Linda Grant (1)Recensioni

Starting in the 1970s, Linda Grant’s novel charts the life of Adele through her days at a new university to her enforced redundancy from her magazine editor’s role in the mid-2010, The main focus is on Adele’s time at university when she, along with her new friends were discovering who they wanted to be and how they hoped to change society for the better. Like many of her friends at university, Adele finds that the experience changes her life. The greatest effect upon Adele, was her friendship with Evie, a relationship that influenced much of her life and actions as she continues to try to understand what happened and why. Grant shows a deep affection and sympathy for her characters with their freedom to choose at university, which later becomes more restricted as they subsequently follow careers that at times bear little relationship to their studies. This makes for an evocative, spirited, engaging and moving portrait of the time and how young hopes change.

Interesting book about TB treatment in a sanatorium in the late 1940's and the cast of characters there.

The novel takes the reader to post-Brexit London where a woman has killed herself by jumping off a bridge. No one has come forward to identify her. The book explores a whole host of people who are connected to the suicidal woman by the most tenuous of strings. A police officer who can't stop thinking about her case. A nurse who was on the bridge simultaneously, yet unaware of the tragedy taking place. A filmmaker who creates a documentary about the jumper. For each of these people, we meet the people in their lives - family or friends or neighbors. This structure (sort of a hub, spoke, wheel approach) makes for a LOT of characters and a lot of subplots. Many of the subplots touch upon the theme of immigration today and how immigrants are (or are not) absorbed into London.

I was alternatively impressed and frustrated by this book. Grant's writing style is right up my alley. Her descriptions are outstanding, freshly rendered, and compelling in their own right. In this case, the book is set in London, and the author makes London come alive for the reader. She almost makes it seem like a character itself. She describes it: "There's nothing one could do that would provoke its surprise. It absorbed atrocities, shrugged them off . . .nobody talked to each other or made eye contact on the tube; like an elephant bitten by a mosquito, London was simply too big, too absorbed in its own individual business, too intent on getting to work and going shopping and having dates and affairs and planning robberies." Her prose made me think.

And it was a good thing it did, because the plot - such as it was - really lacked suspense. It was very fragmented. I felt I kept forgetting who the characters were (omg, I wish I had read this on Kindle where revisiting character info is 10x easier) and had to remind myself repeatedly of who they were and who they were related to. One character had two names to add to the complications. In addition, there were some pretty surreal moments that require the reader to puzzle out what has actually happened and more importantly why. I questioned if certain scenes were meant to be metaphorical. At any rate, I don't mind doing some of the work as a reader, but I felt the balance was tipped away from my favor and not in a good way.

To Grant's credit, she saved the situation a bit in the end with a relative straightforward recitation of what happened to each character, and I did appreciate that . . .in fact, it almost pushed me to give the book another star.

Very short, but nice read, with great quotes on what a personal library stands for.½

A captivating and wholly absorbing novel that spans the times from the late 1960s to the late 2000s. It traces the life of Stephen Newman a she leaves America to begin studying at Oxford University. Gradually his ambition of making a substantial contribution to changing society is whittled away and he settles for what he sees as a less fulfilling life. His disappointment is contrasted to the approach by his wife Andrea, who he marries so that he can settle in Britain and thus avoid the draft for the Vietnam War. Stephen’s discomfort is the greatest of his family and friends from his Oxford days, but by the end of the period with the death of his father and wife, he reflects that he has reached a new understanding of how to take positives from one’s achievements. This lesson is also true to the other main characters, although they realised this earlier in their lives. Linda Grant has written a rich, scintillating and entertaining novel about how we live our lives and how we are never too old to learn or change, although there are hints of problems to come for Stephen’s descendants.

Perfectly pleasant read, a window into the horrors of TB treatment on the cusp of antibiotics. My only criticism was the drawn out ending with numerous jump-forward chapters that could have been just one and the better for it.½

I found this book interesting as it covered a time and place I'd not really read about before - life in Tel Aviv in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Evelyn is a a chameleonic character, adaptable to her circumstances, so able to float between different parts of society. I could probably have used a bit more historic context to get more out of this book, I don't know much about the history of Tel Aviv, but enjoyed it regardless.½

2012 (my brief review can be found on the LibraryThing post linked)
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138560#3562435½

An explosion of characters mostly living and residing in London, many immigrant and immigrant descendants, most of whose lives have been touched in some way by the discovery of a body of a woman found in the Thames. London is the Stranger City, and these on some levels are some of its strangers, but also some of the characters find themselves to be strangers to themselves and at times their loved ones. Is the City also a stranger to its nation (post-Brexit vote) and to its union with Europe?½

