'Pennies for Hitler' by Jackie French

I'm including this book for the migration category of my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge. What a desperate and reactive migration story it turns out to be. I discovered this one in a local Little Free Book Library, long after I'd set my categories for this year's challenge. I'm loving and appreciating the serendipitous nature in which perfect books tend to gravitate into my hands. 

MY THOUGHTS:

The story begins in 1939 when young Georg's happy, sheltered life is abruptly shattered. Right before his eyes, his poetry-loving, academic father is killed at a graduation ceremony that becomes a frenzied riot. That same night, the ten-year-old is smuggled out of Germany in a suitcase to avoid being murdered for supposedly being the spawn of a Jewish menace, an accusation that takes him entirely by surprise.

Georg takes refuge for a while in London, but when bombs begin raining on the city, his Aunt Miriam sends him on an evacuation ship to Australia, where he's assigned to live with the Peaslake family of Bellagong, whose son, Alan, is fighting in the army. Australia, which Georg first regards as a 'strange, untidy country where every color looks slightly wrong' becomes his refuge and oasis. It contains total strangers who he grows to love with all his heart. 

What a terrific novel, cramming such a lot of introspection into the four or so years it spans. This traumatised kid surely needs counselling, but living in survival mode makes mental health care a luxury. Georg, now known to everyone as George, must be his own counsellor. 

First he deals with some pretty major cognitive dissonance. All the propaganda he'd ever taken on board at school had been the cruelest lie all along. Nothing quite like having to be sneaked across your country's border in carry luggage to destroy your illusions about your country's leader. Georg must adjust to a whole new culture and master a foreign language to save himself, right on the heels of the most traumatic blow of his life. Then in Australia, imposter syndrome is added to the mix. He has no way of knowing how his new caregivers might feel about unwittingly sheltering a German boy beneath their roof, so makes his own quiet conclusions. 

When circumstances take him off guard yet again, and he's about 14 at this stage, he finds out for sure. 

This book's finer details about living in the WW2 era adds great colour and authenticity to the story. (In Georg's London life, treasured paintings and exhibits were evacuated from museums, and an edict was given for household pets to be euthanized, as part of the war effort. In his rural Aussie life when the threat of Japanese invaders loomed, road signs and station names vanished so the enemy couldn't possibly figure out exactly where they were.) I appreciated the depth of research on Jackie French's part. 

Such a great tale, taking the concept of an unsung hero to a whole new level, for Georg's extreme heroism must be a complete secret for his continued survival. Or so he thinks. It passed my 'tears test' with flying colours, and deserves full marks. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟  

'After the Funeral' by Agatha Christie

I notice I haven't reviewed an Agatha Christie novel for a little while. Here is a good one to break the drought.  

MY THOUGHTS:

The scene is Enderby, a run-down Victorian manor house. 

Elderly Richard Abernethie has just died. He'd brought up his younger siblings and outlived all but two. In addition, there is now a bachelor nephew, George, and two nieces, Susan and Rosamund, along with their husbands. When the extended family returns after the funeral for afternoon tea, flaky Aunt Cora puts her foot in her mouth. She says, 'He was murdered, wasn't he? I thought from what he said...' 

Cora has a long history of social faux pas, but now she's done it once too often. The following day, she's discovered viciously murdered in bed. The killer struck her skull with a hatchet and tried to make it appear like a simple robbery. 

Although there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Richard's death, loyal family lawyer, Mr Entwhistle, can't shake off an uneasy feeling. He'd hate to think bad of the family he's served for decades, but before long Cora's live-in companion, Miss Gilchrist, seems marked for murder too. It appears evident that one member of the Abernethie family is a rat, trying to dispose of anybody who might have the slightest inkling of whatever Richard said to his youngest sister. 

It is high time for Entwhistle to call his good friend, Hercule Poirot, out from retirement. If anyone can get to the bottom of the evil menace, surely he can. 

When Poirot investigates the backgrounds of everyone who was present after Richard's funeral, he regards each and every one of them as people who would never commit murder as a general rule, but might make an exception for a special case. (Of course any subsequent incidents are strictly necessary for cover-up.)

