I Can Read Good

Jessie Hearts NYC by Keris Stainton

2011-06-16T17:46:00.000+02:00

I've been waiting for the publication of Jessie <3 NYC from my friend, young adult author Keris Stainton, for what feels like a very long time. It's been a long year since I read and loved her debut, Della Says OMG! so when Keris offered me an e-book version of Jessie <3 NYC to read while on a long-haul flight across the Atlantic to New York itself, I grabbed the chance.

From Amazon: Jessie's just arrived in New York, hoping to forget about her awful ex. New Yorker Finn is in love with his best friend's girlfriend. They might be perfect together, but in a city of eight million people, will they find each other?

I absolutely loved this young adult story of growing up and falling in love in New York City. Great, believable teenage characters, authentic dialogue and the author's obvious love for New York all combine to make a story which you don't want to put down until the last page. And even then, you want to know what happens next.

I'll be buying lots of copies of this for friends and loved ones. Maybe they'll even pass it on to their teenagers to read.

You can read the first chapter of Jessie <3 NYC here.

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning

2011-02-28T14:16:00.001+01:00

From Amazon: Sweet, bookish Neve Slater always plays by the rules. And the number one rule is that good-natured fat girls like her don’t get guys like gorgeous, handsome William, heir to Neve's heart since university. But William’s been in LA for three years, and Neve’s been slimming down and re-inventing herself so that when he returns, he’ll fall head over heels in love with the new, improved her.

So she’s not that interested in other men. Until her sister Celia points out that if Neve wants William to think she's an experienced love-goddess and not the fumbling, awkward girl he left behind, then she’d better get some, well, experience.

What Neve needs is someone to show her the ropes, someone like Celia’s colleague Max. Wicked, shallow, sexy Max. And since he’s such a man-slut, and so not Neve’s type, she certainly won’t fall for him. Because William is the man for her… right?

Somewhere between losing weight and losing her inhibitions, Neve’s lost her heart – but to who?

I read this after several of my chick lit loving friends had read and raved about it. I too loved it and will now rave about it. Excellent chick lit story with characters to totally fall in love with. Enlightening, witty and scarily accurate insight into multitude neuroses of your average woman. (Hello? Have we met?). Also, super sexy. I'll be reading more Sarra Manning very soon.

The Tapestry of Love by Rosy Thornton

2011-02-16T13:32:00.000+01:00

From Amazon: A rural idyll: that's what Catherine is seeking when she sells her house in England and moves to a tiny hamlet in the Cévennes mountains. With her divorce in the past and her children grown, she is free to make a new start, and her dream is to set up in business as a seamstress. But this is a harsh and lonely place when you're no longer just here on holiday. There is French bureaucracy to contend with, not to mention the mountain weather, and the reserve of her neighbours, including the intriguing Patrick Castagnol. And that's before the arrival of Catherine's sister, Bryony...

I very much enjoyed this review copy of The Tapestry of Love, a soothing, touching story about fresh starts and finding one's place in a close-knit community. Living in a small village in a foreign country myself, I was able to relate easily to Catherine's efforts to get to know her neighbours (although her neighbours appeared considerably more welcoming than mine!) and her battles with local bureaucracy. Unrelated to village life, Catherine's relationship with her sister; all of this added to my enjoyment of this novel. The evocative description of the Cevennes made me want to visit the mountains for a breath of fresh air. This is not a rollicking rollercoaster of a romantic novel, more a gentle exploration of one woman's quest to start anew. Genial and peaceful a read as it was, it was still a page turner; I eagerly read to the end late into the night. This was the first Rosy Thornton novel I've read, I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan

2011-02-12T16:20:00.000+01:00

A 26 year old nichtclub pole-dancer, "the Doll", has a one night stand with a stranger, Tariq. When she wakes the next morning she sees on the news that Tariq is wanted for questioning in connection with a terrorist plot in Sydney. She, although not named, is also wanted, suspected of being his accomplice. There begins the Doll's quest to remain hidden while the tabloid newspapers and talk-back radio whip themselves and the general public into a frenzy trying to find her.

Fast paced thriller, story of a woman caught up in the fear-driven hysteria surrounding terrorism shamelessly propagated by sensationalist media. A story about fear, ignorance and hate, it was a satisfying read but one which left me angry. I particularly enjoyed being drawn back into Sydney as I read.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen

2011-02-12T16:04:00.002+01:00

While memoir is not usually a genre I choose to read, I am very intrigued by and interested in different faiths and forms of worship. This memoir of a woman who returned to her Mennonite family after particularly turbulent personal upheaval was and entertaining and enlightening insight into a world I've never known much about. It was also very funny. It made me laugh out loud all the way through and I was even a little tearful at the very end. I've enjoyed it and given it three stars on Goodreads but I'd really like to give it about 3.75 (7.5/10 suits me better).

Swapped by a Kiss by Luisa Plaja

2011-02-08T12:59:00.001+01:00

From Amazon: Rachel hates her life and everyone in it - she even has suspicions that her on/off boyfriend David might not be entirely trustworthy. However, when David invites her to a music festival in England featuring their friend's band, she jumps at the chance for an overseas adventure. Hoping to surprise David, Rachel arrives at the festival early, where she runs into a nasty surprise of her own - she sees David kissing their friend Jo. Distraught, Rachel runs off, wishing she could leave her life behind... the next thing she knows, she's back with David. But not as herself... She's now in Jo's body! Can she keep the swap a secret from David until she can work out exactly what's going on and get her revenge? Over the course of a very weird weekend, Rachel puts herself in someone else's shoes and finds that her own maybe weren't as uncomfortable as she'd always thought. But can she ever be herself again?

Fun, contemporary teen fiction with an enjoyable, well-paced plot. Handles teen issues with boys, family & friends with good sense and empathy. I especially related to the best friends triangle story. It appears there are some things we never grow out of. I look forward to reading Luisa Plaja's other books.

Girl in a Spin by Clodagh Murphy

2011-02-03T10:52:00.001+01:00

Jenny is in love with Richard, a sexy, charismatic and recently-separated politician who, given the right circumstances, might be able to lead his party to victory in the next election. Party girl Jenny isn't quite the right match for such a man's public profile. Richard's friend and spin doctor, Dev, is called in to take matters into hand, discovering Jenny's secrets which would be better left in the past for the good of the party. As the election nears, and Jenny sees her future with Richard taking shape, Jenny wonders if this is what she actually wants.

This was another fantastically entertaining, funny and touching story from the author of The Disengagement Ring which I also loved. Ms Murphy has a particular talent for creating drop dead sexy male characters; I fancied Dev like mad and Richard's strong, tanned forearms in the folded back sleeves of a dazzling white shirt made me come over all unnecessary. I couldn't help but love Jenny, discovering her background and going along with her for the ride. Fun, funny and endearing, I already want to read this book again. I can't wait for Clodagh Murphy's next book.

Room by Emma Donoghue

2010-08-30T18:26:00.002+02:00

Jack is five years old and has lived in an 11' x 11' room with his mother, Ma, all of his life. His mother has told him the things he sees in the television are fictional, outside is a fictional place. His reality is in the room where he hides in the wardrobe every night from 9pm as his mother waits for Old Nick to open the door every night when he brings provisions and sometimes, Sunday Treats, for them. One day Ma tells Jack the truth about outside and his whole existence has to change from then on.

This story is told in Jack's five-year-old voice which is so authentic I was reminded very much of my friend's young son. Also a compelling voice, I read this book practically in one sitting, so anxious was I to discover the truth of Jack's story and how everything turns out in the end. I absolutely loved this; another Kindle book, I'm sad I can't pass it onto my friends who I know will love it too. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year. (Mind you, I've loved everything I've read recently so....)

The Disengagement Ring by Clodagh Murphy

2010-08-30T18:08:00.001+02:00

Kate O'Neill has returned from a long trip abroad to her new-age psychologist but loser-ish boyfriend, Brian, who, seemingly quite reluctantly, asks her to marry him. Kate appears to be the only one who can't see how little regard Brian seems to have for her; her family certainly don't want her to marry him. Neither does close family friend, Will- manager of Ireland's most successful rock band, who Kate once had a bit of a crush on. Kate's mother asks Will to scupper Kate's plans to marry Brian by seducing her, or, if not keen on that idea, by throwing her in the path of one of the hornbag pop stars he manages. Will, a man of honour, is not keen but if he said no then there wouldn't be much story, would there?

I should state now that I "know" Clodagh Murphy from Twitter and she very generously sent me this book to read after I whined at her because her books weren't available for download on Kindle. Now that's out of the way I can honestly tell you this was a fantastic read, I enjoyed the crap out of it. Escapism and humour with a little bit of perfectly placed cynicism and social commentary, fantastically sexy heroes and wonderful women- what's not to love? Kate's family struck a real Marian Keyes cord, reminding me of Keyes's Walsh sisters; Kate's jealous, nasty sister screaming out for her own story of redemption in particular. This was loads of fun, absolutely perfect holiday reading.

Kindle! (iPad App)

2010-08-30T17:46:00.001+02:00

I got an iPad! I got it for my birthday and it's one of my most favourite things in the whole wide world. One of things that makes it so wonderful is the Kindle app which I downloaded for free from Amazon.com. With my Kindle app, I can download books in an instant and read whatever I like (within reason, sadly) whenever I like (not within reason- whenever I like!)

I should start off by telling you that I would never have bought a Kindle, the e-reader device from Amazon. There are a good few reasons for this, mainly that I'm an old romantic and I just love good, old-fashioned paper books. But, I thought, once I had my iPad, and since the Kindle app was for free that I'd give it a go (it also helped that iBooks, the app from Apple is rubbish in Switzerland). I can exclusively reveal that I haven't been so quickly converted to a product since the release of aloe vera tissues in the 90s.

I love that if I want to remember a book for later, all I have to do is go to Amazon and if the book is there, I can download a free sample in an instant. The payment method is so streamlined that (as long as I haven't gone mad with my plastic) as soon as I feel like I need to read a book, I can download the entire text and be reading within the blink of an eye. Amazon provides a free dictionary which enables you to hover over a word and be given the definition without leaving the page you're reading. You can bookmark, highlight and make notes in the text; I read a couple of real, paper books lately and really missed the highlighting function of the Kindle. And I've taken the iPad out in the sunshine and I can still read the text in bright sunlight. Some of the classics are free from Amazon- I chose Gulliver's Travels the other day because I've never read it.

There are, of course, a couple of things I don't like about it. Being Switzerland-based means I have to buy from the US Amazon store where the Kindle books are more expensive for some bizarre reason. Also, because I'm based in Switzerland, some of the titles are not available to European readers (The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas for one.) and finally, because the iPad is mine and I want it all day long, I am unable to share the books I buy on Kindle. That's my least favourite thing about Kindle because I do love to force my book choices on others, thrusting books into their hands and insisting they read them.

But, other than that, my Kindle app for iPad has enhanced my life greatly. It will never take the place of real books for me (actually, if I had my way, every paper book bought from now on would come with a link to a free download of an ebook version of it), but I *heart* it. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin

2010-08-30T17:20:00.001+02:00

This is a book of three parts: the story of the race between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton for the presidential nominee for the Democrats in the 2008 US general election; John McCain's story and the events behind choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate for the Republicans; Obama's presidential campaign which lead to him his election as the President of the USA. In the UK, this book is called Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the Whitehouse.

Not usually my thing, my friend Keris Stainton recommended this book to me. I downloaded the free sample chapter to my Kindle app on my iPad and gave it go. Within half an hour I had bought the book and didn't (couldn't) put it down until I discovered what happened in the end (Joke!). The foreword by the authors in this book explains their sources, their system for being able to paint such a vivid scene of the whole presidential race circus which certainly convinced me that I was reading a pretty accurate account of what went on behind the scenes. It was a fascinating story which read like a novel and was sometimes deliciously gossipy- my favourite parts. I loved reading this book with Wikipedia as a companion to get some more info on the people I had never heard of, even to just get a picture and a special treat was to be able to find clips of the fieriest bits of the debate and public appearances on YouTube to accompany the authors' interpretation of what happened.

This was an unexpected surprisingly good read for me. I finished it with a better understanding of US politics the presidential campaigns in particular and with a more rounded impression of the people involved with what was a major event in recent history. I wish I had it in paper so I could lend it to everyone I know.

One Day by David Nicholls

2010-08-30T17:01:00.000+02:00

Emma has just graduated from university and is an idealist; a drama student and aspiring actress, she wants to change the world with her art. Dexter has also just graduated from university and is a posh bloke from a wealthy family who wants to travel for a bit before he decides what he wants to do with his life. Emma has fancied Dexter for some time and ends up spending the night with him. They are quite obviously infatuated with each other but events conspire against them over time, preventing them from becoming a couple. They do keep in touch over the years though, and discover their lives going in dramatically different directions.

This was a good read but emotionally, I found it a bit confusing. I didn't like either the earnest, up herself, pain in the backside Emma or the aimless, crass Dexter at all which is usually the death knell for a novel for me. Something kept me reading though, even though on more than one occasion I wondered what on earth they bothered with each other for. I suspect it was the depth of the feeling Emma & Dexter had for each other which came through in the writing that kept me interested, kept me reading and which eventually left me with a tear in my eye when I'd finished. I'm glad I read it, I feel like everyone in the entire world had read it except for me. Ian Rankin, in my Twitter stream had read it. My friends all seemed to have read it. It was when Deirdre Barlow from Coronation St was reading it in the bookies that I thought maybe it was my turn to do so too. Deirdre never did say how she felt about it when she finished though. Oooh, I'd love to have a glass of red with her in the Rovers and find out what she thought.

Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes

2010-08-30T16:46:00.000+02:00

Rachel Walsh is a party girl, having a high old time living it up in New York with her room-mate, Brigit, and her boyfriend, Luke. Rachel is very fond of party drugs and eventually overdoses. She finds herself being strong-armed into a rehab centre in Dublin, Cloisters. Rachel is under the impression that she will be headed to a spa-like facility filled to the brim with celebrity types which is the only reason she agrees to go. The reality of Cloisters eventually sinks in and Rachel finds herself facing her demons and her drug problems head on. Then, she has to start rebuilding her life.

I loved this reading this book. Marian Keyes can make me laugh one page and cry the next and she did it again with Rachel's Holiday. I admit, I found Rachel's reluctance to face reality dragged a little too long for my liking but I did wonder if that was a deliberate attempt to make the reader aware of the frustration the family and friends of a drug addict face when dealing with their loved one in denial. Believable characters, great dialogue and a swiftly moving and touching story told with great humour. Top read.

In Search of Adam by Caroline Smailes

2010-08-30T16:26:00.000+02:00

Jude Williams's mother dies when she is seven years old, leaving only a note for Jude saying she has gone "in search of Adam." Even though Jude is then cared for by her father and his new wife, Jude essentially grows up alone, life for her going from bad to worse. The arrival of Jude's new baby half-sister, who Jude finds some meaning in her own existence is the only bright spot in an otherwise tragic life; a life which spirals, some would say inevitably, into darkness and despair into adulthood.

This is a very tragic story of childhood neglect and sexual abuse and the terrible consequences of a person with no support. The subject matter doesn't make for a comfortable read either. But it's beautifully written and evokes lots of emotion. Mainly, it made me sad, frustrated and angry; Jude's attempt to reach out to mental health professionals as an adult particularly made me angry for those in Jude's place in real life. Absolutely tragic but I'm very pleased I read it.

Della Says: OMG! by Keris Stainton

2010-07-14T15:21:00.002+02:00

From Keris Stainton's website, "Della’s over the moon when she kisses her long-standing crush at a party – but then she discovers her diary has disappeared...

When scans of embarrassing pages are sent to her mobile and appear on Facebook, Della’s distraught – how can she enjoy her first proper romance when someone, somewhere, knows all her deepest, darkest secrets?"

You probably know by now, Keris is a very good friend of mine so I was anxious to not only enjoy Della Says: OMG! but also to love it. I'm glad to report I did. Keris has a brilliant talent for writing dialogue which is a joy to read and her characters are not only believable but lovable. The book covers some important themes for teenagers (masturbation, teenage sex) in a responsible, accessible and refreshing way. I was more than happy to let (encourage) my own teenage sons to read this fantastic young adult novel.

I attended the Manchester launch party of Della Says where Keris signed a my very own copy of this book. She also signed a copy for Ewan, my youngest son who is a very reluctant 13 year-old reader. Ewan actually read this book over two days and has enthused about it to everyone since. My oldest son, Patrick (16) has also read and enjoyed it. In short, practically our entire family has fallen in love with Della- we hope lots and lots of others do too.

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

2010-07-14T15:06:00.000+02:00

A nameless woman heads back to where she grew up, a village in the wilderness of Canada to look for her father whop has been reported to her as missing. She is accompanied by her partner and their best friends, another couple. Her partner and friends enjoy the many aspects of a short trip to the countryside while the nameless woman revisits her childhood and slowly loses her mind.

Short but challenging, this book has loads of atmosphere and gave me a ton of things to think about; every word appears to be packed with meaning. A gripping- and little bit scary, to be honest- portrait of a woman gone completely mad, I was hooked. I will reread this very soon; I'm sure there's an awful lot I didn't catch first time around.

Della Says: OMG! by Keris Stainton

2010-05-06T14:06:00.002+02:00

It's my friend Keris Stainton's official launch day of her new, fab, young adult book, Della Says: OMG! You really should buy it, read it and buy some for your friends and rellies. Youse'll all love it. In fact, if you want a sneak peek, you can read chapter one here.

I'm very excited to be attending one of Keris's launch parties (she's having two, don't you know) next week and will be buying my very own copy then. I really can't wait to read it.

*disclaimer: I haven't actually read it yet because I am waiting until I have my own signed copy in my hot little hands but I have read practically everything else Keris has written (in a scary stalker way) and she's brilliant!

Ian Rankin in Zürich, 18/3/2010

2010-03-29T10:59:00.002+02:00

You might have been wondering what's with all the Ian Rankin of late. My husband mentioned some months ago that he's seen a poster in town advertising an Ian Rankin reading at Kaufleuten, Zürich and he wanted us to go, especially since he had missed the Margaret Atwood reading last October. Unfortunately, my husband was unable to attend this one, work keeping him unexpectedly in Abu Dhabi for a week so I took my son, Patrick along with me. We had a great night.

To start the evening, Ian Rankin read an excerpt from his latest novel, The Complaints. He chose to read from the very beginning of the book, explaining that he prefers to do it this way since it means he doesn't have to set the scene. After the reading, the moderator interviewed the author which was then followed by a couple of passages read in German by Austrian actor, Heikko Deutschmann. While I wasn't particularly compelled to start reading Rankin in German (unlike what happened at the Atwood reading), the reader was enthusiastic enough to keep my interest but I did find the German parts slightly tedious. Patrick fell asleep during the German reading and he's fluent so I don't really know what that says about it. After the German reading, the author answered some more questions and then, shortly before the end, the floor was open for questions.

During his interview, the author wasn't afraid to stray off on a tangent to tell a story, engage the audience and raise a laugh. He was very entertaining and raised a few topics of particular interest to me such as the translation from English into German and the effect that has on the text which then strayed into the changes made for US readers- a very enlightening subject. He told stories of becoming a suspect in a murder trial through his research for a novel and of how often, the truth is a lot less believable than fiction. He touched on some dark days reflected in his writing- his most famous character, Detective John Rebus's darkest times coincided with Rankin's (Note to self- Must read Black & Blue) and it was all very interesting. The moderator also managed to (it would have taken some skill, I thought) keep a balance between talking about Rebus and the new character, Malcolm Fox which was refreshing for me, since I'm still very new to Rankin, really. The only low point of the night came at the end when, even though the author had taken great pains through the entire evening to make his audience/readers understand that he and John Rebus are two separate entities, a question from an Irish woman in the audience was, "Are you John Rebus?" You could almost, but not quite, hear a collective exasperated groan from the rest of us. I say you could almost hear it. I certainly heard an, "Eurghhh!" coming from Patrick. Mr Rankin, if you ever find this little write up of your stint in Zürich, please let me assure you, some of us were listening. Honest, guv.

Apart from that, top night. Patrick and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'll definitely read more Rankin and I look forward to the two new novels featuring Malcolm Fox that we were practically promised at the event. Wish my husband could have come, he'd have loved it.

The Complaints by Ian Rankin

2010-03-13T21:52:00.002+01:00

Malcolm Fox works in Edinburgh police's Complaints and Conduct department. They're the coppers who investigate other policemen when they've not been behaving themselves. Fox is put on the case to investigate Jamie Breck whose credit card has been traced to a child pornography website in Melbourne. Coincidentally and unhapppily, Jamie Breck has been assigned the case to find out who has murdered Malcolm Fox's sister's boyfriend. Fox soon discovers that Aberdeen Complaints and Conduct have been investigating him. Fox has no idea who he can and can't trust to help him any more.

This was another great read from Ian Rankin. Great, characters, great dialogue again- which makes all the difference, don't you think?- and a challenging, convoluted plot. Actually, so convoluted, I lost my way a little towards the end but I suppose that's to be expected from a story involving police departments which operate under such tight restrictions and secrecy (also, I'm a bit thick). The paranoia was contagious, I suspected just about every character of underhanded ways by about the halfway mark. Very entertaining, I enjoyed this immensely.

Doors Open by Ian Rankin

2010-03-13T21:15:00.003+01:00

Mike Mackenzie is a bored self-made man whose huge bank balance allows him to indulge in his hobby of collecting art. His boredom leads him, along with a couple of his friends, to organise a theft of several artworks from the National Gallery of Scotland, replacing them with forgeries. He turns to an old school pal and well-known Edinburgh crime figure, Chib Calloway to help. Mike's plans all start to go awry when Chib Calloway's various troubles start interfering- a detective called Ransome who is hell bent on putting Calloway in prison and a big nasty Scandinavian mercenary/debt collector, looking for payment. Mike Mackenzie very quickly finds himself out of his depth.

