Review & How To Read S by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams

Have you ever held a book in your hands and not known how to read it? I have and it was a completely new experience. S was written by Doug Dorst but it was conceived by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Fringe) and the author is often listed as Dorst or Abrams or both.

Brace yourself because it's about to become complicated. The book is called S and consists of a hardback book called Ship of Theseus by V.M. Straka. (Confused yet?) Inside this beautifully produced hardback edition of Ship of Theseus are margin notes between two people, Eric and Jen.

You can easily identify the contributors from their handwriting style, and the first margin notes in pencil belong to Eric, then Jen finds the book and begins to leave her notes. As the book continues, the colour of ink they use changes several times, indicating the point in time at which they left their comments, some of which are even on the same page. You can think of this as a long conversation between two people over time as they leave their comments inside the book in the library for the other person to pick up. You also need to suspend your disbelief that two students would continue their protracted conversation in this time consuming and convoluted fashion rather than moving to a texting platform.

The conversation discusses the book within a book Ship of Theseus and the author Straka in addition to their personal lives and are colour coded as follows:

• Eric's notes before meeting Jen are in pencil.
• Eric is then using black ink and Jen's replies are in blue ink.
• Eric than uses green ink and Jen uses orange.
• Eric changes to red and Jen uses purple ink.
• Finally, Eric and Jen both use black ink.

As if that wasn't enough, throughout the book are various inserts that further add to the story. They include items like postcards, letters, newspaper cuttings, photographs and even a napkin. When I bought the book it came in a lovely slip case and the items were evenly dispersed throughout the book. I tried to keep them from falling out when I started reading but it soon became apparent that was going to be impossible. I frustratingly considered making a list detailing the page number location for each item but thankfully a helpful reader had already done that. (Check out the Ship of Theseus Wiki where you can see each of the inserts and if you zoom in you can see the margin notes between Eric and Jen).

Oh, and did I mention there are also footnotes? THIS is why I had no idea where to start reading S. When considered as a whole, S is a genre busting and revolutionary interactive book and puzzle in one and it's been staring me down on my bookshelf for far too long.

I wondered if I should read Ship of Theseus first. Should I read the margin notes as I go, or read the colour coded conversations in chronological order? Should I look at the inserts at the relevant page or study them at the end?

I'm not kidding when I say that I had to turn to Dr Google and found that those who love this book recommend reading Ship of Theseus first, without marginalia or inserts. Some reviewers recommend reading S a total of 4-6 times in order to fully appreciate it, Ship of Theseus first, then again with the first coloured margin notes, then again with the following coloured marginalia and inserts and so on. Phew!

So it was with a great deal of trepidation that I began reading and what I discovered immediately is that my eyes naturally drifted to the comments from Eric and Jen in the margins. I couldn't help it! I also found myself reading the footnotes and their abstract nature and tiny font annoyed me.

The basic plot is that the protagonist has amnesia, and finds himself kidnapped and taken to a ship. Those familiar with the ancient Greek paradox that questions whether an object remains the same if all components of it are completely replaced over time will be nodding in recognition. If every part of a ship is removed and replaced is it still the same Ship of Theseus? And if a ship is constructed from the parts removed, is that also the Ship of Theseus? And if so, which is the true Ship of Theseus?

Our protagonist ends up on this ship that is constantly changing but I didn't find an answer to this thought experiment because the plot was too bizarre. On a quest from the beginning to find out who he is and where he's from, the protagonist struggles to survive and ends up fighting what he considers to be a just cause. And then at the end he decides he no longer cares who he was/is, ummm WTF?

There were some moments of good writing I enjoyed, like this character observation about a newly met companion:

"Osfour has kept up a steady patter of nonsense (bland and meandering stories about people S. does not know, complaints about his digestive health, and exegeses on the volatile price of a particular tea and the aphrodisiac qualities of a particular wine), the constancy of which S has come to find companionable." Page 231

While all of this is happening, Eric and Jen are discussing the author V.M Straka and exploring a conspiracy theory as to the true identity of the reclusive left-wing writer.

"What does it all add up to, this farrago of images and words and voices and lives and nonsense and rants and fever-dreams and soliloquies and abject lies? What is he making, line by line, page by page?" Page 310

This quote from the book pretty much sums up the entire reading experience for me. I love the detailed concept of a central story, the layered conversations between two readers in the margins along with the intriguing variety of inserts, however the plot was too fantastical and impenetrable for me to become invested.

I'm guessing the moral is to fight against evil wherever we find it, and even if we don't believe we can stop it, every individual should at least try. You could apply this universal message to politics, environment and conflict throughout the world, but once I realised I didn’t particularly enjoy the central story, I found I had very little interest in pursuing Eric and Jen’s conversations about the book or their interest in the author’s identity or associated conspiracy. Nor did I want to spend more valuable reading time exploring this another 3-4 times just in case I was missing a transformational reading experience.

The production value alone is worth buying this book and why it'll remain proudly on my bookshelves but ultimately I've decided not to continue the reading process.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters

* Copy courtesy of National Library of Australia Publishing *

Intro

Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters contains a small collection of letters from the archives held by the National Library of Australia and is just a tiny sample of the millions of letters in their extensive collection.

A variety of letters have been chosen covering a breadth of topics and were given to contemporary writers who were asked to use them as an inspiration to respond. They each did so by writing their own letter to a recipient of their choice and these were then grouped together in chapters.

In a tribute to the book I've decided to write my review in the form of a letter.

Letter to NLA

Dear National Library of Australia,

I haven't visited any of your four sites, yet I greatly admire the important work you do to preserve Australia's culture and history. I've long been a lover of letters and snail mail since I wrote in to Dolly Magazine as a teenager asking for a pen pal. I enjoyed reading your latest publication Postscript - Life, Love and Loss in Australian Letters and wanted to share my thoughts.

My favourite letter in this collection was the one from 17 year old student John Ian Wing to the Chairman of the Games Committee in charge of the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics. In his letter, John praises the friendliness of Melbourne people and suggests a march during the closing ceremony that is completely different to the one that took place during the opening ceremony. He proposes the athletes march as one nation, walking freely and waving to the public. In that way, John observes that 'war, politics and nationality will be all forgotten' and the whole world could be made as one nation creating 'a great occasion for everybody and no one would forget it'.

The Chairman loved the idea and John's suggestion was immediately adopted, creating a new Olympic tradition that we continue to enjoy today. I especially loved John's endearing diagram of how it could work.

Shelley Ware is an author, media presenter, educator and Mum and she was paired with this letter, choosing to write a letter to her son. In it she draws on John's vision for unity in a divided time to her son's moral compass and search for truth beyond the headlines expressed in his artwork. This was a terrific pairing and I really enjoyed it.

Another stand out was the letter from Sir John Monash in 1906 to his 13 year old daughter, narrating almost every aspect of her upcoming journey by train and then boat from Spencer Street Station (now Southern Cross Station) to the property of Canally on the Murray River.

Today you might consider his approach evidence of overparenting, but it's clear he loves her dearly and I couldn't help smiling at his advice for when she boards the boat on the Murray River:

"On settling down on the boat, I should advise you to to go bed at once, because you will, no doubt, be very tired, and the scenery is not very interesting for the first few miles. So you had better go to bed comfortably before the boat starts and do not stop up yarning, but get to sleep and tell the Stewardess to wake you quite early - say 7 a.m. - so that you can enjoy the beautiful river scenery for an hour or two before reaching Windomal." Page 26

His letter runs for pages and it made me wonder how many times he'd taken that trip but I didn't see the relevance of the two letters that followed by the late Judith Wright. While detailing the birth of her child Meredith and her subsequent recovery in hospital, I wasn't entirely sure how that related to a parent separated from their child or preparing a child for a life changing journey. However the letter from Maggie Mackellar to her adult daughter certainly embraced the spirit of the letter from Monash in her well expressed anxiety around her daughter travelling far away and the memories of her childhood the absence created.