He says:

'Let us admit without more ado that the world is full of the young, or even the middle-aged, who wait patiently or impatiently for the death of someone whose decease will give them, if not affluence, then at least opportunity.' 

That applies to everyone. Doesn't it always?

It was a fun read. Several relatives drop humorous one-liners, especially when they're brought together again, ostensibly to select personal keepsakes from Richard's estate. The investigations cleverly paint a composite picture of Cora's character, after she's dead. And some of the other relatives are larger-than-life. George, the closet gambler, Rosamund, the air-headed actress, and Uncle Timothy, the tedious hypochondriac whose wife, Maude, lives to pamper him.

When Poirot gathers them all together in the drawing room to make the big reveal, I still didn't have a clue who to point the finger at, and I prefer it that way. It turns out the crook was willing to go to devious lengths to deflect suspicion. 

* A quick note on my edition's cover: we need to progress pretty far into the story before the significance of the nun becomes apparent. The younger generations' discussion of ladies of the cloth is very amusing once we get there. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟 

  

'Then there were Five' by Elizabeth Enright

This is the third novel in Elizabeth Enright's Melendy Quartet, and I love this original cover design of all five young protagonists, along with the two dogs. Why shouldn't Isaac and John Doe get a look in. If you begin with my reviews of The Saturdays, followed by The Four-Story Mistake, then you'll be up to this one. 

MY THOUGHTS:  

What I find exceptional in this vintage series is Elizabeth Enright's seasonal continuity. This installment takes place in the summer that was highly anticipated during the spring of The Four-Story Mistake. Enright's nature writing, rather than comprising mere background detail, beautifully becomes the backbone of all the unfolding events in the plot. 

The main theme of this third novel is how the Melendys come to adopt a new adolescent brother named Mark, who is almost the same age as Rush. When they first meet him, Mark lives with his abusive cousin Oren, who mistreats him horribly. The manner in which circumstances release Mark from Oren's tyranny is very dramatic, but I won't spoil it.

We are at the point where some reviewers believe the Melendy Quartet departs from its simple charm, since the sordidness of real life breaks in too rudely for them. However, for me the whole point of this third novel is the contrast, and the fact that the Melendy milieu proves strong enough to withstand the dark side of life. By the end, Mark changes from a lonely, starving outcast who craves company to the happy member of a loving family. He's nourished by plenty of wholesome food, literature, music, gardening, and cheeky jokes. In short, all the things that make life good. 

In a world in which we're counselled to slow down and enjoy the small things, that's exactly what the Melendys do. We can't help taking on board their refreshing influence while we immerse ourselves in these stories. (Yep, even though Rush and Mark eavesdrop on some law-breakers at an illicit booze still - horror to some readers! Come on guys, this is a pretty tame story and that incident is great fun.) Those of us who need it even receive encouragement to drop our too-high housekeeping standards.

'Gradually the house regained its normal expression: a look of reasonable order and unprosperous but homely comfort.' 

The WW2 era with its restrictions continues in the background. Father acquires a government job so secret that he can't even allow himself to think about it too loudly. But holding down the home front is his brilliant brood. Mona indulges her new passion for becoming a kitchen goddess, Rush still finds inspiration to compose a stunning sonata even while racing about the district spying on crooks, and Oliver quietly conducts his own private life where butterflies and moths loom large. Observing and appreciating the others with all the energy of her gentle, affectionate heart is the lovely Randy, who can certainly never be accused of taking anything good for granted. 

When Cuffy gets called away for a fortnight to help a convalescing cousin she wonders how they'll ever manage without her. Well may she ask, and the answer to that question comprises a good portion of this book. 

Once again, you must start with The Saturdays, then The Four-Story Mistake, and then you're up to this one. Stay tuned for my discussion of the very last book in this series. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟   

'Barnaby Rudge' by Charles Dickens

Summary: Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprenctices plot against their masters and anti-Catholic mobs rampage through the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Whew, this was a difficult slog indeed. During the story's natural break, just before the action leaps forward five years, I found myself stalled for such a long time. I hadn't enjoyed any of these characters enough to pick up the book again, with the possible exception of Grip the raven. So I had to crank myself started again. It would've been a definite DNF except for my quest to read through all of Dickens major novels, which I'm so close to finishing.  