This was apparently Ian Rankin's first novel after the final story in his very popular Rebus series. That doesn't really mean much to me since I've only read two of those books anyway. But, it was a great read, well paced with an excellent plot in which all the loose ends were tied up nice and tight. I do love the Edinburgh settings to Ian Rankin novels, occasionally heading over the Forth into Fife and his dialogue, so far that I've read anyway, has been spot on. Time spent reading Ian Rankin has, for me, proved to be time well spent.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

2010-03-13T20:50:00.000+01:00

Lee Fiora, a 14 year old girl from South bend, Indiana, has won a scholarship- completely of her own doing- from a prestigious boarding school in New England. She leaves her middle class family and neighbourhood to join an entirely different class of student. Her new classmates come from money and of this, Lee is very aware. Lee is a bright girl with good grades which won her her scholarship but finds herself only an average student amongst the brightest and best bound for the ivy league universities. She's out of her depth, finds it difficult to make friends, has a crush on a boy and very quickly learns to become embarrassed by her middle class roots. Lee takes us from her first day all the way through to her graduation- four years of prep school.

I loved this book. I really identified with the teenager Lee; her teenage anxieties about making friends, the politics of boys and girls and which group she fitted into (or not) reminded me, not always pleasantly, of my own teens- always a tough time for anyone, I'm sure. Some reviews I've read have classed this as a Young Adult novel. I'm not so sure that it is, given the sex scenes. I have, however, given it to my oldest (16) son to read and who seems to be enjoying it. Growing up, I was a great fan of Enid Blyton's series of novels set in English boarding schools and this was almost an adult and updated version of those. Even though Lee's experience of boarding school wasn't particularly enjoyable, this book brought back those feelings of desperately longing to go to boarding school I used to have as a child reading Enid Blyton's stories. A great read- funny, dark and painful as well as fabulously nostalgic (for me).

I Heard That Song Before by Mary Higgins Clark

2010-03-13T18:09:00.001+01:00

Kay Lansing's father was the landscaper to the wealthy Carrington family in Englewood. One night she stole into the family chapel and hid as she overheard a heated conversation between two unknown people. Later that night a young woman goes missing. The Carrington family appears cursed as years later, in two separate incidents, Kay's father apparently commits suicide and the wife of Peter Carrington is found dead in the pool. Unperturbed by the local rumours of Peter Carrington's guilt, Kay ends up marrying him after they meet again when Kay asks Peter to host a fund-raiser in his house. The case against Peter is reopened and Kay has to face the fact that her new husband may be a killer.

Another easy to read, plot-driven story from a the lady they call "The Queen of Suspense" (or something.) While I wouldn't say Mary Higgins Clark would ever be a favourite of mine, I admire her ability to write a page-turner. Shame it has to be at the expense of characterisation. I also find her turn of phrase a little too American for my liking ("twenty of twelve"? I had to use a little investigative power to work that out. And "Scotch" for "Scottish"? Grrrr!) but this was another good, fasat read that helped bring my concentration levels back to normal after the recent spate of bad news in the family. I might add, Patrick, my 16 year-old voracious reader doesn't feel they have enough depth for him. Anyway, I'll continue to accept the donations of these blockbuster novels from my neighbour- they're good to have in a reading emergency.

Where Are You Now? By Mary Higgins Clark

2010-02-11T11:26:00.001+01:00

Carolyn Mackenzie is a 26 year old lawyer in New York. Her father died in the terrorist attack of 9/11 and her brother, Mack, has been missing for the past 10 years. Mack calls home once per year every Mother's Day. This year, Carolyn decides she has had enough and tells her brother during his yearly call that she is going to find him. Despite a warning note, left in their priest uncle's collection basket at Sunday mass, Carolyn gets the police involved in Mack's disappearance. It just so happens that at the same time, a young woman goes missing. The young woman calls home to tell her family she will now call once per year, on Mother's Day. Mack, his family and friends soon become suspects in the disappearance of this young woman and others who have gone missing through the years. Carolyn now has her work cut out for her to find her brother and clear his name or find her brother and defend him against the allegations.

This is not usually my type of read. I find Mary Higgins Clark novel a little superficial for my taste and not really challenging enough. However, you may or may not know that January was a rough month for my family and me. My clever friend, an Air Hostess* with Swiss, reads these airport bestsellers to keep up her English skills and then passes them along to me. I've been thankful for them of late since I picked this one up to re-establish my concentration levels which were shot to an all-time low with the recent events. Again, I found the story superficial and unchallenging but it was a fast, easy read with a Dickensian cast of characters and real page-turner of a climax. Exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of reading again. I enjoyed it a fair bit. So much so, that I picked up another that my friend had given me and am currently ripping through that too. Unpretentious, entertaining and enjoyable.

*Air Hostess, are we still calling them that?

The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes

2010-02-11T10:53:00.003+01:00

There is a presence in 66, Star St, watching over the residents, telling us their stories. The stories of Lydia, the evil pixie and her two Polish flatmates; Katie who works in the music industry and has a boyfriend, Conall, who is flash with his cash but comes up short when it comes to demonstrating any real affection, so she feels; Matt & Maeve, who wrap themselves around each other while watching telly at night and do random acts of kindness through the day; Lydia, an old lady who lives with her dog named Grudge, can feel the presence but doesn't know what it is and who is looking forward very much to a visit from her foster-son, Fionn, a soon-to-be big star tv gardener. All at once, the residents of 66, Star St have their lives turned upside down by fate while the mysterious presence is running its own race against time.

I enjoyed this book up to a point. All of the characters were lovely enough, except perhaps Katie who just got my goat for some reason. Matt & Maeve were heartbreaking and endearing. Fionn for all his annoying-ness was a loveable tit. I loved the evil pixie, Lydia, and her Polish friends. I laughed and I cried, like I always do with a Marian Keyes but I also had a great moment of eye-rolling exasperation at the point where I realised the crux of the story and the purpose of the mysterious presence. Seriously, it detracted enormously from my enjoyment of this book. Had the magical element been taken out of this novel (and Lydia's ending been changed to the way I wanted) I would have said this was a top read. As it is, I can really only say it was one of those OK reads. I've read worse but I've read way, way better and certainly way better from Marian Keyes*.

Meh. 5/10.

*This really does feel a lot like sticking the boot in. I know Ms Keyes has been very unwell with depression lately, the poor soul. I wish I could have felt differently about this book but sadly, no. I comfort myself in the knowledge that she'll never see this review in the bajillions of reviews out there.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

2010-02-11T10:26:00.001+01:00

From the back of the book, "One one of the most important days of her husband's presidency, Alice Blackwell considers the strange and unlikely path that has lead them to the White House, and faces contradictions years in the making.Weaving race, class, wealth and fate into a brilliant tapestry, this remarkable novel lays bare the pleasures and pain of intimacy and love."

A good, quite lengthy (over 600 pages) read, this one. It really does weave race, class wealth and fate successfully through a story of one woman's lifetime and adds sexual politics into the mix. Alice is an engaging storyteller and thoroughly convincing. I admit I tired of the excesses of America's overly rich and privileged at one point. In fact, I nearly put the book down but I'm glad I plugged on in the end. The rest of the story made up for that. I found the whole tone of the book quite sad but ultimately, Alice's inner strength and belief in her convictions as a woman fundamentally opposed to her husband's politics rewarding.

Apparently, Alice Blackwell shares some of the same life experiences as former First Lady Laura Bush which leads one to believe that the story may give a vague insight into the life of a woman married to one of the most hated men in recent history. In fact, a friend once said she was a little afraid to read this book because she'd heard that it might make you sympathise with Laura Bush. Certainly, when Alice says, "...his election is my fault, his presidency is my fault, his war is my fault. Why couldn't I have just let him be an alcoholic. Plenty of wives out up with it every day!" I think it's a little hard not to feel sorry for her. Despite that, I enjoyed this story. Lets say, 7 or 8/10.

Push: A Novel by Sapphire

2009-12-26T15:00:00.000+01:00

Claireece Precious Jones (known as Precious) is an obese black, 16 year old, mother of one child, pregnant with another living in Harlem. Her own father has been sexually abusing her since she was around three years old and has fathered her two children; her oldest, born when Precious was 12, has Downs Syndrome and lives with Precious's grandmother. If that's not enough, Preecious's mother beats her and also sexually abuses her.

Precious is expelled from school for being pregnant, much to her annoyance. However, the teacher who expels her has organised for the illiterate Precious to attend a different school programme, Each One Teach One, to earn her GED. Although Precious is at first furious with her teacher for removing her from school she attends the new programme and is pushed to learn to read. Through learning to read and write Precious learns that she and her children are entitled to a better life and she works towards providing that.

In this story of poor unfortunates who fall through the cracks of society, Precious's voice is a stream of consciousness written in her own dialect which took a few pages to get the rhythm of but once established was fairly easy to read. However, the subject matter is often painful to read; the sexual and violent abuse she suffers is told by Precious in some detail and often I wondered how one person could possibly survive blow after blow as Precious does. She survives it because she never succumbs to victim mentality. One of the things I loved about Precious was her clarity of mind and her determination to lay the blame for what happened to her squarely at the feet of those who deserved it. Of course, it's a moving read; in all of the horror the moments when Precious finds kindness in others brought me to tears and I loved seeing Precious blossom on the page as her reading and writing skills improved with her time in Each One Teach One. This is an unforgettable story which depressed, shocked and angered me but thankfully, left me hopeful. It's a book that can be read in one or two sittings but shouldn't be read without a packet of tissues very handy.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

2009-12-26T14:24:00.006+01:00

Reviewed by Ewan, 12

This Book is about a Kid in Middle School who wants to become famous and Popular. He tries to do alot of Stuff such as: Build up his Muscles, get a Portrait in the Class favourites etc. His friend is trying to help him but that backfires.

I really liked His brother who is in a Metal Band called Löded diper, the Cartoon quality was Good and very Funny as well.

I got this Book for Christmas and I read it in a Day.

Good Book overall. 8/10

Ms Mac Disclaimer: I have not corrected this text because I find Ewan's mix of German and English grammar (hence the random capital letters) amusing and charming. We'll have a quick lesson on it later.

Meme-time

2009-12-14T15:49:00.002+01:00

A book-ish meme lifted directly from Keris, who is, according to Amazon, "a new, incredibly promising young writer, with a magazine journalist background and with her finger firmly on the pulse of what rocks in a teen girl’s world." She's also my mate.

