Post by wyres on Jan 31, 2022 19:40:37 GMT
From Goodreads
'An extraordinary, three-century braid of air and water: the way we float, the way we drown, the way we surface again against the odds.' Francis Spufford
Three extraordinary lives intertwine across oceans and time
On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live.
Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life. The legacy of the woman at its heart touches the lives of us all today, and this book reveals just how.
My thoughts
I found a copy of this on BorrowBox the digital lending side of my local Library. I am not sure what drew me to the book at all, whether I had heard about it from one of my many online friends who love reading or if I just saw the cover and was drawn to it by the synopsis. However I came across it doesn't matter really, what does matter is that I quite enjoyed the story.
The story links three different times in history and is based on a true story. The life of one woman and her face is immortalised forever in something that many of us at some time in our lives will learn to use in order to learn a skill that is needed to help others to live at a very crucial time in their lives. I for one learned how to use this in my training to be a nurse. Thankfully I never had to perform the skill that I learned from using her.
The story jumps around in time as the three strands of the story are linked together, to form a book that will make you think about life and how it can be so precious in so many ways. In the late 1800's we are introduced to a troubled young woman who feels that she has nothing to live for as she takes her own life in the River Seine. Skip forward to Norway in the 1950's and a grieving toy maker, is about to invent something that will be life changing for many people and is linked to the troubled young woman who died at the turn of the Century. The final strand to the story is a Canadian journalist with a life limiting disease, that has several outcomes that are dependent on the treatment that is chosen to help battle the disease, only the person suffering can make those decisions and they rely on others for the best outcome.
Coming up for Air was a great title indeed as we all rely on air to survive, at times many of us in our life times will feel that we are drowning like the young woman who took her own life, in most of our cases ours is due to the pressures that we let life and others put on us. At times I felt as if I was the characters as they all experienced their own form of drowning and needing the air to get through all that life had in store for them, such was the power of the narrative as it drew me in to the lives of them all.
This is a thought provoking read that would make a great reading group read.
'An extraordinary, three-century braid of air and water: the way we float, the way we drown, the way we surface again against the odds.' Francis Spufford
Three extraordinary lives intertwine across oceans and time
On the banks of the River Seine in 1899, a young woman takes her final breath before plunging into the icy water. Although she does not know it, her decision will set in motion an astonishing chain of events. It will lead to 1950s Norway, where a grieving toy-maker is on the cusp of a transformative invention, all the way to present-day Canada where a journalist, battling a terrible disease, risks everything for one last chance to live.
Taking inspiration from a remarkable true story, Coming Up for Air is a bold, richly imagined novel about the transcendent power of storytelling and the immeasurable impact of every human life. The legacy of the woman at its heart touches the lives of us all today, and this book reveals just how.
My thoughts
I found a copy of this on BorrowBox the digital lending side of my local Library. I am not sure what drew me to the book at all, whether I had heard about it from one of my many online friends who love reading or if I just saw the cover and was drawn to it by the synopsis. However I came across it doesn't matter really, what does matter is that I quite enjoyed the story.
The story links three different times in history and is based on a true story. The life of one woman and her face is immortalised forever in something that many of us at some time in our lives will learn to use in order to learn a skill that is needed to help others to live at a very crucial time in their lives. I for one learned how to use this in my training to be a nurse. Thankfully I never had to perform the skill that I learned from using her.
The story jumps around in time as the three strands of the story are linked together, to form a book that will make you think about life and how it can be so precious in so many ways. In the late 1800's we are introduced to a troubled young woman who feels that she has nothing to live for as she takes her own life in the River Seine. Skip forward to Norway in the 1950's and a grieving toy maker, is about to invent something that will be life changing for many people and is linked to the troubled young woman who died at the turn of the Century. The final strand to the story is a Canadian journalist with a life limiting disease, that has several outcomes that are dependent on the treatment that is chosen to help battle the disease, only the person suffering can make those decisions and they rely on others for the best outcome.
Coming up for Air was a great title indeed as we all rely on air to survive, at times many of us in our life times will feel that we are drowning like the young woman who took her own life, in most of our cases ours is due to the pressures that we let life and others put on us. At times I felt as if I was the characters as they all experienced their own form of drowning and needing the air to get through all that life had in store for them, such was the power of the narrative as it drew me in to the lives of them all.
This is a thought provoking read that would make a great reading group read.