BookTrail Travel Awards 2018 – Best Book Moment
The BookTrail Travel Awards 2018 are in their third week. This time, it’s the five books with the Best Book Moment. Scenes in a book often stick in your mind as they come at a pivotal time in the story. They are moments in a book that make you gasp, laugh or even cry.
So, what has made the list this year?
BookTrail Travel Awards 2018 – Best Book Moment…..
The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale
This was a joy from start to finish. So many moment of joy that took me back to my childhood. The Toy Emporium, the toys which came to life, the empty shop floor at night with the moonlight shining through the window panes….the rooftops with the view across London.
I was in my childhood heaven from the very first page. This is the kind of book that makes you fall in love with reading all over again. The writing is magical and the narrator guides you by the hand: “The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter….Come, go in after him….IT would be easy to get lost in a place like this, but the man we are following knows the way.”
Memories of childhood:
“Once upon a time, all of us, no matter what we’ve grown up to do or who we’ve grown up to be, were little boys and girls, happy with nothing more than bouncing a ball against a wall”
Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves
Shetland – the islands
This is the final Shetland novel which came out this year. A momentous occasion for Perez fans. The final scene in the book will stay with me for a long time. I’m not going to highlight it here for those of you who haven’t read it yet. But rest assured, it’s a fitting end to an excellent series. We find out more about Perez the man in this novel. He becomes more human, more emotional.
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
London – on a bend in the river
Moment: There were many in this book to be honest. One near the start describes storytelling and nighttime…This summarizes what has gone before and builds the anticipation into the next part of the story…
“Dreams and stories merge with lived experience, the dead and the living brush against each other in their comings and goings, the past and the present touch and overlap. Unexpected things can happen. Did the solstice have anything to do with the strange events at the Swan? You will have to judge for yourself.
Now you know everything you need to know, the story can begin.”
The Lost Man by Jane Harper
Australia – in the middle of nowhere
This book is packed full of memorable moments. The whole book is one memorable moment. But the opening scene has to be one of the strongest and evocative this year:
“From above, from a distance, the marks in the dust formed a tight circle. The circle was far from perfect, with a distorted edge that grew thick, then thin and broke completely in places. It also wasn’t empty.
In the centre was a headstone, blasted smooth by a hundred year assault from sand, wind and sun. The headstone stood a metre tall and was still perfectly straight. It faced west, towards the desert, which was unusual out there. West was rarely anyone’s first choice.”
Dark Pines by Will Dean
Until this book I had never read a novel with a deaf protagonist. Many memorable moments in this novel. Tuva, the deaf journalist provides those that make you think of someone else’s world, how someone deaf makes their way around that world. Everyday events turned on their head. The moment when she has her alarm clock under the pillow shake her awake for example. The way she navigates herself through a world of often muffled noise and silence.
“The sky’s as white as printer paper”
And her reaction to someone who tells her she talks really well for a deaf person is priceless:
” It’s like saying to a man with a prosthetic leg, “Hey you walk pretty well for a cripple.”
I cheered when reading this and wanted to high five Tuva.
Then there’s the town of Gavrik which is evoked stunningly in this one sentence:
“When I arrive back in Gavrik, the clouds are thinning and occasional beams of warm light are falling on the liquorice factory, the one building that dominates the town.”
So, these five books have provided me with the most memorable reading moments of the year. There have been many more, but these five novels have stayed with me for the reasons mentioned above. There are the books that it took me the longest to read as I slowed down and savoured them. I am quite a fast reader but these ones were slow reads. I even read The Toymakers again just recently. The movie in my head is like those lamps you play for children which light up and shine characters and shapes on the ceiling.
Happy Book Moments!
