Category Archives: Uncategorized

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

From the very first page right to the final words of this book, I was totally absorbed, hooked by the story of Elizabeth Zott, Madeleine, Calvin Evans and Six-Thirty the dog. It’s a book I already know that I will go back and re-read and which will become a favourite go-to on my shelves at home.

Elizabeth Zott is a scientist who becomes famous as the star of TV cookery show Supper At Six, who doesn’t fit the Sixties norm, who rebels against the misogyny and prejudice of those around her, and whose uncompromising, unconventional (for the time) views really rang true for me. That last sentence sounds as though it’s a hectoring feminist tome but it absolutely isn’t, it’s warm and funny and sweeps you along on her journey. Every single one of the characters came to life on the page and Elizabeth’s determination, focus and drive touched my heart. I have rarely felt so bereft when finishing a book, I didn’t want the story to end.

I honestly don’t want to spoil your reading experience by revealing very much more except to say that this book is so beautifully written, with such heart and humour, that I am in absolute awe of Bonnie Garmus as a writer. Lessons in Chemistry deserves to be a huge, huge success. 

The Bookshop on the Shore, by Jenny Colgan

Posted on by
Reply

Jenny Colgan is one of my favourite writers for those days when you need to escape. Her books are always full of people you’d like to go out for a drink with, facing the kinds of dilemmas we all face, with heart and humour and courage. She tends to write books in clusters, that is to say, she creates a setting and furnishes it with various people whose stories you follow over the course of two or three novels. And the reason I make the point about setting, is because setting becomes as much of a character as any of the individuals whose lives we’re being welcomed into.

I adored her series of books about Mure, and The Bookshop on The Shore follows on (kind of) from The Little Shop of Happy Ever After, although it’s not essential to have read the first one in order to enjoy this one. Jenny’s love for Scotland’s wild, sweeping geography, along with the way she weaves the weather (I never knew the difference between the ‘gloaming’ and a ‘haar’ before) into the plot and the lead character’s experiences make the landscape part of the story.

Speaking of which, I won’t spoil it for you, but the thrust of the novel is a bit like a Von Trapp update only without Nazis. A young single mother ends up in the depths of the Scottish countryside looking after a troop of traumatized children for the local Laird whilst at the same time attempting to make a success of a travelling bookshop on behalf of the heroine of Little Shop of Happy Ever After, who’s having a baby. Her own young son (Hari) is late to speak, and there are some absolutely (and I use that word advisedly) heartwarming/funny/sad interactions later on in the book between young Hari and Patrick, the youngest child of the Laird. There’s a mystery to be uncovered, lessons about the different shapes and sizes that families now come in, and about the ways that children understand and express love, loss and everything in between. And of course, there’s a love story too.

I pre-ordered this one on Amazon and binge-read it as soon as it arrived, knowing that there will be the pleasure of then re-reading it at leisure, more than once, curled up on the sofa or lying in the bath instead of snatched moments standing waiting for the kettle to boil or crammed onto a busy train. Just perfect.

Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce

Posted on by
Reply

I thought I’d start with this book, as I finished reading it over my lunch today. Not entirely sure its graphic imagery goes that well with a mug of chicken soup, but it was certainly gripping. It was one of those books you almost end up reading in spite of yourself, probably because I found the protagonist initially quite unlikeable.

Alison, a barrister, is unappetisingly drunk at the beginning of the novel and clearly obsessed with Patrick, an equally unpleasant character with whom she ends up having rough sex on her office desk. She’s married to a man who appears the epitome of patient husbandhood, with a daughter she clearly dotes on, and to start off with she makes a series of what read like wrong choices, driven by drink and overwork. Yet, like many of us, she wants to do the right thing most of the time and that really saved her for me as a character.

One of the things I particularly liked about Blood Orange was the clever way in which the writer built the suspense. There were places where I was certain Alison was being gaslighted by her husband, and others where I wanted to shake her for being so naive. I never understood what she saw in Patrick throughout the whole thing, but I loved the parallels between her life and that of one of her clients. Her sympathy for a victim of domestic violence threw up interesting questions that were only resolved right at the end.

Speaking of which, I did wonder whether the prologue was written as an afterthought to echo the ending, especially as it was written from a different point of view from the book itself. If so, I think it worked as a device, but having said that I kept wondering throughout about its relevance and where the scene described was going to pop up in the story. Or, was it written to give the book its title? Sorry to be so cynical. Either way, it worked for me.

I read this book quite quickly over the course of three days (train journeys, over coffee, and before I went to sleep), because I was gripped by the story as it unfolded. So, although I didn’t particularly like the protagonist, I did want to know what happened to her – even though sometimes I felt as though I would have been better reading it from behind the sofa, almost wincing as Alison’s life disintegrated. Some of the descriptions were very vivid, not just visual but sensory too. And her dawning realisation about what was really going on in her life was very well done.

Books like Blood Orange are great because they are very satisfying to read. There’s definitely a beginning, a middle and and end. The story is resolved in full and you can walk away from them not wondering what’s next for the characters. And for me, because I raced through it to get to the end, that means it’s a book I can go back to at some point and read all over again on the basis there’s bound to be things I missed. Would I buy another book by Harriet Tyce? Yes, I think I would. Good experience all round.