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mh_books's Reviews (1.12k)
“There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”
This book takes place in a magical world of the Owens women (some may call them witches). Here wooden furniture never needs to be polished, butter melts in the fridge when passions are raised and the colour blue brings women good luck. In this world, love hits like lightning but is far more painful and Owens women are the unfortunate lightning rods.
"Real love was dangerous, it got you from the inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.”
Less spells and more magical realism than the film, this book is nevertheless enchanting. A fairytale for adults, it is about sisterhood and the bonds that tie us together. Men in this tale are merely love interests.
The Hoffman’s language and descriptions are beautiful and kept me reading when I otherwise would have faltered as I am still not the biggest fan of romance.
“In time Sally stopped believing in anything at all, and then the whole world went grey. She could not see orange or red, and certain shades of green - her favourite sweater and the leaves of new daffodils - were completely and utterly lost. “
Recommended for those who wished Cinderella’s stepsisters were just a bit nicer and fans of the ending of Disney's Frozen. Oh and for those who don't mind a few four-letter words thrown in.
This book takes place in a magical world of the Owens women (some may call them witches). Here wooden furniture never needs to be polished, butter melts in the fridge when passions are raised and the colour blue brings women good luck. In this world, love hits like lightning but is far more painful and Owens women are the unfortunate lightning rods.
"Real love was dangerous, it got you from the inside and held on tight, and if you didn't let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.”
Less spells and more magical realism than the film, this book is nevertheless enchanting. A fairytale for adults, it is about sisterhood and the bonds that tie us together. Men in this tale are merely love interests.
The Hoffman’s language and descriptions are beautiful and kept me reading when I otherwise would have faltered as I am still not the biggest fan of romance.
“In time Sally stopped believing in anything at all, and then the whole world went grey. She could not see orange or red, and certain shades of green - her favourite sweater and the leaves of new daffodils - were completely and utterly lost. “
Recommended for those who wished Cinderella’s stepsisters were just a bit nicer and fans of the ending of Disney's Frozen. Oh and for those who don't mind a few four-letter words thrown in.
“ A shadow fell over me. I looked up and it was you. What I was thinking is that your shadow has been over me from my whole life. What I ought to do is drive away from here right now and get out from under it.” - But of course, he didn't
Not your typical Stephen King. Because there is no typical Stephen King. This is principally the story of a man's life from early boyhood to a man of his sixties. Overshadowing this life is Charles Jacob. Charles Jacob has a tragic past, a dangerous obsession and may lead us all to our doom by Chapter 13. Meanwhile, our main protagonist must learn to live his life with all its sorrows and regrets as we all do.
Warning this is not a high octane horror with thrills and scares in every chapter or so. Instead, the book borrows heavily from the storytelling techniques and themes of the classic horror writers that it is dedicated to in the opening pages. To state the two biggest contributors to this story would be to drift into spoiler territory. But let’s just say that this book has elements of good old-fashioned storytelling clearly recognisable from the 19th to the mid 20th century. So we are talking dread here folks and the consequences of our actions and not a lot of blood and gore.
Recommended to those who enjoy reading the stories of a person’s life and who don’t mind a dark twist to the tale.
Not your typical Stephen King. Because there is no typical Stephen King. This is principally the story of a man's life from early boyhood to a man of his sixties. Overshadowing this life is Charles Jacob. Charles Jacob has a tragic past, a dangerous obsession and may lead us all to our doom by Chapter 13. Meanwhile, our main protagonist must learn to live his life with all its sorrows and regrets as we all do.
Warning this is not a high octane horror with thrills and scares in every chapter or so. Instead, the book borrows heavily from the storytelling techniques and themes of the classic horror writers that it is dedicated to in the opening pages. To state the two biggest contributors to this story would be to drift into spoiler territory. But let’s just say that this book has elements of good old-fashioned storytelling clearly recognisable from the 19th to the mid 20th century. So we are talking dread here folks and the consequences of our actions and not a lot of blood and gore.
Recommended to those who enjoy reading the stories of a person’s life and who don’t mind a dark twist to the tale.
