Month: May 2020

The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

Cover

The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

Summary:

In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it.

The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author – apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate.

By turns funny and moving, The Mystery of Henri Pick is a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of books – and of the authors who write them

My Review:

What the world needs now is a good old fashioned feel-good novel and this is an exciting new collaboration between Pushkin Press and Walter Presents. The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos is the first and was also released as a film with English subtitles in 2019.

AuthorThis charming if quirky novel is set in the French town of Grozon (Brittany) there is a library but this library only stocks books that have been rejected and no-one wants. Imagine you being the writer of a failed book and you have to hand it in to the library in person. Oh the ignominy of that!

The unusual library was set up by Jean-Pierre Gourvec, but when Jean-Pierre died, the library was left and more or less forgotten that it is until the arrival of two people who just happened to be in the area, Delphine is taking her boyfriend Frédéric to meet her parents and just happen find the library and they start to have a look at some of the rejected manuscripts. It is Delphine who suddenly realises that she has found a literary gem but who is the mystery writer Henri Pick? It turns out that Henri has since died but was a local.

After a visit to the late Henri’s wife they decide to get this book published and it becomes a literary sensation. But there has to be a downside to the success and there is one man who is a critic but with not much success jumps on the success to try and stop its success. But what is his reasons?

It is hard to say just how much I loved this beautiful and charming book, I just loved David Foenkinos’s writing style, it has humour and I just loved the real French feel to the storyline. This is a delightful story about books but also about people. Just a real joy to read.

288 Pages.

@PushkinPress

#WalterPresents

Thank you to Poppy Stimpson (Pushkin Press) for the review copy of The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos was published by Pushkin Press and was published on 7th May 2020 and is available to order through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop. Please support your local independent bookshops through these difficult times.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

COVER

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty

Summary:

Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles the turning of 15-year-old Dara McAnulty’s world. From spring and through a year in his home patch in Northern Ireland, Dara spent the seasons writing. These vivid, evocative and moving diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are raw in their telling. “I was diagnosed with Asperger’s/autism aged five … By age seven I knew I was very different, I had got used to the isolation, my inability to break through into the world of talking about football or Minecraft was not tolerated. Then came the bullying. Nature became so much more than an escape; it became a life-support system.” Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays Dara’s intense connection to the natural world, and his perspective as a teenager juggling exams and friendships alongside a life of campaigning. “In writing this book,” Dara explains, “I have experienced challenges but also felt incredible joy, wonder, curiosity and excitement. In sharing this journey my hope is that people of all generations will not only understand autism a little more but also appreciate a child’s eye view on our delicate and changing biosphere.”

My Review:

On that showery Saturday in Hyde Park in London back in September 2018 I was among thousands of those who love wildlife that gathered ahead of a Walk for Wildlife on that day there was many speakers but among them was a young man who captivated the crowd. I thought then this was a young man with a great future. Dara McAnulty has been passionate about wildlife since he was very young and today sees the release of his debut book The Diary of a Young Naturalist (Little Toller Books) which in a diary format looks at the 15-year-old’s year starting in Spring. Dara is the youngest recipient of the RSPB’s medal for services to conservation.

Dara

Like Dara, I became passionate about wildlife in my very young days and that love of nature has never left and through some difficult dark days it has been nature that I find helps and especially through these difficult times that we are living through.

Dara lives with his family in Northern Ireland and spend their time finding the beauty in nature through their times away from home. Nature after all is all around us. Whether it is a bird, butterfly or insect Dara will stop and wants to learn all about it. Dara is autistic and suffered the most horrific abuse from pupils at school. It is the love of his family that is his rock and is harbour during those difficult days. He also finds solace in his love of punk music.

