The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend - Katarina Bivald

I went back to Surbiton last weekend, and while I was waiting to meet a friend, I had a look in the Regency Bookshop. I am ashamed to admit that, although I lived ten or fifteen minutes' walk away for two years, I rarely shopped there as a student. I don't know if it intimidated me a bit, or if it was simply that I overlooked it in favour of the 3 for 2 or Buy One Get One Half Price offers in the chain stores. I have since become more picky in what I buy, which has helped me to realise the value of books, that a good book in a good bookshop is worth paying the full retail price for. While I was in there this time, my eye was caught by a bright, cheerful hardback, which I had never heard of before, but before I'd finished reading the cover blurb I had decided instantly to buy it; The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend was the perfect book to buy to make amends for my former neglect of the Regency Bookshop; a book-lover's dream.

Sara Lindqvist is a shy young Swedish woman, for whom life is something to read about in the pages of her beloved books. She has few close relationships, but has started up a pen-friendship with Amy, an elderly woman from Broken Wheel, Iowa. When Sara plucks up the courage to fly out to visit Amy, she is greeted by the sad news that Amy has died. Broken Wheel is a tiny town - a village, really - in the middle of nowhere, and it is little more than a ghost town now. But its people are kind, in their way, and they take Sara to their heart. And Sara decides that the thing she can do for them is to open a bookshop in town. Books make everything better, right? The people of Broken Wheel are not really a literary sort, but they support her in her venture, and in her cosy little shop, she pairs customers up with a carefully-chosen book. But Sara is only in America on a tourist's visa, and shouldn't really be working at all. As her time begins to run out, both she and her new friends realise that they don't want her to leave. So they come up with a plan...

There is something really special about a book about books. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is like settling down in a personalised, cosy bookshop with a comfy chair, all the time you need, and good friends to rave to about your latest read. It is, as you might expect, full of references to familiar stories and authors, and not just the classics to make you feel smart for recognising the reference. This is just as much a love letter to Sophie Kinsella, Terry Pratchett and Bridget Jones's Diary as it is to Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice. (And Anne gets a mention too, so even if I hadn't been won over before - I was - I would recognise this book as being a Kindred Spirit.)

As a small town, we get to know a few characters really well. There is George, a recovering alcoholic and a divorcee who just longs to see his daughter again. Grace, the latest in a long line of tough, strong, contrary women called Grace (though that isn't her real name at all.) Andy and Carl, who own the bar, the vicar, William, who is called to be all things to all people, and Caroline, the stern, disapproving church member who carries the same sorrows and fears as everyone else, hidden behind her stuffy exterior. And Tom; Amy's nephew, who everyone thinks would be such a perfect match for Sara, even if he doesn't seem to like her at all. It is a real joy to meet these characters, watch as their lives unfold, and see them won over to the pleasure of reading. Sara's venture really seems to breathe new life into this tired old community, which is falling to pieces, but is not ready to give up just yet.

Unfortunately, the story gets a bit weaker towards the end, with the introduction of a romance plot, which felt more like infatuation than a real relationship, and I felt that the ending was too neatly tied up, and somewhat implausible. Also, I couldn't help noticing a few basic proof-reading errors, most notably the spelling of George's daughter's name, which was sometimes Sophie and sometimes Sophy, many times both spellings on the same page! But none of this detracts from the fact that The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a really happy, feel-good book, with lovable characters and a setting so vivid I just need to close my eyes and imagine myself there.

15 Day Book Blogger Challenge: Day Two

Day Two: What is your bedtime reading ritual?

I wouldn't say I have a regular ritual when it comes to reading before bed. What I like to do is get ready for bed early, and spend half an hour or an hour winding down and reading - but more often, I will be on the internet right up until bedtime, or beyond, and then wonder why I can't get to sleep. Or watch one more episode of whichever boxset I'm working my way through. If I'm not looking forward to the next day, then I try to delay it as long as possible - you can tell I'm not in a good place if I'm sitting up till 1AM knitting, while my mind is worrying away. All terrible habits, because if I'm not sleeping, then it all just gets worse and worse.

And, as Ned Stark would remind us, Winter Is Coming. It's not August yet, Katie, you say, looking at me with a concerned and perplexed expression. But I work in retail, specifically bookselling, and already the Christmas annuals have started coming in. I swear it gets earlier every year. The autumn and winter are always difficult for me, so I have promised myself that I can reread Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, the ultimate in comfort reading. I intend to get back into the habit of having an early night and reading a chapter or so before I go to sleep, to help me to wind down and relax - and if I allow myself to read these books only at bedtime, that might be more of an incentive to actually get into a routine.

