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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
Britishbooklover has commented on (3) products
From a Clear Blue Sky
by
Timothy Knatchbull
Britishbooklover
, January 04, 2012
This is an intensely moving book about love, loss, a courageous family's journey through tragedy and how the political situation in Northern Ireland affected the lives of Lord Mountbatten and his family. I remember when Lord Mountbatten's murder by Irish terrorists while boating, together with one of his grandsons, his daughter's mother-in-law and the boy crewing his boat, was announced on the news, my grandfather, who had served with Mountbatten during WWII and admired him, said, "It's the boys I'm sad about - Mountbatten had had a long and good life." Timothy, Mountbatten's grandson, and his identical twin brother Nicholas had previously shuddered at the idea that one of them might die. Timothy was lucky enough to be rescued after the bomb; his brother was not. He describes how his sister had to break the news of his brother's death, his stay in hospital together with his mother and father who were also injured, his visit to Balmoral to stay with the royal family while his parents were still recuperating (he describes the Queen as 'in unstoppable mothering mode'), his return to boarding school - at first he was allowed to sleep in the sickbay but then had to return to his shared school bedroom and to suppressing his tears. As an adult, Timothy decided he needed to revisit the attack to say goodbye to his brother more completely than he had been able to at the time. He returned several times to his grandfather's holiday home, met the people who had rescued him and treated him and also visited other places in Ireland with family links. He finds some consolation in making friends with another bereaved twin. I'm not often moved to tears by a book but I was by this one. His family's courage in confronting their injuries and multiple bereavement is impressive and touching. By writing this book, Timothy Knatchbull has given his readers a chance to understand what it felt like for a family to be caught up in political and historical events in this painful way.
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Hare With Amber Eyes
by
Edmund de Waal
Britishbooklover
, September 20, 2011
This is a delightful book, detailing one family's experience of wealth and security until persecuted in the Holocaust, told by focus on one of their many collections, a collection of Japanese netsuke. The writer Edward De Waal, a well-known potter is now, thanks to this evocative family history, also a well-known author. The netsuke, Japanese elaborate tiny ivory figures, were collected by his great-great uncle and passed down his family of wealthy European Jewish traders. The netsuke survived because the old servant tasked with packing up the gold dinner service, the silver, the porcelain, the pictures, etc, etc when the Nazis confiscated the family home, hid them in her pockets, removed them bit by bit, hid them in her bed, which doesn’t sound at all comfortable, until she could hand them back to Edward de Waal’s grandmother, the first of the family to visit after the war. The grandmother sounds a fascinating character, as does his great-uncle who moved the collection back to Japan where he lived. De Waal became close to the great-uncle when studying art in Japan and was bequeathed the collection. There are some quite unexpected turns to the story which is a charming and easy read. like the return of the netsuke to Japan where they were so out of fashion that they fascinated visiting Japanese.
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The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
by
Janet Soskice
Britishbooklover
, January 01, 2011
This is a brilliant book. Wealthy Scottish twins, were brought up by their father to be religious - Presbyterian - to love languages and to travel. They went to Egypt and to St Catherine's Monastery where they found a palimpsest manuscript they recognised as an early Syriac Gospel. They photographed enough of the manuscript to interest some more professional scholars in a joint return trip to copy the whole thing. Because of the expertise they developed and their involvement in publishing this and some other manuscripts, they received honorary degrees. Soskice describes their expeditions and how they gradually learned how to get the best guides; because of their wide range of languages they could converse with the St Catherine's monks in modern Greek as well as decoding Syriac and other ancient languages. She also describes their social circle in Cambridge; because while travelling they were offered what their friend Solomon Schechter recognised as the previously unknown Hebrew original of Ecclesiasticus, they also contributed to the discovery of the Cairo Genizah hoard of long-hidden Hebrew manuscripts. This book tells a fascinating story really well
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