Late 1930s America is vividly evoked through the circumstances, people, and attitudes portrayed. This is an immersive read, in which I deeply felt the emotions, and contemplated the discussions of how to live one's life. The characters are not perfect people, but they strive to be decent people, even against difficult circumstances. Perhaps most surprising to me was the deep sense of peace the giraffes impart, both within the story, and for the reader. The specific discussions of the power of story in the novel are more than borne out by this particular tale.
An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.
"Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes..."
Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
It's 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day…
I love reading historical fiction mysteries, and this one is particularly intriguing because of the fascinating setting and characters. I have read a fair number of books set in India, but this one was different from all the others. The story takes place in 1920s Bombay, with a female lawyer who is Zoroastrian, and three clients who are Muslim women who live in seclusion. Into this mix there is a murder mystery that is perfectly presented. If you like a book that shows you a reality that is very different from your own, this is a great novel for you.
1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay's only female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award–winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a captivating heroine.
This Deluxe Paperback Edition features: an interview with the author, discussion questions, essays on the real-life inspirations behind the novel, delicious recipes taken from the story, and previews of The Satapur Moonstone.
Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's…
This is a gentle book, with great depth of feeling and wisdom. It is not a novel that hangs on plot, but on the characters and the ways they go through a life that can be both bewildering and precious. There were so many passages that I marked because of the beauty of the thought, and often the beauty of the expression. The novel is never sentimental, though, and there is clever and sometimes touching humor, such as: "Ganga had the large ears that God puts on old men as evidence of the humour necessary for creation."
This book is one that I will return to again, when I wish to be enchanted and grounded.
Shortlisted for Best Novel in the Irish Book Awards
Longlisted for the 2020 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
From the acclaimed author of Man Booker-longlisted History of the Rain
'Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive' Sunday Times
'A love letter to the sleepy, unhurried and delightfully odd Ireland that is all but gone' Irish Independent
After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain.
But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish - the electricity is finally arriving. With it…
A young girl flees 17th century Madrid in fear for her life, vanishing with an awful secret. Three centuries later and a continent away, a woman utters two strangers’ names on her deathbed, lamenting that she has failed them. In a packet wrapped in an old quilt, her daughter discovers her connection to the young girl who lived so long ago, to those who came between, and to the oath that binds them all.