This one was a pleasurable read for which I took my time, sometimes I think Victorian Literature should be read that way. Do you?
“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean?”
In this novel our Lucy Snowe is an introvert who holds little hope for herself and her future. She dares not hope and dream and is content to stay in the background. Yet there is passion in her character underneath the surface which she must quell in order to maintain her quiet life. You get the sense that she has been badly disappointed In the past and this is her survival mechanism.
“Do not let me think of them too often, too much, too fondly,' I implored: 'let me be content with a temperate draught of this living stream: let me not run athirst, and apply passionately to its welcome waters: let me not imagine in them a sweeter taste than earth's fountains know.”
And yet our quite dispassionate Lucy Snows goes on quite and adventure in the first half of the novel. Due to traumatic events in her past, alluded to but not revealed, Lucy Snowe leaves England and arrives at "Villette" (presumably and imaginary Brussels). She does not know the language and must learn it quickly and find herself a place in society and a job. She eventually becomes an English teacher at Madame Beck's school. From here we have a story about unrequited loves, ghosts of Nuns and okay some of the characters do actually manage to pair up in romantic matches before the end.
I have to say that like Lucy Snowe. I know a lot of readers don’t agree with me but I have a fondness for introverts who are their own worst enemy and have known and called a few of them friend in my own life. Yet despite her self-acclaimed humbleness there is also a sense of superiority in Lucy Snow that I rather dislike. She, like many English Victorian heroines, believe in the superiority of the breed of English Ladies over foreign ladies. She also preaches the virtues of Protestant Christianity over Roman Catholic Papist heresies (though in fairness the Catholics also try and convert her too their way of thinking). Still I feel for Lucy. There is a summer when she has an emotional breakdown brought on by her isolation. This is described so well I wonder did a similar event inflict itself on the life of her writer Charlotte Bronte?
What could be considered as annoying in this novel is the large amount of dialogue in French. In However that is not so dissimilar to Lucy Snows experiences in a foreign land so it is not totally without merit as a technique.
The fault I do find with this novel is that the plot and pacing are patchy at times. Somehow this story feels like a badly made patchwork quilt but with some beautifully exquisite patches. Perhaps I have not read enough Victorian literature and this is what writing was like before editors?
Overall I recommend this lovers of Victorian Literature and anyone who has read a liked Jane Eyre and would like to try a more sedate novel by the same author.
P.S. A note on my reading experience.
My edition of this book was printed a folio society copy printed in 1967. It is lovely and illustrated as in the picture. As this copy is so precious to me I only read it from home and in circumstances where I will not damage the book (no baths or eating at the same time). I also listened to it on audio - narrated by Davina Porter - who did such an excellent job of reading the audio version of the Outlander series and did a smashing job of this one too. So, my reading pleasure was increased by the medium from which I read.
“A bag has no intentions or desires of its own, it embraces every object that we ask it to hold. You trust the bag, and it, in return, trusts you. To me, a bag is patience, a bag is profound discretion”.
Yoko Ogawa’s prose is so simple and beautiful that when I first started this book it was like jumping into a swimming pool; a cold, sharp shock to the senses. Within a couple of strokes/pages though it became a sensual pleasure and as close to bliss as my worried mind ever gets.
In this book, we have Eleven Dark almost gothic tales with a twist of magical realism. They are told in the first person and are connected to each other – so read them in order folks.
Tales 1 and 2: Afternoon at the Bakery and Fruit Juice both about grief and loss. Both beautifully done.
Tale 3: Old Mrs J. This one is creepy.
“The snow fell on our cones, and we ate it along with the ice cream, but it didn’t have much flavour”.
Tale 4: The little Dustman. A tale about a missing mother.
Tale 5: Labcoats. Is this where the collection gets it name from I wonder?
Tale 6. Sewing for the heart. A story where your true heart can be examined by the bag you carry and you can carry your heart in a bag. This one is not for the squeamish.
“Why was everyone dying? They had all been so alive just yesterday.”
Tale 7. Welcome to the Museum of Torture. A story about torture possibly being a better option than going home to an empty apartment.
