Tag: books

#WWWWednesday – 7th December 2022

whatcathyreadnext7 Comments

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

The Darlings of the AsylumThe Darlings of the Asylum by Noel O’Reilly (eARC, HQ via NetGalley)

‘She wakes in a strange, stark room. Through the bare walls she hears muffled cries and yells. The label on her unfamiliar, starched gown reads PROPERTY OF HILLWOOD GRANGE LUNATIC ASYLUM. Her heart thumps as a key rattles in the lock…’

In 1886, a respectable young woman must acquire a husband. Violet Pring’s scheming mother has secured a desirable marriage proposal from an eligible Brighton gentleman. But Violet does not want to marry. She longs to be a professional artist and live on her own terms.

Violet’s family believes she is deranged and deluded, so she is locked away in Hillwood Grange against her will. In her new cage, Violet faces an even greater challenge: she must escape the clutches of a sinister and formidable doctor and set herself free.

A book I found impossible to resist on NetGalley although I’m feeling a little guilty I still haven’t got around to reading my copy of the author’s earlier book, Wrecker, which has been in my TBR pile for ages.  

Devils and SaintsDevils and Saints by Jean-Baptiste, trans. by Sam Taylor  (ARC, Gallic Books)

An elderly man gives virtuoso piano performances in airports and train stations. To the incredulity of the passers-by, he refuses their offers to play in concert halls, or at prestigious gatherings. He is waiting for someone, he tells them.

Joseph was just sixteen when he was sent to a religious boarding school in the Pyrenees: les Confins, a dumping ground for waifs, strays, and other abandoned souls. His days were filled with routine and drudgery, and he thought longingly of the solace he found through music in his former life.

Joe dreams constantly of escape, but it seems impossible. That is, until a chance encounter with the orphanage’s benefactor leads him to Rose, and a plan begins to form…

An ARC courtesy of the lovely people at Gallic Books. I very much enjoyed the author’s previous book, A Hundred Million Years and a Day.

Recently finished

Animal Life by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Pushkin Press)

My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor (Vintage)

When the Nazis take Rome, thousands go into hiding. One priest will risk everything to save them.

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. The war’s outcome is far from certain.

An Irish priest, Hugh O’Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, the world’s smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy.

But Hauptmann’s net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical. By Christmastime, it’s too late to turn back. (Review to follow)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

The Truth Must Dazzle GraduallyThe Truth Must Dazzle Gradually by Helen Cullen (eARC, Michael Joseph via NetGalley)

On an island off the west coast of Ireland, the Moone family gathers.

Maeve is an actor, struggling with her most challenging role yet – as a mother to four children. Murtagh, her devoted husband, is a potter whose craft brought them from the city to this rural life.

In the wake of one fateful night, the Moone siblings must learn the story of who their parents truly are, and what has happened since their first meeting, years before, outside Trinity College in Dublin.

We watch as one love story gives rise to another, until we arrive at a future that none of the Moones could have predicted.

Except perhaps Maeve herself.

#BlogTour #BookReview #Ad Animal Life by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, trans. by Brian FitzGibbon @PushkinPress

whatcathyreadnext

TWITTER BLOG TOURS (3)Welcome to the opening day of the blog tour for Animal Life by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, translated by Brian FitzGibbon. My thanks to Kate at Pushkin Press for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

Animal LifeAbout the Book

With just over a week until Christmas, Dómhildur delivers her one thousandth, nine hundred and ninety second baby. Beginnings and endings are her family trade; she is a midwife descended from a long line of midwives on her mother’s side and a long line of undertakers on her father’s.

There’s a terrible storm heading towards Reykjavík, and Dómhildur is feeling unsettled. In her apartment, she stumbles across decades’ worth of letters and manuscripts hidden amongst the clutter that belonged to her grandaunt – a legendary midwife with a reputation for unconventional methods. At the darkest point of the year, when the sun barely lifts above the horizon, Dómhildur discovers strange and beautiful new meanings in her grandaunt’s writings.

For even in the depths of an Icelandic winter, new life will find a way.

Format: Paperback (192 pages)            Publisher: Pushkin Press
Publication date: 1st December 2022  Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literature in Translation

Find Animal Life on Goodreads

Purchase links 
Bookshop.org 
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK 
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

Animal Life is probably not a book for those who like a conventional plot-driven narrative. Much like the letters and manuscripts that Dómhildur inherits from her great aunt (referred to as her grandaunt) the book is a kind of literary scrapbook made up of random thoughts on a vast variety of subjects. It becomes clear that Dómhildur’s great aunt had an interest – some might consider to the point of obsessional – in many different subjects and in gathering information about topics ranging from the lifespan of an oak tree to the nature of black holes.  In letters exchanged with a pen pal over the course of forty years she also speculated on the fragility of human life and the nature of conicidence, including the coincidences necessary to bring about the birth of any child. 

Amongst the many, many themes explored in the book is inheritance. Not only has Dómhildur followed in the footsteps of her great aunt and other members of her family in becoming a midwife but she has also inherited her great aunt’s apartment complete with an array of mismatched and rather outdated furniture which, for a long time, she feels disinclined to change.

Another theme the book explores is light and darkness – in both an actual and metaphorical sense. For instance, the book is set during the darkest part of the year when in Iceland there are only a few hours of daylight. ‘I wake up on the shortest day of the year into the longest night of time. It will be a long time before the light dissolves the night and the world takes on a form.’ We also discover that darkness is something Dómhildur knows all about both in her personal and in her professional life.  On the other hand, the Icelandic word for midwife is ljósmóðir which literally translates as ‘mother of light’.

There’s also a strong theme of environmentalism running through the book. In this respect, Dómhildur’s great aunt was something of a pioneer writing of the deleterious impact of humans – ‘the most dangerous animal of them all’ – on the planet.

If this all sounds a little serious, there are moments of humour too. For example, the calls Dómhildur receives from her sister which invariably open with the questions ‘where are you and what are you doing’ and are always followed by a close interrogation of her answers. Light relief (see what I did there?) is also provided by the tourist who takes up temporary residence on the top floor of Dómhildur’s apartment building and has chosen a particularly inappropriate time to go sightseeing in Iceland, by the electrician who is afraid of the dark, and by Dómhildur’s unsuccessful stint as a tour guide.

At one point Dómhildur muses, ‘The more I try to piece the jigsaw of my grandaunt’s life together the more questions it raises’. The fluid, fragmentary structure of Animal Life means it won’t appeal to everyone but those who are attracted by a book which explores a range of topics will, I think, find it a thought-provoking read. 

In three words: Quirky, reflective, enigmatic

Audur Ava OlafsdottirAbout the Author

Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir is a prize-winning novelist, playwright and poet.

Auður Ava’s novels have been translated into over 25 languages, and they include Butterflies in November, Hotel Silence and Miss Iceland, also published by Pushkin Press. Hotel Silence won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, the Icelandic Literary Prize, and was chosen Best Icelandic Novel in 2016 by the booksellers in Iceland. Miss Iceland won the Prix Médicis Étranger and the Icelandic Booksellers Prize. 

About the Translator

Brian FitzGibbon translates from Italian, French and Icelandic. Recent translations include Woman at 1000 Degrees by Hallgrímur Helgason as well as Hotel Silence and Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir.