Lovely Literature

I love reading and I love books.  Always have.  So when I come across a book that I don’t want to end and can get thoroughly lost in, I get excited and want to tell everyone about it.  Here are three that I’ve read recently that I’ve found so beautiful and inspiring that I wanted to share them:

The Language of Flowers – Vanessa Diffenbaugh (p5-6)

I’m still reading this one and it’s amazing.  In a nutshell, it’s about a troubled girl who has spent her young life in and out of care.  The only way she can express her emotions is through the language of flowers, taught to her by the only guardian she has ever cared about:

‘For most of a decade I’d spent every spare moment memorizing the meanings and scientific descriptions of individual flowers, but the knowledge went mostly unutilized.  I used the same flowers again and again: a bouquet of marigold, grief; a bucket of thistle, misanthropy; a pinch of dried basil, hate.  Only occasionally did my communication vary: a pocketful of carnations for the judge when I realized I would never go back to the vine yard, and peony for Meredith, as often as I could find it.  Now, searching Market Street for a florist, I scoured my mental dictionary.

After three blocks I came to a liquor store, where paper-wrapped bouquets wilted in buckets under the barred windows.  I paused in front of the store.  They were mostly mixed arrangements, their messages conflicting.  The selection of solid bouquets was small: standard roses in red and pink, a wilting bunch of striped carnations, and, bursting from its paper cone, a cluster of purple dahlias.  Dignity.  Immediately, I knew it was the message I wanted to give.  Turning my back to the angled mirror above the door, I tucked the flowers inside my coat and ran…’

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson (p5-6)

Hilarious and completely bonkers.  As an example, one of this centenarian’s exploits is stealing a suitcase of money from a criminal and then accidentally freezing him to death in a meat freezer whilst he gets pissed on vodka with his pal.  Exactly.  This extract is from his escape:

‘Allan Karlsson hesitated as he stood in the flowerbed that ran along one side of the Old people’s Home.  He was wearing a brown jacket with brown trousers and on his feet he had a pair of brown indoor slippers.  He was not a trendsetter; people rarely are at that age.  He was on the run from his own birthday party, another unusual thing for a hundred-year-old, not least because being one hundred is pretty rare.

Allan thought about whether he should make the effort to crawl back in through the window to get his hat and shoes, but when he felt his wallet in his inside pocket, he decided that that would suffice.  Besides, Director Alice had repeatedly shown that she had a sixth sense (wherever he hid his vodka, she found it), and she might be nosing around in his room even now, suspicious that something fishy was going on.

Better to be on his way while he could, Allan thought, as he stepped out of the flowered on creaking knees.  In his wallet, as far as he could remember, he had a few hundred-crown notes saved, a good thing since he’d need some cash if he was going into hiding.

He turned to take one last look at the Old people’s Home that, until a few moments ago, he had thought would be his last residence on Earth, and then he told himself that he could die some other time, in some other place.’

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce (p18-19)

I know this is being well-publicised at the moment but if you haven’t read it yet, you really need to.  It’s about a retired man who wants to save his friend from cancer and so begins his ‘unlikely pilgrimage’.  This extract is the moment that he makes his decision:

‘The decision came at the same moment as the idea.  He was laughing at the simplicity of it.

“Tell her Harold Fry is on his way.  All she has to do is wait.  Because I am going to save her, you see.  I will keep walking and she must keep living.  Will you say that?”

The voice said she would.  Was there anything else?  Did he know visiting hours, for instance?  Parking restrictions?

He insisted, “I’m not in a car.  I want her to live.”

“I’m sorry.  Did you say something about your car?”

“I’m coming by foot.  From South Devon all the way up to Berwick-Upon-Tweed.”

The voice gave an exasperated sigh.  “It’s a terrible line.  What are you doing?”

“I’m walking,” he shouted.

“I see,” said the voice slowly, as if the woman had picked up a pen and was jotting this down.  “Walking.  I’ll tell her.  Should I say anything else?”

“I’m setting off right now.  As long as I walk, she must live.  Please tell her this time I won’t let her down.”

When Harold hung up and stepped out of the phone box, his heart was pounding so fast it felt too big for his chest.  With trembling fingers, he unpeeled the flap of his own envelope and pulled out the reply.  Cramming it against the glass of the kiosk, he scribbled a PS: Wait for me.  H.  He posted the letter, without noticing its loss.

Harold stared at the ribbon of road that lay ahead, and the glowering wall that was Dartmoor, and then the yachting shoes that were on his feet.  He asked himself what in heaven’s name he’d just done.

Overhead a seagull cracked its wings and laughed.’