We have two deplorable fathers. John Willet, the manager of the Maypole Inn, treats his son, Joe, like a menial. And John Chester is a villainous gentleman who aims to destroy his son, Edward's, romance for his own personal gain. There is also Gabriel Varden the locksmith, not a bad dad but an oblivious one who really doesn't notice what's going on beneath his own roof. His odious young apprentice, Simon Tappertit, the ringleader of a secret union of disgruntled apprentices, has the hots for Gabriel's daughter, Dolly. 

The females are no improvement on the males. Dolly Varden is busy playing hard-to-get, sending mixed messages to young Joe Willet. She's one of those aggravating flirts who never realizes what she's lost until her silly games blow up in her face. I do love it that ever since Dickens wrote this novel, Dolly Varden's name has been bestowed on party cakes, dresses, and even marine life such as trout and crabs. So many people who have used the name in these contexts probably don't realize that it comes from this mischievous little coquette and her colorful clothing. 

Dolly's mother is one of Dickens' most annoying characters ever, taking sulks and histrionics to a whole new level. If her husband remarks, 'It's a fine day, my love,' she'll burst into tears and demand his ulterior motive in saying so. That high-maintenance Mrs Varden wasn't remotely comical to me and I wondered how I could bear a whole book with her carrying on all through it.

Dickens aimed to capture his readers' attention with a couple of mysteries at the outset. The first occurred about 22 years before the start of the book, when a gentleman named Reuben Haredale was murdered in his bed while trying to ring his bell for help. The murderer is still at large, and Haredale's orphaned daughter, Emma (the star-crossed lover of young Edward Chester) is straight out of Dickens' usual good-girl mold, who can't do a thing wrong.

The second mystery surrounds Mrs Rudge, the widow of Haredale's steward. Her son, Barnaby, who was born prematurely on that eventful night, is an intellectually handicapped man-boy (boy-man?) whose simple nature makes him the happiest person in the whole novel. He has a pet raven named Grip, who seems more canny than his master in many ways. Barnaby is unaware that his mother is being stalked by an anonymous, despicable desperado who is using Barnaby's wellbeing as some form of blackmail over her. Naturally Mary Rudge knows perfectly well who their antagonist is, but Dickens counts on the reader not guessing until the big reveal.  

So when three inciting rebel leaders, who aim to abolish Catholicism, set foot into this tinder box of reactive characters, everything is all set to blow. We have young men who decide they must head off to be soldiers at all costs, older men who buy into the religious and political fervor, and women who watch it all happen. They all become sucked up into the true historical event which became known as the Gordon Riots. There are a few neat twists, but I didn't like any of the characters (save Grip) enough to care.

Reading over what I've just written, I admit it all somehow sounds like an okay story. But honestly, I'd give this one a miss, unless you're a Dickens completist. As always, his waffling prose and daunting walls of description require awesome, lovable characters to make plowing through them worth our while. So often he's delivered for me, yet this story has nobody I could invest my interest into wholeheartedly. So sadly, Barnaby Rudge, the novel if not the character, gets the thumbs down from me.

🌟🌟 

Note: I'm now only one book short of finishing my quest. Bring on the infamous Old Curiosity Shop! 

Why I'm Quitting Bookstagram

Oh boy, I think I've finally done with that platform. When I first started my Bookstagram account on New Year's Day 2017, I had sky high hopes of how great it would be. At first it seemed to live up to every single one of them. All the kindred spirits and fellow bookworms seemed to be hanging out over there. Even when I began getting tired with the time consuming nature of producing posts, the pros for staying on seemed to outweigh the cons for such a long time. About two years ago I wrote this blog post about the Drawbacks and Benefits of Bookstagram. Perhaps at that stage I was trying to convince myself to hang in there. 

But I've been wearing myself out, even though I definitely don't post a fraction as often as many other Bookstagrammers do. Are they way more dedicated than I am, or do they simply have more stamina? 

Recently I came across Deep Work, a book by Cal Newport that includes a valuable metric to determine whether we should stick with any social media platform that gives us a headache. Here is my paraphrase of his advice. Just because the platform under scrutiny has an undeniable benefit or two doesn't mean we should automatically embrace it in the herd-like manner humans so often display. If we take time to consider our presence on the platform dispassionately, we may discover a column of negatives stacked up heavily on the opposite side. Yet this towering edifice tends to remain in the dark because our attention is focused like a laser on the few meager benefits. Suddenly, under the illuminating beam of this new light, the sacrifice of jumping off the platform may be well worth making.