I like Linda Grant's writing, so was pleased to get this ARC. I didn't realise it was a Brexit novel, but it makes sense given her interest in migration, Jewish histories and time. I found it really hard to read though, because it seemed so bleak about the future of London. At its core is the perceived decline of acceptance for the many different groups of people who have made London their home, taking Brexit and ultimately wondering where authoritarian programmes might lead.
"For without the prop of a passport a person is a disembodied ghost.
Francesca’s grandparents had British passports. It was unthinkable for them not to have secured their paperwork. Uncle Farki’s son in California had two, which was considered by the family to be the absolute minimum for a secure life. Younis had told his son to make approaches to Israel but his wife Hilary did not like the country and had ‘views’. She was, he said, ‘a bit of a petition signer’."
To tell the story of change, Grant pulls together a community around a lost woman, pulled out of the Thames without any id. Her disappearance becomes a film, a compassionate police officer becomes a little obsessed with her. Another woman goes missing but turns out to have been just having a romantic encounter: her flatmate raises a twitter storm. A man loses his partner when he can't get over his PTSD from a terrorist bomb. Another man is hit by a racist acid attack. For some the changes are insurmountable: for the young, it seems possible to pick up and start again, whether in a new country or with a new business.

I think I still associate London with being in my 20s and thinking so much was possible, that anyone was welcome unlike the small town where I had lived before. Clearly that was naive, and this book suggests that even that appearance of welcome is disappearing, and future Londoners should approach with caution.½

This is the moving story of a search for her own identity, as Vivien Kovaks, the daughter of Hungarian immigrant parents, attempts to decide what to do with her life after graduating from university in the late 1970s. She still lives with her parents in Marylebone, but is frustrated by their docility and refusal to tell her anything about her ancestors. She recalls that almost 20 years earlier, she briefly met her father’s brother, Sandor, whom her father disliked and she decides to discover more about him and his nefarious past. The book turns on this quest and the discoveries that Vivien makes, shakes her out of her own lethargy and gives her a greater appreciation for the experiences of other people who can then be understood better for what they have gone through. In so doing, it charts a path for her future.
Linda Grant’s writing is absorbing and captivating in an excellent read. She creates a greater understanding of the complex Sandor, that leads to a more mature and forgiving life for Vivien.

I picked this up not realizing it was non-fiction and soon decided there were other books more worthy of my time. I will probably move this one out of my library.

I had great expectations for this book, having enjoyed a couple of Linda Grant’s novels in the past, and was, therefore, exited when I saw a stack of signed copies on offer in Daunt Books. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm seems to have been misplaced, and I found myself very disappointed.

The initial premise certainly seemed to work, dealing with a pauper’s burial of a woman whose unclaimed and unidentified body had been recovered from the Thames. The story then goes off at various tangents, following a selection of different characters with tenuous (mostly extremely tenuous) connections to the dead woman. Among these is the story of another young woman on her way to a party with her flatmate. When, utterly without provocation, makes a horrible remark to her, she decides not to accompany him to the party, and instead spends the summer evening walking around the London Bridge area. The story then moves to a young man who witnessed their disagreement, and finds himself wondering how their evening ended, and what the consequences of the sudden act of nastiness by the flatmate.

All of this sounds promising, but instead I found the book simply disjointed and annoying. London itself emerges as more than merely backdrop to its inhabitants’ lives, but its impact was not enough to rescue the novel.

It started out strongly but about halfway through it started to meander a bit and loose focus. I wasn't really sure what story she wanted to tell and, although the characters were interesting, I wasn't very connected with their story. I thought the clothes theme was a bit forced, esp in the last few pages. It was well-written but not the most interesting read.

Too long and whiny with barley likable characters.

I truly dread dealing with my book accumulation after 19 years in a 2400sq ft house. I so feel this, kindle and all.

A really, really lovely book.

This will resonate with anyone who shares Grant’s – and my – problem. When you’re an enthusiastic reader, you will, sooner or late, come to this point: ‘The books in alphabetical rows were overgrown by piles of new books, doubled in front. Books multiplied, books swarmed, books, I sometimes dreamt, seemed to reproduce themselves – they were a papery population explosion‘. When she downsizes to a smaller flat in London, Grant faces the physically painful task of decimating her library. Confronted with this literary mirror of her past, she remembers how she has engaged with books throughout her life and what having a library means to her. Funnily enough (or not, if you’re in the same boat) it transpires that a ‘library’ isn’t really that much about the contents of the books. It’s a time capsule, a record of memories, friends and events otherwise forgotten, an assertion of personality, (perhaps, shamefully) a display of one’s intellect (“I bloody well will read Herodotus / Proust / Camus one day”), a way to impress boyfriends or colleagues.

