I’ve been meaning to get around to reading The Shell Seekers for absolutely donkey’s years but I was really surprised to see that it is number 50 in the BBC Top 100 Books list.
Does anybody fancy joining in reading The Shell Seekers together and having a bit of a chat about it, possibly on November the 30th, which is St Andrew’s day! If so, let me know.
This book would fit in with any Scottish challenges, personal or otherwise, that are going on at the moment. Although Rosamund Pilcher was born in England she has lived in Scotland (Dundee) for most of her adult life. The Shell Seekers was a best seller when it was first published in 1987 and has been translated into lots of languages. It’s particularly popular in Germany, my childhood German pen-pal is a big fan of the book. Which was a surprise to me because it is set in London and Cornwall from World War II until the present day (1987).
It’s a bit of a doorstop at 509 pages but I think it’ll be easy reading and the end of November seems quite far away at the moment. No doubt it will gallop up to us in a flash though.
The only Rosamunde Pilcher book I’ve read is Winter Solstice, and I adored it! Actually, “adored” doesn’t encompass the infatuation I experienced for this book. I could read it over and over again.
I think I have a copy of The Shell Seekers, though I’ve never read it. I don’t know what it’s about. Is it about a mother-daughter relationship?
Judith (Reader in the Wilderness)
According to the blurb- ‘The Shell Seekers is the great family novel reborn and is a magical reading experience. Penelope Keeling is the daughter of a pre-Raphaelite artist and has three children. The book is about the passions and heartbreak that have held the Keeling family together over three generations. Penelope discovers that her father’s painting The Shell Seekers is now worth a fortune and everything is thrown into turmoil. Penelope looks back to her early years in Cornwall, her loveless wartime marriage, her one great love. and finds within her the strength to reach decisions for the future.’
I know that the book was very popular when it came out in 1987 but my boys were born in 1986 amd 87 and I got nothing but books for children read for years. They didn’t sleep well!
I read this about 15 years ago. For some reason, I assumed the book was about “real” shell seekers and I remember being somewhat confounded that it was a painting. That’s all I can remember about my reading experience actually, which I suppose isn’t much of a recommendation.
Niranjana,
I know it was very popular when it first came out but I was busy washing loads of nappies in a twin-tub washing machine at the time and hadn’t a clue what it was about. No, it isn’t much of a recommendation if you can’t remember much about it now. I’m going to give it a go though I’m just hoping it isn’t like a Catherine Cookson who was also wildly popular then!
I loved this book, but I think I liked Coming Home just a tiny bit more. I reread it last year and it was thoroughly enjoyable the second time around. It is one of my go to comfort reads!
Danielle,
It seems that I’m just about the only person who hasn’t read anything by Rosamunde Pilcher. She has lived in Dundee for about 50 years I think, and that is about a 40 minute drive from where I live. I recently bought one called September from a second-hand bookshop that I wasn’t supposed to be in. Comfort reads are what we all need at the moment I think.