The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I was supplied this book by We Love This Book for review, However the review is my un-biased and not influenced by any one else’s  opinion.

A tiny man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the 18^th Century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he looses his heart but keeps his integrity.

This is one of those books that on reflection after reading it, when you go to list all of the things you have got out of it, you realise it’s a huge epic. To skate on but a few, we read about “Those Yankee leeches” and we realise that this was the time that the English were trying to get rid of the Dutch occupancy of New York in America. We also learn about the collapse of the Dutch East India company 1799. Mitchell also does a great honour to the culture of the Japanese of that period.

This book fits into so many boxes, it’s a love story, it’s a piece of social history, he covers the Dutch and Japanese trading exploits in much the same way as Dickens covered the social history of English childhood poverty in the 19^th Century. However, due to Mitchells fluid voices of different characters, its not a dusty old history lesson but an escape through a portal just like all other time-travellers.

This read would suit anyone who likes their books with a bit more meat on the bones, something a bit more challenging than a top 10 casual BOGOHP (buy one get one half price) but not quite as heavy as a Dickens, Trollop of any of the great classics.

The Commuting Bookworm 27/06/12

Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue The Story of an Accidental Family

Set in a part of Derbyshire (Chesterfield), the home to the Nash family and their corner shop, which served a small mining community. However this is no ordinary family. It’s a story about how three lost children of different generations found love and a home with people who had big hearts. The story starts with her great-grandfather, a fairground boy, given away when his parents left for America in 1865, then how her great aunt, who was rescued from an industrial school in 1909 and finally of her own mother was adopted as a baby in 1930 via the NCAA (National Children Adoption Association) and bought from London to Chesterfield.

The story spans three generations of attitudes regarding adoption and two world wars. Through the delightful story we learn from a social history point of view our changing attitudes to adoption, poverty, and what it is to be of a certain class. We learn about the tales of how the miners lived, the poverty, how they treated their wives and how the families survived. Along the way we get to know about how accepting often already a poor society can be regarding different people such as gypsies, teachers, bakers.  

We also get a snippet of attitudes of people during the Great War from a family perspective, of how families, wives and children coped with the restrictions, loss, injuries and aftermath of the both wars.

The tale itself trots along at the pace of life, at a rate to keep the reader interested but not so fast you think you have missed chunks of time. All characters are accounted for and no threads are left untied which is also nice. As with all families there are a lot of members to put into place, and it is necessary to remember who uncle_ is related to and therefore who auntie _ is married to, however by careful reading and remembering a few names this is not impossible.

There was sufficient depth to the book to make it a really good quality read and although I normally steer away from ‘memoirs’ I thoroughly enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in this period.

The Commuting Bookworm 13/07/12 on behalf of Newbooks Magazine http://www.newbooksmag.com/