The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

This wonderful story appealed for its beautiful story line and also for

the magnificent descriptive quality of the prose.  A Paris book-seller

had been in love with a woman and the story details

his love and loss and how he eventually comes to terms with his grief

for the loss of his love which endures for many years.

 

Jean Perdu ( John Lost) travels through France on a boat on the Seine River

traversing different regions and counties, rivers and canals and eventually

arrives in beautiful Provence.  There is a map of his travels by water and by road listed at the beginning of the book.

 

This is indeed a fascinating story of love and loss and also a story of great beauty,

the meaning of love and loss.  I enjoyed reading this story though I was surprised

at times to read the travel diaries of Manon, (Jean Perdu’s lost love) also included in the story.  This book

has been translated into English and was originally published in Germany.

 

There are interesting and fascinating characters in the story whom Jean

Perdu relates to well after living a life of seeming isolation for many years.

The characters also add colour and joie de vivre to the novel with their

myriad emotions, reflections on life, eccentricities and their joy of living.

 

To me the most beautiful aspects of the book are the wonderful descriptions

of river life while travelling on the barge, the little towns and villages and also

the beauty of the landscape under the skies of Provence.  The mountains,

the little villages and the greenery of trees and pasture and the beautiful lavender fields described almost as a chequered quilt, so beautiful!

 

This book also gives a great understanding of life and the turmoil some

people may encounter.  I enjoyed reading this book and it is well recommended. 

Sissi

I have recently watched two films of the trilogy of Sissi starring Romy Schneider and what beautiful films these are to view! So magical and wonderful!

I would recommend these films to people who love a romantic story and a beautiful setting.

Sissi was a princess of Bavaria who married the Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph and became Empress.  I was enchanted by the beauty of the Austrian alps, the mountains where Sissi grew up
and where her family home was located.  In many ways I am reminded of the film The Sound of
Music, for the beauty of the settings and the charming household of siblings.

  Sissi was of a naturally happy and joyous nature with a
beautiful personality.  Her charm and natural ways enchanted the Emperor, who was very much also
under his mother's guidance.  His mother let it be known to him that she had stepped aside but she was also very much in control of political matters to a certain extent.

  Sissi was different from her mother-in-law with firm views of her own.  The people loved her.

The second film is of the story of Sissi as a young Empress.  This film is also wonderful.
The Austrian Alps and the Tyrol feature in this beautiful story in which Sissi is also crowned Queen of Hungary at Franz Joseph's coronation by popular acclaim.

The pageantry, music and beauty of these films remain in my imagination.  They are so beautiful.  I look forward to watching the third film of Sissi, the fateful years and there is also a film of Victoria in Dover, the Story of Vickie, which I also look forward to watching.

The Hacienda: My Venezuelan Years by Lisa St Aubin de Teran

I loved this story which is a fascinating account of

Lisa St Aubin de Teran's early years living on a hacienda

in Venezuela. The hacienda was located in the Andes

mountains, a remote area and a place which seemed to

have been lost in another era of time.

There were the molienda harvests of the sugar cane and

later the avocado crops. There were “la gente” the people

of the estate, the workers and their families. Gradually,

by the late 1970's and with the drop in the sugar prices, many

of the families who had lived on the hacienda for generations

were moving to the cities.

The author of the book was given a unique and very powerful

role from a young age when she found that she was in charge

of the hacienda and the many workers who lived there. She

married at a young age and left London to live in Venezuela.

Thee Teran family had been the first settlers from

Spain who arrived on the second voyage of Christopher Columbus

via Santo Domingo.

She often assisted with medicines for the people, helping with

their health-care and also assisting to teach some of the children

literacy.

Throughout the theme of the story was the thought

“Que diran?” (What would people say?) if the author might do

or say something unexpected out of the ordinary, e.g. standing on the

road in the pouring rain trying to get a

lift into the town to take her baby to see a doctor.

A graphic description of the hospitals of the time (early 1970's)

is also given in the novel. Lisa St Aubin de Teran certainly

had to look out for her baby in the hospital as the nurses were

preoccupied watching television and her baby had inadvertently

been given medicine which was prescribed for another patient.

The author mentions in her story that the people of the hacienda

“la gente” have been the greatest influence on her life and work.

She also describes her early attempts at writing.

This book gives

wonderful descriptions of life on the hacienda, the lives of the

poor people, their beliefs and also gives an understanding and unique

observations of life in a remote area of the Andes in Venezuela,

which people would not otherwise have known about. Descriptions

are also given of the magnificence of the beauty of the plantations,

the sugar cane, and the verdant lush scenery. This was a tropical

place and there were incessant rains during the rainy season and

steaming heat after the rainfall. It must have given a beautiful

aspect to the mountain ranges with the changes of colour when the

sun came shining through after the rain. There are black and white

photographs included in the book with pictures of the hacienda.

I did a read a book by the same author “The Palace” which was set

in Venice and was impressed by the wonder

of a book where a palace was built for the love of a woman.

I love reading books of interesting and exciting places. This book

describing life on a hacienda, the early Venezuelan years is quite

special and different. Touching, sensitive also, as the author befriends

people of the hacienda. Worth reading! I enjoyed reading the book

of the author who became a Dona at such a young age. Eventually,

she returned to live in London.

There was once a book I read of an English family living in a castle

in Italy in the early years of the twentieth century. There was a man

in the village who remembered seeing the last Duke riding through the town

in his carriage and horses.