My driving motivations come down to two.

1) My initial reason for setting up my flag there in the first place. Having a broader social media presence means that more potential readers will discover me, which is every writer's dream.  

2) I've made several online friends on that platform who are fun to engage with.

Hmm, I think the problems really do outweigh these benefits, excellent as they are. 

Firstly, perhaps our reach is not as extensive as we think. I know I'm not the only person who has noticed the weird inverse phenomenon that as your number of followers increases, your engagement of likes and comments seems to slough off. Some people have suggested that it's all to do with the Instagram algorithms. I've come across theories that Instagram promotes new accounts until the account holder gets hooked, then pulls back. I don't know about that. What my husband suggests makes more sense. He thinks that if friends from afar keep adding new friends, then older ones must inevitably slip off their radar, like beads off a string. It's nothing personal, just that the passage of time takes its toll and we all tend to have our time in the sun before friends move on. 

The tug-of-war nature is getting me down. We expect the best of two opposite worlds from one single platform, but the clash is unreasonable in anyone's books. We want firm, solid, lasting friendships, sometimes with people from way across the globe. Yet we also long to build up followings of 1000s. 

As for my second point, when I put on my Bookstagram persona, I'm not as good a friend as I want to be anyway. I'm not comfortable with the person I become when I'm scrolling Booksta. Over there, because I feel stretched thin, I'm a shallow skimmer of friends' posts which deserve far deeper reads. Then I find loads of misplaced guilt on my shoulders, because I never aimed to be the sort of friend who skim reads excellent content. But if I want to keep up with everyone's posts that I follow, it's inevitable that I can't give each one the focused attention it deserves. There isn't enough time in the day. In the half hour I put aside, I would have time for only five or six. And when it comes to making Booksta posts of my own, I get a bit grumpy, grudgingly taking time to condense salient points from blog posts I've already written. If our time for focused attention resembles a well, then too often I feel like I'm sucking mud over there. And that makes me anxious. 

I have no plans to stop blogging here. So if you follow these posts, then rest assured. 

I've spent eight years on Bookstagram. It's not been a flash in the pan. I've had to time to think this through. I'll just pop over occasionally to touch base with the updates of others but not to update myself. I'll try doing without, maybe until the end of the year, and then report back again. Or perhaps the very occasional update without any pretence of scheduling. Hopefully I'll even use the time I would have normally spent doing Bookstagram for more deep reading, engaging with others' blogs and leaving comments there. And I'll be able to get more fiction writing and well-reflected blog posts written. 

We'll see. 

    

'The Minister's Wife' by Anne Berzel

I'm choosing this book for the historical fiction category of my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge. It's quite an oldie, having been published back in 1995, but a beauty. Sadly, it appears to be obscure, since my review will be the first left on Goodreads. Hopefully there are still copies floating around, because I highly recommend it. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

This selection for my Aussie Book Challenge is actually a re-read from my long-ago past. I bought it and loved it back in 1995 when it was first published, and lent it around to my mother, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, who all loved it too. Now 30 years later, I was curious to read it again to see if it stands up to our enthusiasm.

The novel is set in the lovely rural towns around my state's south east; Mount Gambier, Penola, and Millicent. It's a double-generation story, beginning in the tail end of the nineteenth century and taking us just beyond WW1. Interestingly, an all-day-long working bee involving the whole town in 1917 Mt Gambier takes place within the story, a true, historical event I read about on a plaque overlooking the Blue Lake during a recent visit there. 

First off, Sarah Wetherby's fiance has been killed in an accident, and along with raw grief, she's in a pickle because she's pregnant. Matt Randall, a bitter family outcast estranged from his ex-lover, proposes to Sarah from expediency and sour grapes, and Sarah accepts through desperation. Nothing quite like a good marriage of convenience yarn when it's well done, which this is. Sarah often delivers funny and merciless one-liners, which she continues to aim at Matt even after she falls madly in love with him. 