The last book I read was… Breathing in Colour by Claire Jay which I had mixed feelings on. See here.
The book I’m currently reading… American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld which I am enjoying but groing weary of the excesses of America's rich and over-privileged with just over 150 pages to go.
The last bestseller I’ve read is… Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. I was seriously disappointed.
The last book I’ve bought/received is… Lovely Mr Mac brought me both Push by Sapphire and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall back from the USA last Friday.
The books I’ll be buying soon is/are… Great in number but hopefully include the new Marian Keyes, The Brightest Star in the Sky
My favourite children’s book is… Either The Malory Towers or St Clares series by Enid Blyton but I loved the pictures in the old Ladybird Edition of Cinderella.
My favourite Shakespeare play is… Don't really have one. Let's go with The Merchant of Venice because I love Venice.
Best period of literature? That time when you're just about to finish a brilliant book and you know it's going to have the most amazing ending.
Emily Bronte or Jane Austen? Since I've read more Austen than Bronte, I'm going with Austen. Plus, Pride & Prejudice is just lovely.
My favourite poet/s is/are… I'm too thick for poetry. I just can't bring myself to be interested in it, really.
My favourite literary character is… Clever and funny and I haven't decided on just one yet.
A book I could reread a thousand times is…A George Clooney picture biography.
A book I hated is…PS. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern. Absolutely dreadful writing. A great idea for a story but the writing was abysmal; the type of writing that gives chick lit a bad name. Nepotism at its absolute worst.
If my life were a book, it would be… Funny at times, sad occasionally with a couple of unexpected plot twists, loads of raunchy sex scenes and expletives but mostly dull.
My ritual when reading a book is… To either snuggle down into bed or get comfy on the lounge with either dead silence or classical music in the background. I simply can't read with the tv on or music with words playing. The words on the page fight with the words in my ears for attention and nothing goes in.
Best places to buy books… I don't buy them. Mr Mac buys them when he goes away. He finally got himself a Borders loyalty card.
The language(s) I read most of my books in is…English but I have been known to read a couple of novels in German.
Do you write? If so, what? Drivel, mostly.
19. Recommend a book…I recommend everyone pre-order's Keris Stainton's Della Says: OMG! WTF! from Amazon today. I've been reading her blog (and a wee bit of her fiction) for years. I can't wait to read this.

Breathing in Colour by Claire Jay

2009-12-08T09:10:00.002+01:00

Divorced Alida Salter gets the phone call every mother dreads- her 19-year-old daughter Mia has gone missing in India while on holiday. Alida hops on the next plane to go looking for her. Mia was never an ordinary child, having been diagnosed with synaesthesia from a young age. The artwork she has left behind shows Alida clues to Mia's state of mind. Australian artist, Taos, who Mia was working with before she disappeared joins Alida on her search around India. Of course, it's not just a search for her daughter, Alida and Mia both have to go searching for themselves.

It took me some time to properly get into this story, mainly because I found the characters of Alida and Mia fairly dreary; lots of meta-fiction arty-farty introspection and dream analysis which really dragged down the narrative for me. However, once the search for Mia started in earnest, I was drawn into the story despite my weariness for the characters and went along for the ride. The prose was a little too flowery for my liking in parts with many an over-elaborated metaphor but the atmosphere, pace and the suspense made up for it. I was in two minds about the ending. The half of me which was decidedly unimpressed with the aforementioned arty-farty introspection and dream analysis felt, plot-wise, it was a totally unbelievable cop out while the other half of me really enjoyed the clever way the writer created suspense, right up until the very last page of the book. Despite my misgivings, it was all right, this one. Didn't mind it at all.

Many thanks to the lovely Keris for the donation.

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

2009-12-08T08:02:00.001+01:00

Three different women discover that a man from their past, Paddy de Courcy, a prominent Irish politician is getting married. Each woman- Lola, Grace and Marnie- has a different reaction. Each woman has a different history with Paddy de Courcy. Lola,a well-known personal stylit, is his current girlfriend; you can imagine how she feels to discover her boyfriend is marrying someone else. Lola's work suffers and she seeks refuge in a remote town for the time being. For Marnie, Paddy de Courcy was her first love. Marnie has married and had children since Paddy- she's moved on to London and a new life. Grace, a journalist, is Marnie's sister with a lot of work on. Stories on Paddy and not to mention an interview with Alicia Thornton, the horsey-faced woman Paddy is marrying. They've all got their secrets about the effect Paddy de Courcy has had on their lives.

Blimey, it's hard to write a short summary about what this book's...err... about. It's thousands of pages long for a start (well, 8-900, I think) and is jam packed with the stories of many people who have direct and indirect contact with Paddy de Courcy. There are three main, distinct voices, (given different typefaces which I really do find quite patronising as a reader- if your character's voices are well enough written, there's no need for different typefaces.), one of which is perhaps a little too Bridget Jones-esque sometimes but I found that character quite amusing so it didn't bother me. There were loads of twisty-turny bits which kept me entertained and which, for the most part, were a surprise when they happened. I love books that can do that to me.

Marian Keyes deals with a couple of very difficult issues in this book but deals with them well. Certainly, she manages to make the reader understand how one can come to love a villain without seeing how very badly he may be behaving. I read this book in a couple of days but that's because I cared quite a lot for these women which made me sleep badly one night (I know- idiot, right?) and I didn't want to have it in my head the next night so I finished it quick smart and started reading trash mags for a bit to clear my head of the disturbing subject matter. Despite the disturbed sleep, this was a good, satisfying read which made me laugh and made me cry and made me care deeply about fictional characters. Also, since it was on the 3 for 2 table at Waterstones, it was good value for money.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

2009-12-08T08:01:00.001+01:00

Grace Marks is an Irish emigrant to Canada who has left her alcoholic, abusive father and gone into service. After a short but happy time working alongside a new friend, Grace finds herself a new position in service to a Mr Thomas Kinnear, working with his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery. It's not long before Grace and another house employee, James McDermott are arrested, tried and sentenced for the murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery. Grace, by virtue of the fact that she is either unable or unwilling to recall the envents surrounding the murders soon becomes one of Canada's most notorious criminals. A psychologist, Dr Simon Jordan visits the prison to interview Grace, using a series of new techniques to try and restore Grace's memory. Will we ever know what happened that day.

This is a historical fiction, based on the real-life case of Grace Marks, convicted of murder in 1843. Margaret Atwood has wound the true story around a series of fictional characters, chiefly that of Simon Jordan cleverly. Grace's story is compelling and intimately told, in an authentic voice. The characters surrounding Grace are fun and interesting as well, particularly Dr Jordan who has to deal with his bothersome mother's correspondence which provides comic relief regularly throughout the novel. I picked this book up as soon as I got home from the Margaret Atwood reading since she had told us that she started writing it in Zürich all those years ago and started reading, all excited. It was a great read. Loved it.

Margaret Atwood Reading in Zürich, Oct 2009

2009-11-12T14:35:00.002+01:00

It was via my personal blog that I first discovered Margaret Atwood. I did one of those book memes in which, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was listed. I think I commented that I hadn't read this book but that I thought I probably should. Perhaps there were a couple of comments telling me that, yes, I most definitely should read The Handmaid's Tale, so I did and it was, like, just about the best book I had ever read, ever, ever, ever in my whole entire life*. And my giant reader's crush on Margaret Atwood was born.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of years, a few more Atwood books and here we are. I knew that Ms Atwood had a new novel out, The Year of the Flood- a sequel to her 2003 novel, Oryx and Crake. I read them both greedily and they were both fantastic; I lived and breathed her dystopia until I dreamed about it.

So, you can imagine my excitement when, a few days after finishing The Year of the Flood, I was reading the paper and I came across a full-page ad telling me Margaret Atwood was going to be in town the very next day. After some humming and hawing (because I was sick) and my friend Maree (Hi Maree!) volunteered to accompany me, I booked me some tickets, got gussied up some and headed into town for the literary event of the year.

The event was held in Kaufleuten, a place I'm not sure how to describe. There's a restaurant there and a theatre and they seem to do stuff like this all the time. What's that called? Maree and I found our places in a small theatre, Maree treated us each to a glass of prosecco and we settled in, waiting for the guest of honour to appear.

After a brief intro, the author appeared; a tiny woman with a wry grin and mad, curly hair. She sat at a table with Swiss actress Graziella Rossi and they took turns reading chapters from The Year of the Flood in English and German. Ms Atwood read with a dry sense of humour, making us all laugh and laughing at her own jokes while Ms Rossi read with such enthusiasm and drama that she made me want to try reading Atwood in German. After the readings, the author was briefly interviewed by the host of the evening and even answered questions from the audience. As is always the case with me, I was completely unable to think of a single intelligent question to ask and so sat there feeling like a nong while Ms Atwood answered questions about her inspiration (she started writing Alias Grace in Zürich years ago while staying in the Hotel zum Storchen- perhaps it was the ghostly atmosphere which spurred her on), her love of science fiction and why she shouldn't be labelled a sci-fi writer (she has tried to write sci-fi but doesn't think she has the talent for it) and even about whether there would be a third novel to follow on from The Year of the Flood ("I like the number three...."). She was engaging, funny and she knew her stuff. She was also very diplomatic and refused to be drawn into giving her favourite Canadian authors for fear of offending anyone she may have forgotten.

In short, I loved her. I wish I could have stuck around to have her sign my books but, as was the case with Sébastien Buemi, the Swiss inability to organise themselves into a queue stopped me from hanging around, elbowing strangers and throwing old ladies over my shoulder to stand, a giggling moronic mess, in front of my literary heroine. She'll be back one day, I'm sure. Hopefully I'll have thought of an intelligent question to ask her by then.

*Now the best book I have ever read in my whole entire life is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Have you read it? It's amazingly chilling. Love it! (Although it got a lukewarm response from everyone else I have recommended it to.)

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

2009-10-19T11:15:00.006+02:00

Sarah is ten years old and living with her mother, father and brother in WWII Paris when the French police come knocking on her door in July 1942. The police are rounding up French Jews at the behest of the German occupying forces. The Jews will then be sent on to their deaths at Auschwitz.

In today's Paris, lives an American journalist, Julia, married to a Frenchman with a daughter. Julia is asked by her boss to write a piece about the Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver, the aforementioned raid on French Jews in which Sarah is dragged to a local velodrome, taken to a camp outside of Paris and separated from her parents. Julia, like many Parisians had never heard of this shameful incident in France's history and researches further. What she discovers becomes part of a personal journey which affects her, her daughter and her French family more than she imagined.

This story starts off being told in two voices, that of Sarah and Julia. We read about Sarah's torment as she is separated from her family and worries about her brother while Julia accepts her assignment and begins research into the raid. Sadly, the two voices stop halfway through the book as Sarah's story is left to Julia to explore. I missed Sarah's point of view and the second half the novel was certainly weaker than the first but Julia was engaging enough to hold the rest of the story. We get to know a host of Julia's French contemporaries who are perhaps a little stereotyped (arrogant, tactless unfaithful French husband- why would she stay with him? Oh, it's because he's an outstanding lover.) but interesting all the same. The author's picture of the stitched-up-so-tight French in-laws was drawn quite well and made for some very emotional reading as the story played out. While I found Julia needed a bit of oomph to stand up for herself, I was impressed by the author's ability to draw an American in Paris. I was surprised after reading to discover that Tatiana de Rosnay is a French woman, born in France to a French father and English mother. In the author interview in the back of the book de Rosnay says she based Julia on her American friends in Paris. I think she did a good job of that but the ending was a little weak.

This is fast, easy, emotional and unforgettable read. It's not without its faults- being bashed over the head with a social message; all right, I get it, the French shouls be ashamed of themselves- but I would recommend it to my friends. Also, gorgeous cover.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

2009-10-19T11:14:00.008+02:00

Elspeth Noblin, twin sister of Edie has died. She has left her diaries and private papers to her lover, Robert, and the rest of her estate- money, second-hand book business and London flat- to her sister's twin daughters, Julia and Valentina. This is on condition that the twins live in the flat for a year before selling it and that Edie and her husband are never to set foot in it.

