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 Jean-Dominique Bauby was an active, robust family man and editor of French Elle when at the age of forty-three he was brought low by a rare stroke of the brain stem. After his stroke, he remained in a coma for months, and when he woke he suffered from locked in syndrome. This is a condition when a person’s thought processes are still intact and fully functioning, but his or her body is unable to communicate those thoughts. In Bauby’s case, he could still blink an eyelid to share his thoughts, but to be honest, that’s close enough. Before his death, Bauby dictated this, his memoir, letter by letter with blinks.
This is a heartbreaking book and I don’t know how to review it. It can’t really be a review, because how can you review such a thing? It’s impossible not to feel for this man who had his life stolen from him so dramatically and so quickly. He describes how, just before his accident, he was caring for his elderly father, who could no longer leave his flat, comparing how he was being shaved to the way he shaved his father. They both expected the elder man to die first – neither realised then just how fragile life could be.
Bauby distills his life into a series of minutiae that none of us ever think of; how happy he’d be if he could just swallow his saliva or be able to tell whether his limbs are hot or cold. The huge effect that an indifferent nurse can have – whether they’ll ignore his frantic eyeblinks or try to work out what he wants, whether it’s just the television on or a more serious problem. The last day of his normal life has taken on a surreal significance, of course; he takes us through it step by step.
What I think amazed me most about the book was that he maintained his good humor, his compassion, and all the best of his human spirit. He’s understandably a little bitter, but he never turns the memoir into an outlet for complaints; all of his observations are tinged with humor. Most of all what struck me was his determined efforts to get better. It seems that brain stems do occasionally heal, but do so at a snail’s pace. He was working on making noises with his mouth again. Devastatingly, the poor man died two days after this book was published, and all his goals herein left me with a sense of both sadness and wonder, that a man so betrayed by his own body could continue to hope that it would serve him well again one day.
If nothing else, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly will leave you with a lasting appreciation for your own life, for your ability to speak and walk and laugh. I can’t imagine how heartless you’d have to be to walk out on a frantically blinking patient after reading this book – I’m not a nurse and wouldn’t like to be, but even so it made me think about how I treat others and how I’d like to be treated. This is such a worthy, if sad, book, which should be read by all.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Georgina Jackson is a serious, literary writer – which is her world means she’s writing quality stuff, but sales are low and people are uninterested. Though her first novel was a success by those standards, she’s struggling with book number two and has no idea whether she’ll be able to stay in her beloved England after her research money runs out. So when her agent pitches her as the ideal writer to complete a Jane Austen book based on a single chapter, Georgina knows she can’t do it – especially because she hasn’t ever read a single book by Jane Austen – but she capitulates anyway because she desperately needs the money.
I liked a lot of things about this book. For one thing, I can completely understand an American in love with England, especially London. I’m a ridiculous Anglophile myself and I could completely identify with Georgina’s longing to stay. I nodded my head every time she listed all the wonderful things she’d miss about England – and as she travels a bit searching for inspiration, I recognized the places she went and I could just feel the appeal coming through the book’s pages.
I also am a huge fan of Jane Austen – I love her work and I often get annoyed that people fail to see more than the romances which make up her books’ plotlines. (Seriously, why do we always dismiss things the minute we learn they’re romantic?) As she wanders the streets and bumps into all the people who are crazy about Jane Austen, Georgina listens to their conversations about the books and can’t understand why everyone cares. I was clamoring for her to just read them for herself – nothing irritates me more than someone who disdains a book without trying to read it first – but in the end I found I really liked her slow discovery of the books’ appeal. The author really got into how fabulous Austen’s books are and it formed a crucial part of the story; she had plenty of opportunities to explain just why her books have universal appeal even now.
I did think Georgina herself was annoying for most of the book, though; I’m not really the type of person who can understand constant procrastination with deadlines looming, so I just wanted her to sit down and write a book already. I’m no author but I can pretty reliably sit down and force out a couple thousand words a day; if she’d just done that from the start, she might have had something she could have worked with. And then there was her refusal to even read Jane Austen for pages on end, and her snobbery, despite the fact that she goes on trips to get into the proper atmosphere. She improved by the end in terms of openness, especially with a couple of sweet romantic interludes, but overall I had trouble understanding her and thus couldn’t really identify with her. The secondary characters were particularly charming, especially Henry and his 14 year old runaway sister, and did help to lessen the annoyance I felt with Georgina.
