Crossing Abbey Road in London in 2005.
More Wordless Wednesday here.
Photo by moi.
More Wordless Wednesday here.
Photo by moi.
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Wordless Wednesday: Abbey Road
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
6 comments
Labels:
Abbey Road,
Beatles,
London,
Wordless Wednesday
Brick Lane
Monday, January 19, 2015
Brick Lane
by Monica Ali
★
Nazneen is a young woman living with her family in
Bangladesh and dreaming of her future. Soon she’s shipped to England where
she’s married off to an older man. Her life becomes so small, confined almost
entirely to their apartment. Her husband is gross and selfish and treats her
like an employee. I understand it’s an arranged marriage, but it’s an awful
situation. There’s no physical abuse, just a continual wearing down of her
spirit. Her casual acceptance of her situation is heartbreaking and it was hard
for me to identify with her.
When she finally has an affair you honestly don’t even
care about the man she is sleeping with, it’s more about the fact that she’s
finally done one tiny thing for herself. Even then it seems to make her more
miserable than before. She also has two daughters who grow up in England and
have a hard time embracing their parents’ culture. They are children of
England, not Bangladesh and that divide makes it difficult for them to
understand their mother’s decision to stay in a loveless marriage.
Part of the book consists of letters back and forth
between Nazneen and her sister. Hasina ran away from home and married for love,
but her life was not a happy one. I think the main purpose of that plot was to
show Nazneen that things could always be worse, but at least Hasina chose her
own life.
**SPOILERS**
I felt like we are waiting for something to happen for
the entire book and then nothing does. It’s this uphill slog that you think
will end with an incredible view, but when you reach the top there’s nothing to
see. She never goes to see her sister, she never gets caught in the affair,
etc. She just decides to stay at home when her husband leaves. That was good in
its own way, but there was no real resolution.
**SPOILERS OVER**
The fact that I couldn’t identify with the main character
wasn’t a deal breaker for me in anyway. I love learning about different
cultures. I love seeing the struggle that comes from immigrating to a new
country and trying to understand their customs. The problem was that Nazneen
didn’t seem interested in anything. I felt like I couldn’t root for her when
she couldn’t even root for herself.
BOTTOM LINE: Geez I struggled with this one. It’s such a
slow moving novel. I felt like I was living through those years of stifling
boredom with Nazneen, and not in the good way. There is some beautiful writing,
but for me it wasn’t enough to balance out the slog through the story.
The Tea Rose
Monday, December 8, 2014
by Jennifer Donnelly
★★★★
The Tea Rose is a big fat soap opera of a book. It's historical fiction, but it's also a romance. It's 1889 and Fiona Finnegan and Joe Bristow are on the cusp of adulthood. Both in their late teens, they are from poor families in the East End of London, but they're both dreaming big. The pair are in love and can't wait to open their own grocery store and start the rest of their lives together.
Of course things are never that simple. There's a rich man's wife, Millie, who has her eye on Joe. There's a push for Fiona's father's work to unionize and a dangerous group that opposes that change. On top of all of that Jack the Ripper is on the loose and everyone is running scared.
It's a big novel that crosses from England to America and back again and over years of time. It's easy to sink into and it was just what I needed when I picked it up. Yes, there are absolutely too many coincidences and unbelievable elements, but that's half the fun with a book like this. You just embrace the melodrama and go with it.
Fiona was a great character, strong and resilient, determined to succeed against all odds. She, along with her best friend Nick, really made the story for me. There's one moment in the story that didn't sit right with me. Fiona does a complete 180 and it doesn't make any sense in the context of her character, but the ship quickly righted itself and I forgave the hiccup.
I love the historical elements woven into the story. It's incredibly readable but at the same time you are getting snapshots of real historical events, like the Jack the Ripper murders, immigration to New York City, and even a bit a glimpse of the painting scene in Paris in the late 1800s.
BOTTOM LINE: A bit of a guilty pleasure book, very enjoyable. I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series, The Winter Rose, but I'll save it for when I need to lose myself in a thick novel.
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Monday, November 19, 2012
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
by Helene Hanff
★★★★★
When I read 84, Charing Cross Road in 2009 I was completely in love with it. Helene Hanff’s first book is a collection of letters between herself and the British bookseller, Frank Doel. For years the two wrote back and forth, never meeting in person but sharing a deep love of literature.
