The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali

The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali

Read by Mozhan Marno

9 hours, 13 minutes

Published February 2020 by Gallery Books

Publisher's Summary: 

Roya, a dreamy, idealistic teenager living amid the political upheaval of 1953 Tehran, finds a literary oasis in kindly Mr. Fakhri's neighborhood stationery shop, stocked with books and pens and bottles of jewel-colored ink.

Then Mr. Fakhri, with a keen instinct for a budding romance, introduces Roya to his other favorite customer-handsome Bahman, who has a burning passion for justice and a love for Rumi's poetry-and she loses her heart at once. Their romance blossoms, and the little stationery shop remains their favorite place in all of Tehran.

A few short months later, on the eve of their marriage, Roya agrees to meet Bahman at the town square when violence erupts-a result of the coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future. In the chaos, Bahman never shows. For weeks, Roya tries desperately to contact him, but her efforts are fruitless. With a sorrowful heart, she moves on-to college in California, to another man, to a life in New England-until, more than sixty years later, an accident of fate leads her back to Bahman and offers her a chance to ask him the questions that have haunted her for more than half a century: Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me?

My Thoughts: 

In 2013, I read and reviewed Kamali's Together Tea and enjoyed it. With what's going on in Iran right now, it seemed like a good time to read another of her books. 

• As so often happens for me with dual story lines, I was more intrigued by the historical piece.
• I enjoyed being immersed in the history of Iran in the 1950's, and, through Bahman's letters, into the 1970's. 
• If this seems like a book that might interest you, I recommend the audiobook, if for no other reason than the pronunciation of the names. 
• Decades after Bahman and Roya are separated, both still harbor deep feelings for one another. Perhaps I'm too pragmatic, perhaps not as emotional as I like to think I am. I understand being nostalgic about past loves, but it's hard for me to buy into the idea that a love would still be so deep long, long after the parties are no longer together. It's a little bit critical that you buy into that concept in order to really to love the book. 
• There's enough here to keep me interested, especially once we got back to Bahman and the story of what really happened all of those years ago. 

Life: It Goes On - July 22

Happy Wednesday! Why yes, yes I am only getting to this three days late. And no, no I did not get any reviews posted last week. In fact, I have 4 reviews to finish and 8 that need to be started. I've been reading, but I'm beginning to wonder if my desire to blog has run its course after 17 years. 17 years?! I never would have thought I'd be doing this for 17 years when I posted that first introductory post. But I do still want to put down my thoughts about the books I read - may just need a better way to do them. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished John Kenney's I See You've Called In Dead, George Orwell's 1984, and Marjan Kamali's The Stationery Shop. Today I started Elizabeth Gilbert's All The Way To The River, which I picked up because it was available while I'm waiting for one of my holds to come in. 

Watched: The last of the World Cup matches, but nothing remarkable since then. 

Read: I finished Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say and George Saunders' Vigil. Tonight I'm starting Douglas Stuart's John of John. See - I told you I've been reading! 

Made: Ham and cheese wraps, pizzas, taco salads, nachos, and caprese pasta. 

Enjoyed: Lots of quiet time, got my hair done, went for ice cream and drinks with friends and Mini-him, and book club last night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: I've put a plan into motion that's convinced the Big Guy to work on the basement with me and I'm so excited to get started on it with him. I started this weekend and am making slow, but real, progress. I'm not using any of the methods I've learned over the years, but I think it will work well for us. 

Thinking About: In a week we will no longer be empty nesters. It's only for a few months, but it's definitely going to take some adjusting to for all of us. 

Feeling: Work has me feeling like we've had 3 Mondays this week. 

Looking forward to: We're going to see The Odyssey at the IMAX on Saturday. 

Question of the week: Have you seen it? If so, did you reread it before you went (or read it for the first time)?

Life: It Goes On - July 13

Happy Monday! Gracious, did yesterday ever get away from me! In fact, the entire weekend did. Mini-him is getting ready to move "home" for a few months so we've been working to get a bedroom ready for him to use and he has started moving things in here and to storage. I used to think I would always be eager to have one of my ducklings move home. Turns out, I'm not that eager after all. But you do what you need to do to help a kid out and it's only for a couple of months so we'll deal with it. And it has helped me get more things out of the house, so it's a win in that way. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished John Green's Everything Is Tuberculosis and started John Kenney's I See You've Called In Dead. 

