Jigsaws

Nonfiction November 2025: Week 3: Book Pairings

Published on November 10, 2025 by Margaret12 Comments

Week 3 (11/10-11/16) is hosted by Liz, an ex-librarian, a freelance editor and transcriber, a runner and a volunteer. She blogs about everything from social justice and geology nonfiction to YA romance and literary fiction at Adventures in reading, Running and Working from Home

This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or maybe it’s just two books you feel have a link, whatever they might be. You can be as creative as you like!

My nonfiction book is The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble. I’ve always enjoyed doing jigsaws. So when I saw this book about jigsaw puzzles, their history and their place in her life I wanted to read it. They were a big part in my childhood and I still enjoy doing them.

Margaret Drabble describes her book thus:

This book is not a memoir, although parts of it may look like a memoir. Nor is it a history of the jigsaw puzzle, although that it was what it was once meant to be. It is a hybrid. … This book started off as small history of the jigsaw, but it has spiralled off in other directions and now I am not sure what it is.

I think is a memoir because what she does in this book is to weave her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression. She writes about the importance of play and notes the way that doing a jigsaw is like creating order out of chaos, and because they have no verbal content they exercise a different part of the brain, bringing different neurons and dendrites into play.

I enjoyed parts of immensely – those parts about her childhood, and life at Bryn, her grandparents’ house in Long Bennington and about her beloved Aunt Phyl (Phyllis Boor) and of course those parts about jigsaws, both personal and historical, about mosaics (looking at them as a form of jigsaw), the history of children’s games and puzzles and amusements. She does ‘spiral off in other directions’ which meant in parts it lacks a clear structure in a sort of ‘stream of consciousness’ style, particularly in her reminiscences and nostalgia about life (reproduced in some jigsaws) in a rural community that no longer exists.

I’m pairing it with The Jigsaw Maker by Adrienne Dines, another book that appealed to me because it’s about jigsaws.

The Jigsaw Maker is a beautifully written novel, one with pace and tension in just the right places. Lizzie Flynn has a shop in a village near Kilkenny, a sort of knick-knack shop selling a variety of goods, cards, flower arrangements, and home-made sweets. The ‘Jigsaw Maker’ is Jim Nealon, a stranger who walks into her shop one morning and asks her to sell his beautiful jigsaws.

But these are no ordinary jigsaws. Jim makes wooden jigsaws, tiny intricately shaped pieces ‘finely cut so that they were more like buttons than jigsaw pieces’ And each one is individual showing a photograph of a real place accompanied by a personalised history of the scene.

He proposes to take photos of places, not the tourist attractions, but the places their ancestors might have lived and worked. He asks Lizzie to help him by writing about the scenes. To begin with he shows her a photo of the local school and asks her to picture herself back there in 1969 and write what she remembers – what it was like to be a pupil there.

It just so happens that 1969 had been quite an eventful year. This opens up the floodgates of memory for Lizzie as painful and puzzling events from that year almost over power her. Looking back at the child she was she realises that not everything was as it had appeared to her then.

It is just like a jigsaw – all the pieces are there and both the reader and Lizzie have to put them together correctly to get the correct picture. I could visualise the scenes and the characters and I became anxious for Lizzie as she realised the truth not only about the events she had seen, but also about her place in those events. There are plenty of repressed secrets that come to the surface and an added mystery too – who is Jim? Why has he come to the village and why did he ask Lizzie in particular to help him?

A Lockdown Jigsaw – Bamburgh Castle

Published on April 28, 2020 by Margaret16 Comments

I’m still finding hard to settle down to write a book review. So here is a post about something else. As well as word puzzles I also love doing jigsaw puzzles. I don’t normally do one at this time of year but I just fancied doing one during the lockdown. It’s of Bamburgh Castle, a castle on the northeast coast of England, by the village of Bamburgh in Northumberland – one of my favourite castles.

Sorting the pieces:

Bamburgh Castle pieces

I started off doing the outside pieces and then the horizon line right across the middle. Then Heidi decided to look at what I was doing and plonked herself down on it and went to sleep for a little while.

Bamburgh Castle Heidi

And here it is finished:

Bamborough Castle finished

When I’ve not been reading …

Published on February 17, 2018 by Margaret9 Comments

… I’ve been doing jigsaws (amongst other things).

I’d done both of these Ravensburger puzzles before and put them back in their plastic bags inside the box, but I hadn’t sealed the bags and the pieces had got a bit muddled up. After I’d sorted them out this one was complete.

