A London Year

Finished November 9

A London Year: 365 Days of City Life in Diaries, Journals and Letters compiled by Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison

This collection is fascinating, giving glimpses of life in London from the 16th century to the 21st century. The collection includes journalists, actors, nobility, royalty, writers, poets, musicians and many more. The subjects range widely from food and housing to entertainments, money, sex, friendship, society, geography, architecture, and politics. The length also varies, from single sentences to multiple pages, although most are a paragraph or two. 

The book is arranged by the days of the year, with some days having only one entry while others have several. I enjoyed trying to guess the rough year of the entry by the subject and language before looking to see it. I tended to read a month in a sitting, thinking about the time of year, and researching a little if I wasn't familiar with the diarist or writer. The compilers included occasional notes to explain some references to people or events they thought needed additional explanation.

A fascinating look at a city through the eyes of residents and visitors.

A Desperate Fortune

Finished December 15

A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley

This is a novel that I'd been meaning to read for a while since I'd read a later book featuring some of the same characters and really enjoyed it. This is a dual timeline novel, with the outer story in the present day and the inner one in the 1730s, set around the Jacobite community in Europe, exiled from England. 

In the present day IT specialist Sara Thomas is between jobs, when her cousin Jacqui who is a literary agent, approaches her about a freelance job. The job is not in her usual area, but instead involves working to break the code on a diary written by a young woman who was the daughter of a wigmaker in King James the Eighth's household in France. The first few paragraphs of the diary are written in English, but the rest is written in code, and one of Jacqui's authors is interested in using the diary to base his new history book on. 

Sara is on the autism scale, and has been tested as Asperger's, and she doesn't like working on a team, but more independently, which is why she is between jobs. Her affinity with numbers and patterns means that while she hasn't worked to break a code before, it is a natural area for her skillset. Sara will be working in the home of the woman who owns the diary in France, not far from Paris. 

As Sara works to break the code and transcribe the diary, we see adjust to the people in her new environment and make new friends. 

In the second timeline, Mary Dundas is a young woman whose father left her as a child with her French maternal aunt when her mother died. Her diary starts as she is contacted by her older brother to join his household, but she soon finds out that he hasn't told her his real reason for reuniting with her, and she finds a chance encounter with another woman passing through the same household she visits gives her confidence and tools to make the best of her new situation. 

Both woman have facility in more than one language and both face issues outside their comfort zone, and in environments unfamiliar to them. 

I really enjoyed seeing both of them develop. Mary's story is a true coming-of-age tale even though she is in her early twenties, as she has lived in her aunt and uncle's household alongside their children for most of her life. Sara's story also has coming-of-age aspects, even though she is older, as she learns to use the skills her brain has dealt her, find ways to face those times she struggles without being embarrassed, and gains in her confidence on the romantic front. I hope to see more following both these women. 

A Chill in the Air

Finished February 12
A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940 by Iris Origo

This diary was a fascinating look into the experience of being in a country at a very uncertain time. Iris Origo was the daughter of a British mother and an American father. Her father died when she was a young child, and left instructions that she not be raised in either of her parent's home countries, but somewhere else, where she could be free of nationalistic feeling. He suggested Italy, His widow, Iris's mother Sybil followed his advice. She rented, then bought a villa in the hills above Florence and raised Iris there. Iris was a debutante three times, in Florence, London, and New York, but she fell in love with an Italian, Antonio Origo. Together, they defied both their families' plans for them and bought an estate in southern Tuscany that was in very bad shape. The estate included twenty-five farms. The young couple were determined to return the land to fertility and its inhabitants to prosperity. Following the death of her young son Gianni in 1933, she spent some time away, mostly in England, but was back home at the estate by the time that war rumours were beginning.
Iris's godfather was William Phillips, the American Ambassador in Rome, and she had a multitude of other highly placed connections, both socially and politically. She had befriended Virginia Wolff during her time in London, and both she and Antonio were well-liked among the local people.
This diary is about her feelings and reactions to what is going on politically and was meant for her eyes alone, as she sorted through what was happening around her. It doesn't include her private life at all. She kept another diary later in the war covering the years 1943-1944 and it was published in 1947, showing the actions of many of the Italian people during this time, and doing much good for the country's reputation following the war.
I was fascinated by this book, and really got a sense of what was happening, from the feelings of the people for Mussolini, the propaganda that was distributed, and the uncertainty for the future.