Six Degrees of Separation: From Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to Bring Up the Bodies

Published on by Margaret21 Comments

It’s time again for Six Degrees of Separation, a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

This month it begins with a book that is celebrating its 50th birthday this year – Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. I’ve not read this book, but the title, with my name in it, intrigues me. Margaret Simon, almost twelve, likes long hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain, and things that are pink. She’s just moved from New York City to Farbook, New Jersey, and is anxious to fit in with her new friends.

There are several ways I thought of to go from this book – my name, or the author’s name, or the subject matter of a coming of age novel, or a relationship with God.

After several false starts, I chose another coming , bof age novel. The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch is about Miles O’Malley, a thirteen year old boy and about life, growing up, relationships and love. It’s narrated by an adult Miles, looking back at that summer when he found a giant squid, dying on the mudflats at Skookumchuck Bay, at the southern end of Puget Sound, near his house. That was the summer he had a crush on Angie, his ex-babysitter, and his best friend, old Florence was getting sicker each week.

Moving on to another book about ‘tides‘ to The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Hume set in Scotland on the fictional island of Eilean Iasgaich. Cal McGill uses his knowledge of tides, winds and currents to solve mysteries, which helps in the investigation of the appearance of severed feet in trainers that had been washed on shore on islands miles apart. It’s a story of unsolved mysteries both from the present day and from the Second World War, and of two Indian girls, sold into the sex trafficking trade.

And the next link is the word ‘sea‘ in the title in The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter set in lost landscapes this is a novel revolving around a mother and daughter caught up in catastrophic events. The lost landscapes are the village of Imber, a Wiltshire village that was requisitioned by the army during World War Two, where Violet had grown up, and the coastal village of Kanyakumari in Southern India, where her daughter Alice was caught up in the tsunami that devastated the area in 1971.

Time’s Echo by Pamela Hartshorne is a time-slip story with an element of mystery and suspense. Grace Trewe is drawn into Hawise Aske’s life, four and a half centuries earlier in York, 1577. Grace likes to travel and although she survived the Boxing Day tsunami she is suppressing her memories of what happened. As she learns how Hawise died it gets to the point where she dreads slipping out of current time into not only Hawise’s past but also into her own as she remembers what happened to her in the tsunami.

Another time-slip novel is The Phantom Tree by Nicola Cornick which alternates between the Tudor period and the present day following the life of Alison Banestre (known as Bannister in the present day) as she moves between the centuries trying to find out what happened to Mary Seymour. It’s a mystery, based on the true story of Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr (Henry VIII’s sixth wife) and Thomas Seymour, who she married after Henry’s death.

Thomas Seymour was Jane Seymour’s brother. Their family home was Wolf Hall, an early 17th-century manor house where Mary Seymour was taken in 1557 as an unwanted orphan and presumed dead after going missing as a child. This brings me to Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, Wolf Hall and specifically to the second book in the trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies, which begins at Wolf Hall, where Henry VIII is visiting the Seymours. And it is at Wolf Hall that Henry begins to fall in love with Jane.

My chain this month includes a coming of age novel, books with tides and seas in their titles, time-slip novels and books in which Wolf Hall features. It begins in America in 1970, moves forward and backwards in time and place to the 16th century in England.

Next month (January 2, 2021), we’ll start with the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

Throwback Thursday: Playing With The Moon by Eliza Graham

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I’m linking up today with Davida @ The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog for Throwback Thursday. It takes place on the Thursday before the first Saturday of every month (i.e., the Thursday before the monthly #6Degrees post). The idea is to highlight one of your previously published book reviews and then link back to Davida’s blog.

I’ve been looking at the books I reviewed in 2007 for my Throwback Thursday posts. I read Playing with the Moon by Eliza Graham in November that year. It was her first novel and I thought it was very good.

This is my opening paragraph:

It begins when Minna and Tom, who are staying at a cottage in an isolated village on the Dorset coast, east of Lulworth, discover a human skeleton on the beach and dog tags inscribed LEWIS J CAMPBELL and a number. American military officials confirmed his identity as Private Lew Campbell, believed to have died in 1944 during training exercises for the Normandy landings.

