The Bookover's Library

One of the advantages of reading novels is often discovering aspects of history. On visits to  England we had been aware of Boots the Chemist stores. However, through reading The Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin, I know now that Boots the Chemist also housed circulating libraries in their shops from the late 1800s. This historical fiction novel also provides information about living in England during the Second World War. 

Emma Taylor lives in Nottingham. She is a widow with a young daughter and is trying to find a job to help pay the bills. However this is a time when women were required to leave work when they married. Emma's luck changes when she is employed at the Booklover's Library at the local Boots the Chemist store on the condition that people do not know that she is married. 

Mixing work with being a mother is not easy and Emma faces many challenges but is assisted by a friendly landlady who offers to look after Olivia after school. But then World War Two arrives with the threat of German air attacks and Emma realises that Olivia would be safer living with a family in the country.

This is a story about community, understanding difficult people and, of course, the value of books and reading in providing support to individuals. The knack of choosing the right book for a person is a special skill that Emma has. It is also a book about the effects of the Second World War on families and the efforts of communities to work together. It is also about how danger and challenges can create opportunities for people to work together and sometimes form new friendships and relationships.

Book-lovers Library - Gold Star Guides

North

The scene is primarily set at a boys school in Oxford but events also occur in other locations including London, Paris, Italy. The plot revolving around a web of relationships manipulated by North, a student, and observed by an unnamed narrator predictably ends in disaster. The author - Brian Martin, an English teacher - has interwoven throughout the book illusions to literature - the writings of Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Keats. The descriptions of places and of the daily life of the characters and the literary references make this book more than just an expose of relationships and human foibles plus a study of the control that North appears to have over the lives of others. A powerfully written book.