Happiness in Reading with Style

Nov 25, 2023 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, twenty-first-century, 5-star-reads, women, from-friends

The Goodreads description tells too much, I think. But maybe it was what made me pick up this book.

Dr. Attila Asare is a world renown psychiatrist who has published several papers. PTSD in the Non-combat Population is one title I remember. I suppose I remember it because we always think of PTSD as relating to soldiers returning from war. Attila is, of course fictional. Every word I read of him in this made me believe that he exists even if by another name. It wasn't just that he is from Accra, G The Goodreads description tells too much, I think. But maybe it was what made me pick up this book.

Dr. Attila Asare is a world renown psychiatrist who has published several papers. PTSD in the Non-combat Population is one title I remember. I suppose I remember it because we always think of PTSD as relating to soldiers returning from war. Attila is, of course fictional. Every word I read of him in this made me believe that he exists even if by another name. It wasn't just that he is from Accra, Ghana nor that he is at least 6 foot 6 inches tall. Somehow I could hear his voice when he spoke and a laugh from deep in his chest.

Jean Turane is a wildife biologist from the US with a specialty in urban wildlife. She has a contract in the UK to study urban foxes. She, too, is fictional but also so well drawn that such a person surely exists in real life. Having gotten permission from her landlord she has accessed the roof in her building, set up raised beds for vegetables and also created a small "meadow" with flowers. There is a bench and a table where she feeds wild birds. She found that her pay for her study doesn't quite meet her costs in London. So, with her gardening knowledge she has a small business called Wild Spaces to create similar spaces on roofs or terraces.

These two bumped into each other, quite literally. Then met again, again by happenstance. Through a series of vignettes we get to know them as individuals. The novel is not linear. There are long passages that describe scenes from their lives before the 2014 week of the present.

In addition to the excellent characterizations I very much liked Forna's writing style. I like being challenged to having to look up the occasional vocabulary word. There might have been a 1/2 dozen in this. One I remember because I think, living in timber country, I should have known. pol·lard ˈpä-lərd
: a tree cut back to the trunk to promote the growth of a dense head of foliage

I have marked her The Memory of Love as wish list while marking this title as 5-stars. It is the best thing I've read recently. ...more

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Jan 26, 2024 Rosemary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Attila is a Ghanaian psychiatrist, visiting London for a conference. Jean is an American zoologist making a study of urban wildlife. The foxes have migrated into the city from the countryside; the parakeets have come here too, somehow. Almost all of the characters, human and animal, have converged on London from other places, and it gives a view of the city that we rarely get in novels, reflecting the 21st-century city as something very different from the images that persist in our culture of th ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Kazen marked it as did-not-finish

Shelves: its-not-you-its-me

This is an 'it's not you it's me' book - I recognize that the writing is beautiful, but there simply isn't enough happening to keep me interested. DNFed at 60%. ...more

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