Click here to read the rest of my review

Since then I’ve read one more of her books, Another Day Gone, which I also loved (my review) and I have one more, The One I Was, in my TBRs.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Read Again

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The topic this week is Books I Want to Read Again (This could mean books you plan on re-reading OR books you wish you could read again for the first time.)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – this book is the only one I’m planning to re-read. I first read this a child and often re-read it in December.

The rest are books I’d love to read again for the first time:

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman – one of the best historical novels that I’ve read. It’s about Richard III from his childhood to his death at Bosworth Field in 1485. And it’s a long book, nearly 900 pages that took me a while to read it, but never once did I think it was too long, or needed editing. I loved it, but will I ever get round to re-reading it?

Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie – one of the Poirot murder mysteries that I was never really sure who I thought was the culprit, and I’ve now forgotten who it was. So, I want to read it again to see if I can spot the culprit before Poirot reveals him/her.

On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill, the 17th Dalziel and Pascoe novel. I’d really like to re-read it some time as it is a complex book, that begins with a transcript written by Betsy Allgood, then aged seven, telling what had happened in the little village of Dendale in Yorkshire before the valley was flooded to provide a reservoir. That summer three little girls had gone missing. 

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier – historical fiction about the life of Honor Bright after she emigrated from Dorset to America in 1850 where she joined a Quaker community in Ohio. It intertwines her story with that of the ‘Underground Railroad’, helping the runaway slaves from the southern states to escape to Canada.

Pompeii by Robert Harris – Vesuvius erupts destroying the town of Pompeii and killing its inhabitants as they tried to flee the pumice, ash and searing heat and flames. This book brought history to life and I could feel the danger and fear as Vesuvius inevitably destroyed Pompeii.

Thirteen Hours by Don Mayer – moving at a fast pace this book follows the events during the thirteen hours from 05:36 when Rachel, a young American girl is running for her life up the steep slope of Lion’s Head in Capetown. It reflects the racial tension in the ‘new South Africa’ with its mix of white, coloured and black South Africans. 

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner – the story of Lyman Ward, a wheelchair bound retired historian who is writing his grandparents’ life history and also gradually reveals his own story. It’s a long book, but completely enthralling.

A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine – this is psychological crime fiction. You know right from the beginning who the murderer is, but not why or how the murder was committed. It’s not even clear immediately who the victim is. I think it’s a book that could stand many re-readings, just to work out how everything ties in together and for different perspectives to become clearer. A fantastic book.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby, set in the early 1930s in Yorkshire it paints a moving and vivid portrait of a rural community struggling with the effects of the depression. It is a wonderful book, portraying life in the 1930s. I would very much like to re-read and enjoy it again and again. I’m sure that I would find plenty in it that I’ve missed on this first reading.

The Pandemic Century by Mark Honigsbaum

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Penguin Random House UK| 4 June 2020| 363 pages| Review copy| 3.5*

About the book:

Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. From the Spanish flu and the 1924 outbreak of pneumonic plague in Los Angeles, to the 1930 ‘parrot fever’ pandemic and the more recent SARS, Ebola, Zika and – now – COVID-19 epidemics, the last 100 years have been marked by a succession of unanticipated pandemic alarms.

In The Pandemic Century, Mark Honigsbaum chronicles 100 years of history in 10 outbreaks. Bringing us right up-to-date with a new chapter on COVID-19, this fast-paced, critically-acclaimed book combines science history, medical sociology and thrilling front-line reportage to deliver the story of our times.

As we meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive public health officials, and gifted scientists often blinded by their own expertise, we come face-to-face with the brilliance and medical hubris shaping both the frontier of science – and the future of humanity’s survival.

My thoughts: I found this quite a difficult book to read and even more difficult to write about, so this is just a short overview.

My review copy of The Pandemic Century is an e-book, that unfortunately does not have the chapter on COVID-19. I think this is a very interesting account of the epidemiology, the medical advances and the history of the diseases. Honigsbaum details each pandemic focusing on the origins of the diseases and the scientific research involved in finding the causes, cures, and the methods of containing them.

