A four-star book which has afforded me five-star reading pleasure: a very simple, very well written story with an ending which feels real.It is a very low-key novel about what can make a shattered person reasonably whole again. Here, Tom Birkin, an ex-soldier 'pushed ... through the mincer' of WW I ...
Not sure if I will ever get back to this fine work for a second reading, but it sure was enjoyable. There may be a review forthcoming, but perhaps not. Time is at a premium these days.
New Review! Great War survivor, glorious prose, life-changing moments. http://tinyurl.com/psdloo3 Like the Bonnard on the cover, it's a richly colored, simply rendered, and deeply satisfying artwork. It's not flashy or overwrought. It is elegant and luxurious and I am very glad that I read it.
bookshelves: summer-2014, fradio, published-2012, nonfiction, autobiography-memoir, trains-planes-automobiles, radio-4x Recommended for: BBC Radio Listeners Read from May 29 to June 07, 2014 R4x http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01npgn7Description: Michael Holroyd confronts an army of automobile...
A gorgeous eulogy for the perfect SummerBirkin, a damaged World War One veteran, is employed to a find and restore a mural in a village church, whilst another veteran is employed to look for a grave beyond the churchyard walls. The writer looks back 58 years later, and as an old man, on his idyllic...
Beautiful.
"But then, inevitably, as happens to most of us, first through Saturday umpiring, later Sunday chapel, I was drawn into the changing picture of Oxgodby itself. But, oddly, what happened outside was like a dream. It was inside the still church, before its reappearing picture, that was real. I drifted...
What a delightful and gentle book evoking a simpler time in a small village in England. The characters are believable and this small book packs an emotional punch. I found it ultimately unsatisfying, however, as it sort of begs a sequel.
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