Edward Rutherfurd | The Paperback Princess

I really do. I’m not sure when I started holding out in favour of paperbacks (probably around the time when I realized that being an adult is expensive!) but that’s my general MO these days.

So it delights me to be able to bring you all a list of fabulous books that have recently been turned into ready-to-love paperbacks. You know, so that you can start filling up your beach bags and lake totes with great books. So that when you are planning a picnic, you will have a list of books that you can stash in your basket.

I’ve been tricked before by news that the paperback version of Gone Girl was going to be released shortly. But now I’ve seen it with my own two eyes so it’s official. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is finally in paperback. Just in time for those of you that still haven’t read it to get to it before the movie’s release this fall. Seriously though, read this book.

The follow up to the JK Rowling-as-Robert-Galbraith penned The Cuckoo’s Calling is coming out this June. For those of you that can’t read The Silkworm until you’ve been introduced to Cormoran Strike properly, get thee to a bookstore for a copy of the freshly printed paperback!

The other day I waxed poetic about the perfection of the Paris: The Novel paperback and mentioned that Edward Rutherfurd’s previous city novels didn’t share this flawlessness. But then I went to the bookstore and lo and behold! Perfect paperbacks of London, New York and Russka. So if you’re in the market for that most perfect paperback but didn’t think Paris was your style? Now you have no excuse.

Remember how I loved The Circle by Dave Eggers? I thought it was a most excellent imagining of what could happen to the world if we’re not careful with the direction that social media is taking. It was a big ol’ beast of a book though so I can’t blame you if you wanted to wait for a more portable edition. Your time has come.

Finally, Harper Collins has done us the massive favour of publishing Jonas Jonasson’s brand new book, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden in paperback right off the bat. I loved his debut novel The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (so did millions of others around the world) and I’m so very excited to crack this baby. Even though technically I’m on a book buying ban, my other half wasn’t there to see me so it totally doesn’t count.

There you go! A list of paperbacks to inspire some book cravings; you know you want to.

Did you know that all paperbacks are not created equal? Some of them have really tight spines that you have to fight to open and keep open. Others, stay open but that’s the only page they ever want to show you. If you are eating lunch while you are reading, most paperbacks require that you take a time out while you handle your cutlery.

Paris: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd? The perfect paperback. The pages fall open where you need them to, the spine didn’t crack once and if I wanted to eat a meal while I read it? I could lay it open on the table like a hardcover.

But the paperback perfection of this novel was only one reason to love it.

Perhaps you have already read some of Rutherfurd’s other novels. He’s responsible for the Princes of Ireland (which I have not read) as well as the city novels of New York, and London. His city novels follow the histories of five local families as they love and live amid the historic events of their locale. You zip back and forwards in time, filling in familial details and personages, until in the end, you have the full picture.

I enjoyed New York, I loved London but Paris might just be my favourite.

In this one we follow the fortunes of the Blanchard, de Cygne, Renard, Le Sourd and Gascon families as they navigate the streets of Paris throughout history. Normally, Rutherfurd moves us mostly forward, checking in with the families every generation or so.

This time, we moved back and forth in time. But when we moved forward we picked up more or less where we had left off, give or take 5-15 years. I found that this made for a more fluid story. When we shot back 500 years, I knew that we would eventually end up back with the characters that I had become so attached to.

There are no perfect characters in this book and I appreciate that each character struggles to make the right choices, and don’t always do that. They are products of their time and while history may show that they were on the wrong side of things, in that moment, it seems right.

Rutherfurd also incorporates real life characters into his story. Suddenly you’re spending time with Monsieur Eiffel, Coco Chanel, Monet and the Sun King and it’s pretty great.

The scope of the story is too great to give any real details here. Suffice it to say, you will enjoy it.

One tiny little issue that I may have had with this book? The theme of every family seemed to be “have a boy to carry on the family name” and while I’m sure that that was indeed the view and goal of most families at the time, it took a long time for us to get to the point where there were fully formed female characters. Eventually there are Louise, Marie and Claire but that’s probably only the case for the last third of the book. Before that, the women in the book are brood mares, their only role to have children and be a sounding board for their husband’s life decisions.

But other than that, spending time in Paris was a delight.