Emma's Bookish Lifestyle

The Two Houses by Fran Cooper The Two Houses sit grey and brooding beneath a pale sky. They cling to the hillside, cowering from the wind, because always, before everything up here, there is the wind. The Two Houses were not always two. But if it is human to build - even up here, in this blasted northern hinterland - it is human to break, too. After an acclaimed career in ceramics, Jay herself has cracked. Recovering from a breakdown, she and her husband Simon move to the desolate edges of the north of England, where they find and fall in love with the Two Houses: a crumbling property whose central rooms were supposedly so haunted that a previous owner had them cut out from the building entirely. But on uprooting their city life and moving to the sheltered grey village of Hestle, Jay and Simon discover it's not only the Two Houses that seems to be haunted by an obscure past. It becomes increasingly clear that the villagers don't want them there at all - and wh...

These Dividing Walls   by Fran Cooper My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars During the course of one hot summer in the back streets of the left bank of Paris, in number 37 Rue des Eglantines a building holds the stories, solitude and secrets of it’s residents lives. Within the confines of their homes people are unaware that soon the things that divide them will collapse and they will all be affected by the events of that heady summer. Into this summer comes Edward Rivers, an Englishman with his own story taking an attic room from a friend, Emilie in her Aunt Frederique’s building to give him an escape, time to grieve the loss of a loved one. Immediately upon reading this book there is an intrinsic feeling of the quaint back streets of Paris that at times feel more claustrophobic than quaint, especially through the course of the characters stories, this was due to the growing intensity of the events instilling an ever deepening dark mood along with the taut heat of the summer. At tim...

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book follows the life and reincarnations of Ursula Todd. This immensely moving story starts with her unfortunate birth and death by strangulation of the umbilical cord in February 1910 and leads us through the twists and turns of not only her's but her families life through two world wars and a number of reincarnations. Ursula battles both for her own singular existence whilst trying to maintain a strong moral compass, whilst struggling to remain somewhat detached from the overall impact on those surrounding her both family and friends. I would highly recommend this book to all historical and literary fiction lovers, the way that Kate Atkinson has written this book takes you by the hand on a winding path to which you are uncertain where it may lead next, or the fateful cost it may have on Ursula and the Todd Family. There is a loosely fitting sequel to this book "God in Ruins...

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar My rating: 1 of 5 stars This book is set in 1785 when a merchant Mr Hancock is handed into his possession a shrivelled body of a mermaid in lieu of a ship he was expecting to return. This starts an event of trying to recoup his losses by displaying the oddity to those of interest at a sum. Angelica Neal is a women used to being kept but has fallen on hard times, her previous lover has passed away and she finds herself fighting for survival and recognition to keep herself out of the high paid establishments and prostitution that will be her plight. Instead Angelica seeks a new lover and a higher status than that previously achieved. Despite the high acclaim from my fellow Book Tuber's unfortunately this book did not quite meet my expectation. I found this book to read in a very slow and dry manner which left me unable to connect either with the content of the story or unfortunately the characters....

By Phillipe Sands My rating: 5 of 5 star Philippe Sands, QC is a Franco-British Lawyer at Matrix Chambers, and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. Synopsis:   When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg trial. Part historical detective story, part family history, part legal thriller, Philippe Sands guides us between past and present as several interconnected stories unfold in parallel. The first is the hidden story of two Nuremberg prosecutors who discover, only at the end of the trial, that the man they are prosecuti...

The Cows by Dawn O'Porter My rating: 3 of 5 stars I listened to this on audio book on my commute each day and it took me about 4 days to finish it. There is some whit but I never found myself laughing out loud to the characters. This story centres around 3 women, Stella living in the self imposed shadow of her sister after the untimely death of both her mother and sister, Cam the reclusive internet blogger and Tara a 42 year old single working mother whose actions have shot her to the heights of fame for all the wrong reasons! I would recommend this to people who like a light and easy beach or pool side read for their holidays. Although the plot rolls along easily enough I wasn't blown away by the story and didn't really connect with any of the characters, who were all extreme versions of real women.  I definitely felt underwhelmed unfortunately in the feminist girl power stakes. The Audio was recorded by the author herself and was performed well. As a...

Panty by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay My rating: 5 of 5 stars This slight novel contains two stories within it's 122 pages. The first is the main story Panty and is about a woment with no name, friends, family to mention of arriving and living in a new city in a flat owned by a man we don't know whilst she is awaiting an operation. The book is based in Kolcata, India and at times as you are absorbed into the poetic prose, you can feel the heat emanating from the page. The chapters are composed in a unique style out of sequence which give us moments of viseral beauty, tenderness and sexual individuality. In equal measure this small story had not only the depth and power to absorb you, it could also leave you feeling disarmed and disorientated. Ultimately this book deals with a number of interesting questions being dealt with by Bengali and Indian women at the current time around feminism, ownership of their sexuality, there religion and there place ...