Pierce, Patricia "Jurassic Mary"

Pierce, Patricia "Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the primeval monsters" - 2006

Ever since I read "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier, I've been interested in the life of Mary Anning who lived from 1799 to 1847 and was the first person who discovered dinosaur bones.

And this was on my wishlist, so my son bought it for me. It was just as nice as I had hoped.

A thorough account of the life of a young girl who would become one of the most important figure in discovering dinosaurs. But, because she was only a woman, she didn't have a lot to say. Even though there were some men who acknowledged her, most of them only used her findings for their won. She didn't really get any recognition. What else is new?

From the back cover:

"Spinster Mary Anning, uneducated and poor, was of the wrong sex, wrong class and wrong religion, but fate decreed that she was exactly the right person in the right place and time to pioneer the emerging science of palaeontology, the study of fossils. Born in Lyme Regis in 1799, Mary learned to collect fossils with her cabinet-maker father. The unstable cliffs and stealthy sea made the task dangerous but after her father died the sale of fossils sustained her family. Mary’s fame started as an infant when she survived a lightning strike that killed the three adults around her. Then, aged twelve, she caught the public’s attention when she unearthed the skeleton of a ‘fish lizard’ or Ichthyosaurus. She later found the first Plesiosaurus giganteus, with its extraordinary long neck associated with the Loch Ness monster, and, dramatically, she unearthed the first, still rare, Dimorphodon macronyx, a frightening ‘flying dragon’ with hand claws and teeth.Yet her many discoveries were announced to the world by male geologists like the irrepressible William Buckland and Sir Henry De La Beche and they often received the credit. In Jurassic Mary Patricia Pierce redresses this imbalance, bringing to life the extraordinary, little-known story of this determined and pioneering woman."

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine"

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023

I have been a fan of Victoria Hislop since I read her first book "The Island". I have only been to Greece once, and not even to the mainland but to Crete. But through this author, I have come to love the country and this one is one of her best.

The heroine of the book, Helena, has a Scottish father and a Greek mother. And her family does the best thing one can do to a bi-cultural child, they send her to her grandparents for the holidays so that she becomes a fully bilingual child.

The story is so exciting, not just from the language or the Greek point of view, there is so much going on and we can follow Greek history recent and ancient in this one novel. Fantastic.

I don't know which one is my favourite, "The Island" or this one but it certainly is one of the two. Such a beautiful story.

From the back cover:

"'Her love for Greece shines through and transports readers to a brilliantly drawn world' Independent

'Family turmoil, unanswered questions, romance and betrayal, all served up against the backdrop of Greece and its enchanting history' Daily Express

An unputdownable read with a family's dark history giving a unique glimpse into Greece's troubled past. Athens sparkles in Victoria Hislop's imagination. Concealed beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment she has inherited from her grandparents, Helena McCloud discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship. Helena's fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home - for cultural treasures and for herself."

Dai, Sijie "Once on a Moonless Night"

Dai, Sijie "Once on a Moonless Night" (French: Par une nuit où la lune ne s’est pas levée) - 2007

I always find it difficult to follow a novel written in a female first tense when the author is male. It's probably the same the other way around but I can't follow it that well.

In any case, it wasn't difficult here, at all. Whether that is the case because the author is Asian and lives in Europe or whether he is just someone who can sense others so well, I don't know. All I know is, it works.

This deep and complex story revolves around a French student in China and a Chinese greengrocer. But there are many little stories interwoven with this, the story of Emperor Puyi who loses an ancient scroll and a French linguist who finds it. The novel takes us from the beginning of the 20th century to 1990, from China to Laos and Myanmar and then to France, it spans half the earth and almost a whole century, it talks about history and archaeology, language and politics, but most of all it is a story about the love between men and women, it's as much a philosophical story as well as a mythical one. And, above all, the language is so beautiful, almost poetical. It is a silent book, one of those that aren't full of action, yet there is always something going on. It is a peaceful book despite all the evil in the world that does affect all our protagonists. It gives hope.

I loved this book, give you so much to think about. It is one of the books, when you read it, you know it will become a great classic one day. Because it is timeless. Dai Sijie will go down in history as a wonderful storyteller.

It is just as great as the other book I read by this author "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress".

The title originates from the old story "Once on a moonless night a lone man is traveling in the dark when he comes across a long path that merges into the mountains and the mountain into the sky, but halfway along, at a turn in the path, he stumbles.  As he falls, he clutches at a tuft of grass, which briefly displays a fatal outcome, but soon his hands can hold him no longer and, like a condemned man in his final hour, he casts one last glance below, where he can see only the darkness of those unfathomable depths." (I have looked up the English translation for this, the original reads: "Par une nuit où la lune ne s'est pas levée", un voyageur solitaire progresse sur un chemin escarpé, fait un faux pas et tombe. Par qui, par quoi sera-t-il sauvé de cette chute? Ceux qui sont en quête de ce texte seront-ils sauvé eux aussi de leur folie à vouloir en percer les mystères? Habité par la foi ou le désir, l'homme doit franchir le pas car il sait qu'il retombera "du côté de chez soi.") Such a beautiful story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"From the author of the beloved best seller Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a haunting tale of love and of the beguiling power of a lost language.

When Puyi, the last emperor, was exiled to Manchuria in the early 1930s, it is said that he carried an eight-hundred-year-old silk scroll inscribed with a lost sutra composed by the Buddha. Eventually the scroll would be sold illicitly to an eccentric French linguist named Paul d’Ampere, in a transaction that would land him in prison, where he would devote his life to studying the ineffably beautiful ancient language of the forgotten text.

