The daughters of the house (by Michele Roberts)
I had never heard of this book before starting college, it just so happened that it was on my reading list and had to be read for a seminar. Allow me a digression, my big module is ran in seminars, not lessons; we’re give a book/article/essay to read for the week after and then we examine it together with in class discussions and obviously directed by our professor that puts us right when we go wrong (… ‘professoress’ is there a word for female professor?). So different from the old fashion top-down lectures of years and years ago! (nothing wrong with those of course but I find this system so stimulating and interesting).
Anyway, back to the book, at the time of publication it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize… but I wasn’t in England yet so that’s why it never entered my radar. It’s a beautifully crafted book. I’m not going to give you an in depth analysis of the text because this is not what this blog is about, but suffice to say that it’s definitively worth reading.
Therese and Leonie are French and English cousins that meet up every summer in the French farmhouse. The story begins when the two girls, now women meet for the first time in 20 years… and then it goes back to explain what happened, what caused this long absence. Family dramas, death, a wonderful representation of society after the war in rural France, religion…
The chapter are short and cleverly titled with the name of an object (‘the green scarf’ ‘the dustpan’ etc.) that spark memories and episodes in the girls past and from these these snippets we piece together their love/hate relationship, the scandal hidden in their past, the horrors of the war, their life at the time and why things are as they are now.
If you like galloping plots.. this is not for you, but if you like a well written book with really acute and beautiful descriptions than go for it.
And now I really need to pack… (always tricky and bound to go wrong when you’re to in a packing frame of mind, right?
2018 Mr Hanckock and the mermaid
2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)
2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)
2015 – Reasons to stay alive (Matt Haig)
2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)
2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)
2012 – Wonder (RJ Palacia)
2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)
2010
2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)
2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)
2007
2006 – The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
2004 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)
2003
2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)
2001
2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)
1999
1998
1997
1996 – Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)
1995
1994
1993
1992 – The daughters of the house (Michele Roberts)
1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)
1990 – Darkness visible (William Styron)
1989 – Like water to chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
1988
1987
1986
1985 – Oranges are not the only fruit (Jeanette Winterson)
1984 – Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner)
1983 – Heartburn (Nora Ephron)
1982 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)
1981
1980 – Emmeline (Judith Rossiter)
1979– The bloody chamber (Angela Carter)
1978
1977
1976
1975 – First love, last rites – (Ian McEwan)
1974
1973 – the honorary consul (Graham Greene)
1972
1971 – Reunion (Fred Uhlman)
1970 – A slipping down life (Anne Tyler)
while you're ahead... 