Three Very Different Recommended Reads

Along with quite a few books that have featured on this blog - it's great to see so much shared enjoyment - here are three stand-out books I've discovered that I can heartily recommend:

Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake and with pictures by Jon Klassen
This whimsical children's chapter book (think Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh) is highly recommended for all ages. The first book in a new series, it follows Badger, a workaholic rock scientist who has lived alone in his aunt's house for three years doing important rock work. He lives a simple, ordered life until one day there is a skunk with a red suitcase tied up with twine knocking at his door. If Badger had read the letters from Aunt Lula, he would have known that Skunk was going to move in with him. Skunk, outgoing, friendly, helpful (maybe too helpful?) a good cook (but a messy cook) like Badger, has quirky interests. With humour and wonderfully rich illustrations, this delightful book expounds the values of compromise, understanding the viewpoints of others, as well as love and kindness.

The Last Hours by Minette Walters

Usually known for her psychological novels, Minette Walters can also write compelling and captivating historical fiction. The Last Hours is set in England in 1348 as the Black Death is starting to spread across the land. While her brutal husband is away negotiating a husband for their spoilt 14-year-old daughter, Lady Anne hears news of the plague. Educated by nuns and therefore with knowledge of good hygiene and the practice of isolation to keep sickness away, she brings their 200 serfs inside the moat of their manor house and lifts up the drawbridge. With the support of the elder serfs, Gyles and Thaddeus, this strong and memorable heroine takes charge at this frightening time, having already been quietly running the demesne efficiently and compassionately behind her nasty husband's back. How will they survive with food running low and with attacks from raiding parties? This character driven novel drew me in and with a few secrets to reveal and some unresolved business, I am looking forward to returning to Develish in the sequel, The Turn of Midnight.

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce
This heart-warming story of unexpected female friendship, resilience and second chances as well as the lasting effects of war, had me cheering for Margery Benson, a single domestic science teacher who had lost her brothers and father in WWI. Advertising for an assistant to travel with her to the New Caledonian jungle to find an undiscovered species of golden beetle, she finds she has engaged the very unusual Enid Pretty. But, unbeknown to them, they are also being followed by Mr Mundic, a traumatised ex-prisoner of war. Another novel with plenty of surprises, great atmosphere and contrasts from austere, post-war Britain to the sun, heat and dangers of New Caledonia, written by a talented author.

Posted by VT

101 Packed Lunch Ideas by Jennene Plummer

This book provides fresh inspiration for jaded lunch box providers everywhere and let's face it, that's most of us at one time or another. With one or two recipes per page and a full colour photo of the completed and styled food opposite, the recipes are well presented and the food looks very appealing. The recipes come with Top Tips such as storage ideas and how to vary the recipes, as well as ideas of what else to pop in the lunchbox with the main item. Published in Sydney, all measurements are in metrics and metric cups and spoons.

Sandwiches and wraps, salads, savoury snacks and sweet treats are all covered and would be suitable for children, teenagers and adults alike. As well as lunches the recipes are suitable for many other occasions such as after school snacks, picnics, or other gatherings.

I made the Glazed Chicken Drumettes on page 109, which were quick and easy to make and very tasty. Some family members made the Hidden Vegie Sausage Rolls on page 54 and they tasted wonderful while at the same time increasing our vegie intake and being a welcome addition to a pot luck tea. Lastly I made the Raspberry Ripple Cupcakes, page 46, with some raspberries languishing in my deep freeze and they too were popular with everyone. Beetroot and Pumpkin Salad, page 110, is next on my list to make, while I would also like to give the Cornflake Cookies on page 134 a go!

So, do your health and wallet a favour, and at the same time take the hard work out of making lunches by having a look at this helpful book. Enjoy!

Posted by VT

Catalogue link: Woman's Day 101 Packed Lunch Ideas

Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce

The idea for Dear Mrs Bird was born, the author tells us, when she began reading letters and articles from wartime magazines. They were so interesting, she began to collect magazines from this era. Set in 1941 in London, and narrated by young Emeline (Emmy) Lake, Dear Mrs Bird is a story that is at times humorous and heart-warming and at other times sad.

Emmy, feeling unfulfilled in her current work, answers a job advertisement thinking it will lead to her dream position of Lady War Correspondent. However, there is an unfortunate misunderstanding at her interview, and she finds herself typing letters for the frightening Mrs Bird, the agony aunt at Women’s Friend magazine.