Our unnamed narrator, a Western student in China in the 1970s, hears this story from the greengrocer Tumchooq - his name the same as that of the language in which the scroll is written - who has recently returned from three years of reeducation. She will come again and again to Tumchooq’s shop near the gates of the Forbidden City, drawn by the young man and his stories of an estranged father. But when d’Ampere is killed in prison, Tumchooq disappears, abandoning the narrator, now pregnant with his child. And it is she, going in search of her lost love, who will at last find the missing scroll and discover the truth of the Buddha’s lesson that begins “Once on a moonless night . . .” in this story that carries us across the breadth of China’s past, the myth and the reality."

Winchester, Simon "The Map that Changed the World"

Winchester, Simon "The Map that Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption" - 2001

This was one of the most interesting scientific books I ever read. William Smith, an ordinary boy in the 18th century, discovers the history of our planet. He was the first to find that the earth is arranged in layers, he found fossils that were different from those in other areas, he detects that England has to have been under water once, he discovers the ice age. He made a geological map of England that looks very much like the one they still use today. Amazing. I loved to read the story of this ordinary guy who changed mapmaking forever, who discovered so much without ever having been educated that way. He laid the groundwork for so many other scientific discoveries that would change the world forever. This is a book everybody should read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"The fascinating story of William Smith, the orphaned son of an English country blacksmith, who became obsessed with creating the world's first geological map and ultimately became the father of modern geology."

Chevalier, Tracy "Remarkable Creatures"

Chevalier, Tracy "Remarkable Creatures" - 2009

I had originally suggested the book because I liked "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" and "The Virgin Blue" (apparently "The Lady and the Unicorn" is supposed to be even better). After reading it, I would have preferred it to be a non-fiction book. Most of our readers agreed. One of us googled the two women afterwards and found it a lot more interesting than the book. I couldn't agree more.

We did think it very compelling that she used body parts, we never thought about people in those terms, like someone "leading with his nose".

The book generated a good discussion on serious topics, though. We talked about the time period (Age of Enlightenment and then French Revolution), the chances women had back then, how science was regarded, what people thought when they found the first dinosaur fossils.

We did like a few things, the topic most of all, that the author raised issues without batting on them. We also liked the different words Mary Anning had for the fossils, like "verteberries".

However, we found the characters two-dimensional, didn't like the fact that we were told instead of shown, the romance was so cliché and overdone.

Oh, and one last thing: Why do they always have to change the titles when translating them? Granted, "Zwei bemerkenswerte Frauen" (Two remarkable women) in German isn't far off but they leave out the dinosaurs completely. What is wrong with "Bemerkenswerte Kreaturen"?? Some other languages are even worse, the Spanish title is "Las huellas de la vida" (The traces of life). And in the Netherlands, you can even buy the English book with a different English title: "Spare Bones".

All in all, we would have expected more of the book but liked being introduced to Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot.

We discussed this in our international book club in October 2011.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"A stunning novel of female friendship, forbidden love and evolution from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring.

In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye…

From the moment she’s struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is different. Her discovery of strange fossilized creatures in the cliffs of Lyme Regis sets the world alight. But Mary must face powerful prejudice from a male scientific establishment, not to mention vicious gossip and the heartbreak of forbidden love.

Then – in prickly, clever Elizabeth Philpot, a fossil-obsessed middle-class spinster – she finds a champion, and a rival. Despite their differences in class and age, Mary and Elizabeth’s loyalty and passion for the truth must win out.

Remarkable Creatures is a stunning novel of how one woman’s gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all, it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship."

Find here the other books I read by this author.

Mosse, Kate "Labyrinth"

Mosse, Kate "Labyrinth" - 2005

A story about history and architecture, a story that spans over 800 years. Historical events from the 13th century are described.

A much discussed book, some of our readers loved it, others didn't. They either couldn't get into it or they didn't like the mixture of fact and fiction or thought there was too much violence, the details too descriptive. The contrast was too big, everything was black and white.

However, the people who like it thought the author is a good storyteller, our memory of history was refreshed, the side subjects like reincarnation, genetic memory and the fact that several characters that resurfaced eight hundred years later was interesting.

Quite a few of us always loved historical novels. We thought the life of ordinary people was described very well. The plot seemed logical (though not always believable) which isn't always the case in these semi-fantasy novels. Even though some of us thought the story had a slow start, we liked the history very much, especially the characters in the past. We also thought, the turbulent times the Cathars went through, should be considered.

Some of our members had been in that area of France and especially Carcassonne is a great place to visit but also the church Notre Dame of Chartres where the labyrinth is situated. Kate Mosse has done a lot of research, and she has done that very well.

We also discussed the "Da Vinci Code" briefly. Several of us had read this novel and since it is about a similar subject, the comparison was there. We didn't like all the fuss that was made about that book. Some didn't really get the story at all. Also, he mixes up facts to create a story. Then he mentions some facts at the beginning, and tries to convince readers that everything in his book is true.

Anyway, we liked "Labyrinth" a lot better. I think this would make a great movie.

We discussed this in our international book club in August 2006.

From the back cover:

"In this extraordinary thriller, rich in the atmosphere of medieval and contemporary France, the lives of two women born centuries apart are linked by a common destiny.

July 2005. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice Tanner, a volunteer at an archeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery—two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls and the pattern of a labyrinth; between the skeletons, a stone ring and a small leather bag. Too late Alice realizes that she has set in motion a terrifying sequence of events and that her destiny is inextricably tied up with the fate of those called heretics eight hundred years before.

July 1209. On the eve of a brutal crusade sent by the pope to stamp out heresy, a crusade that will rip apart southern France, seventeen-year-old Alaïs is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father as he leaves to fight the crusaders. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. As crusading armies led by Church potentates and nobles of northern France gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take great sacrifice to keep safe the secret of the labyrinth, a secret that has been guarded for thousands of years."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.