When Dara discovered writing he poured his heart into writing thoughts on paper and when you are reading Dara’s words you very quickly become aware of just what a powerful and poetic voice Dara has. Dara wants to be heard about just what a dangerous place our wildlife is in. What struck me in Dara’s writing is just how lyrical he really is whether Dara is talking about his life or about his family or about the nature around him as he discovers through each season and through the anxiety of moving house and starting a new school, difficult for any of us but when you have autism this is multiplied on many levels. Trust me Dara will be heard and Diary of a Young Naturalist is his voice and this will inspire a new and young vibrant generation of wildlife lovers. There are many great voices in nature writing and you can now add Dara McAnulty to the list.

I cannot recommend Dara’s debut book highly enough and Diary of a Young Naturalist will appeal to readers of all ages.

240 Pages.

*Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty will be the Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 from Monday 25th May at 9.45am

Thank you to Gracie at Little Toller Books for the review copy of Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty was published by Little Toller Books and was published on 25th May 2020 and is available to order through the publisher and also through your local independent bookshops.

 

The Game’s Gone by Simon Barnes. An Audible Exclusive.

image001

The Game’s Gone by Simon Barnes

An Audible Exclusive.

Summary:

No one would call David Rose – or ‘Rosie’ as he’s known to one and all – a star, but he’s good at his job and proud of his work as a sportswriter for a national newspaper. He’s used to seeing flashier talents come and go – both on the field, and in the competitive world of the press. Football comes first in the way he spends his working life, but he’s happy to pitch in whatever the sport – from Formula 1 to Test cricket in the West Indies, the Olympics to a heavyweight championship bout in Japan.

He’s used to the ups and downs of a journalist’s life and has learned to keep his own head safely down – until an especially venal boss pins his own misdemeanours on the entirely innocent Rose. Rosie’s revenge is slow but sweet, as he manoeuvres through a world where egos clash, money talks and you’re only as safe as your latest by-line.

Not since Richard Ford’s classic novel, The Sportswriter, has a novel caught the world of sports journalism so vividly and so well. A marvellous listen – funny, touching and compelling.

Simon Barnes was the Chief Sports Writer for The Times until 2014, having worked for the paper for 30 years, during which he covered seven Olympic Games and six World Cup finals. He writes about sports and wildlife and is the author of over 20 books, including the best-selling How to be a Bad Birdwatcher.

 My Review:

Being more than just a sports fanatic I have always enjoyed Simon Barnes sports articles when he was a journalist for The Times. Now I enjoy Simon’s books on nature.

What we have here though is Simon for the former Sports Journo writing an exclusive audio book for Audible. The Game’s Gone by Simon Barnes takes us to the heart of being a sports journalist.

 

image003It is more than just competitive being one of the sportswriters for a leading national daily it can be cut throat at times. David Rose first love is football but he can more than hold his own if required when it comes to other major sporting event

‘Rosie’ tells the story of his boss who for who knows why has decided to blame David for something he is not guilty of and what he does to get his revenge. Revenge as they say is best enjoyed when it takes time to play out.

There are some in the industry with more than just big egos and that is the same for the sports editors. The pressure to deliver the perfect piece by sportswriters and to get the exclusive and how they go about protecting their pieces before it goes to press.

The Game’s Gone is narrated by Colin Mace who has narrated many audio books for Audible. This hits the mark at what it is like being a leading sportswriter by one of the best. Funny and engaging and is a really compelling listen.

#TheGamesGone

@Simonbarneswild

@audibleuk

@midaspr

 9 hours 9 minutes.

Thank you to Amber Choudhary (Midas PR) for the review copy of The Game’s Gone (Audio Book) by Simon Barnes

The Game’s Gone (Audio Book) by Simon Barnes was published by Audible and was published on 23rd April 2020 and is available only through Audible.

*New subscribers to Audible get a free 30-day trial offer.

Following the Blog Tour

The Game's Gone Blog Tour Banner

The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves

COVER

The Silent Treatment by Abbie Greaves

Summary:

A lifetime of love. Six months of silence. One last chance.

Frank hasn’t spoken to his wife Maggie for six months.

For weeks they have lived under the same roof, slept in the same bed and eaten at the same table – all without words.

Maggie has plenty of ideas as to why her husband has gone quiet, but it will take another heartbreaking turn of events before Frank finally starts to unravel the secrets that have silenced him.

