Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award “The charmer of the summer.” –NPR “Warm-hearted, clear-minded, and unexpectedly spellbinding, Meet Me at the Museum is a novel to savor.” –Annie Barrows, co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society In Denmark, Professor Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English … facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over.
Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, they begin writing letters to one another. And from their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined. As they open up to one another about their lives, an unexpected friendship blooms. But then Tina’s letters stop coming, and Anders is thrown into despair. How far are they willing to go to write a new story for themselves?
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A wise and tender novel. Proof that the richest fruits come on the edge of autumn.
A moving tribute to friendship and love, to the courage of the ordinary, and to starting again.
Readers are sure to love this wise and witty debut that celebrates the art of letter writing and the kindness of strangers.
Gentle, genteel, and enthralling. The characters grow on the reader as they grow toward each other.
What an excellent book! Subtle, smart, entertaining. Highly recommended. I have spread the word among my friends. I have just finished it and decided to reread it right away. I am enjoying it all over again.
I couldn’t stop reading Meet Me at the Museum. I loved it so much, I’d call it my favorite novel of 2020. The story is told through a series of letters between two strangers who become dear friends. There are heart-rending moments, but ultimately the ending is satisfying and uplifting. This was a debut novel, I can’t wait to read the next book.
I loved the format of this book — letters back and forth between the two main characters. The story has an unexpected twist. I didn’t want it to end. I’d love to read more books by this author.
Anne Youngson’s “Meet Me at the Museum” is a series of letters back and forth between a woman in England who has long-desired to visit a museum in Denmark to see the Tollund Man and the current curator of the Museum Silkeborg where the Tollund Man is housed. Initially, Tina believes that she is writing a letter to Professor Peter Glob, the author of the book “The Bog People”. When the current curator, Professor Anders Larsen, finds the letter on his desk, he decides to write back.
This reply begins a back and forth of letters and emails between two strangers who become friends and confidants that lasts over a year. They ride the ups and downs of everyday life as well as the discussion of how they ended up where they are now.
I found that the book starts off slow, however, I was glad that I kept up with the story until the end. I think that you’ll like “Meet Me at the Museum” as well.
Lovely epistolary novel. I can think of a lot of friends my age to whom I want to say, “You should read this.” I do think it’s more likely to be appreciated by readers who’ve been around the block — that is to say, people who are at that same not-young-but-still-able-to-dream-of-a-different-future stage as the two main characters here. Or even past it, since so much of it has to do with coming to terms with the choices we’ve made, for good or ill. I clicked on romantic for this, but it’s not the least bit sappy, so don’t expect hearts and roses. What you get is a communion of two lonely souls, each with a philosophical bent that is grounded in the mundane facts of their lives, all sparked by a mutual fascination for that “Tolland Man” found well-preserved in a peat bog in Denmark.
Having worked in an art museums for over two decades, I was taken by the way the two main characters connected over an artifact which intrigued their curiosity. Their relationship developed so naturally and beautifully, and when reading their letters, I felt as if I knew each of them personally. A beautiful and heartwarming story is always welcome.
I read all the time and it’s hard to find a book I really like (and finish and don’t forget about 5 minutes after it’s done). This one is a series of letters, but the writing is so good and characters so believable that the plot and character development move right along. It doesn’t have a happily-ever-after ending, although readers can secretly hope that it does, at some point, after the novel is finished.
This book centers around two strangers who correspond through letters regarding their mutual interest in a specific art object. At first the two are unknown to each other ,but of course once the correspondence continues over a year they become more acquainted with each other’s lives. They form a wonderful bond during their correspondence offering patience, friendship, and love.
This is a book that sneaks up on you. You begin with the very simple device of a letter, but before you know it you are deep into the connection developing between the two main characters. There is a simplicity and sweetness that lingers on. Simple things, a feather ,a scrap of fabric, take on special meaning. Before you want it end the gentle final letter grips your heart.
