Dearest Readers,
I hope you’ve all had a restful Easter break, and to the parents out there, I see you. Thoughts and prayers for your sanity and bank accounts.
Me in about two hours time when my kids ask for another plushy toy.
I love my bookshop. But visiting other bookshops is still one of the greatest pleasures of life.
When I’m at Open Book, I’m often in the thick of hand-selling and trying to stop myself from taking home half the stock so I don’t really get the customer experience in the way others do.
I make a point of visiting bookshops often. I don’t want to lose my love of browsing and stumbling across something unexpected - like a regular customer. I think it gives booksellers a much-needed perspective on how people actually shop.
Last week I was at Berkelouw on Oxford Street trying to hunt down the next Dog Man for my son (he’s now read the entire series—bar one book). I then found ‘Careless People’ by Sarah Wynn Williams at Woollahra Bookshop which I LOVED and was also deeply disturbed by. Sarah’s memoir follows her dream to work for Facebook in their early days of influence and leads us down the rabbit hole of Silicon Valley and the evolution of the company. It was a wild ride and a reminder of what Facebook used to be and how much power it now holds in global / social politics.
I remember reading ‘Lean In’ by Sheryl Sandberg when it first came out and loving the message (this was in 2013) . I also got onto the Ariana Huffington train. But in hindsight I think we can all agree that it’s white women who are handmaidens to the patriarchy dressed in glossy #feminism. As much as I love the idea of ‘Let Them’ by Mel Robbins I also find her a bit icky. The most shocking part of the book was when Sarah recounted Sheryl Sandberg’s behavior on a private jet. My jaw DROPPED! I will leave it to you to read that part ;)
Also, Marky Z seems like a real jerk. But we knew that already didn’t we?!
This week I am in Noosa with my kids and stumbled upon The River Read bookshop. It is TINY with very little floor space but I was delighted to see how many excellent books they had on their shelves.
I bought Pablo & Splash (which Lennon tore through) and Migrations for myself and am THOROUGHLY enjoying reading Charlotte McConaghy’s backlist. I’ve ordered a bunch of Migrations and Once There Were Wolves for all of the new Charlotte McConaghy devotees I’ve had in my DMs the past few weeks.
But what I really wanted to talk about in this weeks’ stack is a book I read a few weeks ago that has stuck with me. My amazing staff member Gem has had ‘In Memoriam’ as her recommended book for a long time and I have only just had the headspace to read it. I’ve been avoiding diving in as it’s about war - but with Anzac Day tomorrow I thought in the lead up to it I should read / suggest something like it.
Here’s the official synopsis:
It's 1914, and talk of war feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside.
At seventeen, they're too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle - an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the dreamy, poetic Ellwood - not having a clue that Ellwood is in love with him, always has been.
When Gaunt's German mother and twin sister ask him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him, spurred on by his love of Greek heroes and romantic poetry. Before long, their classmates have followed suit.
Once in the trenches, Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, but their friends are all dying, right in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.
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I expected the descriptions of battles and the horrible conditions of World War 1. What I did not expect was to feel so grief stricken with the plight of these young men who had to witness / participate in so much violence before their time. I guess, upon reflection, I haven’t read anything to do with the war since having children. It’s been too much to try and process. So reading a novel like this, in our current political climate was a tough pill to swallow as a mum of two boys.
In Memoriam has all the romantic / yearning elements of Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’ (one of my favourite novels) and the kind of University / brotherhood storyline that ‘Dead Poets Society’ offers. I was invested in Gaunt and Ellwood’s romance, especially as I’m sure that the experience was more common than we can possibly have known at this time.
The loneliness, fear and uncertainty of war was confronting to read about. But I felt like Alice Winn did such a great job of navigating the deep intimacy, camaraderie and resilience these men made of such dire circumstances.
This book is an absolute MUST read. I was looking through Tik Tok the other day and stumbled upon a video of Auschwitz with young people commenting ‘Wait, what is this?’ and me wanting to reply back to everyone with ‘READ A BOOK’ (don’t worry, I refrained).
I digress.
I want to know what everyone else is vibing with at the moment and what you think I should read next?
Happy Reading !
Jessie
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Was so happy to discover that you had a Substack Jessie! Adding In Memoriam to my list.