Best Books of 2018

Fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Peter’s Room by Antonia Forest

Pixie O’Shaughnessy by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

The Glass Bird Girl by Esme Kerr

Non-Fiction

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior

Patricia St. John Tells Her Own Story by Patricia St. John

Honourable Mentions

An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Journey to Jo’burg by Beverley Naidoo

Catherine, Head of the House by Joanna Lloyd

Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes

Paradoxology by Krish Kandiah

Non-Fiction Highlights of 2018

Since this month is Nonfiction November, I decided to share some non-fiction books that I've enjoyed this year. These are all autobiographies/memoirs, which wasn't intentional, but that seems to be what a lot of my non-fiction reading has consisted of lately.

The Family Nobody Wanted
The story of a family who adopted 12 children, of various ethnicities, in the 1940s/50s. A light, but uplifting read.

The Girl from Aleppo
This is the story of a young girl with cerebral palsy who fled Syria with her sister, travelling along the refugee trail across Europe to Germany. It covers her life in Syria and on the journey, with a little about adapting to life on Germany at the end. I found it a really interesting read, and would recommend it to anyone who would like to understand more about the experiences of refugees.

Too Marvellous for Words!
Julie Welch writes about what life was really like at a girls' boarding school in 1960s England. (It wasn't quite like an Enid Blyton story, except for the midnight feasts.)

Patricia St. John Tells Her Own Story
The story of Patricia St. John, who was a missionary nurse in Morocco and also wrote children's books, some of which were among my favourites as a child. I was especially interested in reading about how she came to write each of her books, but I the rest was interesting too.

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me
Karen Swallow Prior writes about the books that helped shape her as a person, intertwining it with stories from her life. I found this a stimulating and thought-provoking read and it has made me want to go and read the books she includes that I haven't yet read - which is most of them - which is an achievement as some I wasn't really interested in before. (They are all fairly well known classics.)

Nonfiction November: Fiction/Non-Fiction Pairings

This month is Nonfiction November, hosted by Doing Dewey, Julz Reads, Sarah's Bookshelves, Sophisticated Dorkiness, and What's Nonfiction?

This week we are invited to pair up fiction and non-fiction books. I struggled to do this with books that I've read, so have included some from my TBR.

Sisters of the Quantock Hills by Ruth Elwin Harris/Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

The fiction selection here is a series of books about four sisters centred around World War I (the first is The Silent Shore, or Sarah's Story in the US). Testament of Youth is the true story of Vera Brittain's experience in WWI, which I'm currently reading.

The Abbess of Whitby by Jill Dalladay/Aiden, Bede, Cuthbert by David Adam
The Abbess of Whitby is a fictionalized version of the story of Hilda of Whitby, which I found a very interesting read. The second book is one I have yet to read, but the three men whose lives it recounts lived also lived in Northumbria around Hild's time, and at least one of them appears as a character in The Abbess of Whitby, so it seems an appropriate pairing.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen/Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England by Roy & Lesley Adkins

I could have chosen any Jane Austen book for this one really! Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England is a fun look at what life was actually like during Jane Austen's lifetime. I haven't yet read the whole thing, as it's a book that can be easily dipped in and out of, but it's one I keep meaning to get back to.

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham/Lancaster and York by Alison Weir
The Queen of Last Hopes is a novel about Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI, the Lancastrian king during the Wars of the Roses. So it fits well with a non-fiction book about the same time period. (I also enjoyed The Sunne in Splendour, but I think Lancaster and York only covers the period up to 1471, well before Richard III came to the throne, so it fits better with a book about Margaret and Henry.)

Book Review: Masquerade at the Wells by Lorna Hill

Masquerade at the Wells is the third book in Lorna Hill's series about Sadler's Wells Ballet School. This book shifts the focus from Veronica, the heroine of the first two books who is now a well-known dancer on the Covent Garden stage, to cousins Jane and Mariella Foster. Mariella's mother is a famous ballet dancer, and it is taken for granted that Mariella will follow in her footsteps - but truth be told, she would rather be riding horses than dancing. Jane's mother is convinced that she loves animals, especially horses, and after she is given a pony Jane doesn't want to seem ungrateful by admitting that she doesn't like horses very much, and is in fact a bit afraid of them. However, when she starts taking ballet lessons she finds that there is something she loves to do. How will Jane and Mariella manage to pursue their dreams, despite their families?