Is this where their story ends?
Or is it where it begins?

With characters that will capture your heart, THE SILENT TREATMENT celebrates the phenomenal power of love and the importance of leaving nothing unsaid.

My Review:

My goodness what a book. What a story! The Silent Treatment (Century) is the tender and poignant debut novel by Abbie Greaves. Frank and his wife Margot have been married for forty years. It is the perfect love story, a couple so devoted to each other. But then something happened and Frank has stopped speaking and has not spoken a word for six months to his wife.

Author

What has driven Frank to this point after forty years of marriage and to a woman he loves? How is Maggie coping with the silent treatment? The story moves between the past and the present and we see how they met and fell in love and so devoted to each other. Everybody has a breaking point and if you are being ignored for as long as Maggie has sooner or later something has to give.

It is only when Maggie is found on the kitchen floor with an empty packet of pills beside her that Frank suddenly realises the gravity of the situation and when she is placed into an induced coma Frank cannot leave her side. Now Frank pours his heart out to his wife while she lies in a coma and he begins to tell her his story of what made him withdraw from her. But is it too late for Frank? And if Maggie does recover will this mend her broken heart.

Abbie Greaves has created the perfect story of love and tragedy and her creation of two characters that will have you drawn into their lives and their story. Tender and so beautifully crafted. A story will not forget.

#TheSilentTreatment

@AbbieGreaves1

 336 Pages.

Thank you to Midas PR for the review copy of The Silent Patient by Abbie Greaves.

The Silent Patient by Abbie Greaves was published by Century and was released on 2nd April 2020 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.

 

Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize Award Announcement 2020

Banner-pic-2

Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize Award Announcement 2020

Thursday evening 14th May 2020 saw the the prize giving evening for this years prize, but because of the Corvid 19 pandemic and the current lock down this years prize ceremony was held online with viewers tuning in from across the globe.

This years event was hosted by the award-winning actor and honorary fellow Michael Sheen.

Prize

This year’s shortlist comprises three poetry collections, two novels and one short story collection:

  • Surge – Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus)
  • Flèche – Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber)
  • Inland – Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
  • If All the World and Love were Young – Stephen Sexton (Penguin Random House)
  • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous – Ocean Vuong (Jonathan Cape, Vintage)
  • Lot – Bryan Washington (Atlantic Books)

 

2020ShortlistwithBust (Large) (1)

2020 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlist

And it was announced that this years £30,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize was awarded to:

  • Bryan Washington  – Lot 

IMG_20200515_122208

Summary:

In the city of Houston – a sprawling, diverse microcosm of America – the son of a black mother and a Latino father is coming of age. He’s working at his family’s restaurant, weathering his brother’s blows, resenting his older sister’s absence. And discovering he likes boys.
This boy and his family experience the tumult of living in the margins, the heartbreak of ghosts, and the braveries of the human heart. The stories of others living and thriving and dying across Houston’s myriad neighbourhoods are woven throughout to reveal a young woman’s affair detonating across an apartment complex, a rag-tag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, and a reluctant chupacabra.

Bryan Washington’s brilliant, viscerally drawn world leaps off the page with energy, wit, and the infinite longing of people searching for home. With soulful insight into what makes a community, a family, and a life, Lot is about love in all its unsparing and unsteady forms.
 

Many congratulations to Bryan Washington and his collection of stories ‘Lot’ which was also one of Barack Obamas books of the year. Available to order through Amazon and Waterstones as well as your local independent bookshops.

Bryan Washingon:

@brywashing

For further inforamtion about the Dylan Thomas Prize and past winners:

Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize:

https://www.swansea.ac.uk/dylan-thomas-prize/

@dylanthomprize

My thanks as always to everyone at Midas PR for this years invitation to take part in the Shortlist Blog Tour and also for the invitation to the Prize Ceremony.

@midaspr

 

Wendy Holden – Author Guest Post

Wendy Holden

Wendy Holden – Author Guest Post

I am delighted to welcome back to my blog an author I have had the pleasure of working with for my not only my blog but also as part of  Meet the Author interviews and also a radio interview on Somerset Cool back in 2019.

