France, family & farewell for now

First of all, apologies to my readers for my long silence since my last blogpost in early May. Life has been full of good things and bad and it has been difficult to keep my head above water. This will be my last blog for a while as I have decided to take a break to write other things - both professional and personal. I hope to return to blogging later this year but meanwhile please do get in touch if you have enjoyed my blog, have read any of my recommendations or would like to recommend some to me!

May and June have always been busy months for me so it was rather strange to be taking holidays in term time! A trip on the Danube was followed by a wonderful family holiday to our beloved France so I decided to recommend some books on this theme.

On 1st June we set sail on Brittany Ferries to St. Malo which is the setting for the atmospheric novel All the Light you cannot see by

Anthony Doerr. This is a beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Maire-Laure and her father take refuge in the walled city by the sea when the Nazis invade Paris. And there she meets Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.

It is a real joy to holiday with the grandchildren and it reminded me of one of the most joyous holiday books I have read in recent years. The Summer Book by Tove Janssen, (previously reviewed summer 2018) translated from Swedish, is the story of an elderly artist and her six year old granddaughter, whiling away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Each learns to adjust to the other's whims and yearnings for independence. It is the story of family love but also love for the island itself with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas. A joyful, wise and humorous book to be enjoyed time and time again.

After 10 days in the south of France, we motored up the country to Normandy for our annual twinning weekend in St. Pierre d'Autils. Our hosts took us to Versailles for a fantastic day out and, although we had visited some years ago, I was struck by the beauty of the gardens and fountains - better by far than the Hall of Mirrors in my opinion. This reminded me of a rather gruesome, but quite compelling book I read recently: Little by Edward Carey is the story of Madame Tussaud of waxworks' fame, her apprenticeship to an eccentric wax sculptor and her growing fame.

Marie is called to Versailles where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, the revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and at the wax museum, heads are what they do .... gripping!

I should, at this point, recommend two of the classic and best books about the French Revolution - A Tale of Two Cities, by far my favourite Dickens, and The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy - perhaps not summer reading but save them for the long winter nights!

One of the most notable things about holidaying in France, particularly off the main tourist routes, is the quiet. The roads, the towns and villages have fewer people and the pace of life seems slower. Shops still shut for lunch and on Sundays and there are places where nothing much has changed for 50 years. This atmosphere and sense of timelessness is beautifully evoked in Chocolat by Joanne Harris, the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives in the French village of

Lansquenet with her daughter and opens an exotic chocolate boutique directly opposite the church. Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. As passions flare and the conflict escalates, the whole community takes sides. Can the solemnity of the Church compare with the sinful pleasure of a chocolate truffle? (Amazon description). This book will be familiar to most of you but you may not know that the story of Vianne and her daughters was continued in Lollipop Shoes, and then in Peaches for Monsieur le Cure, and now in her new novel, The Strawberry Thief.

Happy reading and happy summer days!