In this sequel Hanff finally had the opportunity to visit London for the first time. Unlike her first book, this one is written in journal form as she chronicles her time there. Her quick wit and acerbic nature make the whole thing so much fun. The nonfiction account hit a soft spot for me. I’m such an anglophile that when she describes her lifelong desire to visit London (see below) it was like I was reading my own thoughts.
“All my life I’ve wanted to see London. I used to go to English movies just to look at streets with houses like those. Staring at the screen in a dark theatre, I wanted to walk down those streets so badly it gnawed at me like hunger. Sometimes, at home in the evening, reading a casual description of London, I’d put the book down suddenly, engulfed by a wave of longing that was like homesickness. I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die. I used to tell myself this was natural in a writer and booklover born to the language of Shakespeare.”
I felt the need to visit London from a young age. I just always knew that one day I would go. When I was 19 I planned my first trip to Europe, hopped on a plane by myself and met a friend in London. During that trip I visited Bath, Windsor and London, and then traveled to Ireland and explored Dublin and some coastal towns. It was absolutely everything I imagined it would be. Seeing poets corner in Westminster Abbey, Twelfth Night performed at the Globe, dinner in a pub, etc. I loved everything about it. Later I moved there for a few months to do a semester abroad and my love of London grew ten-fold.
Hanff’s experience was similar to my own (except she was a bit of a celebrity because of her first book). She was in awe of everything see saw and all she wished for was more time. She made friends along the way, pinching every penny so she could spend just one more day in her beloved city.
BOTTOM LINE: I loved it so much! If you’re an anglophile or you loved 84, Charing Cross Road don’t miss this one!
“I seem to be living in a state of deep hypnosis, every time I mail a postcard home I could use Euphoria for a return address.”
p.s. Hanff wanted to personalize every book she signed and at one point she has to sign a stack of books for a bookseller to take to his shop and she said…
“I still couldn’t bring myself just to write my name and let it go at that, it seems unfriendly. Wrote “To an unknown booklover” in every copy.”
I wish so badly that I could get a signed copy of this book!
by Helene Hanff
★★★★★
When I read 84, Charing Cross Road in 2009 I was completely in love with it. Helene Hanff’s first book is a collection of letters between herself and the British bookseller, Frank Doel. For years the two wrote back and forth, never meeting in person but sharing a deep love of literature.
In this sequel Hanff finally had the opportunity to visit London for the first time. Unlike her first book, this one is written in journal form as she chronicles her time there. Her quick wit and acerbic nature make the whole thing so much fun. The nonfiction account hit a soft spot for me. I’m such an anglophile that when she describes her lifelong desire to visit London (see below) it was like I was reading my own thoughts.
“All my life I’ve wanted to see London. I used to go to English movies just to look at streets with houses like those. Staring at the screen in a dark theatre, I wanted to walk down those streets so badly it gnawed at me like hunger. Sometimes, at home in the evening, reading a casual description of London, I’d put the book down suddenly, engulfed by a wave of longing that was like homesickness. I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die. I used to tell myself this was natural in a writer and booklover born to the language of Shakespeare.”
I felt the need to visit London from a young age. I just always knew that one day I would go. When I was 19 I planned my first trip to Europe, hopped on a plane by myself and met a friend in London. During that trip I visited Bath, Windsor and London, and then traveled to Ireland and explored Dublin and some coastal towns. It was absolutely everything I imagined it would be. Seeing poets corner in Westminster Abbey, Twelfth Night performed at the Globe, dinner in a pub, etc. I loved everything about it. Later I moved there for a few months to do a semester abroad and my love of London grew ten-fold.
Hanff’s experience was similar to my own (except she was a bit of a celebrity because of her first book). She was in awe of everything see saw and all she wished for was more time. She made friends along the way, pinching every penny so she could spend just one more day in her beloved city.
BOTTOM LINE: I loved it so much! If you’re an anglophile or you loved 84, Charing Cross Road don’t miss this one!
“I seem to be living in a state of deep hypnosis, every time I mail a postcard home I could use Euphoria for a return address.”
p.s. Hanff wanted to personalize every book she signed and at one point she has to sign a stack of books for a bookseller to take to his shop and she said…
“I still couldn’t bring myself just to write my name and let it go at that, it seems unfriendly. Wrote “To an unknown booklover” in every copy.”
I wish so badly that I could get a signed copy of this book!
Photo by moi.
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