Summer reading
Literary reads
Crossings by Alex Landragin, Pan Macmillan
A wealthy bibliophile brings a treasured manuscript to her Paris binder. The pages are creased, yellowed and pungent with the nutty aroma “that old paper exhales as it decays”, and underneath the title is a jumble of figures. The book is broken up into three stories, and the reader can choose to read them in any order. In the first story, laudanum-addicted poet Charles Baudelaire meets a woman who says she was once his lover. She offers to find him the youthful body of a literary talent to “cross” into. If you start on page 150, the last story, you meet a Jewish escapee writing a novel as Nazis burn books. Story two is a dark romance set when the Germans invade Paris.
THE MUSEUM OF BROKEN PROMISES by Elizabeth Buchan, Allen & Unwin
Laure is the curator of a unique Parisian museum, housing everyday items that represent moments of grief, betrayal and loss. Her own contribution – a train ticket from Czechoslovakia to Austria – suggests a connection with dissident politics behind the Iron Curtain. As the action flits back to the summer of 1985, a story of Cold War intrigue and secret love is revealed.
