Thursday, August 27, 2020

Happy 125th B-day, and Review of The Lions of Fifth Ave.




The Lions of Fifth Avenue
By Fiona Davis

Net Galley


What a great timing for the book release of Lions of Fifth Ave by Fiona Davis. Besides the release. It is also the 125th anniversary of the opening of the NYPL. 📚📚📚📚

Are you a history buff?  bibliophile? Do you love adventures in bookstores? libraries? Are you obsessed when you go on vacation to visit independent book stores, and libraries to see what people are reading?  Investigating new author discoveries. No one has heard of but you( at least in your mind). Smelling the ink on paper, and old books. When I visit bookstore and libraries. It's like a candy store for me. That's a middle-age nerd for you!, LOl.🤓🤓.

I had the connection from the start as I have lived in NYC, and visited the NYPL several times. If you have never visited the famous main branch library which hosts two famous lions, Patience, and Fortitude. The library is well known for its book collections. You should visit sometime. I would say the NYPL is like visiting a museum as well. To me, the novel was a love song for NYPL, and NYC itself.




 I am giving a shout out to all readers everywhere, Lions of Fifth Avenue is the best novel I have read this year. I don't think it is going to change. This is the second novel I read about books this year. I dare say, I have received, Fiona Davis's previous novels. But, unfortunately, I have not picked up one. Well, that is changing. 

Fiona Davis's previous novels are a famous landmark in NYC. I learned so much about the goings-on in the library behind the scenes. I wasn't aware of. 
 Ms. Davis learned when the library first opened. A superintendent, John Fedeler,  and his family did reside in an apartment in the library( Wow! that was an eye-opener). She ran with that idea and the premise of the novel. What a great idea. 

There is so much to talk about. I don't know where to begin...

Laura and her husband, Josh, the superintendent at the library,  and their two kids live inside the NYPL, in an apartment. OMG! How I wish I could be that person. She is the typical "housewife". But, she wants more. She jumps at the chance to go to Columbia School of Journalism, her dream. 

 Laura Lyons, and Sadie, are in different time periods, 1913, and 1993. The mystery of a book, Tamerlane, and several other books, and the family tree of Sadie, and Laura Lyons, the feminist essayist is the interconnection of both(not a real person). Which gives a satisfying read.  

After she starts attending classes. She becomes hooked, and the world seems to be changing radically. She wants to be able to be in the thick of it, and become a journalist.  She learns that life is not always what it seems to be for women, and the world is not always fair, and not just for women, for many other causes.  

Her professor assigns her to assignments she doesn't particularly like. 
Instead, she makes up her own assignments. She attends women's meetings and learns how the world really works. She is ready to tackle the world, but something happens. Her professor fails her work. Because it is controversial, and because she is a woman.  

Her Professor steals her work and publishes it without her knowledge. She is kicked out of the meetings, and the people that she thought were behind her, weren't. He son gets in with a bad crowd while she is going to journalism school. She feels she has neglected her son, and her family. She is to blame for this, as well as her marriage is in jeopardy. 

No, I am not going to tell you anymore....

At the same time, we learn about Sadie, the curator in the Berg Collection at the NYPL in 1993. She has some troubles of her own. Besides, Sadie doesn't tell her colleagues, the connection with Laura Lyons, the famous feminist essayist, and herself. In different time periods, Sadie and Laura are threatened by book thefts that appear suspicious in both time periods and are parallel. I just loved the imagination of the author that wove these two stories into historical fiction, and a mystery wrapped together tightly into one great novel for 2020! Thank you Netgalley, and Dutton Publishing. Now, I will buy my own copy. I loved it that much. Thank you, Fiona Davis. 




                    



                                           Rose Reading Room. 




                                                                 The Stacks in the 1920's



                                                           

                                                                My Rating:





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