Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Letters to the Pianist in Books
Nov 19, 2019
14 year old Ruth Goldberg lives with her family in the East End of London during the Second World War with her parents and younger sister and brother. Her life isn't perfect by any means but at least she has her family. When their house takes a direct hit from a German bomb, the children are orphaned and cast adrift to live with strangers.
Meanwhile a man is found in the rubble following the bombing, suffering from total amnesia, who is given the name Edward because cannot even remember his own. He does discover that he is an enormously skilled pianist and soon becomes famous and also rich after marrying the daughter of a well-connected aristocrat millionaire.
The story follows Ruth, her siblings and Edward through the war years and beyond as that one bombing raid changed all their lives forever. Some will find their new lives hold unexpected - even deadly - dangers and all will come to know love and friendship as well as loss and betrayal.
Mayes writes this novel with confidence, moving smoothly between the story lines as they unfold and intertwine. She makes the reader really feel the emotions the characters are going through, good or bad. Edward's story is particularly effective as his previous life slowly starts to come to light and the man he was isn't the person either those around him or Edward himself is comfortable with.
As with her previous book, Stop The World, although very different in subject matter this story is just as deeply affecting and once again I'm sure it will stay with me for some time.
ClareR (5716 KP) rated Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel in Books
May 9, 2021
This story is told from two points of view: 6 year old Tilly and 46 year old Tilda. We see Tilly in flashbacks as Tilda goes to her late mothers seaside home to clear out her belongings.
Tilly had been an outgoing, happy child, who adored her Daddy. But one day he leaves the house and doesn’t return. Her Mummy tells her that he’s dead. Tilly doesn’t really seem to understand the concept of ‘dead’. Indeed, Tilly doesn’t seem to understand that there are people she sees that others don’t seem to notice - dead people (this isn’t a huge theme in this book , so if you don’t like reading about the supernatural, it doesn’t dominate. But I like the supernatural, so 🤷🏼♀️). This is such a lovely story filled with very likeable people, such as the flamboyant Queenie Malone and her mother, who has a different Hollywood starlet name according to the day of the week.
In the present day, Tilda starts to work through her feelings of resentment towards her mother: the way that she felt abandoned when went to boarding school, in particular.
Tilda is a very solitary figure - a polar opposite to her childhood self, in fact. When she finds her mothers diaries and starts to read them, there are many revelations that explain her mothers motivations - some of them very sad.
This is another wonderful book from Ruth Hogan, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it (I bought a copy for my mum as soon as I finished it, in fact!).
The Golden Bowl
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Henry James's highly charged study of adultery, jealousy and possession, The Golden Bowl is edited...
Shallow Graves (The Haunted #1)
8.0
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Book
Not all houses are made of brick and stone... Robert Watts is having the worst day of his entire...
Horror occult
CKD (37 KP) rated Small Great Things in Books
Dec 7, 2018
gayga (2127 KP) rated Small Great Things in Books
Jan 9, 2020
Despite this, it is an awesome book. I’m not going to divulge the story but it’s basically about racism and people’s perceived attitudes to it. The 3 points of view are Ruth Jefferson, a black nurse. Turk Bauer, a white supremacist and Kennedy McQuarrie, a lawyer.
It’s well thought out and you can really get under the skin of the character. A really good read, one I would probably read more than once.
Six Little Miracles: The heartwarming true story of raising the world's first sextuplet girls
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Janet had been told she couldn't have children, so she and her husband Graham were overjoyed to find...
The Little Stranger (2018)
3.8
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THE LITTLE STRANGER tells the story of Dr Faraday, the son of a housemaid, who has built a life of...
Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat provides the first in-depth study of feature and documentary films produced under the...
Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court
James D. Zirin and Kermit Roosevelt
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On the eve of a presidential election that may determine the makeup of Supreme Court justices for...