This month it is Stasiland by Anna Funder. Once again, I've not read the book we're starting with, but I have read Funder's debut novel All That I Am. It details the rise of Hitler and the Nazis as witnessed by a group of exiled activists which included real life figures, Ernst Toller and Dora Fabian.
My next link takes me to a recent release that I've just finished reading, which also involves the rise of Hitler
and the Nazis: The Words I Never Wrote by Jane Thynne. Two sisters, one a journalist in Paris, the other living in Berlin and married to a Nazis sympathiser, are separated by the war and their political views.
Journalism links to an ARC I am currently reading: The Women's Pages by Victoria Purnam. The setting is Sydney 1945 where Tilly Galloway, a former war correspondent, is now working on the women's pages of a newspaper.
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Purman's novel shares a title with that by another Australian author. The Women's Pages by Debra Adelaide is in my TBR pile. I remember adding it due to the book description mentioning Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The main character, Dove, read this novel to her dying mother and later writes her own inspired by it. Where I'm heading next is easy to guess.
Despite my interpretation of it changing since my initial reading over fifty years ago, Wuthering Heights remains one of my favourite classics. I love the setting of the Yorkshire Moors and so my final link takes me to Yorkshire. Not to the moors, but to the city of York in Tudor times. Tony Morgan's The Pearl of York, Treason and Plot, is the story of Margaret Clitherow (canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1970) and how Guy Fawkes tried to save her from the gallows.
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My chain this month has gone from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to 1930s/40s Berlin, to Sydney in the 1940s and 1960s, to the Yorkshire Moors of Georgian England and finally to Tudor York. Where did your chain take you?
Next month (May 2, 2020) the starting point is The Road by Corman McCarthy.
Both of the Women's Pages books and the Words I Never Wrote sound excellent. I'll put them on my wishlist now!
ReplyDeleteExcellent!
DeleteI am looking forward to reading The Women's Pages. I have a different Purman book on my list, which will be published tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI hope you enjoy both books.
DeleteWuthering Heights is one of my favourite classics too. I haven't read any of the other books in your chain, but I think all of them sound interesting.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Helen. I hope some of them make it to your TBR.
DeleteThanks for the reminder about Adelaide's Women's Pages - I always meant to read it but somehow it fell off my radar.
ReplyDeleteI can safely say that if you enjoyed All That I Am, you'll equally enjoy Stasiland - it's a fascinating book.
You're welcome! I didn't know Adelaide's book existed until I saw Purman's advertised. It definitely slipped under my radar.
DeleteI've reserved Stasiland at the library. You're comment was the push I needed to add this to my TBR.
DeleteI’m really looking forward to reading Purman’s The Women’s Pages soon, I wonder if it has much in common with Adelaide’s book.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your chain.
I hope you enjoy Purman's book. Although I've not read Adelaide's book, I have read some of the reviews. Both books have similar themes.
DeleteGreat chain! I am adding The Words I Never Wrote, The Women's Pages, and The Pearl of York to my TBR immediately. I have always been fascinated by Guy Fawkes - I seem to recall his being mentioned in E. Nesbit - and wrote about him in college.
ReplyDeleteThat's great! I hope you enjoy all three. I've only read Nesbit's The Railway Children, and that was a long time ago, but I vaguely remember a reference to Bonfire Night.
DeleteNice post. All of your books sound interesting
ReplyDeleteI think I am in the minority of not being a big fan of Wuthering Heights. That is the only book I have read on your chain. Several of the others though are books I hope to read someday, including The Words I Never Wrote and Purnam's The Women's Pages. Thank you for sharing! I love how different all these chains are.
ReplyDeleteHere is mine if you are interested: https://www.literaryfeline.com/2020/04/six-degrees-of-separation-stasiland-to.html
We can't all like the same books. There are many classic novels that others rave about that I didn't like. I hope you get to read the others!
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