Book Reviews

A mysterious postcard with no signature or explanation arrives one morning at the author’s mother’s house. Just four names are written on the card – Ephraim, Emma, Noemie, and Jacques, four relatives all killed at Auschwitz. Who sent it and what does it mean? The Postcard by French author Anne Berest is a page-turning true story (in novel form) of one family’s experience during the Holocaust. It was a best seller in France, translated by Tina Kover and winner of the first ever Goncourt Prize US.
The novel is based on extensive research by her mother and later detective work by the author who embarks on a quest to discover the fate of her family she knows so little about, and to find out the meaning behind the arrival of the mysterious post card. Gripping from start to finish!

I must admit that I haven’t actually read this book but only listened to it on audio narrated by Martin Jarvis. It is one of the funniest laugh-out-loud books I have ever heard! It is incredible to think that it was written in 1889 and still has much resonance with today. It tells the story of three men who take a boating trip along the Thames River in England – there are lots of cultural and historical facts too!
The three men are based on the author Jerome himself (the narrator ) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager at Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business) called Harris in the book.

The best novels take you on an unexpected journey and make you stop and think and relate on so many levels. This was one of those! Lessons covers so many aspects of history, politics, culture, family dynamics, marriage, love, loss and grief all through the life experiences of one man – Roland Baines. I was particularly moved, disturbed and fascinated by his wife leaving him and his young baby to enable her creative self to fully function. This would make a fantastic book club choice – so many things to discuss!!

MCFL has Lessons available as a physical book and audiobook, check it out here.
And be sure to check out many of Ian McEwan’s other books here, including Atonement which has received many awards.

I loved this unique novel about a Greek film composer remembering the impact on her life of meeting and working with film director Billy Wilder during the filming of Fedora, set on the island of Corfu. There is her own coming of age story, a touching friendship between two generations, and the story of the end of the golden era of Hollywood. There are lots of references to Wilder both his early days and later life, together with his relationship with his writing partner Iz Diamond. Beautifully written.

By the same author: You might like What a Carve Up!, The Rotters Club, Bournville and Middle England.

William Boyd is a brilliant storyteller. His novels are always entertaining and surprising and so satisfying! My first introduction to him was through his book Any Human Heart. His latest The Romantic tells the story of Cashel Greville Ross, born in 1799 who travels the world experiencing an incredible array of tragedies and good fortune. He is a soldier, farmer, a prisoner, a writer, a father and lover. We find him in Ireland, France, Zanzibar, Massachusetts and Italy. So cleverly put together – hard to put down!

By the same author: Too many to list but I loved Any Human Heart, Restless, Waiting For Sunrise, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Love is Blind and Sweet Caress.

It is almost 15 years since Stanford Professor of Medicine Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone hit the NYT bestseller list and it has been well worth the wait!! 

This epic multigeneration saga set in Kerala from the 1900s to 1977 is full of the sights, smells, sounds, history and culture, of the region with the story centering around Big Ammachi, the matriarch of a family, whom we first meet as a 12 year old bride to be. Without giving anything away, Big Ammachi’s family is afflicted with a peculiar condition relating to water. There were shocks, surprises and lots of medical references and while the book is long (over 700 pages) the beautiful writing just takes you from page to page and generation to generation effortlessly. It kept me intrigued right to the last page. Loved it!

Get in line to check out this book here, and be sure to look into these similar books available from MCFL:

• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story by Abraham Verghese

There is nothing more satisfying and uplifting than reading a book that is not just beautifully written, full of unforgettable and loveable characters, and tells a captivating story, but one that also encompasses so much about art, life, love and family. You will be transported back in time to the East End of London and the Tuscan countryside after the Second World War and follow the life of Ulysses Temper for four wonderful decades. A truly fabulous novel!

Want to read this book? You can borrow the ebook from MCFL here!

Heritage is a fabulous family saga, brimming with poetry and passion, that skillfully weaves together the private lives of individuals and major historical events in South America and Europe.

The house on Calle Santo Domingo in Santiago de Chile, with its lush lemon trees, has sheltered three generations of the Lonsonier family. Having arrived from the harsh hills of France’s Jura region with a single grape vine in one pocket and a handful of change in the other, the patriarch put down roots there in the late nineteenth century. His son, Lazare, back from World War I’s hellish trenches, would live there with his wife and build in their garden the most beautiful aviary in the Andes. That’s where their daughter Margot, a pioneering aviator, would first dream of flying, and where she would raise her son, the revolutionary Ilario Da. Like Lazare before them, they will bravely face the conflicts of their day, fighting against dictatorship on both sides of the Atlantic. In this captivating and surprisingly short novel, Miguel Bonnefoy paints the portrait of an endearing, uprooted family whose terrible dilemmas, caused by the blows of history, reveal their deep humanity.

In the vein of the classic 84, Charing Cross Road, this witty and tender novel follows two women in 1960s America as they discover that food really does connect us all, and that friendship and laughter are the best medicine.

When twenty-seven-year-old Joan Bergstrom sends a fan letter–as well as a gift of saffron–to fifty-nine-year-old Imogen Fortier, a life-changing friendship begins. Joan lives in Los Angeles and is just starting out as a writer for the newspaper food pages. Imogen lives on Camano Island outside Seattle, writing a monthly column for a Pacific Northwest magazine, and while she can hunt elk and dig for clams, she’s never tasted fresh garlic–exotic fare in the Northwest of the sixties. As the two women commune through their letters, they build a closeness that sustains them through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the unexpected in their own lives.

This charming novel provides a brief respite from our chaotic and troubling world, a reminder that food and friendship are the antidote to most any heartache and that human connection will always be worth creating.

This short beautifully written novel stays with you long after you have finished. One to pick up and re-read… and pass on. It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. “Powerful and affecting and very timely.”-Hilary Mantel