A Book That Changed My Opinion About Something // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 26

Today is the twenty-sixth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that changed your opinion about something".

One of the great things about books is how they educate us, introduce us to new ideas, and challenge our preconceptions. You would have to be a rather close-minded person to love reading and yet never allow the books you read to change your mind about something. Many books have changed my mind over the years, but thankfully that doesn't mean that I had difficulty choosing a book for this post. Actually there is a book that I've been wanting to write about, specifically with regard to how it changed my perspective on something, for a while now, so this post seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. This perspective-altering book is Dreams of Joy by Lisa See.

Dreams of Joy is the second book of Lisa See's that I have read, the first being Snowflower and the Secret Fan. When I saw Dreams of Joy for sale in a real life bookshop (how I miss those), I decided to buy it for two reasons: because I had enjoyed See's work previously, and because the cover was absolutely gorgeous. What I didn't realise at the time was that Dreams of Joy was actually a sequel to another of See's books, Shanghai Girls. In a way, I'm glad that I didn't know this, because that knowledge may have prevented me from reading what became one of my favourite books I'd read that year. That said, I should mention that describing the plot of Dreams of Joy will inevitably spoil the events of Shanghai Girls, so if you haven't read that book and are bothered by spoilers, perhaps you'd better turn back now.

With that out of the way, the plot of Dreams of Joy (as always supplied by a Goodreads summary) is as follows:

Nineteen-year-old Joy Louie has run away from her home in 1950s America to start a new life in China. Idealistic and unafraid, she believes that Chairman Mao is on the side of the people, despite what her family keeps telling her. How can she trust them, when she has just learned that her parents have lied to her for her whole life, that her mother Pearl is really her aunt and that her real father is a famous artist who has been living in China all these years?

Joy arrives in Green Dragon Village, where families live in crowded, windowless huts and eke out a meagre existence from the red soil. And where a handsome young comrade catches her eye... Meanwhile, Pearl returns to China to bring her daughter home - if she can. For Mao has launched his Great Leap Forward, and each passing season brings ever greater hardship to cities and rural communes alike. Joy must rely on her skill as a painter and Pearl must use her contacts from her decadent childhood in 1930s Shanghai to find a way to safety, and a chance of joy for them both.

As you can tell from this description, Dreams of Joy is something of a historical novel. I only knew a bit about the history of China under Mao and specifically the Great Leap Forward before reading it, so I can't attest to the accuracy of the book in that respect. In some ways, this historical context is only the background to a moving story about family. However, it was See's description of the famine resulting from the Great Leap Forward (an ambitious economic plan that aimed to rapidly increase the productivity of agrarian industry in China) that impacted me the most and stuck with me long after reading the book.

The description of the famine in Dreams of Joy, which is brutal and uncompromising in its detail, is the part of the book which changed my mind. I am a little embarrassed to admit what my mindset had been prior to reading the book, and there isn't really a much better way of putting it than saying that, simply, I didn't think hunger (and particularly large scale famine) was that bad. If this sounds strange and callous now, the only defence I can offer is that I was young and ignorant of the reality of something which I was lucky enough to have avoided experiencing in my own life.

When I say that I didn't think hunger was that bad, what I mean is that I felt the focus put on world hunger by charities and the like was disproportionate, and if non-profit organisations really wanted to help people then they should focus on things like education, which might help societies to lift themselves out of poverty and famine in the long term (presumably through some vague idea of social mobility), rather than just feeding people. While I'd probably still agree to this day that humanitarian aide should go beyond just food, my belief at the time seems like some sort of social Darwinist extension of the "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" proverb. Needless to say, I don't feel this way any longer.

The way that Dreams of Joy changed my mind was not by facts or polemic but by emotion. Even though it has been years since I first read the novel, I still vividly remember the descriptions of how the famine impacts Joy and those around her. Through Joy's eyes, we see first-hand the effects of starvation: the physical pain; the emaciation and premature aging; the desperation and subsequent willingness to do anything to get even a scrap of food; and the inability to focus on anything except the constant, mind-numbing hunger. It was this last point, more than anything, that changed my mind. How could I argue that education was more important than food, when this book showed me that true hunger obliterates the desire for anything else. I had seen pictures of Maslow's hierarchy of needs before, but somehow it took a novel to show me that without those basic physiological requirements at the base of the pyramid being fulfilled, everything else comes tumbling down.

