"The Long Forgotten" by David Whitehouse - Review

 

David Whitehouses „Mobile Library“ was probably the first review copy I ever got, back in 2015 when I just started my book seller apprenticeship. It was also the first review I wrote for my bookshops website. And I was lucky, because I had come across a rare gem back then, so the memory of this first venture into my profession happened to be a very good one. I am still holding “Mobile Library” very dear, partially for nostalgic reasons but also because it was a brilliant book.

Now when you have read and loved someones debut novel, a second book being published is equally exciting and scary – your expectations are high, so there is plenty of room for disappointment. But like with most things in life, there is just as much room for things to go well.

I will admit it, it took me shamefully long to pick up “The Long Forgotten”. Not only because reading isn’t part of my job anymore and therefore, I find very little time in my day to day life to do so, or because my pile of shame is so much higher than I’d like to admit (but I will: Currently 55 books). I also was scared to be disappointed.

I was wrong, and I have never been this happy about being wrong in my entire life.

On the first glance, in “The Long Forgotten”, David Whitehouse tells not one story but three and at first it seems odd since these people do not seem to be connected in the slightest: Dove, an odd-ish young man from London with anger issues and memories that are not his own. Peter Manyweathers, a cleaner from New York in the 1980s who is swept away by a sudden obsession with botany. Professor Cole, a grumpy scientist who stumbled across the black box flight recorder of the lost flight PS570 in an incident that almost cost him his life.

These stories seem to be only connected by them being unlikely enough to be of interest but just likely enough to actually happen. For the sake of a spoiler-free review I will only say: They are connected, and it is astonishing how. Please do read the details yourself.

David Whitehouse has a talent to make the reader fall in love, with his language, with his characters and especially with whatever subject he decides to write about. I have never been this passionate about rare flowers and botany before. I have never related this much to an orphan curious to find his parents. And I certainly have never felt that much interest in cleaning in my entire life and hope to get some great accomplishments from this newly found and most likely shortlived obsession.

Whitehouses habit to find and portray the magical in the most mundane, to tell stories of such wonder in an every day life setting that you inevitably start to view your own life through completely new eyes, is remarkable. Personally, I hope to read much more from him.

Books to read to make you feel better

Reading can help a lot with things, I think if you, dear reader, found this humble blog, you propably know that already. Throughout my life, I struggled with a lot of different things, from things as simple and survivable as break-ups up to actual depression. And even though I tend to prefer books about the saddest, heartbreaking topics, there are some that helped, either anyway, or because I picked up something carefree for once. I will not go as far as pretending books could cure mental illness, rest assured, but what I am going to say is that personally, I found peace in reading books that are supposed to make you happy, I found calm within pages as I found useful advise from time to time when characters went through things comparable to my own situation at this point. So I don't guarantee for anything, but here are a few books that help bring me up again when I am feeling down and maybe they can help you too.

"Hectors Search For Happiness" by Francois Lelord

 See, this is one of those carefree books. The style of writing is very pure as if Hector wasn't a grown-up psychiatrist but, well, a little boy viewing the world as a very happy place to begin with (which propably makes his search for happiness easier). The movie with Simon Pegg and Rosamund Pike is very recommendable too, even though it is a lot more realistic because we rather watch Hector on his journey than seeing the journey through his own eyes.
I read this book when I just started my apprenticeship and the town I newly moved to was still a bit scary and strange and I was just starting to get a bit better after the really dark few months - it did help me with my recovery, and I still like to watch the movie on bad days (and cry like a happy little baby in the end).




"Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

Another book turned into a movie, but this time, for the love of god, please don't watch the movie (or, if you have already, don't let the movie stop you from reading the book). I came to read this pretty coincidentally, I got a used copy somewhere for free and thought "okay, this is said to be a so called 'womens book' (=aka cheesy and lovey dovey and just not my type of books), but it's hyped a lot, so let's see what all the fuss is about, after all it's free"- this one one of the luckiest coincidences in my life so far (and I do have a lot of lucky coincidences).
"Eat Pray Love" is non-fiction but still pretty much written like a novel. It is about Elizabeth Gilbert herself recovering from her divorce by spending a trimester each in Italy (where she basically eats her own body weight in pizza and pasta to enjoy wordly things), India (where she joins an Ashram to embrace spirituality) and on Bali (to find a way to combine both). I read this book when I was recovering from a pretty rough break-up myself and found some useful advise on how to deal with my own feelings in the way Elizabeth dealt with hers, as well as advise on how to go about my love life in the future. I have since been a lot more chill about dating, so this book actually had a long-term positive influence on me.

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

 I actually just finished this book last week, I picked it because it's a classic and pretty short (less than 200 pages) so it was a nice read after I finished "The Blackthorn Key" and waited for the second Blackthorn book to be released. "The Alchemist" isabout following your destiny and your dreams and having trust that somehow, everything will work out.
After realizing that the next two months will be rough financially and being frustrated with the infamous German bureaucracy, this book really calmed me down - it's right, I will survive this and everything is going to be so much better after going that one last mile on my way to a life with a new, well-paid job and a new flat etc. "I'll be okay, even if everything sucks from time to time" is the message this book shouts in your face.



Other examples would be the Harry Potter books, for example, or "Ronia, the Robbers Daughter" by Astrid Lindgren, just books from my childhood in general because they always take me back in time a bit to a time where things were just easier. Of course that wouldn't work for everyone, but it works for me, and I'm glad reading helps me cope. Do you have books as well that you keep going back to when everything sucks?