Review: The Titanic Survivors Book Club by Timothy Schaffert

Title: The Titanic Survivors Book Club

Author: Timothy Schaffert

Publisher: Doubleday

Length: 308 Pages

Category: Historical Fiction

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: The Titanic Survivors Book Club is a book that loves books. Deeply and without reservation. This novel romances its readers with lyricism and a lushness of prose. It reached for the way I love language and just the right turn of phrase, and made me want to wallow in its pages and hang tight to Yorick’s voice. There will surely be other books to come along that will tempt and enchant me as much. For now I’m going to bask in Timothy Schaffert’s prose.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: For weeks after the sinking of the Titanic, Yorick spots his own name among the list of those lost at sea. As an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line, his job was to curate the ship’s second-class library. But the day the Titanic set sail he was left stranded at the dock.

After the ship’s sinking, Yorick takes this twist of fate as a sign to follow his lifelong dream of owning a bookshop in Paris. Soon after, he receives an invitation to a secret society of survivors where he encounters other ticket holders who didn’t board the ship. Haunted by their good fortune, they decide to form a book society, where they can grapple with their own anxieties through heated discussions of The Awakening or The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Of this ragtag group, Yorick finds himself particularly drawn to the glamorous Zinnia and the mysterious Haze, and a tangled triangle of love and friendship forms among them. Yet with the Great War on the horizon and the unexpected death of one of their own, the surviving book club members are left wondering what fate might have in store.

Review: “Every book you fall in love with keeps a little piece of you.”

The group of survivors in this gorgeous, captivating story aren’t technically survivors of the Titanic at all. What they each have in common is that they’d intended to be on the ill-fated ship when she set sail, but for reasons—the Fates, good fortune, chance, prejudice, jealousy, benevolent gods and divine intervention, what have you—they were not onboard when the greatest ship of its time met a tragic end. As such, this is not a story about the Titanic so much as it’s a story of people bonding over their own version of survivors’ guilt and cheating death. And they do so with a notable collection of books to guide the way.

Yorick is, for lack of a better description, a walking library. His love of books is so rich and lush that he bought a bookshop in Paris without a single thought to how to make a living at running it. He does, however, know how to acquire more books, to the point of overflowing shelves, which makes him a thoroughly relatable narrator. It’s the connections Yorick makes, through books to people, that turns his life around. And a bit inside out as well.

There is a romantic subplot in this novel that involves Yorick, Zinnia (the wealthy heiress of a candy making empire), and Haze (a photographer who takes shelter wherever he can find it). The love triangle between these three characters acts as a foil to Yorick’s heart as he longs for Haze yet understands that is a “love that dare not speak its name”. Instead, Yorick plays Cyrano to Haze’s Christian and Zinnia’s Roxane. There is a point where Zinnia loves both men, and Haze gives his love to each of them in his own way. It is a tangled web woven to ensnarl their hearts and minds, test their bonds, and to complicate feelings as the years pass and World War I begins to overshadow their shared history. And yes, there comes a point where desperate grief calls for desperate measures.

“You’ll never fathom the exact passion you feel for the books you adore.”

The Titanic Survivors Book Club isn’t a romance novel despite its matters of the heart. It’s a book that loves books. Deeply and without reservation. This novel romances its readers with lyricism and a lushness of prose. It reached for the way I love language and just the right turn of phrase, and made me want to wallow in its pages and hang tight to Yorick’s voice. There will surely be other books to come along that will tempt and enchant me as much. For now I’m going to bask in Timothy Schaffert’s prose.