I've read this one before, and bought this copy to use for bookcrossing. It's the fourth in a series of memoirs by this author. Very good. Will read once more before I release.

Won't get around to re-reading this. Here is a synopsis from amazon.co.uk: "The last part of Helen Forrester's moving autobiography of her early poverty-stricken life in blitz-torn Liverpool. In 1940 Helen, now twenty, reeling from the news that her fiance Harry has been killed on an Atlantic convoy, is working long hours at a welfare centre in Bootle, five miles from home. Her wages are pitifully low and her mother claims the whole of them for housekeeping. Then, early in 1941, she gets a new job and begins to enjoy herself a little. But in May the bombing starts again and another move brings more trouble to Helen, trouble which will be faced, as ever, with courage and determination."

RELEASE NOTES:

In the basket.

So my husband went on a trip to Africa and all he brought me was this book!*

It's been a little while -- maybe two months -- since Unk got back from his trip, and I keep not grabbing his pics from the jump drive, or not having the book next to me when I have the jump drive nearby (and then there was this whole having 12 people over for Christmas, 2 business trips, a trip to my sister's in Seattle and a trip to Germany in there, but who's counting?).

Anyway, I'm so excited to have a book from the South African BookCrossers in my house! Here's what happened:

Unk had a volunteer/business trip that started in Johannesberg, went to Malawi, then to Zambia, and then ended in Cape Town. As a dubious and mostly reluctant participant in my BookCrossing activities, I tentatively sent him the link to the Coffee Bean Cape Town OBCZ. Having been there when he packed his suitcase, I also knew he had no extra space to take anything from me, and little space to bring anything back (among other things, they and their luggage were weighed for the little tiny planes). We left it at "IF you have time to look for it, IF you have time to go there, and IF you have room, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring me back a book from South Africa!" That's not asking much, is it?

Basically, he went on the trip with me having no idea if he'd get there or a book or not. When he was unpacking, I was totally shocked and happy to see this book come out of his bag! YAY! I'm so excited to have this book :)

Right now, I have a bazillion books on my TBR, so I probably won't read this too soon, but I most definitely will read it. And then I'll pass it on to a friend I already promised it to, IF it was in fact a reality :)

Here are the pics Unk took. Not bad, right?


I loved how carefully he framed this shot and wanted to get a really good picture of the actual OBCZ:


*I don't know about the rest of the world, but most tourist locations in the U.S. sell t-shirts that say "My parents/grandparents/mom/etc. went to (insert name of tourist destination), and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

Edited to add this link someone sent me about Helen Forrester.