Top Ten Tuesday: Ten of My Favourite Books of 2020

Published on December 26, 2020December 29, 2020 by Margaret28 Comments

The topic this week is My Favourite Books of 2020. This is difficult as I’ve read so many good books this year. So these are just 10 of them that came to mind when I was deciding which ones are my favourites. I’ve listed them in a-z author order:

A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry – his second book continuing the story of Thomas McNulty and John Cole, and Winona, the young Indian girl they had adopted. This is beautifully written, poetically and lyrically describing the landscape and with convincing characters from the American West of the 1870s. They are living and working on a farm in Tennessee, but then things go disastrously wrong. First racism rears its ugly head and then Winona is brutally attacked.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens his second novel, published in three volumes in November 1839. It’s full of terrific descriptions of the state of society at the time – the grim conditions that the poor suffered, the shocking revelations of what went on in the workhouse, and the depiction of the criminal underworld – the contrast of good and evil.

The Searcher by Tana French, a novel full of suspense and tension. After twenty five years in the Chicago police force, Cal has recently moved to a village in Ireland, wanting to build a new life after his divorce. He wants a quiet life in which nothing much happens. But he gets involved in the search for Brendan, a missing 19 year-old.

The Year Without a Summer: One Event, Six Lives, a World Changed by Guinevere Glasford – a novel about how the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island in Indonesia in 1815 had a profound and far reaching impact on the world. It led to sudden cooling across the northern hemisphere, crop failures, famine and social unrest in the following year.

The Lady of the Ravens by Joanna Hickson, historical fiction about the early years of Henry VII’s reign as seen through the eyes of Joan Vaux She was a lady in waiting to Elizabeth of York, whose marriage in 1486 to Henry united the Houses of Lancaster and York after the end of the Wars of the Roses. The fictional element is in the story of Joan’s fascination for and care of the ravens of the Tower of London firmly believing in the legend that should the ravens leave the Tower for good then the crown will fall and ruin will return to the nation.

The Sleepwalker by Joseph Knox, the third Detective Aidan Waits novel, crime fiction that is dark, violent and absolutely brilliant. Waits is a disturbed and complex character, other police officers don’t trust him or want to work with him. He plays very close to the edge and has little regard for his own safety.

Saving Missy by Beth Morey – a novel about love and loss, family relationships, friendship, loneliness, and guilt but also about the power of kindness. It moved me to tears (not many books do that) but it is not in the least sentimental. Missy (Millicent) Carmichael is seventy nine, living on her own in a large house, left with sad memories of what her life used to be, a wife, mother and grandmother, but now she is alone. Her husband, Leo is no longer with her, her son and his family are in Australia and she and her daughter are estranged after a big row. And there is something else too, for Missy has a guilty secret that is gnawing away at her.

The Last Day by Andrew Hunter Murray – dystopian fiction. I was gripped by the story of a world coming to an end and the effects that had on the planet and the population. Set in 2059, thirty years after the earth had finally stopped spinning The Last Day presents a totalitarian world, and gives such a vivid picture of what life has become for the people who live on the burning sun side of the planet. There is, of course, no night, but there is a curfew during the ‘night’ hours.

Fresh Water for Flowers by by Valérie Perrin, translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle. An emotional and moving story about the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne, Violette, her estranged husband, Phillippe, his miserable parents and their young daughter, Leonine. What happened to Leonine is especially tragic. This is a story of love and loss – and hope.

The Birdwatcher by William Shaw – a character-driven murder mystery, with a dramatic climax. Sergeant William South is a birdwatcher, a methodical and quiet man. A loner, South is not a detective and has always avoided being involved in investigating murder. But he is assigned to investigate the murder of a fellow birdwatcher. Alternating with the present day story is the story of Billy, a thirteen year old living in Northern Ireland during the ‘Troubles’.