Katie's Adventures in Storyland II

Winter is coming, the nights are getting darker and the bookshops are getting busier. This can mean only one thing - a new Cecelia Ahern book! (Actually it means many things. Christmas. Crunchy autumn leaves. Woolly jumpers. Hot chocolate.) Though I am usually averse to chick-lit, Miss Ahern's novels come at just the right time, when I am in need of some reading material that is fluffy and comforting, but without being utterly mushy. And her book covers are so pretty! How can you resist something that looks like this?

One Hundred Names is an original concept: journalist Kitty Logan asks her dying friend and mentor what is the one story you always wanted to write? The only answer is a list of names, and Kitty has to search all across Dublin to find the story that links these hundred people. One Hundred Names is quite a short novel, and I wondered whether Kitty would actually meet all hundred people on the list. Of course she doesn't, but the characters she does meet are lovable and memorable, a selection of people of all walks of life. Ultimately, the great mystery of the novel turned out not to be very surprising at all - I guessed it early on, but this in no way affected my enjoyment of the story. This book is all about the journey and the people, with an uplifting message that everybody, without exception, has a story to tell.

In between the other books I've been reading in the last couple of weeks, I have been spending some time with the Andreas girls in Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters. This is a quite gentle tale of three sisters, very different in temperament, who return to the family home when their mother falls sick, each bringing their own struggles and secrets with them. The Weird Sisters was quite a slow read, but by the end I found myself really invested in the Andreas family. Rose, Bean and Cordy are really Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia, named for Shakespearean heroines by their obsessed father.

The family is an eccentric one, structured around Mr Andreas' love of the Bard which, though not fully shared by his daughters, plays a huge part in their identity. Trivial matters and deep truths are wrapped in a blanket of quotations - a delight for a literature-lover like myself who also sees the world through the lens of story, but I can see how it could prove irritating to a reader of a different disposition.

What stands out for The Weird Sisters among other family stories is the narration. Though scenes featuring one sister is a standard third-person, the sisterly relationship is almost a fourth character and is a fluid, omniscient "we" that could refer to any two of the trio, or all three. The sisters bicker and fight, are filled with envy and resentment for each other, but their identity is as one part of three. A crucial theme of the story is of the three girls finding where they belong in the world individually, not just in relation to the other two.

After reading a novel with its plethora of Shakespearean quotes and references, I had to return to the Bard himself, and so to the library I went to look at its selection of plays. I have read, studied and watched several of the Comedies and Tragedies, but I had never read any of Shakespeare's History plays, so I chose to read Julius Caesar. Much to the disappointment of my father, I have next to no knowledge of Roman history, so I went into Caesar with only the knowledge that the title character is murdered. In actual fact, Julius Caesar only appears in about three scenes of his play, and his death occurs halfway through. The story revolves around the conspiracy and assassination of Caesar - the build-up to the event, and its aftermath. If there is a protagonist, it must be Brutus, moralist and betrayer, but there are no heroes, only villains and anti-heroes. Reading this play, I found it difficult to take sides, but only impartially watch a historical event replayed in iambic pentameter. Still, Shakespeare humanises the great names of history, showing multi-faceted characters. Take Caesar: arrogant before the men, gentler and perhaps more vulnerable at home with his wife, shown for his strengths as well as his weaknesses in soliloquy, and all this in three short scenes.

Of course, Shakespeare wrote for the stage, not for the page, but I get as much pleasure from reading his plays as I do watching them, being able to enjoy the poetry and philosophy of his words at my own leisure, rereading favourite lines or passages I did not understand the first time. But although Shakespeare has a reputation for being long-winded and impenetrable, I do not find him so. Caesar is a relatively short play, without any padding, but each scene building plot, tension and character, as tightly-crafted as the best thrillers.

I read the Arden Shakespeare edition (pictured) but was not happy with the method of footnoting. This is evidently a study edition, with lots of useful notes taking up half the page - but I prefer to read the play straight through, with notes at the end of the book instead, where I can look them up if I want, or not if I don't want. They were not only a distraction, but also presumed upon the play not being read as a thriller, being free with the spoilers for the benefit of students on a reread (if it is not incongruous to talk of "spoilers" for a 400-year-old play whose events were centuries old even at the time of writing.)