Review: Wife in the North

I was lucky enough to get this book from Librarything's early reviewer program, and I'm thrilled I did. This book is journalist Judith O'Reilly's account of her family's move from London to the Northumberland countryside. A devoted city girl, O'Reilly is married to a Northumberland man who dreams of going back, so she decided to grant his wish; she agreed to move north for two years. But for O'Reilly life in the north is hardly a dream. She misses her London life, lacks close friends in her new home, and finds that everything, from her neighbors's dress to local pastimes is a world apart from what she knew in London. Culture-shocked, O'Reilly begins writing a blog about her experiences. Those blog entries comprise this book. I'd never read a book comprised of blog entries, but I found that the format worked surprisingly well. Blog entries give the reader a sense that he or she is jumping into the middle of someone else's life, much more so than just about any other format could. And the reader does get a sense of the ins and outs of O'Reilly's life. We read about her relationship with her husband, her son's troubles at school, and O'Reilly's deepest fears about being a good parent. Lest this sound like too much of a downer, I assure you it is not. O'Reilly is humorous, and she's willing to bare her soul on her blog in a pleasantly self-deprecating fashion. Her story is interesting, and I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what they would decide to do at the end of two years (she won't tell you until the epilogue!) Ultimately, this book combines some of the best features of the memoir and the travel narrative, as O'Reilly clearly approaches Northumberland as an outsider, and it's interesting to see how she interprets her experience through the lens of place. The book offers an intimate picture of a family and a marriage, and shows the ways in which people define home. When I got to the epilogue the final decision was what I had anticipated, and it's interesting that O'Reilly's words illustrate the direction the family is headed, even if she could not see so at the time she was writing the blog. Overall, a very enjoyable read.

Judith O'Reilly, Wife in the North, (Public Affairs, 2008) ISBN: 158648639X

Sunday Salon: At Off Hours...

This is my first Sunday in the Salon, as it's only in the past couple of weeks that I've been really working on getting this book blog thing going. Me being me, I managed to choose one of the busiest Sundays to try and squeeze in quality reading time. Today will be spent moving new furniture into my house, so this morning has involved a lot of moving of old furniture to make way for new furniture, and running to the grocery store for ingredients for the dinner I'll be cooking the friends who are so kind as to help me. I'm a trooper though, and I've managed to squeeze some reading into all of that. Most of my Sunday Salon reading this week happened in the wee hours of the morning. Last night I stayed up until about four reading my early reviewers book for Librarything- Wife in the North by Judith O'Reilly. It's a great book and a really fun read. It's the memoir of a die-hard urbanite who moves to the countryside in the north of England. I'll talk about it more when I review it, but I can fully identify with O'Reilly, having recently moved far away from the urban areas I love. I'm not sure I'll be able to get much more reading done today, but that's fine. I got a good chunk of Wife in the North done. And hey, new furniture is always a good thing.