The sequel to Boyne's best-seller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, this is the story of the daughter of the brutal commandant of the camp from which the boy escaped. We meet her as a 90-year-old feisty lady living in a Mayfair apartment.
I enjoyed the tension as her suspicions about the family downstairs grew. Dare she intervene? Can she survive the consequences? As someone born in the 1940s, I couldn't help but admire the way she copes with 21st-century life. Each chapter in that story is followed by a contrasting one featuring her struggle to come to terms with her previous life in the aftermath of the war.
'Beautifully told and gripping from first page to last' Sunday Express 'An incredible feat of storytelling... and an old-fashioned page-turner' Donal Ryan 'Gripping and well-honed...consummately constructed, humming with tension' Guardian 'You can't prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel' John Irving ________________________________
From the author of the globally bestselling, multi-million-copy classic, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, comes its astonishing and powerful sequel.
Gretel Fernsby is a quiet woman leading a quiet life. She doesn't talk about her escape from Germany seventy years ago or the dark post-war years in France with her mother. Most…
Absent Friend is a heartfelt and heartwarming tribute to a man and his work.
The man in question being Leonard Cohen. Part memoir, with illuminating glimpses into the author's own life, part biography, Absent Friend is the Irish author's homage to the man he describes as full of style, grace, and humility.
The words flow as sweetly and as easily as any of Cohen's lyrics. Recurring themes from Cohen's work are teased out: our reluctance to make the sacrifices necessary to form lasting relationships, what, if anything, awaits beyond life, and meditations on the lives of martyrs. Transcending all the above is the mystery of man's inhumanity to man.
Absent Friend is a meditation on a thirty year friendship between Leonard Cohen and Irish writer John MacKenna. Through their letters, emails and MacKenna's exploration of his favourite Leonard Cohen songs, the book builds a picture of a comradeship that culminated in their creating Between Your Love and Mine, a requiem Mass for theatre, in the months before Leonard's death.
This modest book is of great importance to anyone wishing to understand the unique artistry of Leonard Cohen. Few journalists or writers enjoyed Leonard's respect and trust as much as did John MacKenna. That trust is on full display in…
Too much historical fiction concerns the lives of the privileged in society.
I prefer books that deal with the lives of the poor and their struggles to survive in societies lacking the safety nets we take for granted. Based on meticulous research about real events, The Low Road describes the life of a child as she moves from the safety of a Norfolk village through a series of institutions and periods of servitude, before being punished by transportation to Australia.
I loved the way the girl's suffering is handled with such restraint. It is frequently mitigated by the kindness of others. Her progress from innocent child to motherhood contained enough twists, turns, and setbacks to keep me reading long into the night.
Two young women. One passionate love. Will their paths ever cross again?
Norfolk, 1813. In the quiet Waveney Valley, the body of a woman - Mary Tyrell - is staked through the heart after her death by suicide. She had been under arrest for the suspected murder of her newborn child. Mary leaves behind a young daughter, Hannah, who is later sent away to the Refuge for the Destitute in London, where she will be trained for a life of domestic service.
It is at the Refuge that Hannah meets Annie Simpkins, a fellow resident, and together they forge a…
A small rural community in post-war England, a boy and his dog on the run. Various members of the boy's family and other community members recall significant events from their lives as they search for the boy. The boy's desperation increases as he trudges through the countryside. The climax of his journey is a tragedy in the midst of a summer thunderstorm. In contrast to the 3 books I've nominated as my best reads of 2023, the action in Summer Day takes place in just 12 hours on a single day in July 1947.