Emmy is a kind, cheerful young woman, who when told by Mrs Bird to bin any letters containing any form of unpleasantness, secretly decides to write back to the despairing women who sent them.The dialogue between Emmy and her best friend Bunty and also her friends at the Auxiliary Fire Service where Emmy volunteers as a telephone operator is one of the highlights of the novel as it feels so true to the times.

Dear Mrs Bird is an engaging story of the friendships, courage, generosity and warmth of spirited but ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. I am so pleased I was recommended this novel by Janet, one of our library customers. Like Janet, I really enjoyed A J Pearce’s debut novel and hope she writes many more.

Posted by VT

Catalogue link: Dear Mrs Bird

Ladies in Black by Madeleine St John

If you’re a fan of feel-good novels then you might like to try the enjoyable Ladies in Black. Originally published as Women in Black, this edition has been published to go with the musical and feature film, with the slightly altered title.

Author Madeleine St John was born in Sydney but moved firstly to the USA and then to England. This, the first of her four novels is the only one to be set in Australia.

Sydney 1959 and bookish sixteen-year-old Lesley Miles (renaming herself Lisa) has finished her school leaving exams. With the approaching Christmas rush and the New Year sales, Lisa has found employment at the renowned Goodes Department Store in the centre of Sydney.

Lisa is assigned to the Ladies Frocks Department where she meets Miss Cartwright the buyer, Miss Jacobs, Mrs Williams (Patty), and Miss Baines (Fay) who work in Ladies Cocktail. Just past the cocktail frocks is an archway with the sign “Model Gowns” and presiding over this rose pink cave is Magda “… luscious, the svelte and full-bosomed, beautifully tailored and manicured and coiffed…” Magda is all this and a continental!

Magda takes an interest in the childish looking Lisa and so the life-changing summer begins for not only Lisa but also Patty and Fay. Amusing, witty, and clever, be prepared to be transported back in time to the fifties!

Posted by VT

Catalogue link (book): Ladies in Black

Catalogue link (DVD): Ladies in Black

The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village – Joanna Nell

If you enjoyed Three Things about Elsie (Joanna Cannon) and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachael Joyce), chances are you will be a fan of Joanna Nell’s first novel, The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village.

It’s the funny, heart warming and life affirming story of Peggy Smart, who at 79 and a half lives alone in a retirement village with her aging Shih Tzu Basil, while still grieving for her late husband who died four years previously. Her adult son and daughter are anxiously watching for signs of dementia and falls, and Peggy fears being removed from her own home and uprooted to a rest home.

With her weak bladder, an affliction she’s suffered from since childhood, weekly doctors appointments and aqua class there isn’t much to enjoy in life apart from watching her neighbour, Lexus driving, chartered accountant Brian leave for his morning swim. Peggy dreams of inviting Brian to dinner but fears she’s past it and that he wouldn’t be interested in her.

However out of the blue her old school friend, the glamorous and beautiful fashionista Angie Valentine, moves into the same retirement village, turning the heads of the few male residents and challenging Peggy’s ideas of aging. After a fall results in a broken wrist for Peggy, Angie takes her under her wing. With a fashion makeover, a new hairstyle and a new group of friends, the fun and mischief start for Peggy.

There’s lots of laugh-out-loud humour in this fun story, with the delightful Peggy being a little forgetful and also inclined to mix her metaphors, mishear words and utter malapropisms (“orgasms on the kitchen counter” “blue teeth”), while at the same time focusing attention on some of the difficulties the older generations face.

This UK born but Sydney based GP/novelist with an interest in women's health and aging believes that being a doctor makes her a better writer and that being a writer makes her a better doctor too. Joanna’s warm wisdom and understanding is certainly apparent throughout the book which is sure to be enjoyed both by Peggy’s generation and the children of that generation. I will be watching out for Joanna’s next book.

Highly recommended.

Posted by VT

Catalogue link: The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village

The New Mrs Clifton by Elizabeth Buchan

Author Elizabeth Buchan explores the themes around women's lives and changing social views post World War Two. Described as historical fiction, The New Mrs Clifton is a gripping, authentic feeling novel, building to a dramatic climax. The ongoing mystery and twists up to the last page had me hooked.

London's Clapham Common, 1974, and a young couple discover a skeleton wrapped around the roots of an old sycamore tree on their new property. The pathologist dated the young woman’s death between 1945 and 1947, noting that the trauma to the back of the head was considerable and that she had probably been killed by a blunt object.

The novel then winds back to Clapham Common in 1945, where Gus Clifton, former barrister turned intelligence agent and secretly married in Berlin, is arriving with his new German bride Krista to Gus's family home where his two sisters Julia and Tilly live. His siblings find his behaviour truly shocking - why has he married Krista who is, after all, the enemy? Gus and Krista are not in love, she's not pregnant and why did he change his mind about Nella, his beautiful loyal fiancée and close friend of the two sisters?

