The Unreliable Narrator is originally from Northamptonshire and has lived in Penarth for almost five years. They will be writing a book review for Penarth Nub News every Saturday, whether it's based on a treasure found in a second-hand book shop or a glossy hardback from Griffin Books.

Writing about books is harder than it seems. Taking someone else's words, condensing them, explaining their broader themes, attempting to extrapolate their wider resonance, all whilst without stripping them of their own majesty is… tough.

Doing this while working on a 350-page historical biography (or autobiography, depending on its reading) picked up for £1.99 at Oxfam last week is harder still. I do not wish for this review to be weighed down with the dust that collected on the previous owner's shelf.

I want it to feel as alive as some of De Waal's recollections appeared to me. After all, a book is a living thing, a moveable feast, passing through the Penarthian streets as it made its way to me.

I feel I have broken a Cardinal rule already. I have cast this book as a book of people when, perhaps more accurately, it is a book of things. 264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings (the 'netsuke') lie at its core, as they pass through the author's family's hands, from Paris in the 1870s, to twice worn-torn Vienna, to rest and relaxation in Tokyo (by way of Tunbridge Wells in the 1940s), until they return to England this side of the millennium.

The book is deeply personal, with photographs of grand palatial family homes, excerpts of letters and paraphernalia from some of the most storied artists of the times. A cast of characters known to De Waal's forebears spin in and out of the light, coughing from the archives; Proust, Freud, Rodin, to name but a few.

However, the hint of what is to come, the slow march through history, cannot be ignored. As the Dreyfous affair moves to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and as anti-Semitic fervour moves from the fringes to the foreground, the author's Jewish heritage cannot help but be held centre stage.

And as Hitler moves into Vienna, the story of the netsuke moves from the almost unreality of Parisian luxury to the destruction and the destitution of a family, a faith, under fire. As the horror unfolds, I am captivated. I know the historical progression but I am riveted, willing a different turn of events to take hold, despite my knowledge of what is to come.

Through the early 20th-century, the book moves from loving sketches of Charles, the original purchaser of the treasure, to the greater historical context that came to maim the early 1900s. And yet, the netsuke travels.

A talisman for a family that lived through decedent, harrowing, challenging times; through chosen migration and forced exile; and through opulence and devastation and out the other side.

The netsuke survives, like a book that has outlived the first (or second or third) owner's hands. It is taken off of the shelf, packed in a box and deposited at the local charity shop, waiting for a new pair of eyes, intrigued by the spine, to pick it up, dust it off, and let it begin its journey again.

My recommendation for The Hare with Amber Eyes seems redundant, 12 years post-publication and after its numerous national and international accolades. However, my recommendation to read (often and well), to feast the eyes and to delight the mind, should hopefully remain as relevant today as it was, when the netsuke journey began.