Julia is keen to seize the opportunity to move to London and althought reluctant, Valentina agrees. Their new flat overlooks Highgate Cemetery where Robert is a guide while working on his Ph. D. thesis. Robert also lives in the flat below the girls while above the girls lives Martin; crippled by OCD and unable to leave his flat, or indeed, look out of his windows, Martin's beloved wife Marijke has finally had enough and left him. While Valentina and Robert hit it off, Julia makes friends with Martin. While her friends and neighbours are getting to know her nieces, Elspeth has found herself in a new life as a ghost, haunting her old flat. Everybody has to overcome something in order to move on.

I desperately wanted to love this book. So much so that I even bought it in hardback (I never do harback). I had read The Time Traveler's Wife and wasn't so enamoured with it as some others had been but the synopsis of and general hype surrounding this book had me intrigued. Sadly, I have to report that it started oh, so promisingly but descended into nonsense by about the half-way mark. And not just the plot which could have been strengthened by the characterisation but didn't since it tended toward cliché- I had decided I was bored with Valentina, the younger (by minutes), weaker (physically and mentally), yet somehow more desirable twin within the first couple of chapters. A gaping plot hole (as far as I could see) didn't help and there's a big secret too; a secret which, in a better planned out story, could have been used to great effect in characterisation but in this case was reduced to a pointless sub-plot of sorts. Really, it's a bit of a mess.

The one good thing which kept me reading was the OCD-riddled character of Martin. His and Marijke's seemingly doomed love story was a pleasure. I would have liked to have read a book about the two of them. This was a fast, easy read and I suppose if you're a die-hard fan of The Time Traveler's Wife you might be more pleased by this book than I was. For me it was a crashing disappointment.

There's a more detailed and better written review here which articulates just about everything I felt about this book. Also, I prefer this cover.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

2009-10-13T23:32:00.004+02:00

In a dystopian future, Toby and Ren are two former members of God's Gardeners, a cult which prefers to grow their own food from the ground and only resorts to eating meat in the very direst of straits. Separately, however, it seems that Toby and Ren are in the direst of straits since they seem to be the only two people on earth who have survived "the flood", a catastrophe foretold by the leaders of God's Gardeners which has wiped out civilisation as they knew it. In their two separate voices, Toby and Ren tell their stories of life as members of the cult, life after the cult and how they managed to avoid falling foul of the catastrophic events which lead to their current predicaments.

The Year of the Flood is a sequel to Oryx and Crake, the book I raved about in my last review. A few of the same characters make an appearance in this story which is more or less a retelling of Oryx and Crake from the pleeblands. However, I don't think it must necessarily be read after Oryx and Crake. The God's Gardeners and the rebel/vigilante groups actively fighting the police state are explored intimately and with affection by Toby and Ren who tell their compelling stories well, with distinct voices (apart from the first and third person voices, that is) and make you care about them. I was particularly drawn to Ren, the younger of the two women and turned the pages frantically in the hope that all would turn out well for her. Snowman/Jimmy makes a return in this book and I read and read greedily until we discovered his fate.

Another fantastic and fully satisfying read. Before starting, I was worried* that this book would taint my view of Oryx and Crake with an inferior story and silly, unnecessary explanations** but I needn't have been concerned. This stands alone as a story in and of itself but is a brilliant companion to one of the best reads of the year. I *heart* Margaret Atwood. She's just amazing.

*for about a nanosecond.
**you know, like the sequels to Highlander? Travesty.

Also, much prefer my cover to this cover.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

2009-10-13T23:29:00.007+02:00

Somewhere in the future, Snowman lives in a tree. He is able sleep here with no fear of being attacked by the various strange splices of creatures roaming freely since civilisation collapsed. He lives close by an odd group of people he calls the Crakers. The Crakers are curious about Snowman and look to him for answers to their questions about their strange existence. What they don't know is that Snowman used to be a boy named Jimmy. Jimmy grew up in a police state where families of corporate employees lived on compounds and didn't mix with those from outside the compounds, the pleeblands. Jimmy recalls his past and takes us through his lifetime right up until the events which caused the collapse of the world as he knew it.

By the time I was a third of the way through, I realised excitedly that this book was going to challenge The Handmaid's Tale as my favourite Atwood novel and even perhaps become one of my favourite books of all time. Fast moving, the story is intriguing and the characters fascinating. The world Jimmy grew up in is strange and yet recognisable as a direction we find ourselves moving in now, making the dystopian future the author creates entirely plausible and ever so creepy. Science fiction with a love story/adventure twist, I could hardly put this book down. This is the kind of book I would buy for friends and insist they read it immediately so I can talk at them about it. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Dead as a Doornail and Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

2009-09-16T12:38:00.009+02:00

Dead as a Doornail: Uh oh. Someone's going around shooting were-people in Bon temps. This concerns Sookie because there's a chance her brother, Jason, has been turned into a were of some sort. But the were community thinks Jason might be behind the shooting. Well, that's not good, is it? Sookie's werewolf suitor, Alcide, makes a re-appearance (actually, I kind of fancy Alcide myself); he needs Sookie's help to strengthen his father's campaign to become the werewolf pack's leader. Oh, and there's a new pirate vampire, a very sexy were-tiger called Quinn and a fairy godmother as well. Fairies now!

Definitely Dead: Sookie's vampire cousin, Hadley, has died and Sookie has been summoned to New Orleans to sort through Hadley's things. Turns out that Hadley was the lover of the Vampire Queen of Louisiana and things don't go as smoothly as perhaps Sookie would have liked. Poor old Sookie finds herself unwittingly and unwillingly in the middle of royal vampire politics while finding out a little more about her vampire ex-boyfriend, Bill, than she would like.

It's all getting very silly in Bon Temps with more supernatural beings coming out of the woodwork than you can shake a stick at. I don't care though. I've taken a wee break from Sookie and her pals for now but I'm definitely going back to find out what happens to them all when I'm in the mood for a bit of light-hearted sexy silly escapism.

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

2009-08-09T14:35:00.005+02:00

Crikey, it never rains but it pours for Sookie Stackhouse. In this book in the series, Sookie has broken up with her vampire boyfriend, Bill- no Buffy & Angel style everlasting love for these two. But that's ok because Eric, boss of the vampires, has turned up in her neck of the woods all naked and apparently with no memory of who he is or where he came from. That might have something to do with a pack of powerful werewolf-witches who have come to town and started causing chaos left, right and centre. Oh, and there's a werewolf called Alcide who has his eye on Sookie too.

It's no wonder all these men (for want of a better catch-all term for the male supernaturals) have the hots for Sookie. She's funny and gorgeous and I love her too. I also fell head over heels for Eric- who wouldn't; tall, blonde, mature, Scandinavian and naked? These books are like crack; I spent all summer soaking up the sexy silliness in Bon Temps. Couldn't put them down.

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

2009-08-05T12:00:00.004+02:00

Sookie's vampire boyfriend, Bill, has been called away on a secret mission by the vampire queen of Louisiana. Before he left, it seemed to Sookie that Bill's ardour had cooled so you can imagine how she feels when she hears from Bill's vampire mates that Bill has put the word out that he was leaving her for Lorena, his maker. Bill's vampire mates also tell Sookie that Bill is in trouble, being held captive in the vampire king of Mississippi's mansion. Sookie sets off to rescue him under the guise of being the girlfriend of a handsome werewolf with a jealous shapeshifter ex.

It all sounds rather ridiculous, doesn't it? And I've never read anything like this before (Anne Rice's vampires bored me silly) but flamin' 'eck, these Southern Vampire mysteries are addictive. This Club Dead is the third in the series. Mr Mac bought me six from the series while he was in Thailand last week but the second title, Living Dead in Dallas was unavailable. Never mind, I'm watching a version of that in HBO's True Blood series at the moment anyway.

These stories are fun and silly and sexy and the hot vampire dudes are irresistible. And now I think I quite fancy this new werewolf. I hope he turns up in future books. I'm hopelessly sucked in.

Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin

2009-07-16T22:47:00.006+02:00

Ellen, a successful photographer has only been married a year or so to Andy when she encounters her long lost love and writer Leo, on a New York street crossing. After seeing Ellen, Leo calls Ellen and initiates a friendship between the two ex-lovers. Ellen tries to back out of the friendship but is soon drawn more to Leo as he orchestrates a weekend photo shoot for her with one of Ellen's favourite musicians for a magazine. Ellen neglects to tell Andy about being back in touch with Leo which leads to marital disharmony as well as the threat of losing her best friend since college, Andy's sister Margot.

This was another great chick lit read from Emily Giffin who manages to hit the nail on the head when writing about relationships. Her characters and the interaction between them (nearly) always rings true to me, despite the cultural and lifestyle differences between me and her fab, rich protagonists. This time she explores not only the ways that exes can intrude on married life but also the influence on friends and loved ones as Ellen strays into dangerous territory. The phrase, "blood is thicker than water" comes to mind as Ellen considers the feelings, reactions and actions of her husband, her best friend and her sister while reconsidering the past and imagining a future she may well have been cheated out of with Leo.

Dammit, this woman always manages to make me cry. Which is not a bad thing. This another fast, easy yet very satisfying read from Giffin. Emily Giffin's books are nearly the only chick lit that I hang onto, thinking I would like to re-read them one day. Her next novel is not out until 2010 which means I have plenty of time to re-read them all.

The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch

2009-07-16T22:32:00.006+02:00

On the Gower Peninsula in Wales stand the ancestral home of Oxmoon inhabited by the very complex family of Godwins who we follow through the years and generations of Godwins. Robert Godwin, son of Bobby, is ambitious, hard-working, intellectual and in love with his childhood friend, Ginevra. Ginevra runs away at age a young age to marry rogue Conor Kinsella, a family friend who whisks her away to America. John has always looked up to his brother Robert and believes firmly that, "Bad things happen to those who fail to draw the line." John finds it harder and harder to live by these words as he ages. John's failure to draw the line has a profound effect on his son Harry whose life spirals out of control as he finds himself more and more running in unthinkable parrallels with his strange, spoiled and thoroughly dislikeable cousin Kester. Kester, the heir of Oxmoon leaves his estate in the unreliable hands of friends and hangers-on while he wraps himself in his writing believing only in Truth, Art and Beauty. Harry's son feels drawn to Kester's way of life and emotional rejects Harry's parenting. He is drawn to investigate the truth of what happened one day down at the sea when a family member drowns in suspicious circumstances. In his investigation he finds out many truths about his family, his father's relationship with Kester and a circle of time is completed as Oxmoon, Harry and Hal find salvation.

