Book 2: The Distance Between Us

Book 2: The Distance Between Us – Maggie O’Farrell
On Chinese New Year in Hong Kong, Jake is caught in the middle of a crush that critically injures his girlfriend of four months. When doctors tell Jake she won’t last the night he decides to marry her. But when she survives, he is trapped: married to a woman he never loved and in a small town in England that is starkly different to his home of Hong Kong.

At the same time in London, Stella sees a man that brings her life crashing down. She flees to Aviemore, a town deep in the Scottish Highlands that holds the secret to her past. Gradually her complicated relationship with her sister is unravelled.

I absolutely love Maggie O’Farrell and her calculated yet highly emotive writing style. She tends to write in chunks, swapping between the two protagonists and jumping through their back stories, leaving you to weave the pieces together. I usually devour her books in a day or two and this was no exception. While it wasn’t my favourite of hers, it was an enjoyable read and I particularly love her vivid descriptions of landscapes and setting, whether it’s the steamy streets of Hong Kong, the wilds of Scotland or the beauty of Edinburgh. 3.5/5

Book 1: The Circus of Ghosts

This year I want to complete the 52 Book Challenge, essentially reading one book per week. Seeing as I now work in a bookstore this makes a lot of sense. Even though I get a discount (and books are cheap anyway), I will try to mix things up between buying at work, buying second-hand and using the library.

I want to read at least one non-fiction book per month and challenge myself to read a wide variety of genres, authors and subject matter. I think I can do it!

Book 1: The Circus of Ghosts – Barbara Ewing
Of course I had to start this challenge with a 500 page book, so I am already a few days behind. Circus of Ghosts is set in New York in the mid-1800s, where mesmerist Cordelia Preston and her daughter Gwen have joined a circus after escaping a cruel past in Britain. However trouble is brewing when a devious London lawyer travels to New York with plans to murder Cordelia and kidnap Gwen, while Cordelia’s husband Arthur (a police officer) starts to attract the interest of the brutish and wild New York gangs.

The setting and landscapes in this book are fantastically vivid, and I would love to learn more about mesmerism now. However, I think this book could’ve been much shorter. If a book is 500 pages long I want to be kept on tenterhooks and this only happened in the last 150 pages. Perhaps if I had read The Mesmerist first I may have been hooked quicker. 3/5

Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson

Neither Here Nor There is Bryson’s first travel narrative in which he retraces his steps as a youthful backpacker across Europe. This book is funny – and I don’t mean smile bemusedly funny, I mean weep with hysterics funny. Originally published in 1991, there are refreshingly politically incorrect moments which add to its charm (as long as you aren’t easily offended), such as Bryson’s blatant stereotyping of everyone from the French to the Japanese. Bryson’s deadpan humour left me hunched over laughing uncontrollably at cafes and on trains more than once.

[Actually, I must apologise to the poor man on the train to Bromley South who found himself wedged between me, cackling and grinning madly, and a somewhat dishevelled older lady who muttered to herself and would whip out a notebook to write down a series of numbers every few minutes.]

Each chapter is of a different city and you don’t have to read it in order but it’s much funnier if you do. It’s interesting to see how much travel has changed in the past twenty years, especially as he frequently references how different it is from his first experiences in the 70s. Despite mentions of countries, unions and currencies that no longer exist, Neither Here Nor There is still a relevant and entertaining travel narrative and a must-read for anyone heading to Europe.