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Most readers tend to love books about books, which is probably why there have been so many of those coming out in recent times. I liked them too. Till it all got a bit much. They feel weirdly the same, with different character names and settings. I can probably read one or two every now and then but I’m not like my friends who scoop these books up the moment they come across one.

I didn’t even read the blurb of ‘The Lonely Hearts Book Club’ by Lucy Gilmore. At that time, I wanted nothing to do with book clubs. However, I recently picked up her second novel ‘The Library of Borrowed Hearts’ as nothing else caught my interest and I needed a new book to read. “Two young lovers. Sixty long years. One bookish mystery worth solving” read the blurb. I thought it would be a lighthearted novel that I could DNF if the story didn’t appeal to me. But I devoured the book in two days. It was such a fabulous plot. It alternates between the present day and the 1960, making it charming and intriguing.

Chloe Sampson works at the library. She’s struggling to make ends meet. She has three younger siblings to look after, since their mother has left them. Then she comes across a rare book at the library when they are in the process of culling old books. Her cranky neighbor—who never gives back her brother’s frisbees when they inevitably land up in his yard—offers to buy it for an exorbitant sum. Chloe is surprised and inspects the book only to find notes scribbled in the margins—between two lovers from back in the day when the book was new.

She can’t resist following the clues and, that way, one book leads to another. Soon, Chloe finds herself wondering what happened to the two lovers who corresponded through books. What does it have to do with her curmudgeon old neighbor? Why has he suddenly become friendly with her siblings? Chloe is looking for answers while also trying to navigate life to the best of her ability. She finds herself in the middle of a lot of real-life drama and heartbreak.

The book can be slotted as romance but there’s a lot more to it. It deals with dysfunctional families and its consequences on children, friendship, and aging. The romance isn’t run-of-the-mill either. There’s a subtlety to it that makes it deep and meaningful. Jasper and Catherine were young but their relationship wasn’t frivolous. They truly cared about each other and were willing to make sacrifices if that meant the other would be happy. The writing is gorgeous with a lot of one-liners and impactful dialogues and passages. Though there is a lot of random advice, none of it comes across as preachy. All of it fits seamlessly into the plot.

The Library of Borrowed Hearts, that is set in two different timelines, is a beautiful story that I wished were longer. Don’t get me wrong, the book wraps up nicely but I wanted to know more about Chloe and her siblings. The story ends on a hopeful note but I would have appreciated an epilogue to find out what happens to Chloe, Jasper, and Catherine in the future. I can imagine it would have been nice to know the author’s version of the story. If I were to confess that I’m going to the bookstore this weekend to buy Gilmore’s The Lonely Hearts Book Club, would that tell you just how much I loved The Library of Borrowed Hearts?

The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Lucy Gilmore

Published: 2024

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Pages: 358, Paperback

“Never Never Land” is an account of Iti, a middle-aged woman, who retreats to live with her elderly relatives in the distant mountainous region of Kumaon, seeking respite from her monotonous life as an editor in the city. She intentionally escapes the hustle and bustle of a cosmopolitan life to an aloof mountain village where she had sweet childhood memories. Iti finds pleasure while going back to her childhood place where she pleases her spirit with mountains, flowers found there, greenery, pasture, and nature.

The novel, narrated primarily in the first person by Iti, starts with her recounting the stories and folktales native to the mountainous Kumaon. For instance, ‘The Sun has his own stories, and his own way of telling them. You can hear him best at mid-day when he casts no shadows.’ The novel also depicts the bond and affection between grandparent and grandchild, here through Badi Amma and Iti. Grandparents do not have a sense of fear while they love, their affection and love outweighs any sort of suspicion, fear and reluctance. The affection is so immense that Iti has no sentiments towards her mother but the bond between her grandmother is highly revered.

The relation between landlord Rosinka and her maid, Badi Amma or Lily is outstanding and asks for special attention from the readers. The carefully carried out duty that Lily performs in the house of Rosinka even in her nonagenarian days proves her faith, love and friendship with Rosinka, the 102 year old woman who led an active life herself. 