It must have been difficult for your staff to create a longlist of letters for this project from your extensive archives. Where to start? How long did it take? I've heard from reliable sources that your staff chose letters of interest based on the identity of the sender or the recipient, the story or the writing itself. Then a generous list of potential respondents was collated, drawn from those with an existing relationship to the library, visiting writers or those who might have an interesting angle on a response.

I was pleased to see one of my favourite Australian authors included, Kate Forsyth and enjoyed her response to Jane Austen's letter. I wonder, was she able to view the original in person or online? I bet she would have been thrilled to see it.

I had fun devising my own shortlist of modern authors I'd love to see in a letter writing project like this and the fact that Postscript comes in at <130 pages, surely means there was room for more? Perhaps some of the invitees were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the brief and suffered a touch of analysis paralysis. I did find myself wishing for contributions from more well known Australian authors, as you know, we certainly have a plethora of Australian talent in that regard. Or, I fancy you might be considering a second edition, although you'll have to come up with a better title than Post Postscript; I don't think that'll catch on.

Let me know if you want to see my shortlist of modern respondents, but in the meantime, congrats on an engaging collection.

Yours Affectionately,

Carpe Librum!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey

This was a brilliant read! The Secret Rooms - A True Gothic Mystery by Catherine Bailey is the result of a tonne of research delivered in a gripping narrative non fiction style that had me telling multiple people about it before I'd even finished.

If you'd asked me if I cared about the life of the 9th Duke of Rutland and his family, I'd have said no. What about the history of Belvoir Castle? I'd probably have given it a Google, marvelled at the impressive architecture, looked at any available images of the interiors and then moved on. So why did I pick this book up? In one word? The blurb! (Or is that two words?) The blurb contained a really good mystery I wanted to know more about and I love when rooms are locked for decades and then re-entered.

In 1940, John the 9th Duke of Rutland was one of Britain's wealthiest men, yet he died holed up in the servant's quarters of Belvoir Castle. Living out his last days secluded in an area comprising five damp rooms, doctors firmly encouraged him to move to luxurious accommodations elsewhere in the castle but John refused.

After his death, John's son closed up the rooms and they remained locked and untouched for sixty years. Author and researcher Catherine Bailey was one of the first to be granted access to these rooms and there she discovered what John had been feverishly working on right up until his death. Of course I wanted to know, don't you?

The Secret Rooms was published in 2012 and it's mentioned in the blurb so it's not a spoiler to say that John was an obsessive collector and had been organising and cataloguing his family's correspondence. The family archive contained hundreds of files spanning nine hundred years of history and contained tens of thousands of documents. On closer inspection, the author discovered that letters for three distinct periods in John's life - in 1894, 1909 and 1915 - had been removed from the collection. Why? Was he trying to hide something? And what was it?

Bailey draws on the contents of the available letters and diary entries in addition to military records and other sources in order to piece together what happened in John's life during these periods that he was trying to conceal.

Belvoir castle is in Leicestershire and built in the Gothic style with 356 rooms and I loved learning about it. It's an impressive looking structure and thankfully the book includes a comprehensive floor plan which was incredibly useful.

"The servants - maids of all descriptions, odd-job men, footmen, the flag man, the hall porter, the telephone boy, the boiler stoker and the stewards' room boy - were seated on the two benches that ran either side of a long table beneath a photograph of King George VI." Page 14

Of course, this wasn't all of the servants, you also have the housekeeper, butler, valet, chaplain, coal carriers, watermen, watchmen, lamp men and more. It's like Downton Abbey on steroids.

"In 1899, the castle had a groom of chambers, a house steward, an usher of the hall, a chef, a pastry chef, a confectioner, a plate butler, a clockman, a steward's room boy - and housemaids, kitchen maids, scullery maids, footmen, odd-job men, and porters galore." Page 169

"In the castle's grounds, there were hundreds more: grooms, stable lads, dairy maids, studmen, brewers, rat catchers, mole catchers, millers, mechanics, gardeners, groundsmen, gamekeepers, river keepers, huntsmen, kennelmen, slaughtermen, stockmen, horsemen, farm hands and woodsmen." Page 169

Bailey explains that in 1914, there were thirty Dukes - the highest honour the Crown could bestow - and they enjoyed privileges that seem scarcely credible to today's reader. This family had ruled over the neighbourhood for eight hundred years and some of the scenes described of family funerals held on the estate were extraordinary.