Wendy Holden has written a Guest Post: Light in the Darkness which is about two of best-selling books Born Survivors and One Hundred Miracles. A new and updated version of the internationally best-selling of Born Survivors (Sphere) was released on April 30th to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and the paperback edition of One Hundred Miracles (Bloomsbury) is released tomorrow 14th May.

One Hundred Miracles

Summary:

The remarkable memoir of Zuzana Ružicková, Holocaust survivor and world-famous harpsichordist.

Zuzana Ružicková grew up in 1930s Czechoslovakia dreaming of two things: Johann Sebastian Bach and the piano. But her peaceful, melodic childhood was torn apart when, in 1939, the Nazis invaded. Uprooted from her home, transported from Auschwitz to Hamburg to Bergen-Belsen, bereaved, starved, and afflicted with crippling injuries to her musician’s hands, the teenage Zuzana faced a series of devastating losses. Yet with every truck and train ride, a small slip of paper printed with her favourite piece of Bach’s music became her talisman.

Armed with this ‘proof that beauty still existed’, Zuzana’s fierce bravery and passion ensured her survival of the greatest human atrocities of all time, and would continue to sustain her through the brutalities of post-war Communist rule. Harnessing her talent and dedication, and fortified by the love of her husband, the Czech composer Viktor Kalabis, Zuzana went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most renowned musicians and the first harpsichordist to record the entirety of Bach’s keyboard works.

Zuzana’s story, told here in her own words before her death in 2017, is a profound and powerful testimony of the horrors of the Holocaust, and a testament in itself to the importance of amplifying the voices of its survivors today. It is also a joyful celebration of art and resistance that defined the life of the ‘first lady of the harpsichord’– a woman who spent her life being ceaselessly reborn through her music. Like the music of her beloved Bach, Zuzana’s life is the story of the tragic transmuted through art into the state of the sublime.

Born Survivors

Summary:

Among millions of Holocaust victims sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944, Priska, Rachel, and Anka each passed through its infamous gates with a secret. Strangers to each other, they were newly pregnant, and facing an uncertain fate without their husbands. Alone, scared, and with so many loved ones already lost to the Nazis, these young women were privately determined to hold on to all they had left: their lives, and those of their unborn babies.

That the gas chambers ran out of Zyklon-B just after the babies were born, before they and their mothers could be exterminated, is just one of several miracles that allowed them all to survive and rebuild their lives after World War II. Born Survivors follows the mothers’ incredible journey – first to Auschwitz, where they each came under the murderous scrutiny of Dr. Josef Mengele; then to a German slave labour camp where, half-starved and almost worked to death, they struggled to conceal their condition; and finally, as the Allies closed in, their hellish 17-day train journey with thousands of other prisoners to the Mauthausen death camp in Austria. Hundreds died along the way but the courage and kindness of strangers, including guards and civilians, helped save these women and their children.

Sixty-five years later, the three ‘miracle babies’ met for the first time at Mauthausen for the anniversary of the liberation that ultimately saved them. United by their remarkable experiences of survival against all odds, they now consider each other “siblings of the heart.”

A heart-stopping account of how three mothers and their newborns fought to survive the Holocaust, Born Survivors is also a life-affirming celebration of our capacity to care and to love amid inconceivable cruelty.

 

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

by Wendy Holden

THIS week (May 14) sees the paperback release of a book that almost didn’t happen. One Hundred Miracles tells the incredible true story of Zuzana Rüžičková, a young Czech piano prodigy who survived three concentration camps and slave labour to become one of the world’s foremost musicians.

The resilience and courage of this tiny woman was inspirational to me from the beginning. When I first met her in Prague in September 2017, she was a 90-year-old widow in poor health and yet she worked tirelessly with me to answer all my questions. Her family told me later that she was determined to bear witness to history. I left her on Friday and she died the following Tuesday. This book, compiled from those interviews and others that she gave along with the testimonies of many who were with her on the same journey from the ghetto to Auschwitz to slavery to Bergen-Belsen is her legacy, along with her remarkable canon of music.