In one of the chapters, the story is narrated by Rosinka where she mentions that she had urinated on her bed. Badi Amma soon cleaned up, removed the sheet and under-sheet and laid out a large pink bath towel on the bed. Then she said, ‘You can lie down again. The quilt isn’t wet. I will get you some tea.’ Such tremendous love and affection is noted well by Rosinka in spite of her old age. Instead of saying that she wetted the quilt or she hasn’t, she said, ‘the quilt isn’t wet’.

Despite Rosinka’s rude behavior in her heyday, once narrated to Iti by her grandmother Badi Amma, she continued to work as her maid, a confident person throughout her life. And Rosinka too, along with her husband, had apologized to her maid and insisted on returning back. This further confirms the special and ideal relation between the two elderlies.

The narration on natural objects, mountains, flowers, nettle cooking etc. is poetic and detailed. It is the writer’s extraordinary talent to weave words so meticulously on trivial or ordinary things and events. The projection of celebration of life and merry making by the 90 year old and 102 year old women is astounding motivation. They enjoy doing household errands, drinking tea, wine, being quite satisfied in their lives.

Similarly, the use of poems and poetic lines in between the narratives add literariness to the novel. For e.g. the verses of William Blake’s O Rose thou art sick is placed justifiably, which added literary flavor to the plots.

The book does not gloss over the terror that seizes the Himalayan landscape when it is caught in the midst of adverse natural calamities, much worsened by human encroachment. Iti’s once-idyllic repose loses electricity and water, and she writes that the narrators were comparatively safer, for they were near the top of the hill. They were saved from the collapse of rocks and boulders on their roof, even as down below in the village, the monsoon went on, with landslides and floods taking place everywhere. 

As the book progresses and Iti realizes that dreams can also turn into nightmares, the stories of Badi amma’s and Rosinka’s pasts unfold. Nettle soup, called ‘witches’ brew’ or ‘dayan ki chai’ in the hills, must be made carefully, lest the nettles burn you. If held as tightly as possible, they do not hurt. Badi amma makes this soup to comfort Iti in her sickness, even as she tells a tale of its boiling, stinging past. Like palak leaves, the antidote to nettle, always grow nearby in nature, the book presents at once a whirlwind of hurt and love, betrayal and friendship. Thrust together, they present a balance. Never Never Land is a tale of wisdom, on what it means to be old and young. As the mountains speak and the sun tells its stories, Iti finds her way towards their lessons of love and resilience. 

Never Never Land

Namita Gokhale

Published Year: 2024

Page: 167

Publisher: Speaking Tiger

The cover of the paperback edition of ‘Then She Was Gone’ has black branches on a gray background and a smattering of pink petals that look like they are being blown by a sudden gust of wind. The effect is ominous. It’s why I bought the book without even reading the blurb on a recent bookstore visit. The book is thick but the font is several points bigger than the regular font and the chapters are short so you are likely to breeze through it. I finished the book in two days. I would have probably finished it in a day if I didn’t have work obligations that couldn’t be pushed back. It helped that the plot was compelling.

Fifteen-year-old Ellie Mack is Laurel’s favorite child, though she knows a mother shouldn’t have a favorite. But Laurel doesn’t feel the same connection with Hanna and Jake that she feels with Ellie. Then one day Ellie disappears. She tells Laurel she’s going to the library to study but she never makes it there. The police think she has run away. The disappearance has all the hallmarks of a runaway. But Laurel refuses to believe it. Ellie wouldn’t just give up on her dreams and run away. She was a brilliant student and she was looking forward to her GCSEs. She had a wonderful boyfriend, Theo. She wouldn’t abandon him like that.