The Secret Garden – Book and Film

Published on December 26, 2020December 26, 2020 by Margaret5 Comments

Recently I watched the 2020 film of The Secret Garden. The first thing so say it is that it is not like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book. The basic premise is the same – Mary Lennox is an orphaned child who goes to live with her uncle in Yorkshire where she discovers a secret garden. I’m not going to describe the differences between the book and the film – there are so many – but the main difference is the garden itself. And that is what disappointed me the most about the film.

The ‘garden’ is not a garden – it is a huge version of maybe the Amazon rain forest, a digital fantasy, nothing like the garden in the book. And Misselthwaite Manor has been morphed into Misselthwaite Hall, a huge palatial building dominating the Yorkshire skyline. And what has become of Ben Weatherstaff, the gardener and Mrs Sowerby, Dickon and Martha’s mother? They are just not in the film!

If you don’t like modern versions of old favourites, then steer clear of this film – it is nothing like the book. It’s CGI ‘magic’ is simply not the real Magic of the natural world.

This is what I wrote about the book when I last re-read it 8 years ago. I’m tempted to read it again to obliterate the film from my imagination.

I read The Secret Garden several times as a child and the story has stayed with me ever since. For years my picture of the ideal garden has been a walled garden, just like the secret garden. The story can be read on different levels. As a child it seemed to me to be a straight forward story of Mary Lennox, orphaned after her parents died of cholera in India. Up until the age of nine she had lived a cosseted life looked after by servants, in particular her Ayah, ignored by her parents. After their death she was sent to live at Misselthwaite Manor, on the bleak Yorkshire moors, with her uncle, who was a hunchback recluse, who took little interest in her. Soon after Mary’s arrival, her uncle went abroad leaving her again in the care of servants. These were very different from the servants in India and Mary struggled to adjust.

Soon after she discovers she is not the only child in the house, when she finds Colin, her cousin, a hypochondriac, unable to walk, who believes he won’t live to grow up. Both Mary and Colin are selfish children, hating both themselves and the adults in their lives. Both also hate the outdoors, but encouraged by Martha, her maid, Mary wanders in the gardens of the Manor house and comes across a walled garden, which apparently has no door. There seems no way to get inside it – until guided by a robin, she finds an old key buried in the earth. I loved the descriptions of the Yorkshire countryside, the garden and how under the influence of Martha and her younger brother Dickon and even the grumpy gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, Mary blossomed as the year progressed along with the garden.

Reading it now I can see it is full of symbolism using nature, the Bible and myths, that I never noticed as a child. The image of the garden is used as both paradise lost and paradise regained. As the garden is nurtured and begins to blossom so do Mary and Colin, through springtime and into summer, culminating in the autumn when both are brought to full health. Dickon is accompanied by a young fox, a lamb, a crow and tame squirrels, reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi and plays his pipe to charm the animals, like Pan. His mother, Mrs. Sowerby, is a plain-speaking down-to-earth Yorkshire woman, full of common sense and wisdom, who through Dickon and Martha helps the children, feeding Mary and Colin with both her words and wholesome food. At times I thought the language becomes over sentimental and a bit syrupy (I never thought that as a child). But there are descriptions that still appeal to me, such as this description of the roses in the garden:

And the roses – the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled round the sundial, wreathing the tree trunks, and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades – they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair, fresh leaves and buds – and buds – tiny at first, but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air. (page 210 in my copy)

Above all it is the power of Magic that is invoked in this book. The magic of nature, that makes plants and people grow and develop, the magic of the power of positive thinking and prayer, of the healing power of the mind, and of laughter and love. Sometimes it seemed too simplistic and yet at the same time I was swept along with the sentiments and enjoying the experience of re-reading this book.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2021

Published on December 22, 2020 by Margaret8 Comments

This is the 8th year that Karen at Books and Chocolate has hosted the Back to the Classics Challenge and this is the first time I’ll be joining in. See Karen’s sign-up post on Books and Chocolate for more details about the challenge.

There are twelve categories and these are the books I’ve initially chosen – but there are others I could choose, so this list may/probably will change.

