The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

Well crafted, absorbing, and easy to read 

If 2020 is memorable for the coronavirus pandemic, the year 1947 is known as the Year Maine Burned. From October 13 to October 27, firefighters battled 200 fires, which destroyed a quarter of a million acres of forest,  wiped out nine entire towns leaving 2500 people homeless, and physically or psychologically scarred.  

This historical event is the backdrop for this novel.   During the fires, pregnant Grace Holland flees her home and becomes separated from her husband whilst desperately trying to save her two children.   This and her ensuing homelessness is just the start of a series of hardships Grace faces during her transition from an apparently shallow and needy young wife into a formidable  young woman willing to forge her own destiny.

The book title is part of a quote from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and is apt given the nature of the various loves Grace shares  - her husband, her mother, her children, suitors and friends.  

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;Doubt that the sun doth move;Doubt truth to be a liar;But never doubt I love.”

Still socially isolating amidst the UK response to the Coronavirus pandemic, we discussed this book over Zoom and agreed it was an enjoyable and easy read which had been incredibly well crafted.  Shreve’s skilled writing succinctly yet powerfully conveyed settings, emotions, and character to narrate a gripping plot.  The different attitudes towards gender and marriage of the period were also well observed.  

This is Shreve’s last novel, published in 2017.  She died from cancer in 2018 aged 71. Prior to becoming a full time author of 18 novels, she worked as a high-school teacher and journalist. Her first bestseller  - The weight of water - was published in1997.  

Food did not feature heavily in this story and our shops, restaurants, and  local book shop  are still closed..  

Those of you interested  in learning more about the Maine fires, will find more detailed accounts and photographs at  The New England Historical Society

We highly recommend The Stars are Fire, but you may choose to read our next book along with us.   Also steeped in the post war period and exploring similar themes around the nature of family and love, please join us to read The Outcast by Sadie Jones. 

  

Every Living Thing by James Herriot

The ideal read for lockdown?

"You'll 'ave a cup o' tea, Mr' erriot?'

For those of a certain age this autobiographical novel will evoke found memories of a bygone era full of simple pleasures. The popular novels by James Herriot, real name James Alfred Wight,  were a mainstay of the entertainment world of the 1970's and 80's, being made into a long running T.V. series (1978 - 1990) that made household names of Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy, Peter Davison, Lynda Bellingham and Carol Drinkwater. The series of books retell some of the situations the vet  found himself in over his long career in the Yorkshire Dales. His writing style is engaging and gently humorous, tinged with nostalgia we learn about the life of a country vet before the innovations of modern veterinary science. Packed full of larger than life characters all living and working in the beautiful Yorkshire dales, each chapter reveals more of the loves, laughter, heartache and  tragedy of life as a country vet. The author's quietly self deprecating style engenders a fondness for the character that has the reader willing him to succeed in his latest endeavour.

Not a page turner or a thriller this book is best read in small bursts. Each chapter tells it's own tale and reading cover to cover is a bit like watching all 90 episodes of the T.V. series at once. A well
written book, penned by an author who can make the mundane interesting and the extraordinary believable. James Herriot is a master of observation, capturing the essence of his characters on the page. He tells stories in a clear and engaging way which appeals to all ages, Sunday evenings watching "All Creatures Great and Small" was a family event in many households in the 70's and 80's  It is perhaps, his simplistic style that made his work accessible to all ages.

Was this a good book for the lockdown?, in some ways it was the ideal escape from the current threat of the Corona virus and all that that entails, the reader can become lost in the rolling hills and narrow country lanes of the Yorkshire dales, curl up next to the warm and welcoming Aga in Skeldale House or shiver in the cow barns 'up top'. But for those who are finding lockdown too constraining and claustrophobic and who long for a faster pace of life, then this book just compounds the feeling of frustration. A hard-hitting thriller it is not, a gentle meander through a seemingly more straight forward time,  but a time when the country was recovering from a  far greater challenge, the Second World War.

Again our meeting had to be held via technology, as the popularity and interest in people's
bookshelves grows with every T.V. Skype interview we can announce that we will be adding ;

to our book shelves. Join us next month for our review of  'The Stars are Fire' by Anita Shreve.