The event ultimately tears Laurel’s family apart. She blames Paul, her husband, for not trying harder to find Ellie. She looks at Hanna and wonders why it wasn’t her who went missing instead of Ellie. Hanna and Jake leave home at the first chance they get and Paul tells her that he has met someone he would like to start over with. Laurel lives with the hope of finding Ellie. Then she meets a man named Floyd who sweeps her off her feet. He has a nine-year-old daughter named Poppy and she’s brilliant. She’s also a splitting image of Ellie. What happened to Ellie? And what’s Floyd’s role in all this? As Laurel digs around, she unearths something far more sinister than one could ever imagine.

Then She Was Gone follows a pattern that most thriller writers employ. It is thus predictable. There are only a handful of characters so you can also guess what might have happened. But the how and why keeps you glued to the pages. I wish Hanna’s relationship with Laurel had been more explored. It could have been a great portrayal of a complex mother-daughter equation and how there is always more than what meets the eye in any relationship that is driven by both compulsion and love.

Lisa Jewell has suddenly blown up in my reading circles. Everyone talks about her and they have all read ‘The Family Upstairs’. Her latest book ‘None of This is True’ is also being discussed. A few celebrities have recommended it on Instagram as well. Then She Was Gone got me out of a reading slump and I’ll definitely read more of her works when I find myself unable to concentrate on reading. Then She Was Gone was a compelling story that consumed me. I was tense throughout—caught up in Laurel’s world of horror. It would be nice to have that shiver-up-my-spine feeling again while reading a book.

Thriller

Then She Was Gone

Lisa Jewell

Published: 2017

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Pages: 426, Paperback

Hwang Bo-Reum studied computer science and worked as a software engineer in Seoul, South Korea before leaving her job to become a writer. She has written several essay collections. ‘Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop’ is her debut novel. It was a bestseller in South Korea. I believe when people who are not professional writers choose to do it full time, they do so because they have a lot to say or share. They have stories in their heads that they want to tell. And books that come out of this need are generally great.

 Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is perhaps what was calling Bo-Reum to pursue writing full time. In the acknowledgements, the author says she didn’t create many of the characters in the book before she started writing it. They popped in her head as the story progressed, she says, and she just went with the flow. It’s a good thing because all the characters in the book feel like people you would meet on the streets or someone you know—they are characters with a lot of depth and quite a few flaws.

 The book is essentially about Yeongju who gives up a high-flying career, divorces her husband, and starts a bookshop. Throwing away a ‘good life’ to pursue a passion doesn’t go down well with her mother, who pretty much disowns Yeongju, telling her to talk to her only when she comes to her senses. There is a lot of mental stress in Yeongju’s life, and she can never explain why she felt the need to do what she did. Everything was perfect but she wasn’t happy.

 As she spends her days at the bookshop in a quiet neighborhood in Seoul, Yeongju meets all kinds of customers and they all have their own problems and disappointments in life. There’s a guy she hires to make coffee at the bookshop who is lonely, a coffee roaster trapped in an unhappy marriage, a young chap who has no interest in books but whose mother is forcing him to spend time at the bookstore, and a writer who starts taking an interest in Yeongju. The bookshop has its appeal. It’s where people come to find some respite from their lives. It’s where they ultimately find themselves.

 There is an essay-like quality to the chapters that don’t follow a linear path. Some chapters are about certain characters while others are about Yeongju’s struggle with running an independent bookshop. There is a lot of introspection and analysis on love and life in the pages. Sometimes it feels a little preachy and cliché. But clichés can be comforting especially when they are life-affirming and the book is peppered with nuggets of wisdom that you will find that you have pushed to the back of your mind.

I loved Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop for its simple vibe. Everything from the language to the setting feels like a warm, cozy hug. You will find a caring friend in the protagonist despite her almost stoic personality. She is someone you wish you had as a friend, or better yet, a friend you wish you could become. Through her, the author has tried to show that success and conventional relationships don’t have to be the metrics of a life well-lived, and that we are all free to choose and pursue what makes us happy. All it takes is a little bit of courage. 

Fiction

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/133938826-welcome-to-the-hyunam-dong-bookshop  

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Hwang Bo-Reum

Translated from Korean by Shanna Tan

Published: 2023

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Pages: 301, pages