narrator Archives - The Quick and the Read

(Audio)book Review: ‘Mavericks’ by Jenny Draper

I’ll be honest – the words ‘TikTok historian’ didn’t draw me to this book as I’m far too old to grapple with too many social media platforms and so was unaware of Jenny Draper before now. I am on a perpetual hunt for engaging, lively history books – and if they’re funny too then that’s a bonus. The blurb of ‘Mavericks’ proved appealing for this reason. Thanks to Watkins Publishing and NetGalley for my review copy.

I liked the format of this audiobook – short chapters focusing on different ‘mavericks’ from history from whom we can learn something important, or certainly intriguing (“firing a gun at someone won’t make them love you” being a favourite). The figures chosen were mostly ones I hadn’t encountered before, although a few more familiar names such as Margery Kempe and the Chartists were mixed in. I enjoyed learning about historical figures who had taken the unconventional path – especially as these figures included a lot of women, non-nobles and those from around the world who don’t always make it into traditional history books. The chapters revealed quirky and telling details about each of the figures, reflecting Draper’s eye for an entertaining story and skills in producing vivid biographical writing.

The audiobook is engagingly narrated by the author herself – I’ll admit that I enjoyed hearing the stories told in the author’s own voice as the pacing sounded natural and the jokes landed well.

I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys history told with humour and wit – think along the lines of ‘The Rest is History’ or Terry Deary for comparison.

Photo by C D-X on Unsplash

(Audio)Book Review: ‘Life Lessons from Historical Women’ by Eleanor Morton

I read a lot of non-fiction; I am always on the lookout for books that are interesting, thought-provoking but also – and this is key – entertaining. I have stacks of books on fascinating topics, but the style doesn’t always grab me – this is why Eleanor Morton’s book was a breath of fresh air for me.

In this book, Morton takes us through a selection of lessons we can learn from historical women, for example ‘How to Fight for your Rights’ (about Emily Davison), ‘How to Express Yourself’ (Artemisia Gentileschi), ‘How to See Beauty in Everything’ (Ada Lovelace). There were lots of women that I’d heard of before (Mary Seacole, etc.) but also plenty that I hadn’t, or hadn’t really thought about, such as the Match Women (the Bryant and May factory workers who went on strike) or the Dahomey Warriors. As Morton reminds us, these are great historical women, but also people’s mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and this makes their stories powerful and relatable. Relating these women to today’s events and attitudes also helps to make them more real – Morton packs her book with modern references, showing that the issues that the historical women dealt with have their modern parallels. However, that’s not to say that the historical element is skimped upon at all as the book comes across as well-researched.

There are also short, informative chapters that intersperse the ‘self-help’ chapters – these take the form of lists of interesting facts, e.g. 10 historical ways to deal with periods, 10 muses who were also artists, 10 things you didn’t realise were invented by women. I really enjoyed these quick and fun snippets of history and they broke up the longer chapters well.

This audiobook is narrated by the author herself and does it brilliantly – she has a humorous tone and lively delivery. I love the fact that the historical content is punctuated by Morton’s own thoughts and insights which made me laugh out loud at times. Lots of this felt very relatable, for example her thoughts on her chances of survival in Australia or her overt sense of guilt about childhood misdemeanours! I found her to be a candid, chatty and well-informed guide throughout.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend this book/audiobook to anyone interested in women’s history – and anyone who feels that there are valid life lessons to be learned from the past (there definitely are!) Morton’s selection of women are incredibly diverse, interesting and inspirational. I definitely learned new things and enjoyed the learning process!

I received a review copy of this audiobook from NetGalley. Opinions are, however, entirely my own. To be honest, I’d have happily bought this one and felt it to be a bargain!

Header photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

Non-Fiction Audiobook Recommendations

Regular visitors to my blog know that I’m an insomniac with an audiobook habit! Here’s some of the best I’ve listened to recently…

(Audio)Book Review: ‘A Marvellous Light’ by Freya Marske

I’m so sorry it took me so long to read this!

The story is about a young baronet, Robin Blyth, who takes on a mysterious commission within the British government, not realising that he is expected to be the point of liaison between his world and the magical one. Given that he doesn’t know that magical society exists until he meets Edwin Courcey, his sexy-but-hostile magical colleague, this proves a challenge to say the least. Robin and Edwin find themselves thrown together in some dangerous situations…and working to uncover a plot that threatens the very existence of magical society.

Book Review: ‘The Twyford Code’ by Janice Hallett

Let me get this out here first: I loved Janice Hallett’s debut novel, ‘The Appeal’. Everything about it was fantastic, from the modern epistolary style to the brilliantly relatable setting of a small-town amateur dramatics society. The characters were immediately recognisable types and the plot was unpredictable in all the best ways. Cosy, witty and so clever – I absolutely gulped it down and put ‘The Twyford Code’ at the top of my most anticipated books of 2022.

