The Beat That My Heart Skipped – A blog dedicated to daily design inspirations. By Rohini Wahi.

I’m not sure whether it’s the norm to write reviews when you haven’t yet finished the book, but often I find myself most attuned to its rhythms when I am not quite done. Besides, this novel is one of those that you put off ending because you just can’t bear to leave its world. So I write this review before I deliciously turn the pages on the last chapter.

A debut novel from Anton DiSclafani, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is set in 1930 during the Great Depression of America. The root of the multi-layered novel is about a heartbreaking family scandal, set in a very specific time in American history and nestled in a very unusual environment – a prestigious riding camp for girls high in the awe-striking Blue Ridge Mountains in the Southern States of America.

Thea Atwell is an alluring young girl from a wealthy Florida family who made their money in citrus farming, sent away to Yonahlossee because of her part in a family scandal. Thea takes her place in the beautiful school populated with Southern Debutantes, day-long horse riding, dinner bells and handsome headmasters – where there is a new order to her life. Yonahlossee on the surface seems like paradise to the reader, but there is an unsettling dichotomy of uncertainty and guilt that bubbles under Thea’s surface from her past.

The privileged girls live in a bubble of sorts, distanced from what is going on in the outside world, with maids to clear up after them and balls to attend, but fractures and cracks begin to seep in as once wealthy families begin to lose everything.

The writing ambles provocatively between Thea’s home in Florida and school, the narrative powerfully unfurling the true story behind her expulsion from her family. And there is a dangerous languidness to Thea’s awareness of the scandal, revealed to us in tandem as she grows and grapples with her responsibility for the events that led her here.

There could almost be something Malory Towers- esque and wholesome about the book albeit for the very specific and real writing style  - it is one of the most vivid and surprising novels I have read and despite its chick-lit title, is far from it.

Wholly immersive, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a transporting page-turner and proves that simple ideas are the best.

Published by Headline, It is available to buy on the 6th of June.

I met Ruth Collingwood for the first time at a mutual friend’s birthday dinner earlier this year. We all went through the whole meal chatting excitedly, drinks were flowing and Burger and Lobster was eaten. Then towards the end of the meal my friend who organised the evening said ‘Hey Roh, so Ruth is a Librarian!’ I literally choked on my chips – ‘What?! WHAT!?!!!!’ I said. ‘A Librarian!?!?’ proceeding to monopolise the rest of the evening by quizzing poor Ruth about every detail of her job.

For someone who loves books as I do, I could not fathom getting to spend my working days in a Library. In some way I had imagined that a job role like Ruth’s was unattainable, reserved only for certain members of society I would never cross paths with. Also what threw me was that Ruth didn’t fit my idea of what a Librarian might look like!

Something that stuck with me from that dinner was the simplicity of Ruth’s answer to my question – “How did you find yourself in this role” she said “I loved being around books and I wanted to be a Librarian – so I trained” it’s strikes me that all dreams should be that simple, you want something, the only way to achieve it is to just go and do it. You want to be an Elephant Trainer – go be an elephant trainer! : )

Ruth works as an Academic Librarian at the London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London. She was kind enough to let me share her answers here with you. Thanks Ruth!

So you are a Librarian! How does someone become a Librarian?
Librarians work in a variety of sectors and there are a number of routes into the job, but most common is to do a BA degree followed by an MA in Librarianship or Information Studies.

I started as a graduate trainee at the University for the Creative Arts, which allowed me to gain some library experience alongside the opportunity to attend relevant training and visit other art libraries. I was then lucky enough to stay on at the university as a library assistant whilst I studied part-time for the MA at the University of Brighton. Once I’d qualified, I was able to apply for professional librarian posts.

What does the course involve?
The MA at Brighton covers the more traditional aspects of librarianship (collection development, cataloguing and classification) alongside units which examine the changing role of the information professional in society, and issues relating to the social context of information in the digital age.

Students also study information architecture, web design and information services management. Research is also a huge part of the librarian’s role, so the MA allows for the development of research and enquiry handling skills, followed by a placement project and dissertation which provides the opportunity to gain experience and apply these skills in a real-world setting.

“I find seeing the date stamps in books or flicking through an old journal really comforting because in a strange way in puts things into perspective.”

Continue Reading…

A slightly lazy post today, but wholly inspirational I think you will agree. Since their launch in May 2012, I have have been contributing to the gorgeous online publication Curio.

Curio is a premium but friendly quarterly online magazine with beautiful imagery, intelligent insights and featuring interesting people. It’s kind of the antitode to the quick read design mags and is filled with meaningful storytelling conveying depth, warmth and style.

I was lucky enough to interview the iconic Roman and Williams and the inspiring Leslie Williamson for the second Issue of the the magazine which is out now. Other gorgeous stories include an interview with the Hovey Sisters about to release their first book Heirloom Modern by Rizzoli, Sian Wyn Owen Head Chef at The River Cafe and the story of a beautiful family home in New Orleans.

Read it here!

I’m absolutely captivated by accounts of people leaving everyone and everything they know to start new lives in other countries, especially centuries ago when the world was so vast and unknown and there was no way of turning back [see my review of Sarah Wheeler's new novel O My America Second Acts in a New World].

Four years in the making, Tracy Chevalier’s much anticipated seventh novel The Last Runaway begins in the same vein with young Quaker Honor Bright heartbroken and rashly setting sail from Bristol for 1850′s America on the heels of her older sister Grace. Grace is to be married to a dull young man from their town who has emigrated to Ohio [making him more eligible]. Tragedy strikes when Grace falls sick on the journey, dying when they land, leaving Honor alone and vulnerable, torn between two worlds and the kindness of strangers.

Honor finds lodging in a milliner’s shop belonging to the spirited and hard-drinking Belle Mills, a tough but kindly woman heavily involved with the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses and food depots that helps runaway slaves make their way to Canada and freedom. Belle eventually turns out to be Honor’s closest ally in this foreign land.

Honor then moves on to live in a Quaker settlement with Grace’s fiance Adam and his widowed sister-in-law, Abigail. Here she feels like an outsider. Ohio is precarious and unsentimental. The sun is too hot, the thunderstorms too violent, the snow too deep and everything seems transient, with people fleeing north and heading west as pioneers and runaways hiding in the tangled forests and cornfields.

Small, quiet yet possessed of the inner steel necessary to survive, Honor is a heroine who grows on us and is eventually gripped by the need to help the slave cause. However, it becomes clear Honor must either marry or return to England. She finds a husband in Jack Haymaker, but his Quaker family, scarred by their own past, will not countenance her efforts to help runaway slaves on the Underground Railway so she continues her efforts in secret until matters come to a climax. A description of how Honor hides a runaway in the family’s hay-barn whilst pursued a the slave-hunter is heart-thumping.

Image by Ditte Isager

My favourite aspect of Chevalier’s writing is her intense attention to domestic detail. The Quakers are quilters and much time is given to describing their traditional art and the hypnotic skill of rosette sewing and exacting patchwork. Also mesmerising are the descriptions of colonial life with its long cold winters – a family would work all summer long to can and preserve foods only to lock themselves up in the warmest room of the home as temperatures fell – quilting and keeping themselves busy, watching their supplies dwindle dangerously slow and praying for the quick passing of winter.

For fan’s of Chevalier’s previous work, The Last Runaway is probably the most predictable of Chevalier’s novels but the predictability is almost a balm to the raw political and cultural landscape of 1850′s Ohio. It was also super interesting to find out about the Underground Railway Network and shed new light on the very interesting Free State of New World Ohio.

Buy The Last Runaway here.

The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is surely as old as humanity. Tree houses are chronicled in ancient civilizations and their lore crosses through the history of every part of the world where trees grow.

A new book by Taschen Tree Houses. Fairy Tale Castles in the Air has complied some spectacular images of some of the worlds great tree houses, some designed by architects, others the work of unknown craftsmen. A teahouse, a restaurant, a hotel, a playhouse for children, or a perch from which to contemplate life. Each house is depicted in several photographs as well as one illustration by talented L.A. artist Patrick Hruby (who also created the book’s cover artwork). Buy it here!