Book Review: The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson

The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I needed to be banned from reading this book because, like a person with an addictive personality, I could not put it down. Interesting on so many levels from war history to banned books to how people survived under occupation to bibliotherapy to human relationships to psychoeducation to the dark side of Bambi. It is a social portrait of the power of individual resistance under a collective consciousness of freedom. It nicely illustrates individual reactions to cultural and social hegemony by utilising character's good sense rather than falling for the trap of an introduced, controlled and manufactured, common sense by an oppressive regime. It was also enjoyable because it is historical fiction written in lay man's speak using much character dialogue as would have been used in the Channel Islands during the war years. A bloody great page turner!

This book matters because it is an inspirational and voyeuristic look into how simple folk resisted forces sent to destroy them. The parallels to our current cost of living crisis and the censorship of and conflict within so many countries, cultures and suburban houses is testament to why citizen power via reading, is so important. This is a book of hope for anyone undergoing oppression.

Written in the popular literature style of celebrated anthropological The Earth's Children's series researcher Jean M Auel, and, Wifedom by Anna Funder (a lawyer and Doctor of Creative Arts), it is a well-researched piece of organic intellectualism that educates the rest of us into the psychosocial aspects of oppression, occupation and what it means to be without the ideas and beauty that books provide...all by reading a novel (inspired by true events).

I highlighted quotes throughout, sentences and dialogue that resonated with me as a mental health professional:

"In its own way it was bibliotherapy. Bea cast her eye over this little huddle of souls suffering from all the fury of the war, hunkered in the top of this ancient library. If books were medicine, then [the librarian] was the medic."

Book clubs have a methodology and a method. True to form, Thompson, ended her book with a book club kit containing eight questions designed to make the reader think deeply about the words on the page. This turns the book into bibliotherapy: the use of the written word to help solve a problem. I thoroughly recommend this as a book club read and we will be incorporating it into our "Read to Resist" book club.

Kate Thompson, a journalist, also cleverly includes her research sources at the end and honours those sources by including their factual rather than adapted stories for her novel. Reading the novel moved me deeply and raised sadness at our dreadful history of humanity...reading the real research stories empowered me to become more focused on change because resistance is useful when somebody tries to take your rights away from you.

I am the daughter of a three-tour returned veteran. A regular army officer, rather than conscripted for tours, I grew up in an Army barracks overseas. I am well familiar with war history and seeing the artifacts of war scattered throughout my path. However, Thompson's portrayal of the social history of the WWII occupation on Jersey provided an insight into how people, today, may be silently mobilising themselves against invading countries while we get back to our privileged lives of freedom. It really struck me how reading this book now, and writing a review, is itself an act of resistance against social control and a way to empathise immediately with people restricted and oppressed by civil and invasive wars. Educating yourself about what you can do to help improve global connection starts with understanding resistance. Resistance is useful. Are you?

View all my reviews

Disclaimer: This book review is written to fulfil partial requirements of my industry partner internship with Typeface Books. 

👵🏼 Megan Bayliss, Social Worker
👩🏼‍🎓 PhD candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo