To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

A group of intellectual elites talk about going to the lighthouse. Ten years later, they still don't quite make it to the lighthouse... That's not really the point, but the plot leaves a bit to be desired. Woolf instead focuses on the internal worlds of her characters. It took me a bit to get used to her stream-of-conscious writing, as much of the prose is focused on the thoughts, desires and feelings of her characters. The writing itself is beautiful. The themes of time, change and lack of change left me feeling kind of bleh about the whole thing.

I might revisit this one again later. I think I may get more out of it by reading rather than listening to the audiobook.

209 pages

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

After four horrific years on the Western Front during World War II, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia, and becomes a lighthouse keeper on the isolated island of Janus. When he marries a young, vibrant woman named Isabel, the two of them become the only inhabitants of  this small island, half a day's journey by boat from the shore. A supply boat comes every three months; the only link they have to civilization.

Even though they only have each other for human interaction, and must work very hard to maintain the island and the lighthouse, they are very happy. When Isabel becomes pregnant with their first child, she is ecstatic. But she miscarries, then becomes pregnant again and miscarries again. When her third pregnancy ends in the stillbirth of a son, Isabel sinks into a deep depression. Then one day, walking near the shore, she hears a baby's cry. And there, by the shoreline, is a boat with a dead man inside, and an infant wrapped in a woman's sweater.

Tom wants to summon help, but Isabel convinces him that the mother must be dead, for what mother would allow a baby to be taken from her and taken out to sea in a small boat? She manages to persuade Tom to let her keep the baby, against his better judgment. They pretend it is the child they were expecting, the one who was stillborn. For several years, they were all very happy, but a visit to the mainland changes everything.

This book is about the sometimes dire consequences of deception, even one that begins as a kindness.
Lives can be devastated, even those of the most innocent.

Highly recommended.

354 pages