As I said earlier on, I am not proud to admit the strange and detached views I held on this subject before. To dismiss suffering without truly knowing about it or acknowledging the reality of those who have experienced it is not only cruel, it is dangerously ignorant. Thankfully, Dreams of Joy did what fiction does best and bred empathy in my young mind, not only for victims of famine and starvation but also for any person whose pain I might have previously been too quick to deny.

A Character Who I Can Relate to the Most // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 25

Today is the twenty-fifth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a character who you can relate to the most".

Another day, another delay. I shan't bore you with yet one more excuse explanation as to why this post is so late, so instead we can get straight to the topic of this post: a book which features, according to the 30-day book challenge, "a character who I can relate to the most".

My selection for this post is not an original one, but I hope I will be able to show you why the titular character of this book is one I relate to so much. Conveniently, both this character and the name of the book she stars in share the same name: Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre, as many of you no doubt already know, is the first published novel by British author Charlotte Bronte, one of the three famous Bronte sisters of English literature (the two other sisters being Anne and Emily). While Jane Eyre was not actually the first book to be written by Charlotte Bronte - that award goes to The Professor - it is no doubt her most well-known work. Among its iconic characters are the eponymous Jane Eyre and her employer-slash-love-interest Mr Rochester. The plot, as described below by Goodreads, follows Jane Eyre from her early life as an orphan to her employment as a governess for Rochester, as well as her subsequent growth and development as a person:

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves?

Jane Eyre is ultimately a very personal novel, being written from Jane's first person perspective, with a narrative that is intensely coloured by her own feelings. While a lot of focus seems to me to be put on the romance between Jane and Rochester in popular culture, I feel that Jane's intrapersonal development is more important than her relationship, which is really only relevant insofar as it applies to her character growth. I am mainly saying this in defence of Jane, as modern feminist criticism of the book often seems to concentrate on the, ahem, slightly dodgy nature of the main romantic plotline (and I agree, it is a little iffy) - but it is unfair to let this critique distract from the book's greatest virtue, the complex and inspiring character that is Jane herself.

Now, having done all of that defending of Jane, it might be a little narcissistic of me to claim that I can relate to this apparently amazing character. But in my own defence, I do relate to the less flattering aspects of Jane's character as well as the more positive ones. Besides, I was hardly likely to choose an entirely detestable character for this post. Although, if you do want to read about a character I hate precisely because I relate to her too much, feel free to look up Cath from Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl.

Getting back to Jane Eyre, the most important thing you need to know about her personality is that she's very reflective and passionate, something we as readers are constantly aware of given that the book is written from her perspective. On the positive side, this means that Jane is thoughtful, sensitive, and principled. On the other hand, Jane can be over-emotional, self-pitying, and stubborn.

I can relate to both these sides of Jane's personality, the positive and the negative, but beyond this multidimensionality, what I appreciate most about her character is how she develops over the course of the novel. Without getting into too much detail and risking spoiling her growth for those who haven't read the novel, I will say that the story allows us to see Jane grow from an unhappy, anxious, and at times timid person into someone who is strong, independent, and self-assured.

This is the final reason why I chose Jane over a character like Fangirl's Cath: because when I say I relate to Jane, I also mean that I see in her some potential for growth and the chance to become the sort of person I would like to be. I feel characters are most useful in that sense, when they not only show us our flaws but also how we might overcome them. At any rate, this is one of the things I find most valuable about Jane's character.

I would love to know if anyone reading this has been able to relate to a character like I can relate to Jane Eyre or even if you can relate to a character in a way that's a little different - maybe it's less ambiguously positive or negative, or maybe it's less about their personality and more about their life situation or another factor. Whatever the reasoning, I'd like to hear it, so if you'd like to share please comment or send me a message and let me know.

