Tag: England

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

Susan, the heroine of The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, has never met her father. But she wants to.

“I think I’ll go up to London early. Get acclimatized. There’s bound to be pub work I can get. And I… I’ll try to find my dad.” pg 8, ebook

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Her search takes her to London where, after a night of violence and supernatural scares, she discovers a whole other world existing alongside the every day one.

This is a world of magic and legend, and mysterious, ultra-cool booksellers.

“Susan hesitated and looked back. The monstrous bug was still writhing, but something else was happening now. A dark fog was flowing up the stairs.”

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Enter a teen named Merlin and his sister, Vivien.

“Children’s writers,” said Merlin. “Dangerous bunch. They cause us a lot of trouble. … They don’t do it on purpose… But quite often they discover the key to raise some ancient myth, or release something that should have stayed imprisoned, and they share that knowledge via their writing. Stories aren’t always stories, you know.” pg 59, book

The characters and their sparkling dialogue are the high points in this fantasy tale for young adults.

I was also fond of the heroes being a bunch of booksellers. The only change that would have raised that, in my opinion, was if author Garth Nix had made them librarians. But that’s just me. 🙂

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The world Nix has imagined, though intriguing, never moves beyond the entirely predictable. I suppose I wasn’t the intended audience for the story, but I believe a great book entertains all ages.

“I never knew anything about the Old World or any of this stuff before I met Merlin.” pg 67, ebook.

Although, now that the world is created, I could see this being the first entry in a fun, light-hearted series. We shall see.

Only recommended for young adults who are looking for fantasy reads. Adults readers may find themselves longing for more complexity.

Thanks for reading!

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel’s brilliant and Man Booker Prize-winning books about Thomas Cromwell continue with Bring Up the Bodies.

Cromwell is the right-hand man of Henry the VIII. His masterful manipulation of people and circumstances to make the world as Henry wants it has brought Cromwell wealth and power.

Getting Anne Boleyn on the throne was a struggle. Now he has to get her off of it without losing his own head in the process.

Mantel doesn’t just tell history, she makes it come alive.

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In one scene I can’t get out of my head: Henry has a temper tantrum because of the Spanish ambassador’s continued disrespect towards his new wife, Anne, and the repeated requests from the Spanish crown for money owed. The king blows his top at Cromwell and screams in his face.

He says he believes Cromwell has always manipulated him and laughed at him. But he is king and he will not be steered.

And, even though I knew the history, I thought for a moment Cromwell was going to be taken to the Tower in that instant.

Instead, he quietly apologizes to the king and dismisses himself, then goes to a different room to take a drink. With shaking hands, Cromwell spills a drop of the wine on himself and sits there, contemplating the small stain on his shirt.

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And I said to myself, “Mantel is a genius.”

In that passage, it was as if I was in that room, living the moment. She makes you forget you’re reading a book. It’s so immersive. It’s almost magical.

Cromwell’s efforts to collect evidence against Queen Anne fills much of this book. As he tightens his net around her, you can almost feel it tighten around yourself.

Cromwell jokes with his sworn men to ease some of the tension, but it is always there, buzzing beneath the surface.

Highly recommended for historical fiction readers. Bring Up the Bodies is one of the best books I’ve read this year.

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To see my review of Mantel’s Wolf Hall, click here.

If you enjoyed Wolf Hall or Bring Up The Bodies, you may also enjoy Elizabeth I by Margaret George.

Thanks for reading!

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman

Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, was a complicated lady. She was politically active, a progressive thinker, had an atrocious gambling habit that kept her perpetually in debt and suffered from an unfortunate, sometimes unhappy, marriage.

Did I mention she lived in the late 1700 and early 1800s?

“There was enough popular participation to make politics as big a national obsession as sport, if not bigger. The emergence of national newspapers turned politicians into celebrities.” pg 18 ebook.

And one of the brightest stars among them, was the Duchess of Devonshire.

“This was the age of oligarch politics, when the great landowning families enjoyed unchallenged pre-eminence in government. While the Lords sat in the chamber known as the Upper House, or the House of Lords, their younger brothers, sons, and nephews filled up most of the Lower House, known as the House of Commons.” pgs 22-23.

It wasn’t a particularly great age for democracy or for modern thought.

“Georgiana’s methods were too modern for eighteenth-century society. She was never allowed to canvass openly in London again, nor did other aristocratic women imitate her example. It would be another hundred years before women once more ventured boldly into street politics as Georgiana had not been afraid to do in 1784.”pgs 178-179, ebook

1784!

“She felt that she had the same qualities as a man; it was simply her sex, not her capability, which barred her from taking part in politics.” pg 346.

Imagine that. 🙂

The leaders of the Whig party, Georgiana’s political friends, were brilliant but flawed.

Eighteenth-century England was full of wits, connoisseurs, orators, historians, drinkers, gamblers, rakes, and pranksters, but only (Charles James) Fox embodied all these things.” pg 75, ebook.

I confess, though this book has extraordinary detail and research about Georgiana’s political activities, I found her personal life far more fascinating.

Her marriage may have been doomed from the start: “The Duke did not know how to be romantic; never having experienced tenderness himself he was incapable of showing it to Georgiana. He did not mean to hurt her, but there was a nine-year age difference between them and a gulf of misunderstanding and misplaced expectations.” pg 49, ebook.

There was another woman, who may or may not have been both Georgiana and the Duke of Devonshire’s lover. There were multiple handsome men who entered and exited Georgiana’s life.

She even had an illegitimate child with one of them.

A fascinating biography of an extraordinary lady – highly recommended.