The Girl Who Fell From the Sky - Simon Mawer

Mawer’s book, The Glass Room, was a complete winner for me when I read it in 2009 so I had no hesitations in picking up his new book, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Even though I finished the book at the end of last month I am going to cheat a little and include it in my Paris in July reading list as so much of the book took place in Paris and rural France.

I can’t say that I found The Girl Who Fell From the Sky quite as captivating and original as The Glass Room but it was still a wonderful read.

The book is set during WW2, the main character Marian Sutro is a young half British/half French woman working for a war department in London when she approached by a secret agency to train for undercover work in France. It all seems a little surreal and convenient the way she is recruited but I guess that is how things were done?? I would like to read some actual accounts from women who had worked in these sorts of positions and agencies during war time to compare - although I am sure Mawer did his research. As well as her role as an undercover agent there is very much a personal side to Marian’s story as her arrival in Paris during the German occupation brings her into direct contact with a past family friend and potential lover, Clement.
There are all the elements of a traditional spy story here with undercover missions, double agents and a feeling on behalf of the reader that we are never really quite sure who’s side everyone is on. But there is also very much the coming of age story of Marian.

Beautiful, tight prose keep the story moving and although this book didn’t hold the same magic as The Glass Room for me it was still a fantastic story with characters to cling to.

The Outcast - Sadie Jones

I had read Sadie Jones' second novel, Small Wars, earlier this year and while I had some problems with it I was still keen to read her debut novel, The Outcast.

I'm so glad I did because I found The Outcast to be a much better book and one that I connected with so much more.

The Outcast begins in a small village outside London at the end of the Second World War when 7 year old Lewis waits with his beloved mother, Elizabeth for the father he hardly knows to come home from the war. When Lewis's father, Gilbert, does arrive home things change in their household - while his parents clearly love each other they are from very different worlds and Lewis starts to see changes in his life because of this. The close bond he has developed with his mother starts to be torn away a little by the new intrusion of his father into their world.

An event occurs when Lewis is 10 years old that changes his world even more dramatically and the way in which people relate to him after this occurrence affects his development and relationships into adulthood.

This is an author that clearly like to take on the heavy topics! While there are certainly moments of joy and happiness in the book it is pain and tragedy that take the focus but unlike in Small Wars I think The Outcast deals with all of this pain in a much more realistic and connected way. I felt for Lewis through the telling of his story and the way in which it was told made me want to reach into the pages at times and shake people who were doing stupid things!! I wanted to be able to affect the action - to me this is always a sign that I am involved in a book and I care about what is happening to the characters.

The Outcast of the title could clearly be Lewis but there are many other characters within the story who would fit the title perfectly and this was another aspect of the book that interested me - who wasn't an outcast in some way?

I loved this story and the way in which it was told - looking forward to her next novel.

The Postmistress - Sarah Blake

The Postmistress is the book I chose for our Book Club this month and I honestly don't know what reaction/s I am going to get at our discussion next week.

I find it a big responsibility to chose a book for a wide range of people to read - the pressure is on to find something that (hopefully) everyone will enjoy or get something out of in some way. Another consideration was that a condition of our Book Club selection is that the book has to be readily available in our shops - easy to access is a big plus. With those things in mind I chose The Postmistress because it was a fairly new release and it was a book that although I was hearing mixed things about I thought the premise sounded like a story most people could get into in some way - and I was hoping it was a book I would enjoy!

The Postmistress is set during the time of World War 2 just prior to the Americans becoming involved in an active way. In the small Cape Cod town of Franklin we are introduced to Iris James, the local postmistress who at the beginning of the book is on a day trip to Boston for an appointment with a doctor to have her virginity certified - an hilarious and telling opening scene in terms of characterisation. We are also introduced to the young wife who has newly married the doctor in Franklin - Emma Fitch - who comes into contact with Iris on the bus ride back from Boston.

The other main character in the book is Frankie Bard - a female American journalist who is currently in London reporting back on the bombing taking place in the city. It's difficult to see how it will happen but the lives of these three women are brought into contact with each other and it is this contact that plays out one of the major themes in the novel.

After having finished the book earlier this week I find that I am still pondering it and trying to work out what I actually think of it. Ultimately I think it is a well written book with a good backbone - I think the number of characters and the way the story jumped from settings was a little disconcerting for me though. I found myself wanting to stay with Frankie's story in London and Europe more than I wanted to be taken back to Cape Cod. I felt this way even more when I read the author's notes at the end of the book titled "The Story Behind The Story" which describes how she first came up with the idea for the book and the research she did around female journalists and reporters during World War 2.

