The Content Reader

Maggie O'Farrell is a favourite author of mine. I recently read two of her books; Hamnet and My Lover's Lover .  The latter book is one rather typical for O'Farrell. Her psychological insight into our minds, our actions and our feelings. Her much appraised novel Hamnet has got very good reviews and it has been on my shelves for some months. I read it for a book club and we had a very interesting discussion. " On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London.  Neither parent know that Hamnet will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written." The good revie...

Two interesting weekly memes Book beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader and the Friday 56 by Freda’s Voice . For the Book Beginnings you choose a book with an interesting beginning and share the first few sentences. For the Friday 56 you turn to page 56 or 56% on your e-reader and share a sentence or two that you enjoy. This week I would like to share the beginning of Maggie O’Farrell’s The hand that first held mine . ”Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their headrossing impatience, that something is about to happen.” On page 56 I find the following sentences: ”Lexie’s mother gave her two pieces of advice when she left for London: 1. Get a secretarial job in a big, successful firm because that will ’put you in the path of the right sort of man’. 2. Never be in the same room as a man and a bed. Her father s...

Strangely enough, this is the second book in a short time, that I read, loved the story but not the way it is written.  But, misunderstand me right; the writing itself if wonderful, it is just the parts that takes you out of the story (see below). The story is told from two different time frames and in the end the two stories merge. I must say in quite a surprising and extraordinary way. You are in for some surprises at the end. The story starts in the 1950s with Lexie Sinclair who is longing for another life. By chance she runs into a charming artist and journalist, Innes Kent, in her remote village. That is the chance meeting she needs to take the big step to go to work in London. Inevitably she runs into Innes Kent and from there her life is never the same. In present time we meet Ted and Elina, as they have got their first child. The birth was very dramatic, both for Elina and for Ted and it takes time for both of them to settle in as parents and their new life. From the be...