Emma's Bookish Lifestyle

This was a Buddy Read Book and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Deborah Smith's immaculate translation opens us up to the darkness and human tragedy that exists in North Korea at this time.  Bandi means Firefly and what an apt name that is as the writing of this author shines a light on the oppression, darkness and harshness of existence under a dictatorial regime. This group of short stories will haunt you long after you have read them and reassess the good fortune many of us take for granted in the West. These stories are fictional but clearly drawn from the visual experiences of Bandis family, friends and associates. This author has amazingly decided not to defect to South Korea but to stay in his home state grasping the hope that the cracks of reality may one day splinter the dictatorship of modern slavery wide open and allow these oppressed people a glimpse at true freedom. I have given it 4 stars purely because I did not finish one story as the lyrical literary to...

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor My rating: 5 of 5 stars If you are a lover of a good thriller, with an element of death but not an overwhelming amount of blood and gore, this could definately be the book for you. This book spans two decades the catastrophic events during 1986 between a small group of friends. That was the year that Eddie met Mr Halloran he gave them the idea for the chalk figures as a means of leaving secret messages amongst each other on the paths of Anderbury. Mr Halloran is the man who experiences the atrocity at the fairground and understands what Eddie experienced that day. Thirty years later in 2016 Eddie is now Ed and believes that he has left his scarred childhood behind for the dull existence of a middle aged school teacher who never left the town where he grew up. That is until he receives an envelope through the door with a single piece of chalk...... This book is dark and compelling, drawing you in with an initial event of such horror ...

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is my second book by Toni Morrison, I have to say I did struggle with some of the language when I read Beloved so entered this with nervous trepidation. I did not need to worry, this was a light writing style in comparison to that of Beloved. The story is about a women called Bride, she is an ebony-black, attractive and successful women tormented by an event in her childhood which made her tell a despicable lie which had long-term repercussions on anothers life. Her falsehood continues to haunt her into adulthood. But sometimes your actions have far reaching consequences not only for yourself but those around you. Bride loves Booker, a man with a past held so tightly in check that nobody really appreciates the complexity of his character. These two people are a complex emotional typhoon circling the drain that could lead them to drown in despair or face the blameless sins of their childish selves...

The Complete Maus   by Art Spiegelman My rating: 5 of 5 stars This graphic novel depicts the life of Art Spiegelman's father's experiences during the Holocaust of World War II, it shows his story image by image of his life as a young man before the war, his marriage and subsequent experiences as a Jew in pre-war Poland. Then fact that his story is portrayed using animals to depict specific characters for example, Cats as Germans, Pigs as Polish, Mice as Jews and Dogs as Americans, does nothing to detract from the hard hitting events of this survivors tale. This story depicts the personal account of a man's experience during a dark and repugnant time in our history which I feel nobody should be able to forget. Not only does the content set out the events that occurred during this devastating time but it also includes the emotional aspect of the events both as individuals, survivor's and as a family. I cannot recommend this book highly enough which is why I h...

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...