So, I will see what my Book Club think of this one next week. It was an enjoyable read for me but one that I think will grow on me more after I have heard what others think.

The Piano Teacher - Janice Y. K. Lee

I have to admit that I picked up The Piano Teacher mainly because of it's stunning cover - I know this is something you should never do but a great cover will grab me every time. I had also read some good things about this one in the blogging world - mainly from Matt - so I did have something to go on besides the beautiful cover!

The Piano Teacher is a book set over two main time periods - 1942 and then 1952/3 in Hong Kong. Will Truesdale is an English man who has come to Hong Kong and fallen in love with Trudy, a wealthy and privileged Eurasian woman, in the period just before the invasion of the Japanese. In 1952 we meet Will again, now working as a driver for an influential couple who have hired Claire, a recently married woman and new in Hong Kong, as a piano teacher for their daughter.

There are some significant events and plot constructions in the novel but for me the real content of the book was the development and "showing" of the characters - just simple dialogue between them was what I enjoyed reading - it wasn't really until the end of the book that I stopped and thought about the plot.

I have to say that I don't think my reading patterns with this book really did it justice. I started it weeks ago and then got distracted/bored with the middle section of the book so I put it aside for a while and picked it up again last night when I finished the second half of the book in one sitting. I think this says more about my need to be reading a book that suits my mood at the time more than anything else.

The characters in The Piano Teacher are intriguing and complex, and written beautifully - at the end of the book I still felt like I had so many questions in relation to each of them - particularly Will and Trudy.

I would call this a subtle book - it crept up on me and I will be thinking about it long after finishing.

Something Dangerous - Penny Vincenzi

Something Dangerous is the sequel to No Angel and the second book in the Spoils Of Time trilogy by Penny Vincenzi.

Something Dangerous continues the story of the wealthy London based Lytton family and their various associates in Europe and America through the 1930's and World War 2.

I was completely engaged in the story and the characters in the first book of the trilogy, No Angel, but my enthusiasm and interest dropped off a little in this book. I felt the story and character movement in Something Dangerous was boring and predictable. Any character that was proving diffcult to the author's story line was conveniently killed off or injured in the war!

Still an enjoyable, quick read but I am left wondering if I should finish off the series and read the third and final book?

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

What a gem! I bought The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society yesterday after reading about it in a bookshop catalouge and I have spent every free moment since then devouring it. It is one of those books you read greedily because it is so wonderful but at the same time you are mourning it's eventual end.

The story in this book is told entirely through the use of letters sent between the various characters but primarly from the main character, Juliet Ashton. Juliet is a writer who has spent the years of World War 2 in London writing a regular newspaper column. With the end of the war (the book is set in 1946) Juliet is looking for a new writing task - and in many ways, a new life focus and direction. A letter for Juliet arrives out of the blue from a man by the name of Dawsey Adams, a resident of the Channel Island, Guernsey. Dawsey has purchased a second hand book that once belonged to Juliet and has written to her to talk about his love for this book and the unconventional literary society that he belongs to in Guernsey. The story told within the book about how the society came into being is wonderfully told - you meet other members of the society along the way and Juliet herself is drawn into their world.

The book touches on some tragic and deeply moving topics, particularly around the occupation of Guernsey by German forces during the war and the impact this had on the residents of the Island - not only during the war but also after it had ended. But the book is also very funny - all of the characters richly drawn - although Juliet is a clear favourite for me.

I can't recommend this book highly enough and sadly and unfortunately there will most likely not be a follow up as the retired librarian author of this beautiful novel died shortly before it's publication. The author's niece (an author herself) did assist in the editing process of the book after her aunt's death.

Human Smoke - Nicholson Baker

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War 2, The End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker is my second completed book for the Non Fiction Five Challenge. Staying in a very similar topic area to my first book for this challenge, Destined To Live, i.e. the second world war (a similarity I only just noticed).

Human Smoke was an addictive book for me. Written in short snippets and paragraphs the author depicts many different events and viewpoints leading up to, and including the first couple of years, of the second world war. Each short entry is referenced at the back of the book leading to the books credibility for me. I am very interested in this period of our history and I first picked up the book hoping to learn more about what had occured over this period. After finishing the book I think I can say I know a little more - but I also have many more questions and wonderings which I think will lead me to read further in this area.