Monthly Archives: February 2024

#BookReview ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury #scifi #fantasy #classic

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Another classic I haven’t read before, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a paperback that, like The War of the Worlds by HG Wells, I picked up in bookshop attracted by its distinctive cover. I’m so pleased I did. Ray BradburyEerily prophetic, first published in 1952, in the post-war American consumer boom, Bradbury is uncannily far-sighted. Guy Montag is a fireman who doesn’t put out fires, he lights them. In this world, houses have been fireproofed to such an extent that they are inflammable. People don’t read books any more, they’re the enemy. Fiction, fact, non-fiction, history, religious works, imagination, all must be destroyed. If the fire service receives a tip-off that a person is in possession of books, the firemen burn the house, the books and sometimes the guilty book-owner.
We see this world through Montag’s observations of his daily life and home. The ‘televisors’ that project entertainment programmes onto the walls of his house’s ‘parlour,’ a diet of sugar-crystal and saccharine combined with advertisements. Montag’s wife, Mildred, lives her life indoors, driven by a timetable of programmes with her ‘family’ – the characters in regular programming that replaces relationships with real people – their artificial likes and love hearts become more important than everyday talk with her husband.
There are echoes of Orwell’s 1984 but the politics are different, Big Brother surveillance and political messages replaced by constant advertisements, ear worms, enticements to buy things, things made elsewhere in countries unknown to Montag. ‘Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three.’ It is an intellectually and emotionally stunting life. People’s curiosity has disappeared.
Until one day, Montag has a brief encounter with a young neighbour, Clarisse McClellan, a strange young girl who sees the world differently. So the next time he attends a fire, he is horrified at what he is doing. He hides a book in his jacket and takes it home. Fearing discovery, of bringing harm to his wife, their home and way of life, he doesn’t hesitate to step over the line. Meanwhile war, according to the ‘seashell radio’ which fits in his ear, is coming.
There is a hinterland of rebels, secretive people who still believe in freedom of thought, who live in fear of discovery, who believe books are not the problem but the solution. Books can be intriguing, challenging, disturbing, exciting. They invite imagination, exploration, curiosity. But in the world of Fahrenheit 451, life is superficial. People live a routine without stopping to look at the sky, listening to birdsong, watching the clouds change shape. It’s the difference between looking at a flower’s beauty then forgetting it, and looking at a flower, seeing its beauty, drawing it, writing a poem about it, studying its biology, sowing seeds, noticing other plants and their role in the natural world.
Thought-provoking. Sad. A must read.

If you like this, try:-
‘The War of the Worlds’ by HG Wells
‘In Ark’ by Lisa Devaney
‘Dark Earth’ by Rebecca Stott

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-73F via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- James Hynes

#BookReview ‘The Girl Who Escaped’ by Angela Petch #WW2

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World War Two drama The Girl Who Escaped by Angela Petch is a heartbreaking slow-burner that had me reading late at night to finish it. Angela PetchThe story about four friends in the small Italian town of Urbino begins with a Prologue set in 1988. Enrico, waiting for a reunion with his childhood friends, looks at a photograph of them taken fifty years earlier, before the war, on a mountain hike. Young. Carefree. Unsuspecting.
In 1940 in Urbino, 20-year-old medical student Devora Lassa is struggling to accept how her movements, as a Jew, are now limited by law. She is unable to study, is seen as different. Sabrina Merli, who has a long-standing crush on Conte Enrico di Villanova, is jealous at a party when Enrico greets Devora with a kiss on both cheeks. Luigi Michelozzi, a civil servant, watches, quiet and thoughtful.
After the party, Devora’s world is thrown into chaos when her father explains the hard truth. Tomorrow, Italy will enter the war on the side of Germany and the racial laws applying to Jewish people will again be changed. Her parents, who were born in Germany but are Italian citizens, must leave in the morning for an internment camp near Arezzo. Their Jewish neighbours, not Italian citizens, are being deported. As Devora and her two younger twin brothers were born in Italy they are able to stay in the family home in Urbino but now Devora, helped by their maid Anna Maria, must become parents to the boys.
This the story of Devora, whose life within a matter of hours changes out of all recognition. She is the girl who escapes a multitude of times, but in wartime Italy it is difficult to know where is safe, who is trustworthy, strangers who help, friends who change sides, neighbours who spy, Italians who are fascists or partigianos (resistance fighters), German soldiers who are fascists and torturers or world-weary soldiers missing their own families. Every decision Devora makes affects not just herself but those closest to her. When Luigi warns her to leave Urbino, the three siblings are reunited with their parents at Villa Oliveto, the internment camp turned into a Jewish community by its inmates, with gardening, theatre, medical treatment. But is anywhere safe?
Devora runs and runs again, and comes to hate herself for not turning and fighting. When she joins the resistenza, she needs every ounce of bravery, ingenuity and intelligence to survive. But in Urbino, no-one can predict who will betray you, who wants to help, who is setting a trap. She is a fantastic heroine, we live with her day-by-day as she begins to understand what is happening to her country, as she grows from indignant student to strong fighter. She must learn to move in the shadows, how to act a role, when to keep quiet and when step forwards. Her character development is compelling. Luigi is fascinating too, his job registering births and deaths allows him to falsify records to protect people. We see a little of Enrico, an arrogant, flashy personality who I had no time for, and even less of Sabrina. I needed to know more about Sabrina’s behaviour throughout the war, to understand her experiences. She blows with the wind, supporting whoever she thinks will be of advantage to her, her loyalty is an enigma. Some people fight to survive, others stay quiet and collaborate.
The Girl Who Escaped portrays the reality of wartime Italy, focussing on one town and the four friends. At times its not an easy read, the plight of ordinary people persecuted for no other reason than their religion is not new but Petch maintains the suspense to the end so we don’t know who betrays who.

