Library Loot

This week's loot!

Daughters of India, by Jill McGivering:   "Isabel, born into the British Raj, and Asha, a young Hindu girl, both consider India their home. Through mischance and accident their stories intersect and circumstances will bring them from the bustling city of Delhi to the shores of the Andaman Islands, from glittering colonial parties to the squalor and desperation of a notorious prison; and into the lives of men on opposing sides of the fight for self-government"

I'm always on the lookout for historical fiction set in places I've never been.  

At Least We Lived: the Unlikely Adventures of an English Couple in WWII China, by  Emma Oxford.  Pretty much what the subtitle says.  A young Englishwoman goes to China in 1943, meets and marries an Englishman who had escaped from Japanese-controlled Hong Kong. Written by their daughter.   






Library Loot is courtesy of The Captive Reader

Briefly Reviewed

Title: A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness and a Trove of Letters Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression
Author: Ted Gup
Edition: Penguin Press, 2010
Setting: USA, Great Depression
Genre:  Nonfiction

Just before Christmas in 1933, an pseudonymous benefactor placed an ad in a Canton, Ohio newspaper offering a small amount of money to families suffering because of the Great Depression.  The author is the grandson of that benefactor, Sam Stone, and this is both a family history and a history of life during hard times.  The hard times are indeed hard: breadwinners have been out of work for years, families are hungry, children go barefoot all year because shoes are a luxury their parents can't afford, people die for lack of medical care because they can't pay bills, businesses go bankrupt, renters are evicted and homeowners lose their homes, depositors lose their life savings in bank failures, parents surrender their children to orphanages because they can't feed them. The author uses the letters his grandfather received to illustrate just what ordinary people went through trying to survive the Great Depression.  These letters are sad, inspiring, moving, tear-jerking - sometimes all in the same letter.  They remind us of the difference a social safety net makes. 

The family history, oddly enough is somewhat less interesting, partly because it is spread throughout the book and loses the impact when told that way.  It is an interesting history, but the connection between Sam's generous act and his life history seems rather tenuous to me.  Still, a worthwhile book, and an important history lesson.


 
Title: Nurse in Blue
Author: Gladys Taber
Edition:  Triangle Books, 1944
Setting:  USA during WWII
Genre:   Women's Fiction

Gladys Taber was a prolific American mid-century writer who wrote a number of interesting books about her country home, Stillmeadow. She's best known for those books, but she also wrote novels, of which Nurse in Blue is one.  Written during World War II, its heroine, Janet, leaves her midwestern home, nursing job, and fiance, Philip, to become a Navy nurse in New York City.  Will Janet give up her dream of helping win the war with her nursing skills to go back to the midwest as Philip's (bored) wife?  Will she end up with the strong and silent type she meets in New York, Chris (oh, please - NO)?  Will she marry someone else?  The question of will she follow her skills, education, and abilities and have a career doesn't really arise - this was written in 1942-43, and that option is apparently well, not an option.  The writing is fresh and lively, the character of Janet and her friend Francesca, believable, the men less so.  The ending is unbelievably hurried.  But if you want to catch the flavor of what women were reading in the war years, this is probably a good example. 

Library Loot

I'm late with the loot this week!
 
A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness & a Trove of Letters Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression, by Ted Gup.  "An inspiring account of America at its worst-and Americans at their best-woven from the stories of Depression-era families who were helped by gifts from the author's generous and secretive grandfather."  I'd say it was thought-provoking more than inspiring.  A good history lesson. 



Library Loot is courtesy of: Silly Little Mischief 

The Girl From Simon's Bay

Title: The Girl From Simon's Bay
Author: Barbara Mutch
Edition: Allison & Busby, 2017
Setting: South Africa
Genre: Historical Fiction

"Simon’s Town is a vibrant and diverse community in a picturesque part of the Union of South Africa, with a Royal Navy port at the town’s heart. Louise Ahrendts, daughter of a shipbuilder, nurtures the dream of becoming a nurse and in a world of unwritten, unspoken rules about colour, she has the strength to make it a reality. As the port becomes a hub of activity following the outbreak of the Second World War, Louise crosses paths with a man she is determined to be with – despite all the obstacles life and conflict throw in their way. But when a new troubled moment of history dawns, can they find their way back to each other?"  

That blurb would lead you to think that this novel is a romance novel.   While there is a romance element to this story of star-crossed lovers in South Africa during World War II, it's really much more about Louise's attempt to live a better life than the society she lives in allows her.   And that story is far more interesting than the romance, which never really rang true to me (an Earl, really?  He couldn't just be, oh an accountant or teacher or something more ordinary and realistic?).  But Louise's journey from school girl to nurse and her struggle to make more of her life while remaining true to her family, friend Piet, and her community is engaging and well written.  Also well written are author's descriptions of her community and especially of the sea Louise loves, even as a small child:

"Infant waves curled towards me over the crystal sand.  Footsteps thundered from behind.  I reached out both hands to seize the oncoming water with its lace of bubbles and fell forward.  Cold, green liquid gurgled into my mouth, lapped at my forehead and just as it started to trickle into my ears, a pair of familiar hands grabbed me around the middle and pulled me clear."

