The Thirteenth Tale in Around the World

Dec 25, 2012 MiA rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, british-irish, books-about-books

Superbly written. A mystery that reads like a melody. Once I started it I was lured into a rabbit hole of mysteries that I didn't want out of. Although I'm reviewing this book a month later than when I finished it, it still dims every book I read this past month by comparison. The mystery, the psychology behind it and the oh-so-good writing. From the very first line till the very last I can't remember how many times my eyes watered simply because I didn't blink for long periods.

"There is someth

Superbly written. A mystery that reads like a melody. Once I started it I was lured into a rabbit hole of mysteries that I didn't want out of. Although I'm reviewing this book a month later than when I finished it, it still dims every book I read this past month by comparison. The mystery, the psychology behind it and the oh-so-good writing. From the very first line till the very last I can't remember how many times my eyes watered simply because I didn't blink for long periods.

"There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic."

And I couldn't agree more. And I couldn't blame Margaret Lea to be tempted by the offer.

The story is constructed like a book in the literal sense. There's the dust-jacket story that introduces you to the hard-cover-up story that binds together the main story. It might seem complicated but it's not. The writing kind of glides from one level to the other with ease and eloquence and without wordiness. I don't know how she worked this out but it was so good and far from sophomoric details or forced dialogue in the plot.

And, yes. It was a love letter to reading.

“I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.”
...
“The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.”

And it was true. And HUMAN. It's not one of those mysteries that revolve around ambition and viciousness. Every line mattered and every character was essential to the whole plot.

“Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.”

A really fantastic read for those who love books about books, or especially really good books about books. An exquisitely crafted story.
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Jan 06, 2014 Paul rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2014, book-vipers-monthly-read

This is a story about two people, Vida Winter a famous but recessive author, Margaret Lea daughter of a bookshop owner and little known biographer, and also about Angelfield a house where the March family, Isabelle, Charlie and the twins Adeline and Emmeline resided.

Miss Winter has particular requirements, and dictates her story to Margaret over the course of a number of days. As the story unfolds, Margaret starts to make her own investigations about this family at Angelfield House, the house it ...more

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