Watched: More soccer and Enola Holmes 3. 

Read: I finished Dolan Perkins-Valdez's Happy Land and started Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say. 

Made: Lavosh pizza with Alfredo sauce, chicken, bacon, mushrooms, onion and mozzarella pearls. Delicious. Will I ever remember to make it again? Probably not. 

Enjoyed: Dinner out with the Big Guy at one of our favorite places and then movie night. 

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This Week I’m:  

Planning: Work will continue on making room for Mini-him while I can still convince BG to get rid of things to make room. 

Thinking About: A couple of trips we're hoping to make in the next few weeks. 

Feeling: Lazy today. 

Looking forward to: Spa day, a.k.a. getting my hair done. 

Question of the week: I just noticed cobwebs in my office and now I can't remember the last time I cleaned the walls in here. How often do you clean your walls? Do you dust them or wash them down every time? 

Perfume: The Story of A Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Perfume: The Story of A Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Translated from German by John E. Woods

Read by Nigel Patterson

9 hours

Published February 2001 by Vintage (originally in German in 1985)

Publisher’s Summary: 

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. 

My Thoughts: 

Some quick thoughts on a book that's been on my tbr for a very long time, but which I really did not enjoy.  I can't imagine what the description of the book was for me to have added it to my tbr, but it must not have been very detailed for me to have been interested in the book it ended up being. 

• I imagine this would be categorized as historical fiction, but there's definitely an element of horror to it. 
• While I didn't care for the book itself, I will say that Nigel Patterson's reading of it is excellent. 
• Suskind's writing is wonderfully descriptive and he's able to describe scents in a way that makes it possible for readers to actually imagine them. Unfortunately, the detailed descriptions are also very difficult to read when Suskind is writing about illness or murder. 
• The ending is just very weird. 
• I don't know anyone I would recommend this to; and, for me, it just became less and less something I wanted to read to the point I just wanted it to be done. Why did I not DNF it? Because I kept thinking it would turn into the book I thought I was going to get. 
• This was made into a movie in 2006, starring Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman. No surprise neither of them ever made a big deal of having starred in it and the reviews are not good. 

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Read by Juliet Stevenson

21 hours, 29 minutes

Published September 2014 by Riverhead Books

Publisher's Summary: 

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa-a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants-life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances's life-or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters's finest achievement yet.

My Thoughts: 

I picked this one up after I'd read Water's 2009 The Little Stranger and 2002 Fingersmith. It has languished on my bookshelves for years now, so when I saw it was available in audiobook just when I was needing a book, I didn't hesitate. 

You may have noticed that this book is 21 and a half hours long which means, for me at least, that a book is really going to have to a lot going on to keep a reader's interest. But this book is a slow-burn of a novel that managed to hold my interest for all of that 21 and an half hours. 

The book is, essentially, three parts. The front end becomes a love story, the middle a shocking jolt, and the last part more of a crime story which left me very much wondering how Waters was going to keep her heroine out of trouble, whether or not Lilian was to be trusted, and whether or not Lilian and Frances' relationship could survive. 

Waters' writing is superb, as ever. She paints a vivid picture of life after the Great War, particularly what it was like for women who had lost their husbands and their means of life. Frances and her mother, despite their circumstances, still believe themselves to be above, in station, the Barbers, despite the fact that the Wrays could not survive without the money the Barbers pay them. Frances has been forced to do all of the housework, but hides it from the neighbors (who surely know what is happening). The Wrays initially are very uncomfortable with the interactions they are forced to have with the Barbers. Leonard is brash and flirtatious with Frances, making her very wary of him. But she grows closer and closer to Lilian, despite their statuses, and it reopens Frances' past relationship with another woman which disgraced the Wray family. 

I can't get too far into explaining what happens beyond that without giving away too much. Suffice to say that the relationship between Frances and Lilian causes trouble that will put them both in danger and tests that relationship. 

Hopefully I've given you enough to understand that this book will not be for everyone, particularly given some intimate scenes. For me, that wasn't an issue; this is simply a different love story, filled with yearning and hope.