The astute among you will have noticed that one of the gaps in John's family correspondence occurred during the First World War and it's fair to say that a good deal of the research Bailey relates takes place during the war. This may deter some readers, however the author strings the narrative together so well by including telegrams (damnation!) and letters that keep the pace trucking along and on topic.

Bailey takes the reader along for the ride and has distilled John's life to a ripping tale and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to the bottom of the three 'secrets'.

In the Acknowledgements section of the book, the author thanks her mother Carol for deciphering and typing out the many thousands of letters she found. I have so many questions about this and the book that I'm currently trying to track down the author in order to invite her to conduct an interview with me for Carpe Librum. Catherine, if you're reading this, I'd love to know more about your research for this book so please get in touch.

The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey contains family secrets and cover ups, overzealous matchmaking, military movements and misdeeds, cryptology, pathological behaviour, aristocratic abuse of power and a privileged way of life many of us cannot begin to comprehend.

Highly recommended and an unexpected contender for My Top 5 Books of 2026.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe

* Copy courtesy of Transit Lounge *

The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe is the story of two brothers living below the poverty line in a coastal town in Western Australia (WA). It's a short and punchy novel that takes place over the course of one night and I'll admit the structure took a little getting used to.

It's a third-person narrative that regularly dips into the character's internal perspective but is largely written in past tense with some past continuous tense. In addition, there are also letters back and forth from two female characters, one of whom is the mother of our two protagonists.

A narrator addresses the reader directly and offers to 'tell you the whole thing if you've got the right heart to hear it' but their identity and connection to the story or the characters as they pop in from time to time is unclear.

Here's an example where I love the first line, but the rest is confusing.

"You and I are together inside a comfortable room the height, width, and depth of a page. I can try to manipulate you into having the heart I want you to have by telling you that kind of heart is the right kind. But you get to pick what you believe and what you value. You're alone with that choice as much as I'm alone when I decide what to tell you about these skinny boys.
As much as Gark and Pell were alone with their choices about what they valued, what ending they picked to aim at, and what to do with that ridiculous cross." Page 100

Is the narrator telling me I can think and decide for myself? Don't I already do that? And isn't that true for all stories? I often found myself wondering if the story needed this narrator at all.

The inclusion of 80s pop and mysteries of philately that piqued my interest in the blurb are brief - at less than 200 pages it is a short book after all - while Joshua's fascination with the religious meaning in We Built This City by Starship reminded me a little of Patrick Bateman's obsession with music in American Psycho.

The writing also reminded me many times of Tim Winton in terms of the male protagonists living below the poverty line, struggling with their underdog status in the world and living hand to mouth. More than that though, the dialogue and setting in a coastal town in WA in addition to themes of drugs, crime and religion was definitely Wintonesque in my opinion.

Back to the book and the novel has a satisfactory conclusion but the narrator never jumps back in to finalise the story, provide perspective or guide our thoughts about any of the events.

My critique of the story over, I always read the author's Acknowledgements section and there were several issues in this one that affected my overall enjoyment of the book and I'll attempt to outline them here.

The relationship between the brothers was moving and their desperate and ongoing hunger and lack of food or adequate shelter made me feel quite uncomfortable while reading; a testament to the skill of the author. In the Acknowledgements, Fyfe tells us that The Cross Thieves started as an 'impulse to write a neo-epic about people suffering food insecurity' which made perfect sense although there was no resolution or call to action about the issue in the novel, it just 'was'.

Fyfe mentions that the Foodbank's Hunger Report noted that 15% of Australians were experiencing food insecurity in 2018 but a quick Google tells me the figure is now 20% according to the 2025 report. Giving us data that is 8 years old when recent data is more compelling was a lost opportunity.

It's a minor oversight, but the author goes on to claim these problems are easily within reach of solution and that the houseless could be provided with shelter, the hungry fed and the welfare rate increased for a fraction of the price of nuclear submarines. As a Veteran of the ADF, this certainly ruffled my patriotic feathers but acknowledge this is the view of many Australians. While I don't agree with the author's politics, I understand his desire to use this platform to spread his message. Pity there wasn't any advice or resources for those readers motivated to take action other than talk about it on social media, email politicians and take to the streets in protest.