Here are my reviews of other novels also by Angela Petch:-
THE POSTCARD FROM ITALY
THE TUSCAN SECRET

If you like this, try:-
‘Day’ by AL Kennedy
‘The Garden of Angels’ by David Hewson
‘The Bird in the Bamboo Cage’ by Hazel Gaynor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED by Angela Petch https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-74A via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Ray Bradbury

#BookReview ‘The Wolf Den’ by @Elodie_Harper #historical #Pompeii

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The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper, first in the Wolf Den trilogy, is a visceral portrait of Pompeii, the wealth, the poverty, the luxury, the corruption, the art and culture. Set in a brothel, this is the story of Amara, a young Greek middle class woman sold into slavery and shipped to Italy. Amara’s story, and of her fellow she-wolves, is not pretty but this is such a dynamic tale, foul-smelling, full of abuse and also love and hope. Elodie HarperI loved the female dynamic. The strength and vulnerability of the women who live and work in the wolf den who band together as sisters, loving, bickering, competitive, supportive. But there is also mistrust and rivalry, dissembling about their real backgrounds.
Pompeii is a city of excess where there is everything to gain or lose and with that goes violence, secrecy, feuds, revenge and betrayal. Between the wealthy, between the brothel owners, the sybarites, the money lenders, the organised crime gangs. Through this minefield, the women of the wolf den must step carefully to survive, to find customers, watching each other’s backs, always searching for a man who is kind but at best not violent. It is a city of feast days, each excessive in their own way; Vinalia, the wine festival, and Saturnalia, celebrating agricultural god Saturn, are both key in the timelines of the novel. The Wolf Den is a fascinating glimpse into the life in Pompeii, Harper writes with such visceral clarity, detailing the violence and beauty with equal brightness. The novel is set in AD74, only five years before the eruption of Vesuvius destroys the city.
Negotiating the path to life improvement, one step at a time, Amara’s life is a pendulum, swinging one day good, the next bad. When bad can mean injury, cruelty, murder and good can mean a word of kindness, a gift of a necklace, a day in the brothel when the cruel master is absent. She makes tiny steps in improving her lot, making sacrifices along the way, always with a clear eye on her goal. To become a freewoman. Along the way, she learns compromise, pragmatism and loyalty, but will she find true love to guarantee survival. It’s a cruel and unequal world that Amara must navigate.
I’m so glad I stumbled upon this trilogy, it’s a rollercoaster emotional read.

Here are my reviews of the first two novels in the ‘Wolf Den’ series by Elodie Harper:-
THE HOUSE WITH THE GOLDEN DOOR #2WOLFDEN
THE TEMPLE OF FORTUNA #3WOLFDEN

If you like this, try:-
‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue
‘The Fair Fight’ by Anna Freeman
‘A Dangerous Business’ by Jane Smiley

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE WOLF DEN by @Elodie_Harper https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-736 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Angela Petch

#BookReview ‘An Expert in Murder’ by @nicolaupsonbook #JosephineTey #crime #mystery

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An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson is an intriguing concept and the first in a series. A historical crime novel based on a real person – mystery novelist Josephine Tey, pseudonym of author Elizabeth MacKintosh – Upson places Tey in London’s theatreland where her successful play Richard of Bordeaux is drawing the crowds. This stage success happened for real, but Upson adds a murder. Or two. Nicola UpsonHow will a writer of crime and mystery novels deal with murder so close, so threatening? Will her creative imagination help friend Detective Inspector Archie Penrose find the murderer. And what happens when someone you know becomes a suspect. More a character-led mystery than a detective or crime story.
A mixture of fact and fiction – Tey was real, the role of John Terry was in reality played by John Gielgud – the story is slow to get going after the initial death. Partly this is the curse of the first instalment of a series, characters must be drawn, relationships established, clues laid for storylines which will run throughout future novels. The 1930s theatre setting is full of colourful characters though not much action actually happens in the New Theatre itself. The story kept me guessing but at times I lost track of the labyrinthine connections between people dating from the Great War and worried that I had missed something. In places there is so much new information I had to re-read. I particularly wanted to know more about Archie Penrose but perhaps that will come in the next book.
The period between the two world wars is a fascinating time with enormous social change but still retaining a straitjacket of Edwardian social conventions, which is fertile territory for a novelist. However there were moments when language and behaviour seemed a little too modern for the Thirties setting.
This is a slow to start to the series but intriguing enough to make me want to give it another chance. Perhaps I’ll try a novel later in the series [at the time of writing there are 11]. Ultimately, more a mystery than a detective or crime story.

Read my reviews of these other books by Nicola Upson:-
ANGEL WITH TWO FACES #2JOSEPHINETEY
STANLEY AND ELSIE

And here’s my review of BRAT FARRAR by the real-life author Josephine Tey.

If you like this, try:-
‘Curtain Call’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Shrines of Gaiety’ by Kate Atkinson
‘Fortune Favours the Dead’ by Stephen Spotswood #1Pentecost&Parker

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AN EXPERT IN MURDER by @nicolaupsonbook https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-71K via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Elodie Harper