While the main character got on my nerves, I still found Writing Jane Austen to be a wonderful book in many ways. I think it would be perfectly suited to someone who loves Jane Austen or just loves England and London in particular.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review.
 Today I had planned to post about my new deliberate reading strategy, which is basically just a return of my TBR – review – library book rotation, but it already isn’t working out so well for me. I like piling the books up in the order that I should read them, but the minute I land on a dud or feel like I’m not really happy with what I’ve chosen, I start to question what I’m doing. For example, right now I’m trying to get through The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, perfect timing since it just got longlisted for the Booker prize, but I’ll confess, I’m not crazy about it. I don’t really know why, but I just don’t think I’m a fan of David Mitchell’s prose and I’m not really seeing where the story is going – so I’m already impatient with it and worried that a few books are going to slow down my reading. My goal was to slow down my reading, but this isn’t working as well in practice as I had hoped. I’ll have to go back to the drawing board, I think.
Anyway, what I want to talk about now is ebooks. I’ve had a bit of a perfect storm this week leading up to the fact that I am considering getting an ebook reader. First off, the new Kindle 3 is actually in my price range. It’s also going to have a dedicated UK ebook store, the lack of which has put me off other devices in the past. Secondly, we are finally putting our anniversary trip to Paris (I can’t tell you how excited I am) in motion for October and I’m going to be on trains for about four hours each way, but don’t really want the weight of multiple books on my back while wandering around the city. And, to top it off, I ended up reading an ebook on my computer yesterday and today and I really dislike that experience. I also know that I could access at least some of the galleys on netgalley if I had a Kindle (unless a UK Kindle will struggle with this – a question I must ask!) and there are a number of exciting books there I’d love to read on release.
I don’t actually plan on buying too many ebooks full price for the device, but that option would be nice too. My husband is fully in support of the plan because he hates the huge number of unread books I have stacked around. I don’t want to give up paper books, though, and I always feel like I don’t really own the books I have in ebook format, especially knowing about DRM restrictions. Amazon isn’t very good about this, so even though we might end up with access to Kindle for Android on both of our mobiles in a year or two, I’m still hesitating. A couple of years ago I would never even have considered purchasing a Kindle, and I’m not even sure when I changed my mind about that!
So, what do you think? Is an ebook reader a good idea? Do you have one and enjoy using it? Help!
I’m going to go ahead and assume I won’t finish The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet or How Dolly Parton Saved My Life today, so my wrap-up for the month should be accurate now.
July was a pretty busy month, given that we had two weeks’ holiday in the middle, but I still managed to read plenty. I completed 19 books and I enjoyed most of them. As you can see below, I have probably overcome my aversion to historical fiction. It’s just about choosing unfamiliar places and time periods these days, I think. I also have a depressing number of reviews to work on!
Historical Fiction
Romance
Fantasy/Horror
Non-fiction/memoir
- The Boy Who Loved Books, John Sutherland
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Down Under, Bill Bryson
YA
- The Ruby in the Smoke, Philip Pullman (mystery)
- Envy, Anna Godbersen (historical fiction)
Women’s Fiction
- The One that I Want, Allison Winn Scotch
- Writing Jane Austen, Elizabeth Aston
- How to be an American Housewife, Margaret Dilloway
At least this month, I am able to choose a favorite, and that’s Brooklyn. I just adored that book and looking at it makes me want to read it all over again. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I don’t have too much planned for next month, but I know I’ll be reading and giving away copies of The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The White Queen last year so I’ve found myself looking forward to this one, and I hope I’ll be as excited to share it with you after I’ve read it.
How was your month in reading?
Some of these books were sent to me for free for review.
 Miss Kate Daltry’s life hasn’t been great since her father died. Since her stepmother Mariana cares nothing for their estate, nor for her, she’s had to take everything into her own hands – and when staff are fired, she ends up taking on their jobs. There are few bright spots in her life; she’s never had a London season and can’t imagine where she’d find a husband, nor is she certain that she’d be able to abandon the tenants to Mariana’s whims. When her stepsister is bitten by her pet dog, though, Kate is forced to impersonate her, complete with fiance and bratty dogs, at a ball in a prince’s castle. Little does she expect that she’ll find it so hard to keep up the pretense with Prince Gabriel.
