History – Cristina Sanders' blog

Atmosphere – book review

Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Interesting book on the life of an astronaut in training. In 1980, NASA is a male dominated place with the door just beginning to open to the ladies. Sometimes this inclusion feels very modern, with non-gender-specific spewing in zero gravity, sometimes it is fraught with the same old-fashioned misogyny that made the 1980s a confusing time to be a woman. During training, both physical and academic, Joan Goodwin excels. She also fails to fall for the many handsome and smart male astronauts who try to pick her up, and discovers (with surprise, having never thought of this before) that her inclinations lie elsewhere. She falls in love with a fellow astronaut. Vanessa. For reasons that seems unfathomable to us now, this is unacceptable on the programme and wider world and, if discovered, might end her career.

What We Can Know

What We Can Know, by Ian McEwan

For a writer of historical fiction, a researcher, a historiographer, this book concerns things that obsess me. The wonderful Ian McEwan, in What We Can Know addresses all these questions that I confront every day : Is it true? Is the source reliable? Who recorded this and what was their motive? What did they miss? What’s been misinterpreted? What aren’t they saying? What happened to the records? Can I assume that…?

The Adversary–book review

The Adversary, by Michael Crummey

I was recommended The Adversary by Phil of Wardini Books who knows what I like and what might challenge me. I’ll tell this one in her words: “It’s miserable. Absolutely. It’s so dark and violent and they all lead such horrible lives and it’s historical and there are old ships and pirates and oooh, I read it and thought of you straight away.” Is this how she sees me? I mean, I love Catherine Robertson, too, and not a shipwreck in sight. But I’ve read and been inspired by many books on Phil’s recommendation, so off I went with The Adversary under my arm. Good God.

My Three Rivers – book review

My Three Rivers, by Shirley Bagnall Metcalfe

This book was a real surprise. Shirley Bagnall Metcalfe’s book on life in NZ’s early outback is subtitled “Jottings of a rural woman 1884-1968”. It sounds like it could be a bit staid. A little bit domestic. Grandmotherly, perhaps. But Shirley is a tour de force, a gutsy and practical woman with a hell of a life story and a cup that is never half-empty, despite the extremes of her life, but always, just like those bloody rivers, filled right to the brim and overflowing. She has gusto, does Shirley, and has a young, friendly voice. I wish we’d been friends. I’d have followed her anywhere.

The Household – book review

The Household, by Stacey Halls

Dickens only appears in the background of this story, although the stamp of his concerns and values are everywhere. The Household is the story of historic Urania Cottage, an establishment set up by Dickens in the mid 1840s for ‘fallen women’, told through the eyes of two of the women and also their benefactrix, Angela Burdett-Coutts. So much misogyny in that word ‘fallen’ when you’d think falling is something a woman is capable of doing on her own. Expressions like The girls fell pregnant” and “…poor Lydia Rice had started a child” manage, so wonderfully, to excuse men of responsibility entirely.

At Urania Cottage the aim is to help these women rise up and help themselves by teaching them domestic skills before sending them off to Australia, God help them, to find useful jobs and husbands. Help both noble and patronising in that ridiculous Victorian way that pulls your heart.

Songbirds of Florence–book review

Songbirds of Florence by Olivia Spooner

Like a very many others, Songbirds of Florence is in my Christmas shopping basket. It’s a gift for a darling Italian friend, who is far too busy this week to read my posts. I think everyone is buying this book (and it was still at number one on 14th December, so they really are) for one simple reason. Because it will make the recipient feel good. Merry Christmas!

The Writing Desk – Book Review

The Writing Desk, by Di Morris

I bought this hardcover book on sight at the launch. I want it on my bookshelves immediately to start showing to people. The book itself feels like a treasure, a brand new presentation of an old world, with heavy shiny paper, crisp print and a sharp layout, illustrating a family story from the 1850s to the current day. There are old photos and copies of telegrams, letters, tickets, and all sorts of ephemera, full-page background designs in a range of heightened sepia and all overlaid with panel-squares of exquisite drawings and minimal text, just enough to tie a story through all the pictures. And what a story.

Turning History into Fiction

Talking in Ōkiwi Bay

It was a real honour to be invited to speak at the Eastbourne Historical Society’s 2024 AGM, held yesterday. This is a very active society full of researchers, historians and writers whose lives revolve around the eastern bays of Port Nicholson, and yes, I felt a decided frisson in the meeting being held on the edge of what was Ōkiwi Bay, the stomping ground of my man, Ōkiwi Brown, himself. Or their man Ōkiwi Brown, I should say. They were a delightful audience, many bought a copy of my book and I do hope they jump right into the text and start arguing with it. I’ve already had one great lead to follow up – ‘who shot Burke’s wife?’ was a question from the floor I couldn’t answer (love those) but has me buzzing now. I’ve posted a transcript of the talk, here: Turning History into Fiction.

The Girl From London – book review

The Girl From London, by Olivia Spooner

I started this on a Tuesday night and ended up crying in a café on Thursday morning. I can’t remember when I’ve been so moved by the ending of a story. There is a book within the book. When the former ended a bit too neatly I was a slightly disbelieving, until I realised that actually, well, I’m giving no spoilers, but it’s a war story, after all. I’m not usually known for my tears.

The whole story ties in well with my current interest in stories of those who immigrated to New Zealand down the years, and why they came. Children evacuees from London bombings? I had no idea. Can you imagine sending your children out of a bomb zone, and not to the close countryside, which would be wrenching enough, but through a war-infested sea to an unknown land at the far ends of the earth? And yet people did.

Love In The Time of Cholera–book review

Love in the time of cholera, by Gabreil Garcia Marquez

Love in the time of Cholera is different to every other book I read and for that, alone, I am glad to have read it. Set across decades around the turn of the 20th Century, amid the plagues, wars and the environmental catastrophes of Caribbean Columbia, the story is of lives full of lusty passion. The thing is, I originally read this book in 1985 when it first came out and I was young and naive. Times have changed and I have changed and in the post ‘me too’ environment ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ feels like a misnomer. ‘Dysfunctional sexual obsession in the time of Cholera’ is more accurate, though not so catchy a title.

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