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‘…it was not love, it was a little fever of admiration.’

I am enjoying this and feel bad for my previous disparaging remarks about Austen’s writing 😭. I think ‘Emma’ just jarred me differently but maybe an annoying character is just a testament to a great writer

There is little doubt that Morpurgo is a brilliant children’s writer and whilst his heart seems to be in the right place, some of these essays were under researched and crammed with platitudes that failed to hit the mark. A disappointing read so far

‘Mornings.
I struggle to decide what mood to wear.’

‘On the boat grandmother anticipated England’s
winters with the others.’

‘He wants to keep a leaf for a pet.
I want to warn him about getting
attached to things already lost.’

‘I’ve been myself longer than my undoing’. From the poem ‘Cause’ which is about Britain’s existence being underpinned by immigration.

MacEwan focuses on the Bronte sisters’ time in Brussels at the Pensoniat where they both learnt and taught languages.
Charlotte’s experiences in particular provide food for thought on the link between an artist’s experiences and their art; the similarities between her time in Brussel’s and her novels, Vilette and The Professor, being unmistakable.

Salve for the soul kind of book

‘I walked so light in heavy shoes’

‘On snow and sand and turf, I
see
where love has left a printed trace,
With straining in the world’s
embrace’

Peter’s brother: is this really you Peter? You’re the ripper?
Peter: I’m afraid so our kid
😭😭😭

With 3 hours left I realised this is actually not the audiobook i wanted to listen to 🤣

‘April had met hundreds of huskies since living in
Svalbard, but this dog was still one of the most striking she had ever seen. He had unusually pale markings, almost as if his coat had been dipped in stardust’

‘His fur shining like brushed glass under the light of the moon’

‘Longyearbyen… was a place of final frontiers, unimaginable adventures and one of the few locations left on Earth that still ached with a pure, deep wilderness.’

Reaching a major character plot turn that seems so inconsistent with the way they’ve been presented until this point

The prison story is reminiscent of Shawshank Redemption

‘It wasn’t only books that had a soul’…. Ummm ok. This is an example of some of the nonsensical lines in this book that fail at being profound 😭😭

The characters don’t feel real because of the indistinguishable dialogue and so their ‘words of wisdom’ read like plugged in diatribes which repel rather than inspire. Also some exchanges meander far too long to leave any sort of impression; it all feels quite hazy

I love what this story sets out to convey: books are a metaphor for kindness and empathy in a very unfeeling, profit driven age. But in all honesty, the execution is poor. Each character’s dialogue was barely distinguishable from the other’s

‘Books become imbued with the power of all the people who have encountered them’

‘Irritations heal into arguments’
So arguments are portrayed positively?..

‘evenings stretched their sunburnt arms towards us’