Elinor’s Bookshelf

My rating: Imo, this deserves 3.5 stars, but it felt wrong rounding it up to 4 stars as it was slightly less light-hearted than the first two volumes of the trilogy. In this 3rd and last volume of the “Call the Midwife” series, Jennifer Worth ties the loose ends of her first two volumes describing the hardships and joys of nursing in the East End in the 1950s. The author was obviously a firm believer in the progress made in midwifery from the Midwives Act, 1902 onwards. It’s wonderful to think that over the course of a 100 years the loss of a child, then a habitual occurrence, has turned into the epitome of pain, the sole loss parents can no longer fathom, even less recover from. The writing stays easy, well-paced, and interesting. This book felt like a pot pourri of everything that hadn’t been said in the first two volumes from lost babies, hospitals, infirmaries, backstreet abortions, to the progress in midwifery and medicine. This volume also bears more references and, facts ...

My rating: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari just blew my mind! In this engaging book about history, using a satellite world-wide perspective, Harari briefly and broadly explains the history of Homo Sapiens going through 3 major revolutions: the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution, and the scientific revolution. During the cognitive revolution, Homo Sapiens acquires the ability to tell stories, understand, and believe in them. In fact, we believe in these stories so willingly, that we devote a huge amount of time to them, and they now form the cornerstone of local and world-wide cooperation: money, economy, religion, ideology, culture, work, consumerism, even the stock exchange, global time zones, or defending values like liberty and equality. What makes this book particularly interesting aren’t just the facts and figures - it’s the author’s ability to challenge the reader, and reveal history in thought-provoking ways. For instance: was the agricultural revolution a goo...

My rating: The English workhouses first saved their lives then proceeded to break them, separating families, chipping at the little pride that remained, whipping the dreams out of their inmates. Many were strong and brave enough to leave and live, their souls tainted by the shadows cast upon them by the fear, and the shame of the workhouse. And these shadows pervaded society as a whole, decades after the formal abolition of workhouses in 1930. In this easy to read sequel to “Call the Midwife”, Jennifer Worth tells funny, sad, touching, candid accounts of the workhouse through her patients’ stories as she works during the 1950s for “Nonnatus House”, with bright and surprising nuns in the East End. Nurse Lee shines through as a woman of her times, both a young rebel and accepting of post-war London realities. And of course, there’s dear old Mr Collett, a generous and grateful old patient with whom Jennifer Worth becomes friends. I really enjoyed this second instalment. View al...