A Book That I Wish More People Had Read // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 24

Today is the twenty-fourth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that you wish more people had read".

After another unplanned absence of longer than I'd care to calculate, we are finally back again with another instalment of the 30-day book challenge. I'd like to say that I have been too busy spending my time at home productively to write blog posts, but the truth is that my strategy for surviving quarantine has been to divorce myself from reality as much as possible. Also, I recently got back into playing The Sims, so that's taken up a sizeable chunk of time as well. 

So you might be thinking that it's a little bold of me to suggest anyone read a certain book given that I have been spending my time recently dissociating and playing The Sims 4 (not as good as Sims 2 or 3, sadly - that's a topic for another post), but the 30-day book challenge decreed that today's post should be about 'a book that you wish more people had read', and so I must obey.

With all that out of the way, the book I have chosen for this prompt is The Wooden Doctor by Margiad Evans.

A summary of the book's plot, copied from Honno Press, is as follows:

First published in 1933, this is the story of Arabella, an adolescent girl who is obsessed with her doctor. From a childhood blighted by a violent, alcoholic father, Arabella grows up into a passionate young woman impatient of any restraints. Misunderstood by all around her, she is desperate for the security and peace she associates with the young Irish doctor and she develops a strange illness which she likens to a fox inside her, biting and tearing her flesh. Her condition, it seems, is incurable.

Despite its intriguing premise, The Wooden Doctor is not a famous book. Outside of the sphere of Anglo-Welsh literature, within which Margiad Evans is perhaps relatively well-known, few people seem to have even heard of her - let alone be familiar with this book, the second of her four novels. While her first novel, Country Dance, has been republished recently as part of Parthian's Library of Wales series, to my knowledge Honno Press is the only publisher currently releasing copies of The Wooden Doctor. Honno Press themselves are a small, independent women's press that focuses on publishing books by women with a connection to Wales, such as Evans. They have published their edition of The Wooden Doctor as part of their Honno Classics series - a decision I am forever grateful for, as if they hadn't done so I might never have had the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

And The Wooden Doctor is, in my opinion, a wonderful book. It's intense, gothic, and emotionally powerful, such that it might have been studied alongside such greats of the literary canon as Jane Eyre in an alternate universe. But in this universe, Margiad Evans and her works are tragically little-known.

In my final year of university, I chose to write about The Wooden Doctor and Country Dance for my dissertation. Whenever anyone asked me what I was writing about, they inevitably looked blank at the mention of Margiad Evans (except, thankfully, my dissertation supervisor). The one place where I could reliably find people who not only knew of her but had read her work was at a conference for Welsh writing in English, where I was able to meet some of the academics who have worked hard to analyse and promote the work of Evans, like Kirsti Bohata and Katie Gramich. 

That said, I don't want anyone reading this to think that Margiad Evans is an author who only has value from an academic perspective. On the contrary, I think her work is very accessible and should be able to appeal to a much broader audience than she is currently known to. This is one of the reasons why I wish more people would read The Wooden Doctor: because I feel there are so many people out there who would love the novel, but they just haven't come across it yet. 

From a selfish perspective, too, I wish more people had read The Wooden Doctor. I would be overjoyed to have more people to discuss the themes of Evans' work with, and it would be nice if more people could read my dissertation within the context of having read the two books it's about (beyond its current readers of just me and my supervisor, that is). 

Ultimately, though, I wish more people had read The Wooden Doctor because I think it's a criminally underrated book that deserves more readers. It's a powerful story about trauma, desire, and the things we hold inside of ourselves. I believe that there are many, many people out there who could find something in it to relate to, who are just waiting to discover this unjustly-hidden gem.

***

Editing note: If you're thinking the font of this post looks weird or irregular, you're correct. Something went wrong during the editing process and I haven't yet been able to fix it. So... sorry about that.

A Book I Wanted to Read for a Long Time But Still Haven't // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 23

Today is the twenty-third day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven't".