Book Review: ‘Nobody But Us’ by Laure Van Rensburg

This is an intriguing idea for a thriller; a couple leave New York to go to a remote house for some romantic time together. However, the book opens a few days later with the police finding the house covered in blood and ransacked. Clearly, something violent and disturbing has happened within the walls of the modern holiday home…but what? This fills in the missing gaps of that story.

And it is quite a story.

Audiobook Review: ‘The Royal Art of Poison: Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicines and Murder Most Foul’ by Eleanor Herman

Mmm, it’s starting to look like I have an obsession with poisoners! (I really don’t!)

I picked this up in Audible’s 2 for 1 sale after I had finished reading about the 20th century ‘teacup poisoner’, Graham Young, in Carol Ann Lee’s ‘A Passion for Poison’ (recommended – my review is here).

(Audio)Book Review: ‘This is Your Mind on Plants’ by Michael Pollan

As an avid reader of books about the Victorian era, I’m no stranger to opium – purely in the context of reading, you understand, rather than personal experience! I am, however, a confirmed and accepting caffeine addict so this book – focused on opium, caffeine and mescaline – sounded absolutely fascinating. I duly downloaded the audiobook and got stuck in…

Blog Tour: ‘The Glorious Guinness Girls’ by Emily Hourican

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Glorious Guinness Girls’ by Emily Hourican, a fascinating insight into the daughters of the famed Irish family.

With thanks to the publisher, Headline, for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The main draw for this book was the period of history it covers – primarily the 1920s. Throw in some glitz and glamour, some high society sisters from the famous brewing dynasty, lots of Bright Young Things and raucous parties and I was absolutely sold!

This book fictionalises the story of the Glorious Guinness Girls – three sisters from Ireland who were celebrated in the contemporary media for being beautiful, privileged and eminently newsworthy. They were the daughters of Ernest and Cloe Guinness and raised in wealth and luxury in Glenmaroon until the events of the Irish Civil War became a little too close to home. They then embarked on a round the world yacht trip before settling in London where the girls were ‘brought out’ as debutantes and attended some pretty wild-sounding parties.

The story is told from the point of view of a fictional cousin of the Guinness Girls, Fliss, who is invited to live with the family and so is witness to the girls’ lives in the twelve year period that the book covers. Although she lives alongside the family, it is clear that she isn’t one of them – she is not invited on the yacht trip and instead becomes a kind of companion to Cloe and chaperone figure for the girls, even though she is a similar age to them. Fliss’ narrative covers mainly her time with the family in the 1920s, although we also see her as an older woman revisiting the former Guinness estate that has now been turned over to a religious order.

I’ll admit to being unsure how this book would work – particularly how the mixture of fact and fiction would work. In fact, the story is beautifully presented and engaging, although it is slightly ironic that the character we get the most vivid sense of is Fliss, the fictional one. This isn’t really surprising though, as her personal story – including her relationship with her brother, Hughie, who is caught up in the Irish Civil War – is really the heart of this book.

Of the three Guinness Girls (Aileen, Maureen and Oonagh), the one developed the most as a fully rounded character is Maureen, so it came as no surprise to me to read the author’s note at the end of the book which explained that one of her main sources was someone who knew Maureen best. Indeed, Maureen is vividly rendered as someone who is quite spiky and willing to test the boundaries of her sheltered life – it is a clever device to place Fliss as being a similar age to her and so sharing her experiences most closely. Aileen, the eldest, is probably the most mysterious of the three, while Oonagh (the baby of the family) is mostly sweet and spends most of her time on childish pursuits.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story of the Guinness Girls as I followed them from the volatility of the Irish situation to the glamour of the Roaring 20s in London. It was really interesting to see the ways that their wealth protected them from the political situation up until the point they could no longer ignore the reality of what was happening on their doorstep. I also loved how the author presented the fact that the traditions of the aristocracy were slowly dying in the youth revolution of the 1920s – to be young and free and living life to the full was the most important thing and Maureen embodies this.

Obviously, this presents a narrow view of what life in the 1920s was like, but it is an exhilarating experience to be carried along with the beautiful people as they partied like it was 1929 (pre-Wall Street crash, of course!) The blending of historical figures with the fictional ones was also engaging – it was lovely to ‘see’ Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and Brian Howard among others.

This book left me desperate to learn more about the Guinness Girls – all of whom had absolutely fascinating lives after the period of this book. In many ways, I really wanted this book to be more fact and less fiction – the historical figures are interesting in their own right and Fliss’ story is perhaps less compelling than the other elements of the novel. However, as a piece of historical fiction based in fact, it does work and is engaging.

