Precipice, by Robert Harris.

 

            ‘The Shot That Was Heard Around the World’:  Gavrilo Princip, a young Serbian Nationalist and leader of a rebel group assassinates the heir to the Austro/Hungarian Empire and his wife, thus starting the First World War. Austria’s traditional ally Germany rallies its forces and attacks Belgium and France and their treaty partner Britain reluctantly starts recruiting troops for the war that everyone thinks will be ‘over by Christmas’.

            Meantime, Britain’s Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith is enjoying a great wave of popularity for his strong leadership and cabinet, not least First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and Secretary for War Lord Kitchener, surely an unbeatable combination. 

            And Asquith is also enjoying – and is happily enslaved by – a passionate affair with 26 year-old Venetia Stanley, a much younger socialite of aristocratic birth with which he shares secret communications from his overseas ambassadors;  Venetia and her common-sense approach to huge military problems helps him to have a more clear-eyed view, especially about other members of his cabinet.  She has become indispensable to him in life and in love.- the only problem being his cavalier treatment of the decrypted telegrams and documents that he shows her on their many drives around London – he does insist on several occasions on screwing up these official state secrets and throwing them out the car window.

            Which is hardly a good look as people, in the first great flush of patriotism, hand the telegrams and state secrets into Scotland Yard, and a discreet investigation is obliged to begin, revealing that the affair is common knowledge among the Great and the Good, in fact it’s nearly last week’s news amongst the aristocracy – except for Margot, Asquith’s strident, social-climber wife:  she has also known about his affairs, but this is the first time he has been so impossibly, uncontrollably smitten.  This whole thing must stop!

            Meantime, the War rages on;  casualty lists are horrific, especially since Germany has started using Poison gas, and a new offensive touted by Winston against the Dardanelles is proving to have the opposite desired effect:  Gallipolli has been an exercise in supreme carnage.  Asquith must pull himself together, Vanessa must marry someone – not quite anyone, for she is an aristocrat, but Asquith’s government musn’t fall:  everything depends on sound leadership to beat the Hun, and distractions like socialites can’t be allowed:  in short, Asquith has to show a bit of Stiff Upper Lip – which he does, at the eleventh hour.

            Robert Harris has written superbly of this fraught time, using all the correspondence from Asquith to his darling Venetia, plus many of the decrypted messages and telegrams which are still in existence, and he has endowed all main players in the drama exciting new life, especially demonstrating that Love doesn’t always Conquer All – sometimes it can produce the opposite effect!  FIVE STARS.      

Julia's 2024 Top Reads

 

I have a Special Little List ……… 

(which I should have prepared MUCH earlier) of 2024’s Top Reads on Libraries Horowhenua’s review blog, Great Reads for Great Readers.

1.    The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, by Karin Smirnoff

2.    Horse, by Geraldine Brooks

3.    Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett

4.    The Hunter, by Tana French

5.    All the Words we Know, by Paul Nash

6.    Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger

7.    City in Ruins, by Don Winslow

8.    Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stephenson

9.    James, by Percival Everett

10.            Long Island, by Colm Toibin

11.           Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life, by Helen Fisher

12.           The Trees, by Percival Everett

13.           The Spy, by A. J. Choudhury

14.           The Mountain King, by Anders de La Motte

15.           Table for Two, by Amor Towles

16.           Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson

17.           Patea Boys, by Airana Ngarewa

18.           Nine Girls, by Stacey Gregg         Junior Fiction

19.           Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout

20.           Juice, by Tim Winton

These are truly great reads as every great reader will know, and aren’t we all blessed that our exceptional library enables us to be the Great Readers that we aspire to be. 

The staff and volunteers at Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-po wish you all a most happy and healthy 2025.  (And some summer sunshine would be nice!)

 

Nine Girls, by Stacy Gregg.            Junior Fiction.

 

            Stacy Gregg is enormously popular for her equine novels for children, but she takes a different tack his time with an exploration of her own origins, so successfully that she won first prize for this title at the New Zealand Book Awards.  And deservedly so:  it has just the right mixture of everything – comedy, pathos, friendships old and new, and most importantly, family solidarity, for we all need to be part of an enveloping, loving kinship – whether we like it or not!

            It is 1978 and Titch is wondering how she has gone from living in Remuera, Auckland’s most expensive suburb, to residing in a much humbler house next to her Nan (her Maori Mum’s Mum) in Ngaruawahia – a sorry little town halfway between Auckland and Hamilton, and all because her Geologist Dad lost his job because JBL, the company for which he worked folded in the stock market crash.  They are no longer privileged, pãkehã and rich, and instead of their own private pool they have to go to the scummy local pool or swim in the mighty Waikato river.  Which is not a good idea because of the strong currents.   And several of her many new cousins reckon there’s a Taniwha – a hungry river monster -  in there, too, so she better watch out.  Yeah, right.  They’d say anything to upset the new kid on the block, but they also say that there’s buried gold on one of the derelict old farms in the area and, despite Titch’s scornful disbelief, she can’t help but get excited over the family rumours of betrayal and heartbreak a century ago;  in fact this is her first introduction to her mother’s family History – her Whakapapa – and it is Titch’s history too.

            And the plot can only thicken when Titch releases an enormous eel from a trap in the river;  it seemed to be calling her, and sure enough, when she let him out he had plenty to say, especially about how slow she was to get him out, for naturally he was no ordinary eel, but the Taniwha of legend, and he had lots of things to fill her in on about her history, because they were part of the same family, eh!  And the stories are tragic;  treachery and deceit from the Pãkehã Governor Grey, who wanted all the Waikato land but not the Maori who farmed it, and murder and injustice that had never been forgotten, as if it ever could.

            ‘Nine Girls’ covers five years of Titch’s life admirably;  it has a glossary of Maori words and terms for those not familiar with Te Reo, and a great love for Whanau (family) and country, especially Ngaruawahia, that is evident on every page of this lovely, unforgettable book:  suitable for kids of all ages – SIX STARS!