But whilst parts of it written in a narrative style are fascinating, other parts are heavy going and dry with too much (for me) detailed information about the scientific research. Since 1940 scientists have identified 335 new human infectious diseases and nearly two thirds of them are from animals – and of these 70% originate in wildlife, mostly from bats! And then there is the threat from microbes – bacteria and rickettsial (ticks, lice, fleas, mites, chiggers, and mammals) organisms. I had to check the meanings of lots of words and abbreviations when I was reading this book! Alarmingly Honigsbaum states that ‘Reviewing the last hundred years of epidemic outbreaks, the only thing that is certain is that there will be new plagues and new pandemics.‘

My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a review copy.

Private Moscow by James Patterson & Adam Hamdy

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

Cornerstone Digital| 3 September 2020| 464 pages| Review copy| 4*

Description:

An invitation from an old friend draws Jack Morgan into a deadly conspiracy

On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands on a podium inside the New York Stock Exchange alongside his friend and former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market. Everyone is eagerly awaiting the moment the opening bell rings. But that moment never arrives. An assassin’s bullet rips through the air and finds its mark.

In the aftermath of the murder, Jack is approached by the victim’s wife. She needs him to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world’s largest investigation agency. He accepts the case, but what Jack will discover will shake him to his core.

Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences

With powerful forces plotting against him, will Jack Morgan make it out alive?

My thoughts:

Private Moscow is the 15th book in James Patterson’s Private series, his latest one published – the 16th book, Private Rogue will be published in July 2021. He has written numerous books and series but Private Moscow is the first one I have read. Adam Hamdy is a British author and screenwriter. He is the author of the Pendulum trilogy, an epic series of conspiracy thriller novels.  James Patterson described Pendulum as ‘one of the best thrillers of the year’, and the novel was nominated for the Glass Bell Award for contemporary fiction, and chosen as book of the month by Goldsboro Books.  Pendulum was also selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club. 

Private Moscow is a change from the type of books usually read – an action packed, fast paced mystery thriller. Although it’s the 15th book in the series, I think it reads well as a standalone. The action never lets up as Jack Morgan, the head of Private, a detective agency with branches across the globe, sets out to hunt for the killer of his best friend and former marine, Karl Parker. Meanwhile in Moscow Dinara Orlova, an ex FSB agent in the Moscow office of Private and her colleague, Leonid Boykov an ex police detective, are investigating the murder of Yana Petrova, who was killed in an explosion at the Boston Seafood Grill. When it becomes apparent that the two cases are linked Jack flies to Moscow to join forces with Dinara and Leonid.

After a slow start, the pace picked up dramatically as the danger intensified and I was gripped right up to the final high octane ending. The short chapters emphasise the speed of the action. There spectacular car chases, with violent shoot outs, miraculous escapes and fight scenes, and intense danger throughout as intrigues, conspiracies, old secrets and deep-cover agents are revealed. It’s told through Jack’s perspective in the first person narrative alternating with the third person of the other characters. It’s far-fetched, but also entertaining, like watching a fast paced spy movie/thriller and although I have never been to New York or Moscow I had no difficulty in visualising the locations. Pure escapism!

My thanks to the publishers for a review copy via NetGalley.

Nonfiction November Week 4

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Week 4: New to My TBR, hosted by Katie @ Doing Dewey: It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!

So many books to choose from! Here are a few that appealed to me:

Plus the books recommended to me on my Ask the Experts post on World War Two:

From Shelleyrae – Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II by Roger Moorhouse

From Deb Nance:

  • The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
  • Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
  • Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
  • Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of “The Children’s Ship

From The Paperback Princess

  • A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead, Hitler and the Habsburgs by James Longo
  • Sons and Soldiers by Bruce Henderson
  • When Books Went to War by Mollie Guptill Manning
  • In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

From Gilt and Dust -No Woman’s World: From D-day to Berlin by Iris Carpenter

From What’s Nonfiction

  • A Woman in Berlin, an anonymous diary of a woman who lived through the Russian occupation of the city
  • Primo Levi’s memoirs like Survival in Auschwitz and The Reawakening,
  • Underground in Berlin.
  • Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War is an oral history of the women in the Red Army by Marie Jalowicz Simon

Thanks so much to our hosts, Katie at Doing Dewey, Julie at Julz Reads, Leann at Shelf Aware, and Rennie at  What’s Nonfiction! And thanks to everyone who stopped by with comments and recommendations as well!