Phew, it's hard to write a short summary of what happens in one of Susan Howatch's big family dramas since they span so many years and generations. Also, I hope with my summary you don't think that I have written a spoiler. I love Susan Howatch's writing. She was one of the first authors who I could really say was one of my favourites and I have read almost everything she has written. The Wheel of Fortune is one of my favourite novels of her and one of my favourites of all time. I love how she uses six first person voices in six different time spans to illustrate family dynamics, give different points of view of various circumstances and explore relationships. Having the outsider view of a relationship between her characters and a then full exploration of of that through the voice of part of the relationship is a tool Susan Howatch uses to great effect and draws the reader into a family, giving them a fuller understanding and making them care. Howatch is not afraid of the metaphysical and spirituality either which adds another dimension and I am always impressed with her characterisations of strong women who usually can see the wood from the trees, unlike their male counterparts. I really do love her books.

Funnily enough, it took me six goes to make it past 100 pages of this book over about 8 years. When I was finally ready to push past my previous marker and make it to the end a good few ears ago, I was fully rewarded with a fantastic story of love, loyalty, betrayal, family, jealousy and redemption. I love, love, love this book and hope to enjoying re-readings of it well into the future.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

2009-07-16T14:27:00.006+02:00

Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. In Sookie Stackhouse's world, vampires are real and have just "come out of the coffin" and are trying to live in harmony with humans. Bill Compton, a vampire as old as the civil war, comes into the bar where Sookie works one day. Sookie is unable to read his mind and falls instantly in love with him. Luckily, the feeling is mutual. While these two are falling in love, Sookie's boss Sam watches from the sidelines all jealous because he is in love with Sookie too but has a big secret he is keeping from her. And if that's not enough, there are waitresses being murdered all around town; waitresses who get off on being bitten by vampires. Sookie should be looking out for herself.

Naturally, I wanted to read this after I got sucked in 100% by HBO's tv series True Blood, which is based on this series of novels so apologies in advance for comparing the two (inevitable, really). Even though I knew who the murderer was because it had been covered in season one of the tv show, I enjoyed reading this book immensely. It is written in Sookie's first person voice and is conversational and moves swiftly. It's easy to fall in love with Sookie who is naturally sweet, clever and charming. And she looks like Anna Paquin so the lucky girl is gorgeous too. Something I loved about having seen the show before reading the book as that I read it in Anna Paquin's southern accent and easily slipped into the hot humid atmosphere of the deep south. Another great aspect of the book compared to the show is the absence of Tara. In True Blood, Tara is Sookie's BFF and is one of the most annoying characters ever seen on tv. Why did they do that? (Token black female comes to mind) I'll just have to read some more to see if Tara pops up later.

Great light summer reading.

Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin

2009-07-16T14:26:00.005+02:00

A young photographer, squatter & drug addict is found dead in an Edinburgh squat. The scene of death is suspicious with the victim lying spread-eagled on the floor between candles and with a pentagram daubed onto the wall above. While investigating the case which others in his department have written off as just another OD'd junkie, Inspector Rebus is also asked to join a committee to reduce drug use/crime in the city. In doing so, he rubs shoulders with some of the more affluent of Edinburgh's residents and finds his case and his committee work are more intertwined with each other than he expected.

Another good story from Ian Rankin, the second one of his Inspector Rebus series. After I had read (do you use the word "read" to describe the action of listening to an Audiobook?) Tooth and Nail, in which Rebus is sent to London, I was very pleased to "read" this story which is set in Edinburgh and even reaches out a little into my hometown of Dunfermline (the description of the Fife Constabulary right next to a roundabout- a roundabout I remember being built!- was aparticular thrill. God, I'm so sad.). I was also pleased to meet some of Rebus's Edinburgh colleages and hope to meet them again in further stories from the series.

This Audiobook was read by Ewan Stewart (actor son of well known Scottish entertainer Andy Stewart) whose voice was very pleasant, sounded a lot like Ewan McGregor's and he did a marvellous impression of my what my Uncle Jim would have sounded like if my Uncle Jim had been a Fife Constabulary copper. I might add that listening to Audiobooks is a great accompaniment to ironing.

Tooth & Nail by Ian Rankin

2009-06-12T09:03:00.004+02:00

Inspector Rebus has been summoned from Edinburgh to London to help solve the case of the Wolfman; a serial killer so called because he leaves his teeth marks in his victims. He meets a young psychologist with new ideas on profiling the killer and makes new friends and enemies among his London colleagues. He also drops in on his ex-wife and daughter, Sammy and meets Sammy's new boyfriend who happens to find himself in a spot of bother just as Rebus comes to town. There's a lot more for Rebus to accomplish during his time in London than he thought.

I killed two first birds with one stone with this read. I had never read an Ian Rankin novel before and I had never tried having a book read to me by way of an audio book before. I enjoyed both experiences. The story was perfect for listening to while plodding along on the treadmill- absorbing and thrilling, a great whodunnit with a couple of plot twists that had me guessing to the end. Rebus was drawn quite well as a crotchety, older, married-to-the-job type of copper not afraid to take some risks to get the job done. The reader was an old bloke (James McPherson) who made quite a cringeworthy attempt at a young Canadian woman's voice but other than that his voice was clear and not at all annoying. I'll definitely a) try another in the Inspector Rebus series and b) more audiobooks for distracting me when I'm on the treadmill and breaking up the tedium of the dusting/ironing. Actually, I'm a bit annoyed I haven't thought of them before now.

The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve

2009-06-07T13:53:00.008+02:00

Linda is a widow, catholic, mother of an acoholic gay son and celebrated poet invited to attend a literary event at which she meets Tom, childhood friend, old flame, fellow poet and grieving father, for the first time since a long, long time ago. Tom and Linda get together at the literary event and we discover, by turning the clock back, the trauma and tragedy Tom and Linda have gone through over the many years they have known each other. Oh and did I mention Linda is a catholic?

Having read reviews of this book, I have discovered there's a bit of a shocking twist to the ending. Sadly, I couldn't care less what happens to Tom and Linda since they're both so flamin' dreary. I can't remember the last time I read a book in which the main characters were quite so tedious (Actually, yes I can: Joanna Briscoe's Sleep With Me). I gave up about half way through; thankfully before I got to the catholic guilt which was threatening to bog down the melodrama even further. Life's just too short.

I picked up this book (along with two others) in a charity shop a while ago because I was curious as to the style of Anita Shreve. I'd read The Pilot's Wife years ago (on the recommendation of Oprah, of course) but couldn't remember much and I know of other readers who eschew chick lit but rave about Anita Shreve (and Jodi Picoult- and you know how I feel about her writing.) I'm not sure that Shreve is for me. I found what I read of this book affected (she describes a packet of crisps (I think) as trapezoidal- for crying out loud!) and a little too polished (some gesture "that swam through the years") and the endless passages of descriptive prose, which didn't add to the narrative, sent me to sleep. I'll give her another go though before I make a final decision on whether Ms Shreve and I will get along. *doubts it*

Naked by David Sedaris

2009-06-07T13:48:00.006+02:00

I know! More Sedaris! This was a present for my birthday- my very own David Sedaris book to keep! Thank you Gomad!

Another collection of stories from my favourite story-teller, I tell you they don't get old. This time he covers some of his hitchhiking adventures through America, his childhood OCD tendencies, the death of his mother and a trip to a nudist camp. All brilliant, of course (gush, gush!) but naturally, some are more brilliant than others. One of my faves was Dinah: The Christmas Whore in which Lisa, David's sister, brings home a prostitute ("Like a heroin addict or a mass murderer, a prostitute was, to me, more exotic than any celebrity could ever hope to be.") on Christmas day:

Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading the inevitable downsizing that is sure to follow. The guests will repeat themselves one too many times, or you'll run out of dope or liquor and realize that it was all you ever had in common. At the time, though, I still believed that such a warm and heady feeling might last forever and that in embracing it fully, I might approximate the same wistful feeling adults found in their second round of drinks. I had hated Lisa, felt jealous of her secret life, and now, over my clotted mug of hot chocolate, I felt for her a great pride. Up and down our street the houses were decorated with plywood angels and mangers framed in colored bulbs. Over on Coronado, someone had lashed speakers to his trees, broadcasting carols over the candy-cane forest he'd planted beside his driveway. Our neighbors would rise early and visit the malls, snatching up gift-wrapped Dustbusters and the pom-pommed socks we used to protect the heads of golf clubs. Christmas would arrive and we, the people of this country, would gather around identical trees, voicing our pleasure with warm cliches. Turkeys would roast to a hard, shellacked finish. Hams would be crosshatched with x's and glazed with fruit - and it was fine by me. Were I to receive a riding vacuum cleaner or even a wizened proboscis monkey, it wouldn't please me half as much as knowing we were the only family in the neighborhood with a prostitute in our kitchen. From this moment on, the phrase "Ho, ho, ho" would take on a whole different meaning; and I, along with the rest of my family, could appreciate it in our own clannish way. It suddenly occured to me. Just like that.

Most excellent.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

2009-05-14T08:14:00.006+02:00

April and Frank Wheeler are a married couple with children living in Connecticut in the 50s. They think they are different from/better than all the other married couples living in Connecticut. Perhaps they are different since they both seem to hate their lives. After a disatrous evening spent watching his wife on stage in a dreadful amateur theatre production, Frank has a giant argument with April. This causes April to have a think about their life and how to change it. She proposes they move to France which brings the couple closer together until April falls pregnant for a third time. Oh dear. It doesn't take a genius to know that an unplanned pregnancy can scupper the best laid plans of any mice and/or men.

What a desperately sad story. While Frank and April were two quite dislikeable characters (can we say "up themselves"?) I couldn't help but feel for them. Who hasn't been in a rut that they wanted to free themselves from? The lack of communication between these two people who simply don't love each other, or themselves, any more was heart-breaking. Beautifully written but dreadfully sad, this was another compelling read and well worth my time. I'm already thinking of reading it again, it has stayed with me since I put it down a few weeks ago and it's been a while since that happened.

On another note, obviously, I wanted to read this before I see the film adaptation with my fave, Kate Winslet, in it. I'll be very interested to see what she can bring to April but even more, what Leonardo diCaprio can bring to Frank. And I love that clean, white, crisp cover with my favourite actress on it, too. I know some people actively avoid movie tie-in book covers. I don't mind them at all, really.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

2009-05-14T08:04:00.004+02:00

I am so lucky to have an entire collection of David Sedaris trickling out from the library of Gomad, book by book when I need it. This collection of funny stories from Mr Sedaris is chiefly about his family who I desperately want to see in a reality tv show. Brilliantly funny people even with all of their quirks and flaws, I wish I was friends with them all.

One of my favourite stories from this collection is called Put a Lid on It in which David makes a visit to his youngest sister, Lisa. His observations of his own reaction to Lisa's bizarre lifestye and his analysis of their relationship are typically self-deprecating and touching at the same time. In the last story of the collection, Nuit of the Living Dead, David is drowning a mouse in a bucket late at night when he is happened upon by a bus load of tourists who are looking for directions "I see that you have a little swimming mouse," the tourist remarks politely. "My wife and I have a dog." How wonderful is that?

The more I read David Sedaris, the funnier I find him. If you haven't read any of his stories yet, what's stopping you? Hop to it!

