Bingo Square: White Whale The House of the Spirits tells the story of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban and his wife Clara, who has ‘spiritual’ tendencies and foresees the future, their daughter Blanca who falls in love with a man her father despises, and Alba, the granddaughter Esteban adores. The book also covers the political upheavals of Chile and how that impacts the family. I haven’t read any Allende before, even though I’ve been meaning to, so this seemed a good […]
“You’ve got to learn to like yourself a little more”
Bingo Square: AlabamaPink In a fairly by-the-numbers biography, Donald Spoto follows Audrey from her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland, to her years studying dance, her sudden rise to stardom after Gigi and Roman Holiday, her marriages and romantic life, motherhood, and her later work for UNICEF. I can’t say if this is a good biography of Hepburn or not – in terms of what it covers about her life. I am only vaguely familiar with her personal life after watching a Jennifer Love Hewitt film and […]
“We’re done justifying our place at the table”
Bingo square: Underrepresented The Good Immigrant is a collection of essays by writers, actors, and journalists about what it’s like being a minority in the UK today. A UK which sees you as someone who isn’t to be trusted, unless you’re winning an Olympic medal or are a great footballer. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, and if I do it’s seldom short essay collections, but I mostly enjoyed this one. There are some excellent essays here, my favourites include Kendo Nagasaki and Me […]
A pretty depressing bingo
Bingo Square: Award Winner In August of 1944, Saint-Malo in France is under siege. 16 year old Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, is trying to survive the bombing and hide from someone who is searching for her. 18 year old Werner, a German solider, is trapped in the rubble of a hotel. From this starting point we go back several years, to Marie-Laure first losing her sight, and Werner’s childhood in an orphanage with his younger sister. Marie-Laure lives with her father, a […]