Coups de cœur at Bill & Rosa’s Book Room is an article that features a favorite selection our recent donations that are available for purchase.
COLD COMFORT FARM by Stella Gibbons Flora Post is orphaned at twenty and decides her only option is to descend on relatives – the doomed Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, where she takes each of the family in hand and brings order to their chaos.
What we think: This comical portrait of British rural life in the 1930s will have you roaring with laughter.
Available at the Book Room, 5€
The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes
In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return.
What we think: This is a remarkable fictional biography of the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, a meditation on the relationship between power and art and the composer’s wish to follow his personal vision in a totalitarian state.
Available at the Book Room, 5€
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, Eve Harris
19 year old Chani Kaufman lives in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community of Nort West London. She is about to marry a boy she scarcely knows. The rabbi’s wife has taught her what it means to be a Jewish wife, but Rivka has her own questions to answer as her own life and marriage fall apart. Buried secrets begin to surface in a story where everyone, young and not so young, has choices to make about love and desire.
What we think: Written with humor and warmth, this novel was long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and offers a fascinating glimpse into the closed world of the Ultra-Orthodox Jews living in London.
Available at the Book Room, 4€
The Clumsiest People in Europe, Todd Pruzan and Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer
Caustic, cranky, and inadvertently hilarious, the bestselling Victorian author Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer rarely left the house-but that didn’t stop her from writing several successful travel books. With volumes on Europe, Asia, and Africa and America, Mrs. Mortimer had something nasty to say about your ancestors, no matter where they had the misfortune of living. Todd Pruzan has assembled three of Mrs. Mortimer’s very forgotten classics into one volume, The Clumsiest People in Europe, a wild tour through the comically and horrifyingly misinformed prejudices of a unique Victorian eccentric.
What we think: Hilarious and unforgiving, absolutely worth reading.
Available at the Book Room, 7€
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
On the second floor of the famous F. G. Goode department store, in Ladies’ Cocktail Frocks, the women in black are girding themselves for the Christmas rush. Among the staff are Patty Williams with her wayward husband Frank, the sweet but unlucky Fay, faithful Mrs Jacob of the measuring tape, and Lisa, the new Sales Assistant (Temporary), who is waiting for the results of her Leaving Certificate. Across the floor and beyond the arch, Lisa will meet the glamorous Continental refugee, Magda, guardian of the rose-pink cave of Model Gowns. With the lightest touch and the most tender of comic instincts, Madeleine St John conjures a vanished summer of innocence.
What we think: A great novel, witty and insightful, a comic gem not to miss!
Available at the Book Room, 5€
The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin
In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn’t remember who he is, where he’s from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it’s as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they’re not the only ones. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She’s got six. But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
What we think: This is a thought-provoking, suspenseful but not scary read, with compelling characters, a unique book and a love letter to New York City
Available at the Book Room, 5€
The Trial A History From Socrates to O.J. Simpson, Sadakat Kadri
In an extraordinary history of the criminal trial, Sadakat Kadri shows with wit, legal insight and a travel writer’s eye for detail, how the irrationality of the past lives on in the legal systems of the present. A bold and brilliant debut from a prize-winning new writer.
What we think: This book is a mine of information, written with wit and in a lively style, it chronicles 4,000 years of courtroom drama, a fascinating read
Available at the Book Room, 4€
My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier
Orphaned at an early age, Philip Ashley is raised by his benevolent cousin, Ambrose. Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in making Philip his heir, knowing he will treasure his beautiful Cornish estate. But Philip’s world is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. There he falls in love and marries – and then dies suddenly in suspicious circumstances. Before long, the new widow – Philip’s cousin Rachel – arrives in England. Despite himself, Philip is drawn to this beautiful, mysterious woman. But could she have masterminded Ambrose’s death?
What we think: A complex and unnerving tale with strong Gothic and feminist undertones, a
masterpiece every bit as good as Rebecca.
Available at the Book Room, 5€
Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
The summer of ’28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma’s belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding.
What we think: Nostalgic and magic, written in Bradbury’s rich and poetic style, a warm and
enchanting read.
Available at the Book Room, 5€
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