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

2009-05-13T13:34:00.003+02:00

Bruno is a nine-year-old boy in Germany in the early 1940s. He lives in Berlin, has three best friends and an older sister who is a hopeless case. Bruno's father is a Kommandant in the army. One day, after a visit from a man he knows as "The Fury", Bruno and his family have to move to a place Bruno calls "Out-With." From his new bedroom Bruno can see a fence behind which are a lot of people who all wear the same stripey pyjamas. Bruno doesn't understand that his father is now Kommandant of Auschwitz. One day, while out exploring his new surrounds, Bruno comes across a little boy of exactly the same age as himself (they share their birthday,) Schmuel, who lives behind the fence and they make friends and learn about each other's lives.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Ewan and I read it together which I am pleased about despite the fact that this is a very emotional read. The blurb on the back of the book states that while the book is about a nine-year-old boy, the story is not for nine-year-olds. I'm not sure what the targeted reading age is because the prose felt very childish to me and without the aspect of reading with Ewan, I don't think I would have kept going with this. Outside of the childishness of the prose, I found the characterisation of Bruno quite poor; the puns of "The Fury" (Hitler) and "Out-With" (Auschwitz) didn't help draw a picture of a little German boy and in fact added a very English aspect to Bruno. I even went to the bother of reading this translated into German to try and get a feel for how Bruno came across in German but it didn't help much.

Another aspect that troubled me was the poetic licence taken with the reality of Auschwitz and Nazi Germany. Can we really believe that a little boy in Auschwitz could find time and/or a place the guards wouldn't see him to enable him to make friends with Bruno? And is it possible that Bruno could be so naive that a) he wouldn't know who Hitler was? and b) he wouldn't understand the concept of prisoners behind that fence? The answer to these questions would have to be no. I have three boys, all of whom have been nine years old and none of them were quite so clueless. Not to mention that Bruno's father is a Nazi Kommandant who would have indoctrinated his children with Nazi propaganda. I'm afraid that for me, it's all simply unbelieveable.

It is mentioned in an interview with the author at the end of the book that this story is not to be taken literally, it is a fable from which we should learn and I am uncomfortable with that. I think that the brutal and ugly truth of what happened at Auschwitz was too important be made into "fable". The reality of Auschwitz is more than enough to teach us that what happened there is something that should never happen again.

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

2009-04-22T21:12:00.004+02:00

Christopher Banks lived in Shanghai for the first few years of his life. He is good friends with a little Japanese boy who lives next door and he seems to enjoy his life in Colonial China. His parents go missing over the course of a short period of time and Christopher is sent back to England to live with his aunt. He makes a vow as a small child to become a detective when he grows up and go back to China to find his parents. As a successful detective, Christopher journeys back to Shanghai to do just that and revisits his childhood and the people who were important to him all those years ago.

I loved this book and raced through it. I loved being drawn into the world of Christopher Banks, as bizarre as it was and loved being absorbed into China of the early 20th century and then again 1930s China. Christopher's view of life makes you question everything he says. This is a great picture of a man for whom events in childhood has tainted every aspect of his psyche and leaves you wondering just what you should and shouldn't believe. This was another great read from Ishiguro who is fast becoming my favourite author- he takes me places I never knew I wanted to visit.

Broken by Daniel Clay

2009-04-22T21:11:00.004+02:00

Three families live in a square in a town in Hampshire. Skunk, her brother and her father; the Oswalds, a vicious thug, widower and father to five anti-socially abhorrent daughters; the Buckleys- a mother father and their only son, Rick. The story is partly narrated by Skunk, an eleven year old girl who lies in a coma. The rest of the narration takes us through the events which lead to her being taken to hospital starting with a lie told by one of the Oswald girls which leads to the father beating up Rick Buckley and accusing him of rape. Rick Buckley is traumatised by the hand of Rick Buckley and humiliated at the hands of the police and withdraws into himself. He is soon known as a freak in the neighbourhood and becomes known by the nickname Broken Buckley. Further events unfold and we see a portrait of the ugliest side of "Broken Britain".

This was a book that was far more compelling than one could say enjoyable. I finished it in three sittings. The anguish of poor old Broken Buckley, thoroughly confused and traumatised by a random beating at the hands of a vicious thug was all too real and uncomfortable. The Oswalds and their constant disregard for acceptable social behaviours made me angry. Skunk (her mother was a fan of Skunk Anansie- no excuse, even for a fictional character.), lying in her hospital bed gave the book the feel of The Lovely Bones but without too much of the mawkishness that a dead/child narrator often brings. I'm glad I read this book- it brought out a lot of feeling, most of it negative but was well worth it.

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

2009-04-16T13:30:00.008+02:00

A Mormon Fundamentalist husband with more than 20 wives is killed by his own gun in Utah. His 19th Wife, BeckyLynn, is arrested and awaiting trial for his murder. Her son, one of the fundamentalist sect's "Lost Boys" who was excommunicated from the sect and left to fend for himself at a young age realises his mother is innocent of her crime after visiting her in jail. He sets out to clear her name.

BeckyLynn's story is wrapped around a fictionalised account of the earliest days of the Mormon Church, its founder Joseph Smith and his successor, Brigham Young. Brigham Young's 19th Wife, Ann Eliza Webb has come to realise that polygamy is not the life for her and, she believes, for any other woman or child. The historical fiction follows Ann Eliza's battle against her church and journey to congress to have polygamy outlawed.

Blimey, where do I start? There's so much going on in this book that even writing a short synopsis was difficult. Obviously, there are two narratives in this book. The current day, peppered with pop culture references to the Killers (Brandon Flowers, singer, is one of the Mormon church's most famous faces these days), Wikipedia etc and narrated by Jordan Scott, a very modern young gay gent who has seen the ugly side of life on the streets after being excommunicated from the sect. Secondly, the historical voices from the past of Ann Eliza Webb, her mother, her father, her brother and even Brigham Young. Fictional newspaper reports, church archives and even a degree thesis add to all the voices and make for a very varies and interesting read. This book is much less about a murder and far more an exploration of the effects of polygamy and blind faith on women and children through the ages and into the present day.

I loved it. The Mormon church and all of its weird and wonderful ways is a bit of a pet interest of mine anyway so I found the fictionalised history of the church fascinating. The modern day murder mystery helped to stop the history lesson from becoming too dry and uninteresting but I'm afraid I have to say the twee Hollywood ending was a little too much. But, honestly I found the historical detail in Ann Eliza's story so absorbing, I could see the prairie dresses, the temple at Nauvoo and could practically feel the hostility towards Ann Eliza from her own people. A great read. Provided you're not a Mormon or a member of a fundamentalist polygamist Mormon sect. I woudn't imagine they would enjoy it too much. But I did. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Highly recommended.

The World According to Garp by John Irving

2009-04-16T13:29:00.007+02:00

Jenny Fields is an asexual nurse in a military hospital. She has a desire for a baby but no desire whatsoever for a man. Soon she inseminates herself with the sperm of a soldier under her care by having sex with him. The soldier, who has regressed back to the mental age of a baby, is unaware of this and soon dies. Jenny falls pregnant and names her baby after his father, Technical Sergeant Garp, T.S. Garp.

Jenny brings Garp up in the Steering School, a private school for boys where Jenny is nurse and where Garp can recieve a free education. There he meets the love of his life, Helen and decides he will one day be a writer. We follow Garp through his unusual life while he fulfills his career, brings up his family and interacts with a host of strange characters who bring meaning to his life.

I loved this one. The similarities at first between Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meaney were slightly off-putting (strange child, private school, odd teachers, writing) but I'm glad I pushed through and read to the end. I enjoyed Garp's story thoroughly. Actually, I should say, I enjoyed Jenny's story thoroughly for Jenny was the best, most fascinating character from the very start. Following Garp's extended family's ups and downs through his life, I felt drawn into their inner circle and the hard times were hard and the good times were enjoyable. I even laughed out loud a couple of times. I admit, I found the meta-fiction aspect of the story a little tedious to start with but once in the swing of it, I began to look forward to reading Garp's stories.

One thing kept jumping out at me though through this book. It is stated quite categorically both in the subtext and in the author's note, that even though Garp's life reflects the authors, this book is not autobiographical at all which I accept. However, I couldn't help but feel a mood of self satisfaction while reading this book. A feeling of someone who has a very high opinion of him/herself. Still, after a week or so of having read the last page, I can't decide just who it is that thinks so highly of him/herself. Garp (or his many hangers-on) or the author. I'll have to ponder it some more another day.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

2009-03-30T09:27:00.002+02:00

Maurice Bendrix, a writer, was having an affair with Sarah Miles, the wife of a civil servant. One day, after the building they are having a romantic liaison in is almost destroyed and Maurice is almost killed in an air raid, Sarah ends the affair, refusing to tell her lover why. A couple of years later, Bendrix comes across Sarah's husband, Henry who suspects his wife is seeing someone else. Bendrix, driven by jealousy, hires a private investigator to discover who Sarah is secretly seeing behind her husband's back. He discovers this and a whole lot more for his money.

This is an intense story of a love affair in which the narrator tells of a very fine line between his deep love and jealousy-fuelled hate for his lover. Bendrix's obsession with Sarah and his desire to possess her at the expense of everyone else in her life made him quite an unlikeable character. I found myself frustrated with Sarah and her drive to find meaning in life through God although I suspect that's more to do with me than Sarah herself.* It was well worth the read though; I sank into the intensity of the love affair and wanted Sarah and Maurice to be happy above all else. I wanted to read this after having seen (and enjoyed) the film version of this story starring Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes. I was also curious to read it since I knew it was semi-autobuigraphical and wanted to learn how/if the author reconciled his own adultery and extra-marital sex with his conversion to Catholicismin adulthood. I really must learn not to expect to get all the answers all the time.

*Currently in the middle of a mini-spiritual crisis. I'm pretty sure there's no God but I don't want to let go of the idea of an afterlife. Is there a word for that?

Blood Fever by Charlie Higson

2009-03-30T09:26:00.006+02:00

James Bond has settled somewhat into Eton. He has joined a secret club with some of the other boys named the Danger Society. The most dangerous thing the Danger Society gets up to is sneaking out of their bedrooms at night to meet up.

Luckily for us, James Bond is never too far away from real danger. On a school trip to Sardinia, Bond finds himself mixed up with a proper secret society- a gang of criminals involved in theft, kidnapping and robbery. He discovers a maiden in distress who he simply has to rescue at the same time as being sure the villain at the centre of all the trouble gets his comeuppance.

Another fun ride with James Bond for Ewan and me. Lots of action, lots of scrapes and cliff hanger chapters. Even a couple of girls who sorta fancy young Bond. The villains are as bizarre as all get out and of course, James finds himself driving a cool car (Hispano-Suiza. I had to google it). Ewan and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Highly recommended.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

2009-03-23T06:59:00.006+01:00

After being pleasantly suprised by Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, I was loaned When You Are Enguled in Flames, another collection of essays by this supremely funny writer about his life and the seemingly never-ending stream of hilariously obnoxious yet life-enhancing people who float in and out of it. On the back of the book it says David Sedaris has a "...remarkable ability to uncover the hilarious absurdity teeming just below the surface of everyday life..." which describes this book better than I ever could.

