Emily's Walking Book Club - March - The Hare with Amber Eyes

In this astonishing book, celebrated potter Edmund de Waal traces the story of his inherited collection of netsuke - small Japanese objects, carved from wood or ivory. What a story! We begin in Paris in the late nineteenth century with Charles Ephrussi, a Jewish patron of the arts and collector who inspired Proust's Swann. We move on to Vienna and watch the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the diminishing of the family's fabulous wealth. Then come the Nazis ... You'll have to read the book to discover what happens next.

This book manages to do so many things - it's part family memoir, part detective story, part cultural history, and then some. I love the way we feel we're there beside Edmund de Waal as he's delving into the archives, and de Waal is brilliant at conveying the different moments of the past - not unlike how the netsuke were crafted to capture a specific moment in time. Gripping, fascinating, extraordinary. I can't wait to discuss it with you.