But there are two pieces missing from this one – and I can’t find them anywhere!

They are based on paintings by Alexander Sheridan, who was born in Cape Town and moved with his family when he was five back to Scotland. He has lived in New Zealand, India and Singapore. After his wife died he moved back to London with his young son. He met his second wife whilst hiking in the Outer Hebrides and then set up home on a farm near Ipswich, where he paints landscapes. (Information taken from the box.)

Published on March 12, 2016 by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve been spending some of my reading time doing jigsaws. I began in January whilst I was reading The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History With Jigsaws by Margaret Drabble. Jigsaws are good for you – doing them renews the brain cells, and because they have no verbal content they exercise a different part of the brain, bringing different neurons and dendrites into play.

I began with a Thomas Kinkade jigsaw: Sunday Evening Sleigh Ride (1,000 pieces):

Then a Ravensburger puzzle of 500 pieces – much easier to do – of a thatched cottage:

Finally, A Bird’s Eye View, a House of Puzzles jigsaw, 1000 pieces, some are varied shapes, making it a bit different from the other jigsaws – this jigsaw has a piece missing!

You can see the different shapes (and the space for the missing piece) in the photo below:

The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble

Published on January 30, 2016November 10, 2025 by Margaret7 Comments

I began reading The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History With Jigsaws in December and finished it this morning. It took me a long time not because it’s difficult reading (it isn’t) but because I only read short sections each day – I often read non-fiction like that.

FOREWORD

This book is not a memoir, although parts of it may look like a memoir. Nor is it a history of the jigsaw puzzle, although that it was what it was once meant to be. It is a hybrid. … This book started off as small history of the jigsaw, but it has spiralled off in other directions and now I am not sure what it is.

It is not the book she meant to write and it is not the book I expected to read. I enjoyed parts of immensely – those parts about her childhood, and life at Bryn, her grandparents’ house in Long Bennington and about her beloved Aunt Phyl (Phyllis Boor) and of course those parts about jigsaws, both personal and historical, about mosaics (looking at them as a form of jigsaw), the history of children’s games and puzzles and amusements. She does ‘spiral off in other directions’ which meant in parts it lacks a clear structure in a sort of ‘stream of conciousness’ style, particularly in her reminiscences and nostalgia about life (reproduced in some jigsaws) in a rural community that no longer exists.

I noted down a few points she made about jigsaws:

jigsaws renew the brain cells – that’s good! (page 66)
putting away a finished jigsaw can be a sad moment – I agree and usually leave mine for a while before dismantling them. These days I take a photo. (page 94)
because they have no verbal content they exercise a different part of the brain, bringing different neurons and dendrites into play. (that’s good too) (page 122)
some people disapprove of jigsaws, some of knitting, of card games and other activities and artistic traits. (page 187)
jigsaws maybe connected with depression and used as time-killers, filling empty days and evenings (page 242)
people can be addicted to jigsaws (page 244)
doing a jigsaw is like creating order out of chaos (page 245)
jigsaws reproducing works of art helps you learn about art (pages 250-1)
jigsaws as metaphors and simile are everywhere eg wikipedia etc (page 267)

I don’t think I’m a jigsaw addict, in the same way as I am a book addict, after all I do just a few jigsaws now and then, whereas reading is a constant and I feel lost if I don’t have a book on the go. And you may have noticed (from the side bar) that I am not currently reading a book! Time to find the next one to read …

Canada, Indian Summer: Jigsaw

Published on April 10, 2013 by Margaret13 Comments

I began this jigsaw over 3 weeks ago (see this post) – it’s taken me that long to finish it. I like to start a jigsaw and finish the edges before getting to the main part, but there were a few pieces that just wouldn’t fit – hence the gaps round the edge.I began by doing the blue pieces, followed by the orange/ red ones and then filled in the gaps, leaving (inevitably for me) the dark pieces.

And still some of the outside pieces seemed not to fit. Until finally I found where they all went.

It’s a beautiful picture, but it was quite a difficult puzzle to do, mainly because of its shape and size – portrait, 50 x 70 cm, which meant leaning over the bottom half to do the top, as I do jigsaws on the floor! But because it’s a Ravensburger 1,000 piece puzzle all the pieces are individually shaped and fit together perfectly – they only interlock together in the right places.

Now I can get back to reading!