Amazon.co.uk Review
Poppy Minkel is the daisy fresh, naively witty star of Laurie Graham's The Unfortunates. Poppy is a mustard heiress with crinkle-cut hair, sticky-out ears and a nutty Jewish family. When Pa goes down with the Titanic, Ma decides Poppy was destined to be the companion of her old age. Instead Thoroughly Modern Poppy, blessed with 'savoir faire and unusual beauty' sashays into 1920s New York in search of generation-defining moments.
In a series of flashbulb-bright adventures Ms. Minkel acquires two husbands, two children, and a variety of breathless accomplishments--designer, aviatrix, gallerista. Poppy Minkel is determined to live up to her mantra: 'I'm modern and fun-loving and rich.' It's not all ditzy fun though, Poppy may glide along the surface of things admirably, but Laurie Graham's deft prose gets to the heart of things. The loss, grief, ignorance, and emotional vulnerbality that surround the events of the Second World War play in devasating counterpoint to Poppy's self-centred aplomb. Her breezy resilence allows her to deal with a drunken, violent first husband, with his haikus and his "glancing blows" and pretty much ignore anything else of consequence. It's only towards the end of the novel when faced with family tragedy that her regret slips in and "placed the heaviest weight around my heart". The Unfortunates is deliciously Nancy Mitford,--glinting with irony, sadness and humour. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

An amusing family yarn with little snatches of reality woven in.
Lovely descriptions of what we would term "chinless wonders" nowadays.

An enjoyable tale of rags to riches at the turn of the 20th Century.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:


Released as part of "The Reader" challenge. This was made into a film by David Lean many years before it became a musical film or TV searched for a Nancy.

This book is a part of the BookCrossing "The Reader" Challenge: to find and release books that somehow relate to the award winning book “The Reader” by Bernhard Schlink. The movie based on the book opens January, 2009 (in the U.S and UK).
If you have found this book before February 22 and join BookCrossing, you can enter our The Reader movie contest. Simply attend a screening of "The Reader" and save your ticket stub. Print your screen name on the back of the stub and send it to BookCrossing: The Reader Contest at 323 Pine Street, Sandpoint, ID 83864. We will hold a drawing shortly after February 22, 2009 to determine the winners and you will be notified by email if you have won. One more reason to sign up for BookCrossing today! (Full details available online at www.bookcrossing.com. )

If you do join, I hope you'll put my name down - mrsdanvers - as your referring member.

Caught at Benson Blakes, at the first Bury BookCrossing Meet yesterday :-) To go to the Sudbury OBCZ.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

To restock the Sudbury OBCZ. This is my 1000th official BC release!