It is a small book. The story lingers long after the last page.
This story is told through alternating letters between Tina Hopgood, an English farmer’s wife, who wants to visit a museum in Denmark, and Anders Larsen, the museum curator. What begins with an innocent query to the curator develops into a more intimate exchange over a year. Both correspondents are dealing with middle age and questioning their life situations, and they find that they have a lot in common. There is a lot of information about anthropology, Danish and English history and farming that comes through in addition to personal details and characterization.
There is a lot to admire in Meet Me at the Museum. For one thing, it’s an epistolary novel. I love them, but they don’t show up too often these days. The story focuses on the correspondence between a farmer’s wife living in northern England and a curator at a Danish Museum. Tina’s best friend, Bella, recently died. Ever since they were girls at school and studied the Tollund Man, they planned to go to Denmark to see him, but somehow the time was never right. Tina writes to the museum with some questions and is answered by Anders, an archaeologist at the Silkeborg Museum. Thus begins a correspondence that develops into a deep friendship.
The second thing I really liked about this novel is the way that, in corresponding with one another, Tina and Anders begin to re-examine their lives, their dreams, their life philosophies–in short, their very selves. Writing each letter becomes almost a form of self-exploration. Although these two characters seem very different at the outset, as their friendship develops, we–and they–learn that they are much more alike than it would at first appear.
The third thing I like is that the book demonstrates what it means to have a truly deep friendship. Tina discusses her long friendship with Bella, but we also see her friendship with Anders as it grows.
So what didn’t I like? Well, the ending. Unfortunately, in an otherwise unique book, the author took the easy way out and gave us a conventional ending, when there were so many other rewarding ways in which it could have gone. That’s why I can only give this novel 4 stars, and I was considering going down to 3.
This is a book written in letters between two people who have never yet met in person but who share so much about their lives in these letters. It is eloquent and believable and very expressive of the thoughts and feelings they are experiencing as they share their lives with each other through the written word.
A lovely , gentle book with truths for us all.
Exquisite. Its characters somehow resist following their story and reverse themselves into a new one. A beautiful, lasting read.
Anne Youngson’s debut is a charming epistolary novel about strangers who discover themselves through letter writing. Tina’s one fatal mistake lead to a life as a farmer’s wife, and now that her best friend has died she is struggling to find purpose and meaning.
Tina writes to Prof. Glob about the Tollund Man, which she longs to see for herself. She learns that the Professor has died when Anders, a museum curator, responds. They continue to write to each other and a friendship grows. As they share their ideas, losses, and disappointments, the reader observes a meeting of minds and hearts blossoming.
Meet Me at the Museum was inspired by the Tollund Man, the prehistoric preserved body which in 1952 was discovered in a Danish bog. Professor P. V. Glob excavated the remains and wrote the book The Bog People, which I remember reading in the early 1970s. In 1970 the poet Seamus Heaney wrote the poem The Tollund Man. Youngson was haunted by the poem and the image of the Tollund Man, intrigued by the mystery of the man’s life and death.
The Tollund Man
This quiet novel, in which nothing much happens, about people who are not in themselves anyone in particular, will not engage readers who prefer a plot line that catapults you into a page-turning frenzy. It was a perfect read as I sat under the apple trees on my patio, the robins splashing in the bird bath and the bees flocking to the flowering oregano in the herb garden. Complications do arise in the character’s lives and decisions must be made. But the book is about Tina’s and Ander’s self-analysis and evolving thoughts on matters and ideas and choices and life. It is the story of a slowly blossoming relationship built on an open exchange of ideas, communicating about their internal and external growth. They share lessons they have learned.
Such as Tina’s observation that when raspberry picking, you go down the row and select all the ripe berries, then turn around and note all the ones you missed because you only saw one side of the bush.
Can people go back and find the berries they missed on the first walk through life?
That is what the novel is about.
I received a free ARC from the publisher. My review is fair and unbiased.