Zuzana’s story begins in the city of Pilsen, Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, where she had an idyllic childhood with devoted parents, marred only by a weak chest. At the age of nine when she was suffering from yet another bout of pneumonia, her mother begged her to get better and promised her anything she wanted. Zuzana’s eyes flicked open from her sickbed and she replied hoarsely, “Piano lessons.” Her wish was granted and her new tutor immediately saw her ability. It was ‘Madame’ who introduced her to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach which, Zuzana said later was, “Love at first hearing.” When she discovered that Bach would have composed most of his works on the harpsichord, she begged to study the antiquated instrument and was promised an apprenticeship in Paris with a famous player once she reached the age of fifteen.

The arrival of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia in 1939 changed all that and Zuzana and her family, being Jewish, were dispatched to the ghetto of Terezin, where they remained for nearly two years. During that time she lost both her grandparents and her beloved father. Her mother – broken by the losses – was almost catatonic by the time the pair were sent to Auschwitz in December 1943. In her pocket, Zuzana carried a small scrap of paper with the opening Sarabande of Bache’s English Suite No 5. She told me, “As long as I had this talisman, I had proof that beauty still existed.”

Incredibly, and because of what she said were ‘one hundred miracles,’ she and her mother not only survived Auschwitz and then slave labour that ruined her pianist hands, but also the “worst part of Hell’ – Bergen-Belsen. By the time they were liberated on April 15, 1945, they each weighed just four stone. The tragedies that befell them after the war – with the loss of their home, their business and all of their family – still didn’t defeat them and Zuzana went back to basic piano classes to retrain herself and restore her damaged hands. In 1947, she was accepted into the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and – despite ongoing anti-Semitism and years of persecution by the Communist regime that took over her beloved country – Zuzana became a world renowned musician and helped spark a global revival in baroque music. With the love and support of her mother and her husband, she became the first person ever to record the entire keyboard works of Bach.

Zuzana’s story, told movingly in her own words, is a profound and powerful testimony of the horrors of the Holocaust and a testament in itself to the importance of amplifying the voices of its survivors today. It is also a joyful celebration of art and resistance that defined the life of the ‘First lady of the harpsichord’ – a woman who spent her life being ceaselessly reborn through her music. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life to chronicle her testimony and I am so proud of One Hundred Miracles. I only wish she was still alive to see it published in seven countries, especially in this important commemorative year in which we mark 75 years since the end of WWII.

And, unusually for any author, it is in this time of memories that I have another Holocaust memoir out in paperback, with the release of a special 75 years commemorative edition of my international bestseller Born Survivors, now published in 22 countries and translated into sixteen languages. This tells the true story of three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis and gave birth in the camps. Both books have powerful messages of hope in times of despair and in this strange and surreal period of lockdown I cannot help but draw on the spirit of Zuzana and the three mothers I have written so immersively about and take comfort from the fact that light can always be found in the darkness.

Wendy with Zuzana

Wendy with Zuzana, one week before she died

 

  • One Hundred Miracles: Music, Auschwitz, Survival and Love by Zuzana Ružičková with Wendy Holden. Bloomsbury £9.99

Small One Hundred Miracles

 

  • “An extraordinary memoir … A moving record of a life well lived in the face of appalling obstacles” – Sunday Times
  • “A compelling story of terrible suffering surmounted by incredible bravery” – Daily Telegraph
  • “Zuzana’s humanity shines through all the inhumanity …Vivid and moving” – The Jewish Chronicle
  • “Through Auschwitz and the brutalities of the early Soviet era, the music of Bach shines like a beacon of hope” – Financial Times, Books of the Year

      ~

  • Born Survivors: Three Young Mothers and their Extraordinary Story of Courage, Defiance and Survival by Wendy Holden, Sphere £8.99 (special WWII 75th anniversary edition with a conversation with miracle ‘baby’ Eva Clarke added to the audiobook)

