Tag: memes

Six Degrees of Separation: From The Outsiders to Black Narcissus #6Degrees  6th October ’18

whatcathyreadnext11 Comments

Here’s how it works: on the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

This month’s starting book is The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton . Click on the title to read the book description on Goodreads or my review, as appropriate.

The Outsiders tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is also about two young people – Jess Aarons and his friend Leslie Burke – who, for different reasons, feel as if they are outsiders. Together they create an imagined world where they reign as king and queen.

Bridge to Terabithia is one of the books mentioned in Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading in which she describes how the books she read as a child inspired a lifelong love of reading.  As she says: ‘I have lived so many lives through books, gone to so many places, so many eras, looked through so many different eyes, considered so many different points of view.’   

However, one of the authors Lucy confesses she has never got to grips with is Charles Dickens.  Unfortunately for her, this means she has yet to experience the joy of reading a book like Great Expectations, (If you’ve never read it and feel, like Lucy, disinclined to do so why not watch the brilliant 1946 film version starring John Mills and directed by David Lean instead?)

Great Expectations opens with a scene involving an escaped convict and this also forms part of the story line of one of the most famous of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes long stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, set on Dartmoor.

Dartmoor is also the location for Karen Maitland’s latest medieval thriller, A Gathering of Ghosts.  The book is set in 1316 in the isolated Priory of St Mary, owned by the Sisters of the Knights of St John.  In my review of the book I commented on the claustrophobic atmosphere created by the author that seems to affect some of the Sisters more than others.  At the time, it made me think of Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden so no surprise that this book is my final link in the chain.

Black Narcissus is set in a remote convent in the Himalayas, a former palace that was home to the harem of the local overlord.  The nuns come into conflict with the natives and with one another as they try to adapt to their exotic surroundings.  Again, there’s a terrific 1947 Technicolor film version directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.  It won Oscars for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction and, if you watch it, it’s easy to see why.

So this month we’ve made a journey from teenage angst to grown-up madness and hysteria.

Next month’s starting book is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Throwback Thursday: The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

whatcathyreadnext

ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme originally created by Renee at It’s Book Talk.  It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago.

Today I’m revisiting a fabulous book I reviewed when it was first published in August 2017, The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting (translated by Paul Russell Garrett).  The book was published in paperback earlier this week, with a new cover design.  You can find purchase links below.   The Sixteen Trees of the Somme is also the Waterstones Fiction Book of the Month for October 2018.

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme PBAbout the Book

Edvard grows up on a remote mountain farmstead in Norway with his taciturn grandfather, Sverre. The death of his parents, when he was three years old, has always been shrouded in mystery – he has never been told how or where it took place and has only a distant memory of his mother.

But he knows that the fate of his grandfather’s brother, Einar, is somehow bound up with this mystery. One day a coffin is delivered for his grandfather long before his death – a meticulous, beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Perhaps Einar is not dead after all.

Edvard’s desperate quest to unlock the family’s tragic secrets takes him on a long journey – from Norway to the Shetlands, and to the battlefields of France – to the discovery of a very unusual inheritance. The Sixteen Trees of the Somme is about the love of wood and finding your own self, a beautifully intricate and moving tale that spans an entire century.

Format: Paperback  (416 pp.)                                     Publisher: MacLehose Press
Published: 1st October 2018 [10th August 2017]  Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  | Waterstones | Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Sixteen Trees of the Somme  on Goodreads

My Review

The death of Edvard’s grandfather, Bestefar, and the facts that come to light as a result, change everything for Edvard. They see him embark on a journey that will take him away from the isolated Nowegian farm where he has grown up to the Shetlands and France as he searches for the truth about the cause of his parents’ death and the four days afterwards when he was missing. It also stirs up vague fragments of memories – a scent, the sound of a voice, the texture of a fabric, a discarded toy – that don’t make any sense but convince Edvard that he needs to find out more about his parents’ death.

‘Because there was something about Mamma and Pappa’s story that was stirring, quietly, like a viper in the grass.’

As is often the case when unearthing secrets from the past, Edvard is forced to confront unwelcome possibilities and make agonising choices. Edvard’s search reaches back in time to WW1 and WW2, bringing to light painful facts from the past – death, injury, separation and betrayal – but also revealing stories of courage, determination and devotion. It provokes questions such as whether it is better sometimes not to know the truth, to be careful what you wish for, that actions have consequences even if unintended, and the fulfilment you seek may be closer to home than you think.

I found the story absolutely enthralling and I loved the fantastic sense of place created in each location. From the author’s beautiful, heartfelt descriptions, I felt as if I could look out my own window and see the farm in Norway laid out before me.

‘Redcurrant bushes dense with berries, the flag-stoned path leading to the swimming hole at the river, the creek which cut through the potato fields and disappeared from sight behind the barn. The fruit trees, the pea pods that dangled like half moons when we got close to them, so plentiful that we could fill up on them without taking a step. The dark-blue fruit of the plum trees, the sagging raspberry bushes just waiting for us to quickly fill two small plates and fetch some caster sugar and cream.’

In particular, I loved the way the author captured the remote beauty of the Shetlands and the sense of a community where everyone knows what goes on, who’s arrived on the ferry, whose car has just passed them on the road. The author roots the various parts of the story each in their distinct time, in particular, using popular music as the background to Edvard’s journey. (I get the impression the author is a bit of a music fan, perhaps attracted at some point in his life to a girl by the way she browses in a record shop.)

At times, Edvard feels as if he has come to a dead-end in his search but still he continues searching for clues, motivated by curiosity but also by a sense of obligation to the dead – those known to him and those victims of two world wars unknown to him: ‘I wanted to be someone the dead could rely on.’

As the author of the left-field hit, Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way (now also an activity book), it’s no surprise that wood is at the heart of the story. It is part of the plot in a number of ways – in fact, more and more ways as the story progresses – but it is also celebrated in the book for its form, history and beauty. Similarly, there is real regard for the craftsmanship that can fashion a piece of wood into an object of beauty, utility or religious symbolism.

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme has a compelling, enthralling story line with wonderfully atmospheric settings and well-developed characters. I was completely immersed in Edvard’s search for the truth about his parents’ death; like him, all the time fearing the dark secrets he might uncover but compelled to find out nonetheless. A fantastic book, highly recommended.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Quercus Books/MacLehose Press.

LarsMyttingAbout the Author

Lars Mytting, a novelist and journalist, was born in Fåvang, Norway, in 1968. His novel The Sixteen Trees of the Somme was awarded the Norwegian National Booksellers’ Award and has been bought for film. Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way has become an international bestseller and was the Bookseller Industry Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2016.

(Photo credit: Goodreads Author Page)

Connect with Lars

Website | Goodreads