Eloisa James is completely a must-buy author for me. You might recall that I just adored her Desperate Duchesses series, which only got better with each successive volume. While I’m not sure A Kiss at Midnight has the long-term resonance of that six book series with me, it’s still an absolutely delightful story that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Since A Kiss at Midnight is a Cinderella retelling, James chose not to set it in any specific time period so she could stay truer to the fairy tale. Some historical details as a result seem off, but the genuine fairy tale romance feel of the entire book is so worth it. The pages might as well be laced with a bit of pixie dust. I loved recognizing all the little details that are so familiar from a lifetime of variations on Cinderella, and in addition acknowledging a few of the changes the author made to mix it up. For example, the glass slippers aren’t really glass, but rather very thin fabric that is stiff and transparent. For rather obvious reasons, they could only have been worn once.
I loved the romance, too. These characters work so well together – so many of their interactions left me with a smile on my face. They learn to get past their initial misconceptions and truly love one another. I thought it was sweet and genuine. I also really enjoyed Kate’s interactions with her step sister Victoria, who is spoiled but has an extremely kind heart. Kate herself was the star of the show, though, always witty and vulnerable at just the right times. I don’t think she’d fit in at any time period that this book could have been set in, but that’s okay, because she doesn’t have to. As usual, I loved the literary references that the author threw in. She’s a professor of literature and I think it’s these touches that both add romance and make her books really stand out to me.
While this book may not have the emotional impact of, in particular, A Duke of Her Own, it was still an outstanding romance novel. I cherished the time I spent reading it, and if you enjoy sweet, fairy tale romances with a little bit of heat, this book is certainly for you.
It also has a gorgeous cover, doesn’t it?
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Margaret Oades isn’t exactly thrilled that she has to move her entire family from England to New Zealand in the late nineteenth century, but she loves her husband and, as a woman with children, has few other options. And anyway, they will return in two years, or at least that’s the plan; her house is attacked by Maori, native New Zealanders, and she and her children are spirited into the night and enslaved for six years. In the meantime, Henry Oades, Margaret’s husband, is convinced that his family has perished, and moves to California, where he marries once again. When Margaret shows up on her doorstep, new wife Nancy Oades has no idea what to do – but the case of the two wives of Mr. Oades incites public scandal and personal difficulty that will impact the lives of all concerned in remarkable ways.
This was such an intriguing historical novel. First off, the initial setting of New Zealand in the late nineteenth century was fairly new to me in fiction, but New Zealand is one of the places I’ve had to write about at work, so I’ve done some research. This is the first time I can recall reading about it in fiction and it was marvelous to have it come to life, if only for a few pages before the horror happened. Throughout, through, I really enjoyed Johanna Moran’s writing, and I found the whole book smooth and atmospheric – the locations felt different and I appreciated each of them differently.
I also loved the characters here, mostly the wives. I immediately liked Margaret and found it hard to believe that I could like Nancy, too, but somehow I appreciated both wives and their difficulties while loving a single man. The novel conveys magnificently the strength of women; despite slurs again their reputations, physical violence, and simple jealousy, Nancy and Margaret remain admirable characters and hardly ever miss a step. While Mr. Oades, despite his seemingly kind and giving nature, remains just a shadow throughout the novel, even when he’s grief stricken about the deaths of his family members, the two women really come to life. If I couldn’t understand why they loved Henry, I could understand perfectly their reasons for staying with him; this is true of Margaret in particular. Nancy, it seems, could have easily left despite her recent marriage, but she is still in love with Henry.
The idea of this novel is great, too, in that it covers a little known lawsuit that actually existed in California. At this point, there appears to have been something of a hysteria against bigamy due to Mormons’ multiple marriages before reliable laws were enacted. I would find such censure in real life heartbreaking – as if Margaret Oades and her children hadn’t been through enough already – but sadly not unbelievable, especially not at this time. I was eager to know a few more details about the real life case and I wish someone would write an actual history about it.