Finally, the author also mentions the following in the Acknowledgements:

"The Cross Thieves is written in a little known (and very old) structure called ring composition. It's not very important that you know what that is, just that it's bloody hard to do." Page 199

Despite a BA in Literature, I readily admit I hadn't heard of ring composition before and even after attempting to educate myself on the basics, I wasn't able to recognise elements of this in the novel. It felt condescending for the author to state that it wasn't 'very important' for the reader to know what it is. In my opinion, it's not important at all! It wasn't relevant to the plot and surely it's enough for those readers who do recognise the achievement to do so as part of their overall appreciation of the book. It seemed to me the author was saying 'even if you have no idea what this is, you should be impressed by my writing ability.'

Perhaps if the author had set aside the difficult task of writing in ring composition and spent more time clarifying the role of the narrator I'd have enjoyed the story of Pell and Gark a lot more. They were certainly compelling characters.

All of the above led me to draw the conclusion that The Cross Thieves by Alan Fyfe is best enjoyed by frequent readers of literary fiction able to recognise the achievements of little known writing structures who also appreciate a healthy dose of politics with their fiction.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Carpe Librum!

Review: Cape Fever by Nadia Davids

* Copy courtesy of Simon & Schuster *

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids is a gothic tale of desire and revenge set in 1920s South Africa. Soraya is hired as the live-in house maid and companion to Mrs Hattingh in a grand house in an unnamed British colony which could easily be Cape Town.

The novel begins in a seemingly familiar upstairs downstairs historical fiction style plot I've read and loved before. The list of daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly chores Soraya is expected to carry out feed this fascination and the class distinction is clear.

Separated from her betrothed and letting Mrs Hattingh believe she can't read or write, Soraya accepts a generous offer from her employer to write a letter to him once a week on her behalf. This becomes a weekly ritual for both women that seems genuine and generous in the beginning as they sit together, read his reply and compose a response.

"It's as though she's shown me a door, told me about the riches that lie beyond it, opened it very slightly, enough for the warm gold glow behind it to spill out, just a little, with both of us knowing she can shut it whenever she likes." Page 73

Soraya comes from a Muslim community and the juxtaposition of the two cultures is ever present, with Mrs Hattingh continuing to assert her dominance and superiority at every opportunity. The writing is evocative and I particularly enjoyed her description of smells. I'm going to include the full quote here so that you can enjoy it and I can read it again and again in the future.

Soraya notices that in big houses with high ceilings and long corridors, the smells of people disappear into nothing.

"In the Quarter, smells stay. There's the smell in our houses of incense burning both now and fifty years ago, of a thousand meals past and the ones bubbling on stoves this minute. Sticking to every wall, woven into every curtain, the reek of chopped onions and pressed garlic, the trace of scattered methi, diced chilies, dried bay leaves; of spices - whole, roasted, ground, cast in hot oil - and of meat braising, bones boiling, fat spitting, broth cooking, sugar burning, rose water steaming, tea brewing, mint leaves just torn, ginger beer just poured. It's the smell of more in good times and of keeping an eye in lean ones. In our house, also, the whiff of my mother's soaps, the sweet jasmine my father planted at the front gate, the sticky heat of my and my sisters' sweat, the rush of the tides my brother brings back with him from a day at the beach and the fish he carries, still on the hook, sea fresh, glassy-eyed, salt crusted, scales shining." Pages 30-31

After reading this I desperately wanted to visit Soraya's house and inhale some of those scents, and absorb the swirl of life and history that had taken place there.

Constantly in each other's company, Soraya is unable to leave her position as her family desperately need her wages to get by, yet the relationship between the two women slowly begins to sour until it reaches an exciting and unexpected climax.