I would recommend this to fans of historical fiction – fans looking for heavy-duty non-fiction will not find the detail they want here as this isn’t the intention of the book. As a fictional insight into the lives of the wealthy and fortunate in an interesting period of Anglo-Irish history, it absolutely hits the mark.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith, a book that imagines the life of the character of Nick Carraway before he ends up as narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’.

This blog tour is organised by Oldcastle Books/No Exit Press and I am thrilled to have been asked to join the tour!

From the Publisher:

This rich and imaginative novel from critically acclaimed author Michael Farris Smith breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby’s world, he was at the centre of a very different story – one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick embarks on a redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance – doomed from the very beginning – to the dizzying frenzy of New
Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.

‘NICK is so pitch-perfect, so rich in character and
action, so remarkable a combination of elegance
and passion, so striking in felt originality that I am
almost tempted to say – book gods forgive me – that
The Great Gatsby will forever feel like NICK’s splendid
but somewhat paler sequel. Almost tempted to say. But
I have no intention of taking back the sincere passing
thought of it. Michael Farris Smith’s book is that good’
Robert Olen Butler

2021 WILL MARK 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S BIRTH

‘Anybody who believes that the war is
over when the enemy surrenders and
the troops come home needs to read
Michael Farris Smith’s masterful new
novel NICK. Its stark, unvarnished
truth will haunt you’
Richard Russo

‘Stylish, evocative, haunting and
wholly original, Michael Farris Smith
has paid tribute to a classic and made
it his own. A remarkable achievement
that should sit at the very top of
everyone’s must-read list’
Chris Whitaker

My Review:

I’m a huge fan of ‘The Great Gatsby’, so I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to read this book, a kind of ‘prequel’ to the 1925 novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book focused on the story of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. In the original novel, a few things are revealed about the character – the fact he is a Midwesterner, the fact he served in World War I and the fact he finds himself in West Egg (where ‘Gatsby’ is set) aged 29. This gives Michael Farris Smith considerable scope to imagine Nick’s life up to that point and it is a challenge he seems to embrace wholeheartedly.

The story opens in Paris where Nick is on leave from fighting in the trenches of World War I. He meets a young woman and the initial part of the book is their (short) relationship before Nick is called back to combat. A period in the trenches follows – brutal, grim and shocking – before Nick goes to New Orleans and starts to search for his life back in America.

The varied settings of the novel are fascinating as Nick explores a corner of wartime Paris, the trenches and tunnels of the front line in France, the seedy quarter of New Orleans where the speakeasies and brothels are, before finally moving on to West Egg and his future. These places – a theatre attic, a bar, an apartment – are vividly evoked and make Nick’s story jump from the page.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it is clear that Nick is suffering from PTSD and a lot of his subsequent experiences are tinged with tragedy. This is a novel that doesn’t shy away from some big themes, from war to grief, revenge to violence, love to loss. Some of the novel, especially the scenes in the trenches and the post-war life of war veteran Judah, is hard to read but extremely powerful.

The writing is vivid and Michael Farris Smith presents a range of characters who engage the reader in their lives and hopes and dreams. Personally, I was most interested in the lives of the women of the novel – the survival instincts of both Colette and Ella in their different ways was interesting. I’d have loved to read more of Ella’s story as she was a mysterious figure in the novel in a lot of ways.

There were a couple of things I found a little jarring that took me out of the richly-imagined world of ‘Nick’ but I think these may be personal things. I found reported speech to be written oddly – totally a stylistic choice by the writer, but one I found tricky to follow sometimes. I also was thrown by a reference to possums – I won’t elaborate but it felt unusual in the context.

So, the big question. Has Michael Farris Smith successfully recreated a Nick Carraway that fits with the character written by F Scott Fitzgerald? My honest answer is that I don’t know. I suspect I would read ‘The Great Gatsby’ with a different view of Nick now, but I’d say the main ingredients are there in Smith’s portrayal. His Nick is honest, introspective and often an observer even in his own life – all features of Fitzgerald’s narrator too. The decision to narrate ‘Nick’ in the third person (as opposed to first person in ‘Gatsby’) escapes the need to recreate Nick’s exact voice, but I’d say these two Nicks could credibly be the same person.

Overall, I would say that I was caught up in Nick’s story and enjoyed the narrative decisions made by Smith to explain how Nick comes to be in West Egg at the start of ‘Gatsby’, plus his emotional baggage. It isn’t always a comfortable read, but I did find it immersive and interesting. If you love ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is definitely worth reading and may give you a different understanding of Nick. If you haven’t read ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is absolutely worth picking up on its own merits. Either way, I’d recommend it.

About the Author:

No Exit Press also publish Michael Farris Smith’s novels Desperation Road, The Fighter and most recently Blackwood. Farris Smith has been a finalist for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France, and his essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.