The characters are all so compelling and well-drawn that I felt for them all. Krista, who had seen and experienced terrible horrors in the war and now living in London, hated and rejected by practically everyone except her husband; Julia, whose RAF husband Martin was lying dead somewhere in Europe and whose baby daughter born far too soon after the shock of Martin's death, did not survive; Tilly, a damaged bohemian who had freedom during the war but has difficulty with post war life; and Nella who along with her brother Teddy cannot understand Gus's rejection of her in favour of Krista. The two families' close relationship pre-war begin to unravel.

Posted by VT

Catalogue link: The New Mrs Clifton

The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester

While not a detective story this first novel by Julia Rochester relies on the element of surprise and I simply could not put it down until it was finished in one day. The narrator Morwenna is eighteen years old at the start and she and her twin brother Corwin live with their unhappily married parents and paternal grandfather, Matthew, on the family estate near the coast in Devon.

The twins' mother hates the place while both her husband and father-in-law have centred their lives on the property. Matthew is an artist who has for years been working on an enormous painting of the estate and the surrounding area. The twins have a very unusually close relationship even for twins.

One evening the twins' father, while walking home drunk from the pub with a friend, falls to his death from the cliff top. Soon after his death the twins move away to start their separate adult lives, Corwin in Africa and Morwenna to London. However after years away, they return to the family home and question their father's death.

If novels about families and their secrets are your thing then this book is well worth looking at.

Posted by VT

Catalogue link: The House on the Edge of the World

My Holiday Reading

Holidays are perfect for catching up with books that have been languishing on your MUST READ list, for reading new releases or maybe watching a DVD or two as I discovered recently.

Still Alice, the debut award-winning novel of Lisa Genova, first published in 2007, is the moving story of Alice Howlan. After experiencing episodes of forgetfulness and then becoming lost in her own neighbourhood, Alice is diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of fifty.  A highly respected academic, wife and mother to three adult children, Lisa’s memory loss changes her relationships with her colleagues and family: her equally high achieving husband; her eldest daughter, a lawyer who is struggling to get pregnant; son who is in his third year at medical school; and younger daughter keen to follow an acting career.  Genova who has a Ph.D in neuroscience writes convincingly and the novel's topic of Alzheimer's is very relevant to many families.  If DVD’s are more your thing then there is a film adaptation available to hire at Hastings District Libraries, with Julianne Moore in the role of Alice, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Resistance is Futile by Jenny T Colgan is a romantic comedy/science fiction novel, perfect for summer holiday reading.  Red-haired mathematician Connie is recruited along with five other mathematicians to solve a top secret code in Cambridge under mysterious circumstances. Humour (including maths puns), romance and interesting geeky characters make this a fun read.

The regular cast of characters are all back in the latest instalment of Alexander McCall Smith’s The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Precious and Grace.  The main investigative thread follows Susan, a woman living in Canada for over thirty years, but who began life living in Botswana. As a child, Susan was distraught at having to leave when her parents changed jobs. However Mma Ramotswe is also kept busy as always with solving dilemmas affecting others she works with, such as Charlie the former apprentice mechanic, Fanwell the other apprentice and Grace, now what is her official title these days?  No story would be complete without Violet Sephotho threatening to spoil Grace’s happiness and Mma Potokwani’s restorative fruit cake and tea all under the wide sky of Botswana.

Posted by VT

Catalogue links:
Still Alice (book)
Still Alice (DVD)
Resistance Is Futile
Precious and Grace

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

After reading the blurb on the book I came close to placing it back on the shelf as it sounded too grim however I would have missed a gem of a book which hooked me right from the start  and had me wanting to know more about the people and their relationships.

The rich and beautiful June witnesses her house burning down killing her entire family.  The dead are June's much younger boyfriend, her ex husband, her daughter and her daughters fiance, the fire occurring early in the morning of the day that the wedding of her daughter is due to take place.

Following the funerals June leaves the small American town where she was living and drives west.
Each chapter is narrated by a different character including among them June's boyfriends mother, the owners of the motel where June finally ends up, the motel cleaner and the wedding caterers etc.

There are moving passages of writing in this book which is quietly hopeful and it is not surprising it was long listed for the Man Booker prize.  This novel could appeal to readers who like books that are more character than plot driven and could be a good choice for a book club also as there is much to discuss about families, loss and forgiveness.        

Catalogue link: Did You Ever Have a Family

Posted by VT