"She walks away, her slight frame straight, arms soft and graceful, once a girl who would have practiced with a book on her head, and I marvel that she can so easily show me her back when the kitchen is full of knives." Page 151

Cape Fever by Nadia Davids is a slow burn gothic psychological suspense thriller about class, colonialism, power, loneliness, love, loss, grief, secrets and betrayal and I loved it. Highly recommended.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an epistolary novel, told entirely in letters to and from our main character, 73 year old Sybil Van Antwerp who has been writing and sending letters out into the world since she was nine years old. Sybil writes to her brother, best friend, daughter, neighbour and many more recipients besides, and some of these letters - and their charming replies - are included in the book.

Sybil writes and sends letters to guard against the impermanency of email and text messages and her writing is witty and full of humour. Her correspondence includes many references to the books she and others are reading which I found interesting. I also enjoyed the clever reference to 84 Charing Cross Road in one of the letters from Sybil's daughter who sees the book by Helene Hanff and thinks of her mother.

Sybil believes letters are the original form of civility in the world, the preservation of which has to be of some value we cannot yet see.

"Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?" Page 44

The concept of finding an old letter like this reminds me of the letter from 7 year old James VI of Scotland in the 1570s thanking his foster mother for sending him some fruit. If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to check it out. We just never know how long our letters will remain on this earth do we? I hope that if anyone has any letters or cards from me they no longer want to keep they'll offer to return them before sending them to landfill. It'd be quite the trip down memory lane, that's for sure.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Sybil and her circle of family and friends and how her life at 73 undergoes subtle yet significant changes throughout the book as her years progress.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a moving, uplifting and entertaining read and I can highly recommend it.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks

The Good Wife of Bath - A (Mostly) True Story by Karen Brooks is inspired by The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, but the only thing you need to know about Chaucer's classic written in the late 1300s is that it contains 24 stories told by pilgrims and that The Wife of Bath was one of them.

I read The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer before I started writing reviews here which makes it at least 20 years ago. It felt like quite the accomplishment at the time and I remember enjoying it a whole lot more than I thought I would. Chaucer's The Wife of Bath is the story of a woman named Eleanor who has been married five times and Australian author Karen Brooks brings her to life in this historical fiction re-telling.

It's 1364 and at the age of 12 years old Eleanor is married off to a sheep farmer against her will. I immediately admired Eleanor's young spirit and her attempt to embody her Papa's advice, even at such a young age:

"You have to create opportunities where you can. No matter what life hurls at you, child, catch it. If it's shit, turn it into fertiliser. If it's insults, throw them back. Grip opportunity with both hands and ride it like a wild colt until you've tamed it. You've come from nothing, and unless you make something of yourself with what you're offered, it's to nothing you'll return." Page 22

This advice is applicable to every reader and definitely forms the key to Eleanor's character which serves her well in life.

At 541 pages in length, The Good Wife of Bath is a long novel but it's broken down into each of the five marriages and each time Eleanor marries her life changes significantly; sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

As her circumstances were improving, I was just as giddy with possibility and optimism as Eleanor and equally frustrated and downcast when the wheel of fortune turned. Eleanor takes several pilgrimages and is a flawed character trying to learn from her - many - mistakes while protecting the people she cares about. There's much character growth and some moments that made me stop to contemplate, like this one I hadn't heard before:

"What's good for gander is not for goose to ponder." Page 232

Eleanor is very distantly related - by marriage - to Geoffrey Chaucer and calls him cousin. As a supporting character he pops up from time to time and as he catches up with Eleanor or they exchange letters, we hear about his career highlights and writing projects.

About halfway through the novel, we learn Chaucer has been writing several stories:

"I have. I'm using the idea of a pilgrimage to tie the tales together.' I slapped my thigh in delight. 'I've been on many of those!' 'Aye, and your letters have been most entertaining. Inspirational too. 'Twas you who gave me that idea as well. As you've so often noted, a pilgrimage brings together all manner of people in a shared adventure.'" Page 323

Those who know The Canterbury Tales well will enjoy the flashes of recognition and various easter eggs along the way, but those who aren't familiar with the classic or can't remember it won't experience an absence of understanding or enjoyment; Brooks cleverly includes all readers.