Tale 8. The Man who sold Braces. A tale of an eccentric Uncle.
Tale 9. The last hour of the Bengal tiger. Story as the title says.
Tale 10. Tomatoes and the Full Moon. So that is where the tomatoes went too! Read this far and you will know what I mean.
Tale 11. Poison plants. Returns full circle to sorry and loss.
This set of tales is recommended to someone who finds themselves curled up in a blanket, beside an open fire on a rainy afternoon. Wrap yourself up well and devour this set of tales whole and in one sitting. Go on you know you want to.
Yoko Ogawa’s prose is so simple and beautiful that when I first started this book it was like jumping into a swimming pool; a cold, sharp shock to the senses. Within a couple of strokes/pages though it became a sensual pleasure and as close to bliss as my worried mind ever gets.
In this book, we have Eleven Dark almost gothic tales with a twist of magical realism. They are told in the first person and are connected to each other – so read them in order folks.
Tales 1 and 2: Afternoon at the Bakery and Fruit Juice both about grief and loss. Both beautifully done.
Tale 3: Old Mrs J. This one is creepy.
“The snow fell on our cones, and we ate it along with the ice cream, but it didn’t have much flavour”.
Tale 4: The little Dustman. A tale about a missing mother.
Tale 5: Labcoats. Is this where the collection gets it name from I wonder?
Tale 6. Sewing for the heart. A story where your true heart can be examined by the bag you carry and you can carry your heart in a bag. This one is not for the squeamish.
“Why was everyone dying? They had all been so alive just yesterday.”
Tale 7. Welcome to the Museum of Torture. A story about torture possibly being a better option than going home to an empty apartment.
Tale 8. The Man who sold Braces. A tale of an eccentric Uncle.
Tale 9. The last hour of the Bengal tiger. Story as the title says.
Tale 10. Tomatoes and the Full Moon. So that is where the tomatoes went too! Read this far and you will know what I mean.
Tale 11. Poison plants. Returns full circle to sorry and loss.
This set of tales is recommended to someone who finds themselves curled up in a blanket, beside an open fire on a rainy afternoon. Wrap yourself up well and devour this set of tales whole and in one sitting. Go on you know you want to.
“…truth was something intangible, unseen, which sometimes we stumbled upon and did not recognise, but was found, and held, and understood only by old people near their death, or sometimes by the very pure, the very young.”
So what is the truth about Rachel? What did she do and why is she really here? Or is she innocent and our narrator simply unreliable? These are the questions that will drive the reader to distraction in this charming spooky and atmospheric Gothic tale.
Recommended to anyone who liked Rebecca or liked other authors’ Gothic Stories such as Jane Eyre. Not quite as good as either in my opinion but close enough for government work as my old boss used to say.
So what is the truth about Rachel? What did she do and why is she really here? Or is she innocent and our narrator simply unreliable? These are the questions that will drive the reader to distraction in this charming spooky and atmospheric Gothic tale.
Recommended to anyone who liked Rebecca or liked other authors’ Gothic Stories such as Jane Eyre. Not quite as good as either in my opinion but close enough for government work as my old boss used to say.
“My name is Nao and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.
A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me right now I am sitting in a French maid cafe in Akiba Electricity town, listening to a sad chanson that is playing sometime in your past, which is also my present writing this and wondering about you, somewhere in my future. And if you are reading this, then maybe by now you’re wondering about me, too.”
And so begins a story about Nao who writes a journal somewhere in our past and Ruth who finds and reads Nao’s journal somewhere in our more recent past and we who read both their stories somewhere in our present, which will become our past and which is Nao’s and Ruth’s future. Assuming any of us exist, which I think we do. Do you?
In this novel, Nao is connected to Ruth as both are stranded in lives that they would not have chosen.
Nao is a teenager in Japan, bullied in school, lonely, missing her happy childhood in California and desperately worried about her suicidal father. Ruth is a middle-aged author on a remote island in Canada, with writer's block, missing her life in New York, worried that she is developing Alzheimer's, like her mother, and not quite connecting with her partner Oliver.