When Mariella is offered an audition at Sadler's Wells, the famous ballet school, the solution seems obvious: she and Jane should swap places, and Jane go to the audition in her place. But will they manage to get away with deception, or will Jane lose her chance?

Like the first two books, this is narrated in the first person - mostly by Jane, with the last section by Mariella. The style is chatty and informal, as though the narrator is telling her story, rather than writing it. This allows us to get to know the characters, and also allows the author to explain things about ballet that the reader might not know, in a way that feels natural.

Despite the title, the "masquerade" doesn't take up a large part of the story. It's not until halfway through the book that Jane even goes to London, let alone Sadler's Wells, and we don't hear a great deal about her time there - an issue I also had with the previous book, as I would have liked to know more about the school itself. Lots is skimmed over, and we often only get things second-hand; we wouldn't actually see a scene, just Jane telling or writing to someone about it afterwards. This didn't bother me particularly, but I think it might be a disappointment to some people.

Overall, this was an enjoyable, though not a spectacular, book, much in the vein of the previous two, with stuff about ballet, riding, family relationships, and the Northumberland countryside. If you enjoyed the previous two books in the series, you'll like this one too; although it isn't necessary to have read any of the others first, as it stands quite well alone.

Journey to Jo'burg by Beverley Naidoo

Journey to Jo'burg tells the story of two children, Naledi and Tiro. When their baby sister becomes very ill, the children decide that they must go to fetch their mother, working in Johannesburg, even if they have to walk all the way there.

The book was written in 1985, when apartheid was still in force in South Africa. One of the consequences of this was that many adults were forced to work a long way away from where their children lived, in jobs such as domestic service and mining. The movements of black people were controlled, who had to get permission to live in a certain city, so it wasn't easy to move around or go back home. Naledi and Tiro and their sister, Dinea, live with their aunt and grandmother and have always accepted that this is the way things are; however much they might miss their mother (and their father, who worked in the mines, but has died previous to the beginning of the story), she has to go away and work so that she can send them money for food, school, etc. Their trip to Johannesburg, however, opens up their eyes to some of the injustices people face, and also that there are people who want to change things.

At that time many people in England were largely unaware of the prejudices and ill treatment faced every day by the black population of South Africa, and this book was written partly to raise awareness of this among British children. I think it does this well, touching on issues such as the separation of parents and children, black people not being able to move around freely, children bring brought up to be servants; but in a way that is quite child appropriate. It is also a good story, about the determination and courage of the two children, and discovering things about themselves/the world around them. And despite the subject matter, it is a hopeful story; it ends with Toledi's determination that she is going to start finding out what she can do to speak out against what is happening, and with the hope that things can change (as, indeed, they did).

I found the author's afterword interesting, too. She writes that, growing up, she never really thought about the injustice that was going on around her, because she was never taught to question it; it was just how things were. Despite being half Jewish herself and very aware of what had gone on in Europe during WW2 and what might have happened to her had she lived there, it never occurred to her that similar things might be going on around her. It wasn't until she went to university that she became aware of this, and started campaigning to change things.

Interestingly, although Naledi and Tiro have a very different existence to the author, this is also a journey they go on (as well as the literal journey). Living in an all-black, rural area, the children are sheltered from some of the worst injustices that go on, and they accept things - such as their mother having to work in Johannesburg, so that they are not able to see her very often - as just the way things are. It is only when they go to the city and talk to some people there that Toledi realises that things are really bad and that this is wrong. So in a way, this is similar to what the author went through.

It's a very short book (only 80 pages) but I though it was a good read. It covers some of the issues, without becoming overburdened by them, and it is overall a hopeful story. Even though the policy of apartheid has now, thankfully, come to an end, it is still worth reading as a portrait of things that people went through, and of course, many of the issues are still relevant today.