The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks is extremely well researched and the author brings the middle ages to life in a vivid and engaging writing style. While it was a long novel, I would have happily spent more time with Eleanor if I could have.

I thoroughly recommend The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks for historical fiction lovers and it's definitely a solid contender for My Top 5 Books of 2025. Thanks to my friend Andrea for the copy!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: All That Impossible Space by Anna Morgan

All That Impossible Space by Anna Morgan is a young adult novel about Lara Laylor, a teenage girl in Year 10 at a school in Melbourne. It doesn't sound like the type of book I usually read does it? But when I tell you Lara's history teacher gives each of his students an unsolved mystery from history as part of an assignment and Lara chooses the Somerton Man, you can see the instant appeal.

The Somerton Man was an unidentified man found dead on a beach in Somerton Park near Glenelg, Adelaide in December 1948. He didn't have any ID and the labels on all of his clothing had been removed. His cause of death couldn't be determined, but he died propped up and reclining with his legs crossed which made him look like he was resting or sleeping with a cigarette in his hand. Police circulated a photo of the man's corpse in suit and tie in an effort to identify him but his remains were never claimed. A plaster death mask was also taken of his body from the shoulders up prior to burial to assist in identification. This cast still includes hairs from his body which have since been DNA tested.

Adding to the mystery, a tiny scrap of paper with the printed words 'Tamám Shud' (meaning it is finished or it is done) was found rolled up in his pocket. The scrap had been torn from the page of a book which was eventually handed into Police after being found on the front seat of a car. What are the chances? The book had a series of letters inscribed in the back which have never been decoded as well as a phone number. The phone number was traced back to a nurse who lived 400m from where the Somerton Man's body was found but denied knowing him.

In the novel, Lara researches the mystery of the Somerton Man and considers the theories he was a European immigrant or a spy. Lara is ultimately glad the nurse chose to keep any knowledge she had to herself but I was yelling at the page while enjoying the reports and testimonials about the case interspersed throughout her first person narrative.

Naturally, the assignment takes a back seat as Lara negotiates problems in her social life, auditions for the school musical, deals with the absence of her older sister and looks into the mystery disappearance of her history teacher.

All That Impossible Space by Anna Morgan is a young adult epistolary coming of age novel but I'll admit being mostly there for the connection to the Somerton Man. Who do you think he was? I think he was a spy and knew the nurse.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Cuddy by Benjamin Myers

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers is an historical fiction novel told in a blend of writing styles, including: narrative prose, quotes from historical reference books, poetry, diary entries and even a play. Anticipating a novel about the life of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne told in a fictional first person point of view, Cuddy was an unexpected story.

Born in 634 AD in Northumbria (modern day Scotland), Cuthbert had been a monk, a prior and a bishop and was a hermit at the time of his death in 687 AD. Beloved in life, many came to pray at his grave at Lindisfarne and were healed. Deciding to elevate his remains as relics on the anniversary of his death, his body was found intact - hadn't decomposed - and he was declared a saint. Pilgrims visited the shrine for decades until Viking raids threatened the area.

Cuthbert's body was transferred to a coffin and transported by a dedicated group of worshippers seeking a safe resting place for their beloved saint. On the move until the year 995, a site was finally chosen and a series of churches were built to house St Cuthbert's remains. Construction of Durham Cathedral commenced in 1093 and still houses the Shrine of St Cuthbert today.

Pieced together from the non fiction quotes in the book, I share all of this because it's a fascinating slice of history and if you're still reading, it means you agree. Myers has created characters from each of these periods of Cuthbert's history in the wildly different formats mentioned above.

We hear from Cuthbert (affectionately known as Cuddy) early in the book but he's already close to death:

"Well now. You should have been here a candle or two ago. The scenes of despair amongst the monks at my final days of retreat to this bluff in the foaming ocean was quite the picture." Page 7

I love that phrase, 'a candle or two ago.' In Book I we join the religious folk in 995 AD carrying Cuthbert's remains and an orphan girl who has visions regarding his final resting place.

