The Duchess of Cornwall's Reading Room

I have been blessed over the many months of the pandemic to chat on a weekly basis to my wonderful local book group. Three weeks out of four we put the world to rights but once a month we do discuss books! Each month we take a theme and recommend books to each other which allows for a good variety of titles. In April we decided to split into four groups, each group reading one of the Duchess of Cornwall's recommendations. Here they are:

Hilary Mantel's the Mirror and the Light completes the Tudor trilogy that began with Wolf Hall and continued with Bring Up the Bodies, both of which won Mantel the Booker Prize. This is not for the fainthearted – at around 900 pages it needs time and space to appreciate the beautifully written prose which brings Thomas Cromwell’s story to an end. From his lowly origins as a blacksmith’s son to the most powerful man in England beneath the King, Cromwell is finally undone by the police state he designed. Our readers felt it was truly a masterpiece and all are determined to go back to Wolf Hall and read them all again!

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

A haunting novel about a young girl who finds education and solace in nature. Kya, abandoned at the age of 6, lives alone in a shack in the swamplands of North Carolina. Known as ‘the swamp girl’ she learns to survive by hunting and fishing and to evade the truant officers who would send her to school to be civilised. As she grows older and attracts attention from boys the book becomes both a romance and a thriller. A terrific, unputdownable, book.

The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak fictionalises the story of the great Turkish architect, Mimar Sinan. His fictional apprentice is a 12 year old boy who arrives at the Topkapi Palace with a white elephant as a gift for the Sultan. The story of Istanbul at the height of the Ottoman Empire is told through the dazzling colour, ruthlessness and violence of the times. The narrative is peppered with cliffhangers and, despite the number of bodies, this is a beautifully emotional, though never sentimental novel. Much enjoyed by our readers and highly recommended.

Restless by William Boyd

A tale of espionage which won the Costa Prize for Fiction in 2006, Restless depicts the tale of a young woman who discovers her mother was a spy during WW2. The book switches from mother to daughter and the different time periods. It centres around the machinations to disseminate false news stories (fake news is nothing new!) in order to persuade the Americans to join the war against Nazi Germany. An easy read, very much enjoyed by our members.