When Ruth finds Nao’s journal together with some other papers on the beach she feels compelled to read it in “real time”. That is following the timeline that Nao wrote it. Therefore, she reads only as much as Nao wrote in a single day. Meanwhile, she becomes desperately worried about Nao and her family. So Ruth begins to look for them over the internet and has the other documents she found translated from Japanese and French.
This story is an exploration of many things. It’s an exploration of the meaning of time and memory. It’s an exploration of what it means to read an other's words. It's an exploration of where writing comes from (Both the character Ruth is a writer and the writer of the novel is called Ruth). It's an exploration of what it is now. It's an exploration of what it means to die. It studies ancient Buddhist wisdom and more modernish quantum and multiple world theories.
Ultimately, this novel is about how we are connected to each other. Nao and Ruth stay connected throughout the novel by a variety of methods: the power of reading and writing to each other, using Nao’s 104 year old buddhist great grandmother's superpower, by Ruth's partner Oliver’s startling direct way of thinking and explaining things to Ruth and because of a crow from Japan now living on a remote Canadian island.
What is real and what is imagined will ultimately be left up to you as a reader to decide.
As one of my favourite books, I recommend this to everybody. However, it does deal a lot with suicide so there is a trigger warning for some people.
Postscript :
I "read" this on audible in 2015. The book was read by the author Ruth who states at the end of the Novel that she recommends reading this as both an audiobook and a physical book as both are different experiences. So this time I read it as a physical book. And she is right the physical and the audiobook is both the same thing and different.
A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me right now I am sitting in a French maid cafe in Akiba Electricity town, listening to a sad chanson that is playing sometime in your past, which is also my present writing this and wondering about you, somewhere in my future. And if you are reading this, then maybe by now you’re wondering about me, too.”
And so begins a story about Nao who writes a journal somewhere in our past and Ruth who finds and reads Nao’s journal somewhere in our more recent past and we who read both their stories somewhere in our present, which will become our past and which is Nao’s and Ruth’s future. Assuming any of us exist, which I think we do. Do you?
In this novel, Nao is connected to Ruth as both are stranded in lives that they would not have chosen.
Nao is a teenager in Japan, bullied in school, lonely, missing her happy childhood in California and desperately worried about her suicidal father. Ruth is a middle-aged author on a remote island in Canada, with writer's block, missing her life in New York, worried that she is developing Alzheimer's, like her mother, and not quite connecting with her partner Oliver.
When Ruth finds Nao’s journal together with some other papers on the beach she feels compelled to read it in “real time”. That is following the timeline that Nao wrote it. Therefore, she reads only as much as Nao wrote in a single day. Meanwhile, she becomes desperately worried about Nao and her family. So Ruth begins to look for them over the internet and has the other documents she found translated from Japanese and French.
This story is an exploration of many things. It’s an exploration of the meaning of time and memory. It’s an exploration of what it means to read an other's words. It's an exploration of where writing comes from (Both the character Ruth is a writer and the writer of the novel is called Ruth). It's an exploration of what it is now. It's an exploration of what it means to die. It studies ancient Buddhist wisdom and more modernish quantum and multiple world theories.
Ultimately, this novel is about how we are connected to each other. Nao and Ruth stay connected throughout the novel by a variety of methods: the power of reading and writing to each other, using Nao’s 104 year old buddhist great grandmother's superpower, by Ruth's partner Oliver’s startling direct way of thinking and explaining things to Ruth and because of a crow from Japan now living on a remote Canadian island.
What is real and what is imagined will ultimately be left up to you as a reader to decide.
As one of my favourite books, I recommend this to everybody. However, it does deal a lot with suicide so there is a trigger warning for some people.
Postscript :
I "read" this on audible in 2015. The book was read by the author Ruth who states at the end of the Novel that she recommends reading this as both an audiobook and a physical book as both are different experiences. So this time I read it as a physical book. And she is right the physical and the audiobook is both the same thing and different.
What a brilliant little revenge story that was. Reviews like revenge may best be served cold.