Until then, though, The Wives of Henry Oades is a really engaging work of historical fiction – especially recommended if you’re interested in reading about strong women who make the best of what life hands them.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 Amandine is an aristocratic child born of scandal in Poland just before World War II. She is born nameless, with a heart condition that means her continued survival is unlikely. Unable to bear the child’s presence, Amandine’s grandmother sends her to foster in a convent in France, careful to hide all traces of her ancestry bar one, an heirloom necklace. She even tells her daughter, Amandine’s mother, that her daughter has died while having surgery as an infant. Instead, miraculously, Amandine grows up dreaming of her mother, finding substitutes along the way, but never losing grasp of the fact that she has a mother who might want her. When World War II breaks out, Amandine and her guardian Solange set out across France, determined to find a safe haven in a country torn apart by war, and perhaps to find someone who recognizes the peculiar antique necklace Amandine wears.
In terms of plot, Amandine gets off to a painful start. The first chapters are riddled with the old countess’s (the grandmother’s) memories and the story of Amandine’s birth. There are pages of description and little to no action. Once Amandine gets to the convent, things pick up slightly and it’s easy to feel for the poor girl. When she goes to school, she is constantly mocked and also suffers when she has to watch the other girls reunite each weekend with their families. She has her long term guardian, Solange, but she’s no substitute for Amandine’s mother, no matter how much they love one another. Even as a child, Amandine is full of spirit and determined to defend herself and those she cares about, which makes it very easy for us as readers to care for her in turn. The rest of the characters are very well fleshed out, with believable internal conflicts revealed fairly slowly as the first half goes on. I really felt that this was a book populated by people, not just characters, if that makes sense.
The plot picks up even more once the war arrives and with a few perspective shifts; the contrast between war-ravaged France and Poland and the initial chapters in the convent is striking. De Blasi effortlessly conveys the utter pointlessness of the war and the fragility of life at the time with a few well-written passages. Characters that were built up in the first chapters as complex human beings are struck down with barely a moment’s notice. The author’s writing is beautifully descriptive and I got a real feel for convent life and the French countryside, which makes the chapters about war even harder to read in comparison. And throughout, I was constantly hoping for Amandine to find her mother, which adds an extra layer of tension to the book’s concluding chapters.
Despite a slow start, Amandine revealed itself as a complex, engaging historical novel with strong characters and a distinct French atmosphere. It’s the perfect choice for the historical fiction reader craving a thoughtful read.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
 Tilly Farmer loves everything about her life. She loves her high school sweetheart husband, her job as a guidance counselor, and her residence in the same town she grew up in. She and her husband Tyler have decided to try and have a baby. As far as Tilly is concerned, her life is just about perfect. Then an old friend turns up in town, and Tilly gains the ability to see someone’s future when she looks at their photograph. In a matter of months, her perfect life has begun to unravel, and she has to face the uncomfortable truth that it may never have been perfect at all.
I went into this book with fairly low expectations. I know a lot of bloggers who really enjoyed this, but I usually am not a big fan of women’s fiction; people living in “my” world often don’t do it for me. I just mentioned this in another review, The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan. That didn’t happen here, and in fact I found myself really enjoying this novel, perhaps because Tilly is so very different from me that I might as well have been reading a book set in a fantasy world.
The truth that this novel revolves around is the fact that Tilly is willfuly blind. When the story starts, she expresses her enthusiasm for the high school prom and how eager she is to sponsor it. It’s very clear to us that she never quite got past high school and is constantly reliving those glory days every minute of her life. While helping students achieve their goals is admirable, Tilly never seems to have her own, and is instead content with what she has – or the illusion of it. She thinks it’s cute when her husband falls asleep watching sports instead of going to bed with her, believes her father has finished drinking, and tries to persuade her best friend to stay with her own high school sweetheart husband even though he’s cheated on her. Tilly needs that gift of clarity, and it’s only when she starts to confront the uneasy reality of her life that the whole book starts to shine.