In spite of my otherwise surprisingly-consistent progress with this challenge lately, I considered taking this weekend off from posting, as I have done a few times since I started. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), quarantine has left me with even more time on my hands than usual, as well as a strange desire to see this challenge through to the end. So, we will be having a post today after all.

Today's prompt is set apart from previous variations by the fact that it doesn't require (and in fact explicitly forbids) having read the book you choose. Like many people who claim to love books but in fact spend more time browsing and buying than we do actually reading them, my list of books that 'I've been meaning to read' is incredibly long. Luckily for me, it's also an actual list, recorded on the website of an international, demon-owned evil corporation which I won't name here. In order to select the most fitting book for this prompt, all I had to do was scroll to the very start of this list and then look for a book which I am still interested in reading now. My chosen book ended up being the 1932 comic novel Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

Not courtesy of Goodreads this time but from Penguin Books instead, here is the book's blurb:

When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex. At the aptly-named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets the doomed Starkadders: cousin Judith, heaving with remorse for unspoken wickedness; Amos, preaching fire and damnation; their sons, lustful Seth and despairing Reuben; child of nature Elfine; and crazed old Aunt Ada Doom, who has kept to her bedroom for the last twenty years. But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people. Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand. A hilarious and ruthless parody of rural melodramas and purple prose, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time.

I think I initially heard about Cold Comfort Farm back in the days of my first blog, which would now be almost ten(!) years ago. It was beloved by several other bloggers whose tastes I mostly shared, and their high praise of it combined with what sounded like a charming plot was enough to make me want to read it. I added the book to my wishlist and proceeded to um and ah over buying it for the next almost-decade. To this day, I still have neither read nor even purchased a copy of this book.

Since I can't say much else about the plot or merits of Cold Comfort Farm (since, you know, I haven't read it), I suppose the only thing I can discuss is why exactly I haven't read it yet despite wanting to for such a long time. Unlike a lot of books on my extensive to-read list, I can't argue that I've put off reading it because it's too long (it's less than 300 pages), it's too heavy a topic (literally a comedy), or even that it's hard to find a copy (I've seen it in dozens of bookshops over the years).

In the time between finding out about this book and now, I've even purchased and read another book by the same author, Here Be Dragons. I loved that book and if anything it should have made me more likely to read Cold Comfort Farm, and yet I still haven't done so. So what's the problem?

I'm a little ashamed to admit that probably the most likely reason I haven't read Cold Comfort Farm so far - besides the usual delay that happens with reading any book on a to-read list - is that I haven't liked any of the covers. It's shallow and I'm a bit embarrassed to say it, but it's true. One advantage that Here Be Dragons had over its literary sibling was its beautifully-designed cover art. In contrast, all the editions of Cold Comfort Farm which I had encountered featured either an art style that didn't appeal to me or just a plain close-up photo of a cow's face on the cover. Neither of these made me particularly inclined to have a copy of the book in my possession.

To illustrate my point, here are some photos of the covers of Stella Gibbons' books which I have so far found available to purchase or borrow. From left to right, we have: the 2011 Vintage Classics edition of Here Be Dragons; the 2006 Penguin Classics edition of Cold Comfort Farm; the Penguin Essentials reprint of CCF; and finally the CCF Penguin Classics Deluxe edition.

Taste in art (including book design) is highly subjective, so I'm not going to say that these designs for Cold Comfort Farm are bad. Perhaps the warm colours and satirical look of them go very well with the tone of the book; I wouldn't know. Either way, I'm afraid to say that I do not find any of them aesthetically pleasing enough to want to borrow them, let alone buy a copy.

If you saw the first cover design for Cold Comfort Farm near the start of this post, you might be wondering, 'What about that cover? Isn't that better than the others?' Well reader, I would agree it's much nicer than any of the others. So why haven't I got a copy with that cover design? As it happens, it was only when researching trawling Google Images in preparation for this post that I saw this cover. In a shocking twist, it may end up being the very act of writing this post that leads me to finally get my hands on (and even read) an edition of Cold Comfort Farm.