In Book II we jump to the year 1346 and through the eyes of the fletcher's wife, meet a stonemason engaged in building the great Durham Cathedral. The work of the mason and the history of the stone - then and now centuries later - was beautifully written:

"In the stone is yesterday's sun and the stories it has seen, not only of wandering holy folk and the fiery Norse, not only old white churches and milkmaids, galloping Frenchmen and the green men that took to the trees but other details not always pressed to the page by monks. Everything the stone has borne silent witness to is held within it now...... Rainstorms and quarrymen, Picts, plague pits and paupers, hawkers and jesters, skirling new life and coughing old death, archers and anglers, devils and angels, sunrises and sunsets, courting couples sitting on stone walls watching snowfall, villeins and franklin and wandering freemen, nets of cuttlefish and pails of crabs, sores and scabs, bed-bound mothers and gaoled fathers, babies - a thousand wailing babies - and church bells, cabbage soup and nettles and worms and sacks and jam and garlic and knives and deer and murder and toll gates and caravans and soothsayers and plums and coffin-makers and lepers and laughter and ice and logs and oats and sex and sin and Cuddy and Jesus and God." Page 237

I know that was a long quote, but it perfectly captures the awe and wonder I feel when gazing at a Cathedral built more than 1000 years ago and I want to be able to revisit these words again, even if I no longer have the book.

Leaving those characters behind to leap forward a few centuries, the Interlude was based on a haunting and shocking account of history. In 1650, Durham Cathedral was used as a prison by Oliver Cromwell to house 3,000 Scottish prisoners of war. Suffering in the cold without food or water, the prisoners destroyed the pews and burned the timber in order to keep warm. Devastatingly, 1,700 soldiers died from battle injuries, dehydration and starvation and were buried in mass graves nearby.

This is a disturbing chapter of history I knew nothing about but certainly won't forget, as the author has created a macabre play for the Interlude, whereby several soldiers being held captive engage in dialogue with eachother and the cathedral. Yes, you read that right.

It was a relief to reach Book III covering the period in 1827 when an arrogant Professor from Oxford travels to the Cathedral to oversee the disinterment of the saint in order to verify his remains are uncorrupted. Diary entries tell this tale and the character is haunted by his complicity and fears for his sanity. I felt the author's outrage at the desecration and believe the character met a satisfying fate. 

Book IV brings us to 2019 and it was perhaps an unnecessarily long tale to deliver the reader to Durham Cathedral and the tomb of St Cuthbert.

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers seemed to me to be the story behind the building of Durham Cathedral over time told through the lives of a handful of individuals:

"My story, and that of Fletcher Bullard, just one story in a thousand million stories that combine to define a place, concludes thusly:" Page 263

While brief, each serves as a complete story and while the reader may be reluctant to leave a character or point in time, their stories reach a natural conclusion of sorts.

A word on the layout as there were several techniques that were used - presumably - to impress but which I found slightly irritating. In one case, a character's visions were presented in one continuous paragraph with font that slowly reduced in size until it was barely readable by the end. Elsewhere, poetry was presented with varying alignment choices that left me cold, with just one word or sometimes even one letter per line. I guess you could say that while I enjoyed the mashup of writing styles within Cuddy, the unconventional layout choices fell short of the mark.

The descriptions of the cathedral from characters across time were incredible, with the 2019 character of Michael describing the vast edifice before him as enrapturing. It certainly had me pausing at certain times in the novel to research a fact or take a virtual tour of the cathedral and I'd love to visit in person one day, even just to see the sanctuary knocker.

"The face of the Sanctuary Knocker then, is that of the lonely miscreant, the damned, the doomed, the cursed, the blasted, the blighted, the bedevilled, the fated; he who shall live their life seeking God's eternal forgiveness alone." Page 197

Now that I've finished reading Cuddy, I believe it to be the complex history of Durham Cathedral rather than the story of a saint. This unique blend of fact and fiction and multiple writing styles felt original and is recommended for fans of Ken Follett and his series beginning with The Pillars of the Earth.

Prologue AD 687
Book I Saint Cuddy AD 995
Book II The Mason's Mark AD 1346
Interlude The Stone Speaks AD 1650
Book III The Corpse in the Cathedral AD 1827
Book IV Daft Lad AD 2019

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★