Grant has been a book fetishist (‘junkie‘) for much of her life. Those broken-backed spines and scruffy pages have been beloved objects. But now, as she gets older, she finds that the tiny print of her 1960s paperbacks is proving too much of a challenge. She finds herself increasingly seduced by the Kindle, with its resizeable text, its clarity and, joy of joys, its capacity. A library can now be in a pocket (assuming, that is, you can get the books you want on Kindle and, as Grant laments, that isn’t always the case). Far from shunning modern technology, Grant embraces it and she makes an interesting point. As an author, she knows all too well what it’s like to write a book and she makes a point that books are now written on screens. Authors bring their books to life in Microsoft Word, in a white, blank space. Reading the book on a Kindle screen is, perhaps, much closer to the author’s experience of writing it than reading it in a cherished hard copy. It’s a good point. A love story about books, yet also about the need to let them go, it’s a short piece that will strike a chord with anyone who’s come back from Oxfam with yet another pile of books, thinking, “Oh bugger. No more shelf space…”

For this review and other reviews of bite-sized books, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/04/28/bite-sized-books/

I understand

I relate a lot to this essay. I have run out of room in my apartment for more books. So I had to go through the books to be packed a way and hopefully find good homes. I love my physical books and wish I could hold on to them all. In reality this is not possible. I have decided to only to hold on to the books I truly love.
I have finally and with great reluctance have bought my first kindle. At 37 would of thought I would of jump on the bad wagon sooner. Their is something about a book, that made me not want to go about the ebook way. I do have to say that I'm enjoy kindle, for some books I couldn't find in print. Still working out how to find books easier if I want to just browse the book list (better sort and filter) Physical book will always be in my home, just less. For the writer will have to work hard to be on my permit shelf and my heart.

(7.5) I found this book good but not great. I am surprised that it was shortlisted really. The topic I thought was important for younger generations and even my own to be reminded of how deadly and debilitating a TB prognosis could be.
Lenny and Miriam, 19 year old twins of Jewish parents are just achieving independence and looking forward to their futures when they are diagnosed with tuberculosis. They are sent off to the South of England to a sanatorium for treatment. They like others before them soon become institutionalised. They are exposed to a different set of people and their lives are permanently altered and affected.
I wanted to like this more but really failed to feel any connection to the individuals in this story even though the setting was an important one to learn about. I felt more empathy with their aging characters, one disappointing scene aside.

I liked this book very much. Linda Grant seems to me to have a perceptive and interesting take on the era and events that have dominated my life. She writes about the larger society - the war in the former Yugoslavia, 9/11 and the impact of terrorist activity in London - which was made especially relevant as I read the book as the London Bridge terrorist incident of June 2017 occurred. But more than that, she focuses on individuals as members of families and the role of truth and deception in family relationships. Especially relevant to me was her treatment of the end stages of life - people dying suddenly and others dying slowly, and how we look back on our lives.½

I'm a fan of Linda Grant both her books ( fiction and non ) and on Twitter. That is along as she confines herself to writing about her own, when she brings in Americans or America the stereotypes abound. And I am not some red white and blue flagwaver but I just had to groan when Arthur, the jacked-up Bronx sailor arrived on the scene, from there on in the novel suffered. And in her The Party Upstairs, the book's narrator spends time in the US where she has a cringe-worthy two page encounter with a cross between Gabby Hayes and the Marlboro Man. Maybe this is stuff she can get away with with her UK readers, god only really knows what they think of us.

Loved this book. The writing is excellent.

(Nonfiction, Bibliophilic, Kindle Single)

When Grant downsized her living space in 2013, she had to purge thousands of her books from her personal library, started when she was a child.

Amazon says: ”Both a memoir of a lifetime of reading and an insight into how interior décor has banished the bookcase, her account of the emotional struggle of her relationship with books asks questions about the way we live today.“

The author is an award winning novelist and nonfiction writer, so this is a well-written and fascinating treatise.

4 stars

An interesting novel set in a TB hospital as the new NHS takes over, enabling working class patients to access treatment. Even more significantly, antibiotics are beginning to be made available. Although the characters were charismatic and engaging, I was never gripped by the story.½