I'm sure that some of you reading think I'm rather shallow, or at least have my priorities wrong, for letting something as insignificant as a book cover prevent me from reading a story that appeals to me. If so, I'd like to know, are book covers of absolutely no importance to you? Are they not something you even notice, or are they just not enough of a factor to prevent you from getting a book entirely? Also, what books are there (if any) that you have always wanted to read but somehow never got around to reading? I'd be curious to know what unread books you are haunted by, and especially what it is that has stopped you from reading them so far.

A Book That Makes Me Cry // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 22

Today is the twenty-second day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "a book that makes you cry".

Hello everyone and welcome back to another post that I am desperately trying to bang out before we get to midnight and it officially becomes late (again). I'm mentioning this partially so that you'll forgive the poor, rushed, and probably typo-filled state of this post, but also so that if you think it's even marginally good then you can think to yourself, "wow, considering she wrote this in such a small amount of time, this isn't completely terrible". And thus, by setting the bar incredibly low, I can manage to preserve a sense of achievement without ever really accomplishing anything. It's the perfect plan.

It's just a little unfortunate that today's prompt is 'a book that makes you cry', given that emotional weight doesn't generally go that well with shoddy and self-deprecating writing, but these are the cards we have been dealt. So, let's see what we have to work with.

The book that I have chosen for today's post is Sky Burial, by Xinran.

I'm rushing and don't have time for a segue, so: I now present to you *drum roll*…. a [redacted] summary!

As a young girl in China Xinran heard a rumour about a soldier in Tibet who had been brutally fed to the vultures in a ritual known as a sky burial: the tale frightened and fascinated her. Several decades later Xinran met Shu Wen, a Chinese woman who had spent years searching for her missing husband who had been serving as a doctor in Tibet; her extraordinary life story would unravel the legend of the sky burial. For thirty years she was lost in the wild and alien landscape of Tibet, in the vast and silent plateaus and the magisterial mountain ranges, living with communities of nomads moving with the seasons and struggling to survive.

Hopefully the additional length of that summary will do something to make up for how brief I'm going to make this post - which I do feel a little bad about, given how I genuinely love and care about this book, but I'm just going to push that emotion to the back of my mind while I write this.

First of all, I'd like to mention that I'm not entirely sure if Sky Burial is a true story or not. I've seen it variously classed as fiction or non-fiction, and I can't tell if the way it's presented as being told to the author by Shu Wen herself is based on Xinran's real life or if it's just a framing device of the "this story was once told to me" sort that some authors use. If it is 100% true, I'll feel terrible for doubting it, but I felt I had to mention that I'm honestly not sure about it here.

So, as you can see from the summary above, Sky Burial is an epic story about a woman who sets off into Tibet to find her missing husband. The book spans decades, although its physical length (less than 200 pages) warps the passage of time so that it can come as a shock when we suddenly realise, when reading, that years have passed when it felt like only a few days. Sky Burial's emotional weight works in much the same way - it builds up slowly, then suddenly hits you all at once. The power of the story is likewise not in flowery prose, but in the simple poignancy of the events it depicts.

Unfortunately, I can tell you very little about these events, as to do so would be to spoil the book. This is especially true as the part that I find most emotional and the most tear-inducing is right at the conclusion of the book. I won't tell you what happens, and I would encourage you not to look it up either, as it might deprive you of some of the emotional shock of discovering it organically through reading the book. I will say that the ending is shocking, tragic, and yet somehow also beautiful. It is this part of Sky Burial which reduced me to tears, and which has earned it its place in this post.

The First Novel I Remember Reading // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 21

Today is the twenty-first day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "the first novel you remember reading".

Day 3 of self-imposed COVID-19 quarantine. My exposure to fresh air is limited entirely to sitting out on my room's tiny balcony (really more of an extended windowsill). I have taken advantage of two different libraries' electronic resources and thus have about a dozen books to read, of which I have completed 0. I appear outwardly agreeable in my interactions with the people that share my living space, despite the creeping homicidal urges I feel getting stronger every day. But, I have finally got back on track with this book challenge. So really, things are going pretty well overall.

