The witty new historical novel about the Festival of Britain by the bestselling author of Life After Life. With thanks to Michelle for this review.
My 1st Kate Atkinson book and I’ll be looking for more, although I felt it was slow to get started and I did get a bit confused with who’s who at first, once it got started I was hooked.
Our Noble Selves, (apparently an army toast specifically for Wednesdays) is based around the 1951 Festival of Britain and the people involved. For a while you are following Harry Flynn through everyday life as one of the organisers of the Festival, in charge of cataloguing donated items. He goes on a date with a colleague, gets blackout drunk, the next day he discovers his date has gone missing and he might be the last person to see her alive, things start to get much more interesting. A whodunit with an interesting cast of characters, I really enjoyed the rather over the top Mitzi Blinkhorn (inspired by Fanny Craddock) and The Boy.
I love historical fiction but post WWII is not my usual period so The Festival of Britain is not something I’d heard of before, Kate’s descriptions really brought it to life for me, in general I found Kate’s writing really evoked the post war atmosphere and developed the characters beautifully, so stick with this past the slower start, it’s well worth it, you’ll never guess who did it!
About the Book
It’s the summer of 1951 and everyone is looking to put the dark days of the war behind them. The government’s solution: The Festival of Britain, a celebration of the country’s creativity, grit and ingenuity.
For foreign correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn, it might offer the chance of redemption after a bad war in the Far East and a peace that is proving no easier to negotiate. Having failed to resume his journalistic career, he reluctantly joins an oddball team of misfits, ne’er-do-wells and downright chancers helping to ready the Festival of Britain for launch.
Flynn’s attempts to resume some semblance of a romantic life also founder when one of his dates goes missing and he is deemed to be the last person to have seen her alive. Could he have been in some way responsible for her disappearance?
Little does he realize that the answer to some of his mounting problems may lie in the hands of a precocious, straight-talking thirteen-year-old called Veronica and a rather scruffy terrier who goes by the name of Mrs Betty…
About The Author
KATE ATKINSON is one of the world’s foremost novelists. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Life After Life, an acclaimed BBC TV series, won several prizes including the Costa Novel Award, as did A God in Ruins. Two further historical novels – Transcription and Shrines of Gaiety – were also Sunday Times bestsellers. She has published two critically acclaimed collections of short stories: Not the End of the World and Normal Rules Don’t Apply.
Her bestselling literary crime novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News? and Started Early, Took My Dog, became a BBC television series starring Jason Isaacs. Jackson Brodie later returned in the novel Big Sky and the most recent, Death at the Sign of the Rook, was a number one bestseller.
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