Youngson, Anne. Meet Me at the Museum. New York: Flatiron 2018. Print
Dear young girls,
Home again from the deserts and oases of the Sheikdoms I find your enthusiastic letters on my desk. They have aroused in me the wish to tell you and many others who take an interest in our ancestors about these strange discoveries in Danis bogs.
Description:
Sometimes you come across a book that really reaches you, one that you can't wait to read the next page, the next paragraph, the next sentence. You begrudge any task that stands between you and reading the book, regret when sleep overtakes you during nighttime reading, and can't wait to recommend it to anyone who loves good writing, character, and a sense that there is something really good in the world.
Such a book, for me, is Anne Youngson's Meet Me at the Museum. The plot, probably the least important part, starts with a gentle Thank You note from Tina Hopgood, a sixtiesh farmer's wife to the author of a study on the Tollund Man. (The Tollund Man is an actual figure who lived around 300 BC and whose body, skin, clothes, and rope burn around his neck were found perfectly preserved in the peat bogs of Silkeborg, Denmark. Tina's letter is answered by the new curator of the Tollund Museum, Anders Larsen, and a correspondence between the two begins.
As might be expected, over the coming weeks the letters wander away from the Tollund Man into areas of their vastly different lifestyles of his cloistered academic study and her outdoor farm life. They share thoughts about the lives they chose (or were chosen for them) as well as concerns about their families, dreams, sadness, and joys.
Throughout this epistolary novel of letters, there is an overwhelming sense of two ordinary yet sensitive people reaching out to another thoughtful person they can finally open up to. A genuine respect for each other and communication emerges in their beautifully, honestly-written notes that gently, inexorably pull you in deeper and deeper. I simply could not resist reading what the next subject/thought/words would be from one paragraph to the next.
That's all you need to know to encourage you to go out and read this touching book. There's lots more that goes on and personal revelations that are vital to understanding these two lovely people, but I won't spoil anything. I loved it, give it the highest recommendation, and hope you will read and be caught up it these lives and words as I was.
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road.
A correspondence blossoms between a woman in New York City seeking specific books to purchase and a rare book dealer in London. They discuss books, editions, quality of writing, authors, and many other book-related topics as their relationship grows. Lovely, warm writing.
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