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ClareR (5859 KP) rated So Much Life Left Over in Books

Sep 8, 2018

So Much Life Left Over

Louis de Bernieres | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

The aftermath of World War 1 in true de Bernieres style.

Louis de Bernieres has been one of my favourite authors ever since I stumbled across The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts in 1990. As soon as I see that he has a book coming out, I avidly wait until I can buy it, trying to get as much information about the subject matter as I can (yes, I'm a fan-girl). This novel has not disappointed me.
So Much Life Left Over takes us back in to the lives of Rosie and Daniel Pitt after the First World War has come to an end. We go as far as Ceylon, back to London and to Germany in the 1930's. We catch up with all of the characters that we first encountered in The Dust That Falls From Dreams (and if you haven't read that yet, you're seriously missing out), and learn about what happens to Rosie's sisters, parents and those that they have met along the way.
I love the dialogue in this book: it's punchy, quick-witted and emotional. The first of Oily Wragge's chapters (each chapter, when about a different person, is written from their perspective, sometimes in first person, sometimes in third person - but I like this. It seems so personal) haunting, terribly sad and filled with the violence and horror of war and being a prisoner of war.
Daniel and Wragge go to work in Germany, and set up a business with the two fighter pilots that Daniel captured in the war. Here we get a look at the Germany of the early 1930's: the poverty, deprivation, and Hitlers rise to power. Daniel correctly predicts another war.
However, the truly heart wrenching events happen in the last thirty pages or so. I strongly suggest you get your handkerchief ready. The emotion in these last pages is what really makes this a truly stand out book for me (if the rest of the book hadn't already been enough to do that!). The sensitivity in the way that the subject matter is handled, and the emotions that this invokes in the reader is so well done.
I would thoroughly recommend this novel, I so enjoyed it, and I will be looking forward to the last part of this story.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Kudos

Total War Battles: SHOGUN

Games and Entertainment

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

BUILD, BATTLE AND AVENGE! Specifically developed for touchscreen platforms, Total War Battles™:...

The Vision: Yesterday and Tomorrow

Geoff Johns and Roy Thomas

7.0 (2 Ratings) Rate It

Book

The android Avenger goes solo His memories downloaded and stolen, a partially amnesiac Vision must...

Dean (6927 KP) rated The King's Man (2021) in Movies

Jan 31, 2022

The King's Man (2021)

2021 | Action, Adventure, Comedy

7.0

(11 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

Some great action scenes (0 more)

Up and down pacing (1 more)

Different to the first two

A good entry to the series

Finally got around to watching this. I really liked the original and enjoyed the second. This takes a different direction being a prequel but also with less humour.
Based on events leading up to World War 1 as a Lord tries to use his influence and means to prevent conflict.
There are some great action scenes and fights but it doesn't have the humour of the other films. Quite odd at times, serious the next. It's a bit of a mixed bag. Plenty to enjoy but also a few surprises in one way or another.

Kudos

David McK (3547 KP) rated His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes in Books

May 5, 2024

So, 2 things:

1) I actually listened to the Stephen Fry presented Audible version of this (in between bouts of actually reading it)
2) I was expecting there to be an over-arching plot, similar to something like 'The Hounds of the Baskervilles'

With regards to #2, there isn't.

This, instead, hews closer to something like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in that it is presented as a series of more-or-less standalone cases, with the final one in the collection 'His Last Bow' and with that one set in the early 1910s, just before the outbreak of World War One, and in which Holmes comes out of retirement to solve one last case.