Today's prompt is 'the first novel you remember reading' which, as usual, I don't have a definitive choice for. I know for certain which was the first book I read as a child, but unfortunately I don't think The Little Mouse, the Red-Ripe Strawberry, and the Big, Hungry Bear counts as a novel, in spite of its other literary merits.

While I can't remember exactly what the first proper novel I read growing up was, I do know of a particular novel I read at a young age and which became my favourite book for many years after. This is the first full-length book I remember having a real impact on me, and so I think it's a fitting choice for this prompt. This special book is The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson.

Although I'm not entirely certain of when I first read The Star of Kazan, I know that I read it soon after purchasing the above hardback edition of the book, which was no doubt not long after it was published in 2004. This would mean I was likely around the age of eight when I read it, about four years younger than the book's protagonist, Annika.

A plot summary of the book, as always courtesy of Goodreads, is as follows:

Annika has never had a birthday. Instead she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants' quarters, surrounded with friends, including the elderly woman next door who regales Annika with stories of her performing days and her countless admirers - especially the Russian count who gave her the legendary emerald, the Star of Kazan. And yet, Annika still dreams of finding her true mother. But when a glamorous stranger arrives claiming to be Annika's mother, and whisks her away to a crumbling, spooky castle, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in her newfound home..

I've read this book many times over the years, but even so it's been quite a while since my last re-read. It's funny what things you remember and what you forget, when you recall a piece of media that had a great impact on you as a child. Today I would struggle to give you an outline of the book's plot and major events, although I feel like I read its opening paragraphs just yesterday. Even when I was still actively re-reading the book, I remember one day being shocked at the realisation that Annika was described as having 'corn-coloured hair', even though I'd always pictured her as a brunette. It must have taken me until my fourth or fifth reread to notice this.

I mention this weird gap in my memory to stress how bizarre and apparently meaningless the things we remember and forget can be. I say 'apparently' meaningless - no doubt there are important reasons why things stick in our memory, even if we're not aware of them. I don't know why there are certain things I remember about The Star of Kazan while seemingly more significant details elude me, and I can only guess their subconscious meaning. However, I still thought it would be fun to list some of the details that stick out in my memory the most from The Star of Kazan. So, in no particular order, here are the things I remember best about this book:

• Annika's name. For years after reading this book, Annika my absolute favourite name. I gave the name Annika to my Sims, characters I wrote about, and even daydreamed about one day giving it to a human child. I thought it was beautiful name and, importantly, I associated it with one of my favourite characters. Which brings me to...
• Annika's kindness. Even if I managed to forget what she looked like, Annika's many small acts of kindness and selflessness throughout the novel stuck in my mind. In particular, I remember:
• The scarf scene. In one part of the book, Annika gives her red scarf to the standoffish, unhappy Gudrun, who never gets new clothes. The simple kindness of this scene always stood out to me.
• The food. Annika and her adoptive mother Ellie both love to cook, which maybe explains why the food descriptions in the book are so memorable. Or perhaps I'm just a glutton. Either way, just recalling the descriptions of sugar mice, plum cake, and even the legendary Christmas carp* is making me hungry.
• The adoptive family. As the summary above mentioned, Annika is found abandoned as a baby and raised by an adoptive family that includes: her mother Ellie, a cook; Sigrid, the housemaid (who in hindsight is very close with Ellie - their relationship sounds a bit gay to me now); and the three eccentric professors they work for, Gertrude, Emil, and Julius. While the servant-master dynamic of this family seems a little odd to me now, at the time of reading I found the closeness and love of this found family beautiful.
• Vienna. A large part of the book is set in Vienna, where Annika is adopted and raised until the age of twelve. In the second chapter of the book, titled 'The Golden City', there is a long, gorgeous description of the city, from the Danube to the famous riding school to the hundreds of varieties of delicious food produced there. I feel like this book made me fall in love with Vienna without ever having visited it.

*I wasn't yet vegetarian when I read this book for the first time, so don't judge me.