Small Born Survivors

  • “An exceptionally fresh history, a work of prodigious original research, written with zealous empathy.” New York Times
  • “A work of quite extraordinary investigative dedication. Born Survivors is a moving testament of faith.” Sir Harold Evans
  • “A sensitive, brave, disturbing book that everyone should read.” Rabbi Baroness Neuberger DBE
  • “Packed with harrowing detail and impressively well researched…. intense, powerful and moving… a worthy testament to these three women and the miraculous survival of the children.” Jewish Chronicle

 

Because of the lockdown, Wendy Holden has moved her creative writing courses online and the next one is June 9. See www.wendyholden.com or strangemediagroup/courses for more information

Wendy Holden can be found on Twitter: @wendholden

and Instagram: @wendyholdenbestsellingauthor 

Both One Hundred Miracles and Born Survivors are available to order through Waterstones, Amazon and also through your local independant bookshops. During the pandemic lockdown your local independent bookshops need our support during these difficult times and many are offering deals on delivery. Please contact your local bookshop for stock and also delivery.

My House is Falling Down by Mary Loudon

Cover

My House is Falling Down by Mary Loudon

Summary:

For Lucy, marriage to Mark provided an anchor after several years of drifting casually across countries, into jobs and out of relationships.

Now forty-two, her anchor is working loose. Bewildered by the demands of motherhood and dissatisfied by her work, she has also grown understandably resentful of her husband: Mark has serious difficulties of his own and whilst harsh self-reliance has kept him sane, it has alienated his wife.

When Lucy falls in love with Angus, a pianist in his sixties, her shock is extreme. Adamant that she will not deceive her husband, she instead asks his advice. Mark’s reaction, however, is startlingly unorthodox, leaving Lucy to steer an impossible course between duty and desire, adventure and security. As her marriage falters and Angus presses for commitment, she is forced to choose between family and self, with lifelong consequences for everyone.

Infused with her trademark precision, clarity and dark humour, Mary Loudon’s searing, highly-charged novel My House is Falling Down is a fearless exploration of what infidelity means when no one is lying, and how brutal honesty may yet prove the biggest taboo in our relationships.

My Review:

I am delighted to share my review of My House is Falling Down by Mary Loudon that has just been released in paperback by Picador. I was lucky enough to have been sent a hard backed edition but thought I would hold off my review until publication of the paperback edition.

If you are a regular reader of my blog book reviews, you will know how much I look at how authors have created their characters for their novel and I have to say that Mary Loudon really has created some great protagonists for the reader to get to know.

IMG_20200506_140434

The three main characters are Lucy and Mark who are married but their marriage is drifting on an open sea of life, Lucy is clearly unhappy with her husband whose mind is clearly elsewhere. It is not long before Lucy meets Angus who is about twenty years older than she is, and Lucy has fallen in love with him. Now we have playing out here the ultimate love triangle. Does Lucy carry on an affair behind her husband’s back or does she tell Mark and risk seeing her marriage collapse? Everything is at stake for Lucy and it is clear that Angus is pushing Lucy for something more than a part-time relationship. The chemistry between the two is bubbling away and Lucy is wanting something more than just the marriage she has.

It is time for Lucy to approach her husband about the relationship. But how does she do this? Mary Loudon writes so beautifully about relationships, at times this is a brutal portrayal of married love and also infidelity. This is a totally absorbing read and one especially when Mark surprises Lucy with his response. Now Lucy plays both the wife and lover, but how long can a love triangle go on for before something has to give with consequences that will ripple through her family for ever.

There are those who read My House is Falling Down who will relate to the theme of this novel and those that will question and judge through the storyline. My hope is now this is out in paperback it will be read more widely as this deserves to be read for its pure honest look at marriage and infidelity. Highly Recommended.

*Photo of Mary Laudon was taken by James Strachan. Professional photographer.

272 Pages.

My House is Falling Down by Mary Loudon and was published by Picador. Paperback was on 30th April 2020 and is available through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.