What I think I liked most about this book is that it looks at what’s underneath the ideal American life. Tilly looks, sounds, and has even convinced herself that she’s happy. But she isn’t, and those issues only come out when you look a little closer. Her mother’s death, her father’s alcoholism, her dissatisfied and distanced husband, and even her own desire to take care of her siblings are all problems that she can only confront once reality is presented to her. She moves from contentment to happiness, which made the entire book a rewarding read. The ending is slightly open, but I was left with confidence that Tilly was on track to make the right decisions for her future.
The One That I Want left me eager to read more of Allison Winn Scotch’s work. If you enjoy women’s fiction, don’t miss this.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Read It Forward program.
 Project Noah is a secret government program to create the perfect super soldier by turning convicted criminals into vampires. In an ideal world, these vampires would then be set on their enemies; they’re so difficult to kill that a few of them could decimate armies. But this isn’t an ideal world, and there is no way to control the vampires. When they break free and the horror is unleashed on the entire United States, only a select group of survivors remain to live in the light and keep fighting for their humanity.
The Passage is easily this summer’s most hyped read. It’s been endorsed by famous authors and some of my favorite book bloggers alike, which made it essentially a must read for me, too. That’s why I snapped it up from Amazon Vine the minute I had the chance and took a long haul flight as the perfect opportunity to bury myself in this supernatural thriller.
I found it wasn’t a perfect read; for one thing, I expected it to be quite fast paced, but I had a hard time getting into it. With a full 7 hour flight, I wanted to find myself compelling enough to read the majority of it in one stroke, but I found it moved surprisingly slow at the beginning and couldn’t hold my attention while other stuff was going on. In the end it took me a good few days of holiday time to read, which was surprising for something I thought would be a heart-pounding thriller that would keep me up all night dying to know the resolution to the story.
It was very good, though, for the tale it was, and I was genuinely interested in the characters and the story as it progressed. I found I was much more interested in the story after the epidemic began; I liked in particular how the character Amy tied everything together and made the story a coherent whole instead of a few related storylines. The book is smoothly written, with moments of brilliance and mediocrity in about equal measure. It feels nicely epic, as it should when the whole world is essentially at stake after an apocalypse. And the ending – I am not even sure what to say about the ending, except that it leaves me wondering and I thought was the perfect way to finish it, while leaving me wondering what’s next if this is truly the first of a trilogy.
The Passage doesn’t quite live up to its over-hyped reputation, in my opinion, but it does provide an entertaining, scary, and often gripping read that is perfect for the beach, especially if you have a few hours to get going in the story. I would definitely recommend it to horror fans and in particular those who enjoyed The Stand by Stephen King.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free through the Amazon Vine program.
I have been a very bad blogger for the past two weeks. After I wrote all my catch-up reviews last Monday the 12th, I didn’t write a post and hardly even looked at my blog until just this morning. I have been at my parents’ house, and since I hadn’t seen them in nearly six months, I thought it was worth ignoring blogging for a bit. I did go around and leave a few comments, but what I really needed was a break from writing. I know writing is an art that gets better with practice, but after constantly writing every day for four months, I think I was getting enough practice and just needed a rest!
Luckily, I’ve returned with what I think may be an increased zest for blogging, and even if that only shows up with timely reviews, I hope I can stick to it a little more firmly than I have the past few months. So I hope I’m back, with more effort to put in than I had before!
Keith and I had a fantastic trip to the States. Once we got there (I hate flying, so that part was not so great!) we settled in for nearly two weeks of unhealthy food, time spent with parents and relatives, and tourism in my former corner of the world. We went to New York City or close to it three times and had the opportunity to go up the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and tour Ellis Island. We had walks around Times Square and Central Park and didn’t spend nearly enough time in the American Museum of Natural History. We also paid that all-important visit to The Strand, even though it involved walking almost 70 blocks downtown in 90+ degree heat. It was definitely not a cheap trip, but we wanted to treat it like a proper holiday.
I read, too, mostly making an effort to get through a few of the review copies that had accumulated there for the past few months. I finished off:
I enjoyed all of them to varying degrees and I plan on reviewing them over this week and next week. I’m also thinking about my reading plan going forward; I brought back a load of books with me and I really need to prioritize! In the meantime, though, I’m reading The Magicians and Mrs Quent, an absolutely charming fantasy book that I can’t wait to tell you about.
How have you all been the past two weeks? Have I missed anything exciting on your blog?
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