A 19th century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899 – Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 1857.
A 20th century classic: any book first published from 1900 to 1971. All books must have been published at least 50 years ago; the only exceptions are books which were written by 1971 and posthumously published – Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford – 1924 – 1928.
A classic by a woman author – Orlando by Virginia Woolf – 1927.
A classic in translation, meaning any book first published in a language that is not your primary language. You may read it in translation or in its original language, if you prefer. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
A classic by BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
A classic by a new-to-you author, i.e., an author whose work you have never read. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
A new-to-you classic by a favourite author — a new book by an author whose works you have already read. Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope.
A classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title. The animal can be real or metaphorical. (i.e., To Kill a Mockingbird). Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.
A children’s classic – The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit.
A humorous or satirical classic. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome.
A travel or adventure classic (fiction or non-fiction). It can be a travelogue or a classic in which the main character travels or has an adventure. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
A classic play. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare – I’ve seen the play and the film, but haven’t read the book.

The Shortest Day by Colm Toibin

Published on December 21, 2020 by Margaret3 Comments

Today is the shortest day of the year, so it’s the best day to write about The Shortest Day by Colm Toibin, a novella of just 31 pages, one of the shortest books I’ve read. I loved it. It appealed to me on several levels – first of all it’s about the mythical past, about the strange carvings I’ve found on certain stones, about archaeology, and about the unknown customs and rituals of our ancient past, and secondly because it’s storytelling at its best – a tale of wonder and mystery.

Amazon Original Stories|3 November 2020|31 pages

Professor O’Kelly is writing notes about Newgrange, also called Bru na Boinne, a circular mound with a retaining wall that had a narrow passageway leading into a vaulted central chamber. There are spirals and diamond shaped designs cut into some of the stones both inside the chamber itself and outside the entrance to the passageway. It’s a burial chamber, a prehistoric monument in County Meath in Ireland, that was built around 3200 BC – older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. It’s ringed by a stone circle, stones brought from the Mournes and Wicklow Mountains.

He speculates about the people who created the burial chamber, who they were, where they came from and what they believed in. He wonders about their burial rituals, what language they spoke and what they believed about the spirit. It all remains a mystery. He would dearly love to find something to open up its secrets to him. He has visited it several times in the past and plans to spend the days before Christmas visiting Newgrange, to make fresh drawings of the carvings on the stones and do a small amount of excavation in the passageway.

Meanwhile deep within the chamber there were whispers among the dead that the professor was coming again. They are concerned that he would discover the secret of the light penetrating the chamber on the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year. Some of the local inhabitants know of the secret but they never talk about it, except in whispers between themselves. When he arrives they put up a number of obstacles to prevent him from entering the chamber.

This is a wonderful story full of atmosphere, of dread and of anticipation. My heart was in my mouth as I read this story, wondering and hoping that the professor would succeed. Would he witness the secret of Newgrange – the secret of those who had lived thousands of years before?

My Friday Post: The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths

Published on December 18, 2020 by Margaret18 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

At the moment I’m reading The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths, the 11th book in the Dr Ruth Galloway mystery series. One of the reasons I’m enjoying it is because it has links to the 1st book in the series, The Crossing Places, and another is that I’m fascinated by standing stones and in particular by stone circles.

It begins:

12 February 2016
DCI Nelson,
Well, here we are again. Truly our end is our beginning. That corpse you buried in your garden, has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? You must have wondered whether I, too, was buried deep in the earth. Oh ye of little faith. You must have known that I would rise again.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice. *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader . If you have to improvise, that is okay. *Find a snippet, short and sweet, but no spoilers!

These are the rules:

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

Clough’s face gives nothing away. He hands over a Starbuck’s cup, which probably completely violates the karma of the dig, and looks around the trench with apparent interest. Ruth drinks the coffee gratefully.

~~~

Description:

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?

Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh – another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle – trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.

As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn’t save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.