During the pandemic lockdown many independent bookshops are offering free deliver. Please support your local independent bookshops during these difficult times. Check with your local bookshop for delivery details.

House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth Century Jewish Family by Hadley Freeman (audio Book) Narrated by Hadley Freeman

Cover

House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth Century Jewish Family by Hadley Freeman (audio Book) Narrated by Hadley Freeman

 

Summary:

After her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala’s experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about.

When Hadley found a shoebox filled with her grandmother’s treasured belongings, it started a decade-long quest to find out their haunting significance and to dig deep into the extraordinary lives of Sala and her three brothers. The search takes Hadley from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island and to Auschwitz.

By piecing together letters, photos and an unpublished memoir, Hadley brings to life the full story of the Glass siblings for the first time: Alex’s past as a fashion couturier and friend of Dior and Chagall, trusting and brave Jacques, a fierce patriot for his adopted country and the brilliant Henri who hid in occupied France – each of them made extraordinary bids for survival during the Second World War. And alongside her great-uncles’ extraordinary acts of courage in Vichy France, Hadley discovers her grandmother’s equally heroic but more private form of female self-sacrifice.

A moving memoir following the Glass siblings throughout the course of the 20th century as they each make their own bid for survival, House of Glass explores assimilation, identity and home – issues that are deeply relevant today.

My Review:

As we are all in the pandemic lockdown I have been reading a lot more that I normally would do if that is at all possible. But I decided to also to listen to a few audio books and recommend these as part of my reviews. One book I wanted to read was House of Glass by Hadley Freeman and I decided that this was to be my first lockdown audio book review.

Hadley Freeman byline picture. Photo by Linda Nylind. 24/5/2013

House of Glass is narrated by the author Hadley Freeman and she tells of the time when after her grandmother died she was looking through her closet when she discovered a dusty shoebox tucked out of the way. The contents of this shoebox would take Hadley away from what she was planning and onto a journey of discovery. Inside the dusty shoebox were photos and documents from a time passed, it was as if a quest was being given to Hadley to piece together the secrets of the past and this is exactly what she set about and this was now going to form the best part of a decade to piece together the contents of this dusty shoebox.

Hadley Freeman is so eloquent in the way she brings the family story together as well as playing detective in piecing together the family secrets of the early 20th Century that tells of a Jewish family in Poland through the horrors of what was to follow and follows the brothers from Poland to France and the years of poverty. Freeman tells the story of the three sons and a daughter who born into a poor family decided after WWI to move from Poland to France and settled into one of the poor districts of Paris. A change of name from the family name of ‘Glas’ to ‘Glass’ As the years passed the three brothers found their calling.

Despite changing their name they were of course still Jewish and as WWII started they realised the danger they faced as the Nazi’s marched across Europe they lived in fear as they were not going to be protected by the French government. As the war approached it was decided that the brother’s sister Sala was to be sent to America for safety if Sala had stayed in Paris the chance of being caught and sent to one of concentration camps to real. Now the brother’s faced the reality of trying to survive in an environment of anti-Semitic brutality and murder.

Hadley’s grandmother Sala entered an unhappy marriage were she had two sons. We learn of Sala’s love of Paris and how she missed her family dearly. Listening to Hadley Freeman tell the story of her families past is nothing short of a remarkable story of human endurance and sheer bravery and the wanting to survive. It is also a testament of the authors painstaking research. This is her families story in her own words and one I felt privileged to hear. On the audible narration there is an interview with Hadley Freeman were she talks about the themes of her book House of Glass as well as some of the extraordinary events.I cannot recommend House of Glass highly enough.

Audio book length: 10 Hours, 14 Minutes.   (Audible) 

Audible has a free 30 day trial period and £7.99 a month after the trial period ends. 

House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth Century Jewish Family by Hadley Freeman (audio Book) Narrated by Hadley Freeman was published by Fourth Estate and was published on 5th March 2020 and is available as an audio book via Audible and also as a hardback book through Waterstones, Amazon and through your local independent bookshop.