Those hands belong to her father Solly.  Solly, Louise's mother Sheila, her friend Piet and her neighbors all live in the seaside town of Simon's Bay.  As "coloured" people, they have little money and the most difficult jobs, but they have carved out lives for themselves - quite literally out of the steep hillsides that threaten to slide their homes into the sea on occasion.  Louise, a bright child whose parents support her throughout the story, dreams of bigger opportunities than being a maid.  After many struggles she becomes a nurse in the British naval hospital in the town and that is where she meets the story's love interest.  As I said earlier, this part of the story didn't work as well for me (and I felt very sorry for her friend Piet, a boy who cares for her but has no parental support and nothing in the way of opportunity).  Still, it is a fine story with vivid writing, strong characterization, and without going into spoilers, emotionally stirring scenes, like the one in which Louise's family is forcibly moved: 

"The loaders became, if anything, more frenzied in their unpacking than in the packing.  The police had already abandoned our miserable procession at the limits of Simon's Town, so there was no one to watch or possible temper the loaders' attitude if they'd been open to persuasion.  But it was already late afternoon, and clocking off was upper most in their minds.  Our possessions were hurled off the vehicles with no care at all.  Furniture splintered, bags split, suitcases burst open.  The Gamiels, in the truck alongside, had used up all their anger at the start of the day and worked silently, gathering up the disarrayed possessions as best they could."

I'd read about such things in history books, but this is a case where fiction is better at showing the cruelty and harshness and unfairness.

If you're interested in historical fiction on a subject - and indeed, country - that seldom features in such books, or are looking for a novel with strong characters and some lyrical writing, you'll be glad you read The Girl From Simon's Bay.

Library Loot

This week's loot!

The Library at the Edge of the World, by Felicity Hayes-McCoy.  "A warm, feel-good novel about the importance of finding a place where you belong - perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy."  I don't know about the Maeve Binchy part, except that it is set in Ireland, but it's the story of a librarian and her daughter finding their places in small-town Ireland.  

The Winter Station, by Jody Shields.  "An aristocratic Russian doctor races to contain a deadly plague in an outpost city in Manchuria - before it spreads to the rest of the world."  There might be more than I really want to know about the plague here (especially during this flu season), but so far it's well-written.  







Library Loot is courtesy of:  The Captive Reader

Library Loot

This week's loot!

The Atomic City Girls, by Janet Beard.  The title is a bit deceiving because there are several major characters who are male.  It's set in the Manhattan Project's facility built in Oak Ridge Tennessee during World War II.  It wasn't just a facility; it was an instant city built for thousands of people who came from near and far to work there (even though most had no idea what they were actually working on).











Library Loot is courtesy of Silly Little Mischief

Six Degrees of Separation - February 2018

This month's starting point for Six Degrees is George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, which is on my never-ending TBR.  And while I haven't read it, I know that the author's starting point for this story came from Abraham Lincoln's visits to the cemetery where his young son was buried.



Degree #1 - Also based on a real cemetery is Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, a work of contemporary fiction set in and next door to London's Highgate cemetery.  The exotic, slightly creepy nature of this famous Victorian cemetery is a fabulous setting.

Degree #2 - The Victorians did love their cemeteries!  I usually think of the Victorians as rather dull: repressed, dutiful, pious.  But of course, not all of them were any of those things.  Including Richard and Isabel Burton, the subjects of A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton, by Mary S. Lovell.  They lived a life of adventure and their marriage - of two strong minded people - makes for fascinating reading.






Degree # 3 - How do you find your mate?  In The Marriage Bureau: The True Story of How Two Matchmakers Arranged Love in Wartime London, by Penrose Halson, gives us the (often quite amusing) story of the matchmaking business.




Degree # 4 - Set in London, this time in the aftermath of war - World War I - is The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters.  A tale of social change, social class, and murder, all based on a real event, this is a fine work of historical and literary fiction.








Degree # 5 -  Murder?!  Why that makes me think of one of my favorite novels: The Secret History, By Donna Tartt.  If you haven't read it, you're in for a treat.  Written in mesmerizing prose, it is the story of students at an elite and eccentric college.  You know who the victim and perpetrators are from the beginning; it's the unraveling of the why that is so fascinating.

Degree # 6 - Universities make a fine setting for novels, and Moo, by Jane Smiley, is no different.  After cemeteries, war, and murder, I leave you with this very amusing story of academic life at a Midwestern agricultural college.  Enjoy!






Six Degrees is courtesy of Books are My Favourite and Best

January Round-up

This month's stats:

12 books
7 fiction
5 non-fiction


I read a lot of 3 star books - books that are perfectly fine but that I probably won't remember much about in a month or two.  One, Caroline: Little House Revisited, by Sarah Miller, made it into the "very good" category. I have higher hopes for this month!