There are several other parts of the book I remember, but they are less important and are harder to describe without giving spoilers. Still, I hope the list above is of some interest. I personally find it fascinating to think about the little details that we remember, even above things of seemingly greater significance. If anyone wants to let me know what little things they remember from books they read as a child, I'd love to hear.

Also, although I say these are only small details, that doesn't mean they haven't had an impact. To this day, I love reading books with found families, detailed descriptions, and delicious food. Annika may also in some ways be the predecessor for every other gentle but strong protagonist I've loved since then.

Maybe it is not objective importance that makes us remember things, but the act of remembering which makes something important, if only to ourselves. The things I remember about The Star of Kazan matter to me, so perhaps that in itself makes them significant.

Favourite Romance Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 20

Today is the twentieth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite romance book".

I am currently in self-imposed quarantine after being potentially exposed to COVID-19. This is not an ideal situation for my health, but it has been a net positive for this blog, which has been receiving much more attention since I've been confined to my flat. So, in the interest of preserving the momentum we've had going for the last two posts, let's move swiftly into the topic of this entry: my favourite romance book.

As with several other posts I've written for this challenge, preparing for this one involved a lot of time spent thinking about how I could find a loophole in the prompt. I don't read a lot of books that I would class specifically as 'romance', so I was finding it difficult to choose a book that fit that category. Even the few books in which I particularly enjoyed the romantic element have already either been written about (Carol) or earmarked for a later post (Fingersmith). I thought that I could pretend to have misinterpreted the prompt as meaning a book from the Romanticism period of literature and chosen something like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a result. Or I could act like it meant Romance as in 'Romance languages' and thus be able to pick any book written in Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. Thankfully, I ended up not having to use either of these slightly deceitful approaches, as I remembered the perfect romance book for this post at the last minute.

In the end, the book I chose was Penguins Poems for Love, edited by Laura Barber.

This book, as the title suggests, is a collection of poems by various authors on the subject of love. The poems are split into categories named as adverbs, in response to the famous question 'How do I love thee?'. In order from first to last, they are:

• Suddenly
• Secretly
• Nearly
• Tentatively
• Haplessly
• Incurably
• Impatiently
• Superlatively
• Persuasively
• Passionately
• The morning after
• Greedily
• Truly, madly, deeply
• From a distance
• With a vow
• Happily ever after
• Treacherously
• Brutally
• Bitterly
• Finally
• Forsaken
• Regretfully
• Fatally
• Indifferently
• After death
• Eternally

As you might have guessed from the sheer number of sections listed above, the book is rather large. It numbers about 400 pages in total, and that is while it's in a large-paged hardback edition. It's a physically beautiful book, the kind of thing you could imagine keeping for years, giving as a present for a special occasion, or perhaps passing on to a younger generation. The original hardback version, pictured above, has the word LOVE spelt out in big letters on a red spine, with the words "love, lust, life, loss, love" written in smaller print between the characters. This edition even comes with two red ribbon bookmarks sewn in - the height of luxury. There's something rather romantic - in the sense of being idealised or extravagant - even in the book's outer appearance.

What I really like about this collection, and what makes it my favourite romance book, is its variety. As you can tell from the many categories of poems and even the words on the spine, Penguin's Poems for Love illustrates both the breadth and diversity of love, from the selfless to the toxic, from the fleeting to the immortal. As someone who often feels that people's varied experiences of love are too frequently flattened into one universal feeling, I appreciated this book's attempt to depict romance in its many forms. 

Besides thematic variety, I also enjoyed the diversity of the book's featured poets. While there are plenty of classic, famous love poems in the collection, like several of Shakespeare's sonnets, there are also some lesser-known poems as well. Likewise, they vary in length, style, and origin. This variety was deliberate; Barber even states this intention in the introductory notes, writing: 'my aim has been to range as widely as possible, historically and geographically.'

All in all, Penguin's Poems for Love is a lovely book with a beautiful design, a great variety of poems, and a charming way of displaying them. It might be impossible to find a single book that encapsulates the vastness of romantic love, but you could do a lot worse than this one.