Book - thanks to them for a review copy of this novel

Publisher - HarperCollins - 16th January 2014