Okay, so that's Part One.

Sarah's baby is Annabel, who grows up to find herself in a horrifying predicament. Annabel is eager to marry her boyfriend, golden haired Gerald Wilkinson, the young minister. She's an idealistic girl who longs to tick off brownie points in heaven. Yet when the young couple arrives at their new parish miles from home, Gerald quickly proves himself to be the husband from hell; the sort of fanatical jerk who considers emotional abuse to be responsible stewardship. 

The truth slowly dawns on Hayden MacArthur, a fellow minister who's sent to board with the Wilkinson couple. Hayden can't help getting drawn in to become more than an impartial houseguest, which makes him deeply assess the depth of his own theology. 

All characterisation is insightful and finely nuanced. Although he's clearly the anti-hero, Gerald is vulnerable, wretched, and impossible to completely detest (although I came close). He comes across as a particularly demented St. John Rivers from Jane Eyre, right down to the good looks.   

The church, more so than modern times, is the community hub, and any show of devout support earns a person business success and social standing. This makes country neighbourhoods ripe for whitewashing, hypocrisy, and inflexibility. But rather than being too intense, this book is a great read. The plot points are unpredictable, good characters can't be kept down, and all happiness is hard-earned, thus truly memorable.

All up, it's great to get through another great Aussie story with details such as blistering hot Christmases and shimmering clouds of cockatoos rising out of paddocks and fields. I wish the elusive Anne Berzel had written other books, or at least come forth to introduce herself to others of us in the same country, and with the same literary pursuits. I wonder if the name is a pseudonym, because when I look her up, I can't find her anywhere. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

'Elizabeth and her German Garden' by Elizabeth Von Arnim

I discovered this vintage hardcover at a secondhand shop. I wasn't enchanted by The Enchanted April, Von Arnim's runaway bestseller from 1922, but thought this earlier title from 1898 might hit the spot. 

MY THOUGHTS:

 Here is a lovely vintage book for the introvert population written in a series of diary entries.

It is the late nineteenth century. Elizabeth is a young aristocratic woman whose passion project is working in the extensive garden of their secluded country manor. After years of trying to fit in with the world she sees around her, she's astounded to find that a quiet lifestyle puttering away at home, far from the social climbing and drama, suits her to a tee. Now Elizabeth's only aim is to make up for precious time she lost when she kowtowed to the expectations of others, tried to put on an impressive face and cared what people thought of her.

Brushes with others involve assuring them that she is genuinely happy tucked away, for human nature being what it is, they insist in believing that her lifestyle must be desolate and grim for her, since it would be for them. 

However, certain times of the year bring inevitable house guests. During the time period this book covers, Elizabeth finds herself hostess to two other young women. One is Irais, another burned out wife of society whose wit tends to be cynical. Even though Elizabeth likes her a lot, anyone's company tends to be draining in long doses. The other guest is Minora, a simplistic girl who aims to write a book of impressions without a clue that her observations tend to be of the skimming, shallow type. Elizabeth records her own experiments of standing back and letting Irais and Minora clash. 

Elizabeth has three little daughters; the April baby, the May baby, and the June baby. She also has a supercilious husband who she calls the Man of Wrath, and never gives the impression that she's madly in love with him, although there are certainly worse fellows to be found. He reveals himself as a chauvinistic grouch who considers himself a philosopher and remarks that women never speak a word worth listening to, as far as he's ever heard. With the wonderful influence of her restorative garden, Elizabeth doesn't let the Man of Wrath get her down. She's strong enough in herself not to let him.   

'What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them! Yet my town acquaintances look upon it as imprisonment and burying, and I don't know what besides. Sometimes I feel as if I were blest above all my fellows in being able to find my happiness so easily.'

That's my main takeaway from this book. Elizabeth, whose philosophy is far wiser and easier to swallow than her husband's, thrives with the same simple resources at her fingertips as those available to me. She doesn't aim to extend her reach, become any smarter, or embark on any self-improvement program. After several tiring years, she's decided she has nothing to prove. She's one of those refreshing people whose thoughts serve as course corrections, if we're willing for them to be.  

Here's to books, flowers, bird song, cats, hot drinks, leisurely walks, and many other good things. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟½