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At the touch of a hand, Zachary can see the secret desires, regrets and inner workings of the people he meets. Yet this was an era in which alchemy, the ancient ‘science’ of the pursuit of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life lingered on, and while the new science often disparaged the old, it could not quite throw off the traces of magical expectation that so often accompanies scientific breakthrough. Then Chitra Ramaswamy’s wonderful, insightful Homelands(Canongate), the story of her friendship with Henry Wuga, a former German teenage refugee to Britain – a book that feels very pertinent to the world we now find ourselves in.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley - Goodreads The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley - Goodreads
To] the Last [Be] Human by Jorie Graham (Carcanet) is another revelation – pioneering poetry that examines what it is to be alive on our beloved and imperilled planet. In 18th-century London, Zachary Cloudesley’s life is defined by intense visions, the consequence of a childhood accident that almost blinded him. This is a gripping, engaging and atmospheric piece of fantastical historical fiction that touches on the themes of the many sides and forms of love, loss, identity, and father-son relationships. Everything I hoped a reader would take from the book, you have taken and it makes my heart skip along to know that. This leads to the entry into the household of the memorable wet nurse, Mrs Grace Morley and her small daughter, Leonora.The fantastical elements wove neatly through the tale, with excellent world building, while the story moved at a good pace that kept me turning the pages.
Chloë Dowman’s review of The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley
It took me a while to figure out what was missing from this series of vignettes about growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, and then I realised: a childhood. If you are an inveterate reader, the odds are good, better than good actually, that fellow readers or close friends (sometimes, happily, they are both) that at some point they will recommend a book to you. I’m also not quite sure what the point was in the ‘second sight’ aspect of the book as it didn’t really seem essential to the plot. Zachary hopes his troublesome gift will allow him to solve the decades-old disappearance of his father in Constantinople. Against a background in which almost anything seemed possible, automata were another scientific marvel, and one that held the possibility not simply of being marvellous but in time useful.And I still don't understand why Mrs Morely's chapters were written in the first-person, nor why we were following her story at all. The premise of the story is reasonably straightforward, but with the added layer of second sight it gets really interesting. I’ll be giving Donal Ryan’s achingly beautiful The Queen of Dirt Island(Doubleday), which traces the lives of three women in a small town, to many lucky recipients this Christmas. Soon, much treasured and anticipated letters cease to arrive and whispers reach Zachary that his father has gone missing within the city. Prometheus was the Titan who stole fire from the gods to give to humans and was condemned to eternal torment for his efforts.
The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley - Bookerworm Book Reviews The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley - Bookerworm Book Reviews
Zachary's mother dies whilst giving birth to him, which gives him a guilty complex and without his mother an aunt has a great influence on his life, I couldn't help thinking of Bertie Wooster at this point. Rubber was discovered mid-century, and makers of automata quickly saw its possibilities in making ever more life-like, human-like automata. The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is one of those books that absorbs you to the point you feel like you personally know the characters. Fortunately, Abel doesn’t have to do this alone – help soon arrives in the form of wet nurse Mrs Morley and the eccentric Aunt Frances, two very different women who go on to play important roles in Zachary’s life.And he sets off at a canter, Zachary following, feeling odder all the time, and very much wishing he were someone else; someone without visions, someone who could life a gun and shoo an animal, someone whose father was not locked away or a lunatic or quite likely dead. A 1974 book I’d like to receive and (re)read is Jan Morris’s Conundrum (Faber) with its famous opening sentence: “I was three or perhaps four years old when I realised that I had been born into the wrong body. It is 1816, and the Age of Enlightenment has been eclipsed by romanticism and a revival of interest in the mystical. courtesy IMP Awards) Creative inspiration can come from all kinds of strange, beautiful and unexpected places – a waterfall at sunset, a colourfully-dressed woman on a train at peak hour or a snippet of history, long forgotten but dredged up to fill a social media post with a fascinating factoid.
Review of ‘The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley’ by Sean Review of ‘The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley’ by Sean
Her story about the decades-long friendship and partnership between video game designers Sam and Sadie gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. Bad Relations by Cressida Connolly (Viking) is her best novel yet; a haunting story of a family blighted by bereavement, stretching from the Crimean war to the present.In his Booker-winning latest, he has amped up all the characteristics of his debut to produce a truly astonishing piece of fiction. And what of the ‘the singularity,’ a phrase coined by mathematician John von Neumann and popularised by Kurzweil in which runaway advances in AI imminently dwarf human intelligence, leading to unpredictable technological change? Poetry captures such strong and tender emotion with full force despite its sparing use of words, making it perfect for this time of year when daylight is shorter and many of us have an increasing tendency towards deep feelings heightened by the holidays and more time spent indoors. When an accident leaves him scarred for life, his father decides that Zachary would be better off being raised by Aunt Frances in the countryside.
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