#52. Published in 2024 – The Book That Broke The World by Mark Lawrence (Hardback)

If I struggled with some categories in this challenge, this was the one where I immediately knew what I was going to read. 

In 2023 I had a big birthday. One of the things I did during the year was go for a personalised shopping experience with friends…complete with champagne. I’m not normally a lover of shopping, I hate traipsing around clothes racks, so this was the perfect way to shop…get someone else to do the donkey work for you! Once finished, and arms aching with carrier bags, we went past Waterstones. Now there is one type of shop I don’t mind spending hours in, so we popped in and I was captivated by a book called “The Book That Wouldn’t Burn. I’m not normally a lover of the Sci-Fi or Fantasy genres, but there was something about the cover and title which captivated me. I took the book on holiday and loved every minute of it, and I couldn’t wait for the second book in this gripping trilogy. Cue 2024 when Book #2 was released!

“We fight for the people we love. We fight for the ideas we want to be true.

Evar and Livira stand side by side and yet far beyond each other's reach. Evar is forced to flee the library, driven before an implacable foe. Livira, trapped in a ghost world, has to recover her book if she's to return to her life. While Evar's journey leads him outside into the vastness of a world he's never seen, Livira's destination lies deep inside her own writing, where she must wrestle with her stories in order to reclaim the volume in which they were written.

And all the while, the library quietly weaves thread to thread, bringing the scattered elements of Livira's old life – friends and foe alike – back together beneath new skies.

Long ago, a lie was told, and with the passing years it has grown and spread, a small push leading to a chain of desperate consequences. Now, as one edifice topples into the next with ever-growing violence, it threatens to break the world. The secret war that defines the library has chosen its champions and set them on the board. The time has come when they must fight for what they believe, or lose everything.”

I pre-ordered The Book That Broke the World, then I wondered if I was going to be disappointed with the sequel. So often a sequel lets you down, it doesn’t live up to expectations. If I’m honest, I can’t say whether this book is better or worse than the first. It’s a bit different. It’s like trying to compare apples with pears. The first book is very much character led. At 559 pages, it has the scope to bring the reader into this different world inhabited by different characters. You learn about this strange world set in an infinite library, about characters of different races in different times and it is completely engrossing. In book #2, we know so much about the main characters, that the story needs to take a bit of a different direction. 

What I loved about this book was "The Story So Far" section, which served as a brilliant reminder of what had happened in the first book. I wish more authors would do this. If I’m reading a series of books, I get so annoyed if the author diverges from the flow of the story to issue long rambling reminders of what has previously happened to their characters (J K Rowling take note!)

Mark Lawrence's The Book That Broke The World is the second book in the author's "Library Trilogy", and whilst it continues to follow Evar and Livera’s story, a new perspective is introduced in the form of a slave called Celcha and her brother. As her character arc grows, we see how her story weaves into the lives of Evar and Livera. 

#50. A Musical Instrument On The Cover – The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable (Audible)

I was really struggling to find a book with a musical instrument on the front cover. There was nothing on my bookshelf, in my Audible library, or on my Kindle app. If I went anywhere that books were sold (supermarket, airport etc) I’d have a quick glance on the shelves…nothing. I mean it shouldn’t be so hard, should it? Then this book popped up on a Facebook page. It was set in Venice, a favourite haunt of mine, and based on real people and a famous Venetian orphanage; I thought it sounded like the perfect book and so I bought it with a remaining credit I had for Audible. 

“Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent.

Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil.

But as Anna Maria's star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria's shining light is threatening to eclipse that of her mentor.

She will leave her mark, whatever it takes. And her story will be heard.”

The challenge with writing a fictitious story based on historical figures, is to balance what we know, with some added excitement that makes us want to read the story. If one of the historical figures is not well known, the writer may feel they can put whatever spin they want on the story and no-one will know how true, or not, the tale is. As the writer, you can be tempted to take the story to whatever place you like. When you partner an unknown character, Anna Maria della Pietà, with a well-known figure such as Antonio Vivaldi (everyone will have heard his Four Seasons at some point in their life) you need to be very careful as to how much you want to interfere with history. Too much interference, and suddenly the interest in your unknown character wanes. Sadly, no-one seems to have given the author of The Instrumentalist this piece of salient advice.  

Harriet Constable’s The Instrumentalist is inspired by the real-life Anna Maria della Pietà, who was a Venetian orphan and prodigious violinist. She studied under the tutelage of Antonio Vivaldi but very little is known about her life, so whilst the setting of this story might be historically accurate, the majority of the book is pure fiction. Constable herself acknowledges that she has moved some historical events around for dramatic effect, but has that decision diminished what she was trying to achieve with this book? 

The question I asked myself after reading this novel is, what was she trying to achieve?

#49. Set In A City Beginning With The Letter ‘M’ – Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (Audible)

My immediate thought was reading a book set in cities like Moscow, Munich, Mexico, Madrid…and then I thought, why not pick somewhere a little less exotic, a bit closer to home perhaps, and so I headed a few miles up the road to Manchester, to the industrial north and to the great novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell. I loved her novel North and South, would I also enjoy this story about Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life? 

“Explore the poignant and powerful world of 'Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Set against the backdrop of the bustling city of Manchester during the industrial revolution, this novel takes you on a compelling journey through the lives of the working class in the 19th century. Gaskell's writing is a vivid window into the struggles and triumphs of the ordinary people during a time of social and economic upheaval.

Mary Barton, the central character, is a young woman who embodies the hopes and aspirations of the working class, while also grappling with the harsh realities of urban life. Gaskell's narrative paints a vivid picture of the disparities between the privileged and the downtrodden, highlighting the themes of social justice, labor movements, and the complexities of human relationships.

 

This audiobook is a captivating exploration of love, class divisions, and the resilience of the human spirit. It offers a riveting glimpse into the challenges faced by the working class and the enduring pursuit of a better life.”

 

This is the first novel that Elizabeth Gaskell wrote, and for a first novel, it paints a powerful picture of what Manchester life was like in the 1800’s, and whilst it is a work of fiction, the origin of the tale is rooted in the murder of a mill owner in 1831.

This is definitely a book of two halves, and I don’t mean like Gaskell’s brilliant novel North and South which I remember reading years ago and thinking it was a wonderfully written tale, a real page turner.

Both novels tell the plight of the working classes and they both stress the importance that people of all classes need to work together to ensure decent working and living conditions can be had by all. But if I’m being honest, North and South is a more refined novel…at times I found Mary Barton to be a bit clunky and boring. It wasn’t until the second half of the book that I started to enjoy the story; the first half of the book made me feel quite despondent.

Many Victorian novels feature secondary characters who live squalid lives and fight hard for survival; but they are certainly not the hero’s. This book is rather unusual because it features Mary Barton, a working class woman with very little money. Mary Barton gives a voice to the poorest souls of Manchester and makes them the central characters of this book. This makes the book fairly depressing, because these characters, of whom there are many, lead an incredibly hard life.