Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase - Louise Walters

 

Just an old letter found in a suitcase....and that letter falls into the hands of the writer's grandaughter - she only knows this because they have the same (rare) name, and that can't be a co-incidence - even though the label on the old suitcase her father gives her to store things in says Mrs Sinclair. And certainly, the suitcase was her grandmother's.

The paragraphs do jump back and forward in time: the current time describes Roberta, the finder of the letter, who works in a second-hand bookshop and loves to collect the letters, notes, photographs and ephemoria left behind in those books and, in 1940/41, Dorothea who is in love with a Polish WW2 pilot despite being married. Yes, in case you didn't know, many Polish pilots helped the RAF out in WW2.

This is one of those novels that was deceptively easy to read. A little mystery because of a found letter is the story in a nutshell, but there is so much more to it than that. I found myself going back several times to re-read that found letter, which is what starts the book off. The letter is full of love and also bitterness and it offers a clue to something the reader will not know of until around two thirds of the way through. The pain of love, the ache of stillborn children, the way that love could change your life if you let it may lead one to think this is a light and frothy read - but it is not. It will stay with me for a long time - I loved it.

Valentonia - are you in, or out?

Valentonia...... a state of mind, a country.........?

It's a few days hence to 14 February, that day in the calendar when, if you are a cynic, you will hear card manufacturers' tills ringing - kerching! kerching!   If you are a bit of a softy, you may well buy one of their cards yourself;  or you may make a few.  The heart, a great symbol for the day pops up everwhere.  I just thought you might like to look again at that symbol for Valentine's Day in a whole new light, so, roaming around Pinterest, I found a few "hearts" that made me smile,  and all of which I found a little different than the usual 14 Feb representations.  Enjoy!

 

Just one little red button.....

or a red heart made entirely of stained glass.....

..... even a little peephole in an old gate

Nature doing so easily what we strive so hard to produce, like ..............

a glorious confection of the florist's art

So...... hearts of all kinds - hope you liked them!

February's Blog Challenge!

For February?

Read a book with a forename in the title, e.g. 

 

Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Macgorian

And tell us what you chose.

The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society - Christine Coleman

  A friend passed this on to me.  She loved it.  And I found that I did too!  Whilst reading, I was reminded both of The One Hundred year old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, both of which have older central characters/protagonists. And I also asked myself this question.  How did The One Hundred Year Old Man who....... get to be a best seller and this one not?  Both start off in a similar way, in that the lead characters both climb out of a window in the residential homes that they live in and run off to have adventures.  Both are past retirement age.  Both want to "do more".  The former perhaps has more international appeal, the latter a rather English novel.  But so readable!

Agnes will soon be 75.  She has all her marbles, and good health.  She's also in good physical shape, having sneaked off to a keep fit class every week whilst living with her son and his new partner and family in a room that used to be the garage.  She's with her son because after the death of her vicar husband, she finds that all their savings have been invested in a totally useless cause, and there is no money at all.  It doesn't take long before Agnes becomes depressed; this affects her son's life and she is booted off to a residential home, where she lives in a beige room, having a beige life. 

She dearly misses her grandchildren, who are now in another town altogether, their mother having found a new partner.  So she never sees them, and can't talk to them either because every time she rings, there is some excuse.  What is wrong?  Are the children safe?  Are they happy?  And then, the last time she rings, there is no answer.  Agnes decides to leave home herself and ensure that her grandchildren are OK, and forms a plan of action.  And that's when her adventures start. 

The publisher, Transita, bill themselves as "Good Books for Grown Women" - that is to say, the characters are rather older than usual, and the books should appeal to women readers.... but there is no reason at all why men should not enjoy this as much.  It was easy to read - a well thought out story and although many of the reviews on Amazon with lower star ratings found the book had too many coincidences, I never saw that at all - for after all, isn't life full of them?

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler

The first Anne Tyler I read was Searching for Caleb - a very long time ago.  I haven't read any for quite a while, so it was a pleasure to take this one up, even though it's around 30 years old.  At the beginning of the book, Pearl Tull is dying, and by the end of the book she's dead.  But somehow, the book is about her three children, rather than her even though she appears on most pages.  Family memories - all the same, aren't they?  Well no.  In the case of the Tull children, Cody, Ezra and Jenny, memories are different, and sometimes faulty.  When Pearl's husband Beck, the children's father just never comes home after a business trip, Pearl is left to bring them up on her own, with the help of a regular but small cheque from Beck.

Cody turns out to be the mean one, Ezra, kind and softhearted, and Jenny, the doctor who can't stay married.  They are all headed home for the funeral and you'll find out how they got from childhood to there. A reminder that all families are different, but in that, all the same.

Rules of Civility - Amor Towles

This was a delight to read for very many reasons - and I loved the title - straight from George Washington's own Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation, which are reproduced at the back of the book.  It's set in the late 1930's in New York city.  The teller of the tale is Kate, or Katya, or Katherine, or Katie... depending who is talking to her or what she is calling herself.  So - real name Katya, mostly referred to as Kate, is in her late 20s, working in a typing pool, and has for a best friend Eve, short for Evelyn, a party girl and no mistake.  They are room mates at a cheap boarding house for ladies and as the story begins, they are off to a second rate jazz club.  There, by chance they meet the first of several new people who will change their lives.  His name is Tinker Grey.  He has a gold cigarette lighter and a lot more besides.

The taste of that decadent time with very dry martinis, cigarettes, and bad behavior is tangible in this wonderful novel; written by a man, told in the first person by Kate, a girl - and he has certainly nailed it.  It can sometimes be hard to imagine yourself in certain circumstances, particularly those you have no experience of;  imagine if you were living through those circumstances?    You can do exactly that by living them through Kate.  The friends she makes, the friends she loses;  the fabulous job she gets, for a new Conde Naste magazine, the parties she goes to, the men she sleeps with.   Sounds light and frothy?  No, it isn't - it's deeper than that, and at a point near the end it brought me to tears when a totally unexpected knock on her door brings a Christmas gift and some memories.

Well done, Mr Towles.  You're going to have to go some to top this first novel.  I'm waiting!

January - my blog challenge

C'mon!  you need to stir yourself!  The weather is bad, the skies are grey (in the UK, anyway) and you have been standing in front of that bookcase for far too long....

My challenge to you, reader, is to read a book in the month of January which has  shoes or shoe parts in the title, for example  Cuban Heels, by Emily Barr.

You could then come back and tell me the title and author so that I could list them?