Some of the brilliant people we learn about in this book are a fellow passenger on a plane who the author has accidentally spat a cough lozenge onto while sleeping, another fellow air traveller who is crying on the way to his mother's funeral, a bitter and twisted old neighbour in an apartment block and a village paedophile who Sedaris suddenly finds he has made best friends with.

While reading this, I spent a week boring the pants off my family by giggling in their presence and then insisting on reading bits and pieces aloud to them.

The first essay, which had me laughing from the first page can be read here and one of my favourites, The Stadium Pal is read by the author in the following clip from The Late Show with David Letterman. Super funny stuff.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

2009-03-11T12:22:00.007+01:00

Further to reading this in its original German, I've now had the pleasure of the English translation by Carol Brown Janeway. Reading it in English has made for a more well-rounded understanding of this terrific novel. There's not much more to say than that but I wanted to share this passage which I thought was appropriate to my experience.

The German version of the book that the daughter had written about her time in the camps did not appear until after the trial. During the trial the manuscript was available, but only to those directly involved. I had to read the book in English, an unfamiliar and laborious exercise at the time. And as always, the alien language, unmastered and struggled over, created a strange combination of distance and immediacy. One worked through the book with particular thoroughness and yet did not make it one's own. It remained alien, in the way that language is alien.

An Affair Before Christmas by Eloisa James

2009-03-11T11:55:00.004+01:00

Still on the fun girly stuff- it's been a long, long winter!

The Duke & Duchess of Fletcher, Poppy & Fletch, have been married for four years. They are unnhappy, despite having been madly in love with each other when they wed. Both Poppy and Fletch are unhappy in the... ahem... boudoir. Poppy has a friend, Jemma who is emotionally estranged from her philandering husband, the Duke of Beaumont. Jemma has made a name for herself around town for toying with the affections of other men and her current extra-marital innterest in with the Duke of Villiers. The Duke of Villiers, however, is on his deathbed after losing a duel and only the attentions of Plain-Jane-Superbrain Miss Tatlock can rouse him from his fever-induced stupour. Poppy and Fletch want to love each other again. Jemma doesn't know it but she's still in love with her husband. Miss Tatlock thought she was on the shelf but now it seems the Duke of Villiers has plans to find her a man.

I picked this up after Keris reviewed another in this series, Desperate Duchesses as, "Charming, cheeky, funny and sexy... Highly recommended." and it was in Asda at Chrismas for about £3 or something. This book was also all of those things and I had a fab time reading it. This is the second in a series written after the author saw the tv show Desperate Housewives and decided that the concept would do well in Historical Romance. It's a fun easy read and in a clever move, the author has left a loose end which means I will definitely have to read the next in the series to find out what happens next.

As a quick aside, the author's website has all of her books here and the covers on display there are doing her a real disservice. If I'd seen this book with one of those covers, I would never have picked it up. I think she needs to have a word with her publisher.

Bringing Home The Birkin by Michael Tonello

2009-03-11T11:19:00.006+01:00

The weather was getting me down and I desperately needed to read something girly. At the same time, I saw this Birkin and have not stopped a) going back to look at that handbag and b) slobbering over it and coveting it since I saw it (click on the link, it's possibly the most beautiful handbag in the world). It seemed the perfect time to pick up this book, Bringing Home the Birkin by Michael Tonello which was a very generous donation from Keris.

Michael was part of a collective that organised photo shoots for advertising in the USA before he suddenly fell in love with Barcelona and decided to move there. It looked like he had it all worked out until he had actually moved there and found his dream apartment and suddenly his job was a mere memory. He had to find a way to make money. Selling off his collection of designer gear on ebay was a successful venture and soon became a full time job when he discovered an Hermes scarf in his collection which sold for a song. He was soon flying around the world, buying Hermes merchandise to sell on ebay to a clientele not willing and/or able to purchase it directly from Hermes for themselves and one day one of his clients asked him if he ever had any Birkins, the most elusive and difficult to buy handbags from Hermes, for sale. Despite having been advised that there is a waiting list for Birkins across the world up to a few years long, Michael discovered a formula to make Hermes part company with their most famous and beautiful bags and he shares it with us in this book while taking us on a ride around the world eating in fabulous restaurants, drinking expensive wine and dressing to the nines in posh clothes as well as managing to find his soul mate.

I loved this book. It's very conversational, like listening to a friend tell a story. I love the Birkin and was actually physically excited for Michael (shortness of breath, funny tummy- not that kind of excited) when he actually managed his first purchase of a Birkin from an Hermes store. Michael is an entertaining & amusing storyteller. He has met loads of interesting people and has lots of anecdotes to share and does it well. You might think that reading about the excesses of the rich and privileged might get a tad annoying but the book ends on a bittersweet and philosophical note which summed his experiences up nicely, leaving this Birkin lover quietly satisifed. I'll probably never hang my very own Birkin off my arm (and if I had one, I'd never put it down) and I'll certainly never own more than one Birkin but I'm happy with what I have and that's what life is about. Or something.

The link to the most covetous Birkin I mentioned earlier also has this YouTube of how Birkins are made. It's wonderful and of course, just made me want one even more.

Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen

2009-02-24T07:06:00.004+01:00

Little girls getting murdered, one little girl over-active imagination thinks it's a policeman doing all the killing or something. Blah blah blah.

I can't begin tell you how bored I was by this slow, going nowhere, seemingly endless story before I put it down so I'm not even going to bother.

Yawn. Next!

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

2009-02-07T19:07:00.008+01:00

From the blurb on the back:

In a quiet corner of Devon, a six-year-old girl witnesses an appalling crime. Thirt years later the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.

In Edinburgh, sixteen-year-old Reggie, wise beyond her years, works as a nanny for a G.P. But her employer has disappeared with her baby and Reggie seems to be the only person who is worried. Across town, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling towards her is a former acquaintance- Jackson Brodie- himself on a journey that is about to be fatally interrupted.

I've met the characters of Jackson Brodie and Louise Monroe before in Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn and was eager to see them together again since their chemistry in that book was so good. It's good again in this one; another excellent mystery/crime/adventure story. Plot-wise, a willingness to suspend disbelief and just sit back and enjoy the ride is definitely required but as with One Good Turn, not at the expense of characterisation which is, for the most part, superb. There's a lot happening in this story what with each character having his/her own subplot and it's all tied very well together to make a great story that goes way deeper and is more well rounded than you would expect from your usual, run-of-the-mill crime fiction.

I loved this book, couldn't put it down until I finished it. I will definitely have a look out for Case Histories, the first time Jackson Brodie appears, next time I'm in a bookshop.

(But, I'm a pedant see, so there were a couple of things that irked me just a little involving one particular character. Most of the characters are Scottish, it's set in Scotland, same as One Good Turn Was. One of the characters, Neil Hunter is a Glaswegian (not his fault, I suppose) living with his English wife in Edinburgh. He has a baby son with his wife who he calls, "the bairn". The first thing I thought of was that bairn is an East coast colloquialism and Glaswegians are more likely to call their offspring "the wean/s". I know because it was one of the first things I noticed when we moved from West to East coast Scotland that I ceased to be "wan a' they weans" and was all of a sudden "one o' the bairns".

Later on, Neil Hunter is on the phone telling Louise that his wife has gone to Hawes: "'Hawes,' Neil Hunter said. 'Whores?' 'H-a-w-e-s. In the Dales'" I swear, I don't know a Scottish person who doesn't pronounce the word whore as hoor. Try as I might, I can't get my Scottish accent to pronounce the place name Hawes to sound like the Scottish pronunciation of Whore. Maybe I'm just too common, or maybe I'm pronouncing Hawes wrong but it read just as a joke for a joke's sake without much thought. Anyway, it's the wee things, ken?, that are worth a mention every now and then.)

Goodnight, Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson

2009-02-03T19:37:00.009+01:00

Nova and Mal have been best friends since childhood. They are deeply in love with each other but neither of them will admit it. Naturally, they both find different life partners. Mal's wife, Stephanie, suffers from mental health issues and can't have children. Mal and Stephanie ask Nova, their very best friend to have a baby for them and she agrees. Stephanie's insecurities get the better of her and after reading a text message from Mal to Nova in his phone which says, "Goodnight, Beautiful", she forces Mal to cut all ties with Nova and their future baby. After a long estrangement, Nova realises Mal needs to get to know his son, Leo. Is it too late for Nova and Mal to mend their friendship and for Mal to build a relationship with Leo?

I absolutely *hearted* two of Dorothy Koomson's other novels, My Best Friend's Girl and Marshmallows for Breakfast (MBF'sG the most) which were both heart-breaking but hopeful so I was looking forward to reading this book.

I really enjoyed this one too. The characters are all quite real- except perhaps Nova who I found a little too perfect but not to the extent that I disliked her- and make real life choices which are not always how you want things to turn out and may be difficult but what is right. It strays away from the traditional female fiction notion of "happily ever after" and the subject matter stirs up a lot of emotion which can be a little harrowing at times but which leaves the reader with that hope again (I do like a good dose of hope in my reading matter).

The only real drawback to this novel that I found was its structure. The story is told in the two first-person voices of Nova and Stephanie spliced with short third person vignettes between Nova and Leo and using the present and flashback narrative to illustrate the history leading to present events. That's all fine as long as a pattern of story-telling techniques is established. It was all very random though and as I read I would think I'd got the voices, the chronology and the vignettes all in some order, it woud all be thrown into disarray by a voice out of order or lack of a vignette. While reading, it was a little like trying to work a number sequence in Maths class- you don't do Maths with English, that's just wrong. While it didn't stop me from enjoying the book to its fullest, I did find it distracting.

Having said that, this was a top read, and while My Best Friend's Girl is still my favourite of Dorothy Koomson's books, I'd still recommend it whole-heartedly to my best girlfriends.

SilverFin by Charlie Higson

2009-01-26T08:03:00.003+01:00

Silverfin is the first in a series of novels by Charlie Higson in which he explores the life of Bond, James Bond as a teenager at Eton. James has started his first term at Eton and meets the Hellebore family- George, an American bully boy in James' year and Randolph, Lord Randolph Hellebore, George's father,an American bully boy with an estate in Scotland on Loch Silverfin.

At half term, orphaned James goes to visit his beloved Aunt and Uncle, his father's siblings, in Scotland. On the train to Scotland, he meets Red Kelly, a crafty cockney who is is on his way to find out what happened to his cousin who was last seen at Loch Silverfin. George Hellebore is also on the train to Scotland, to see his father. Before long, James is in the middle of an adventure involving the Hellebores, Red and some mutant eels. Ooh, 'citing!

This is another book Ewan and read together. We both enjoyed it immensely. When Ewan had left for school in the morning, I wanted to keep on reading; it took an amount of self control I never knew I had to stop myself from reading it all before he got home. We're loving the James Bond backstory and learning where and how he learned to be 007, before he ever knew that he would one day become the world's most famous and dashing secret agent. The writing is tight and keeps the reader in suspense with a cliff hanger at the end of nearly every chapter. It's also funny and is perfectly suited to the attention spans of pre-teen boys who have been immersed in crappy super-fast paced Japanese cartoons since the age they learned how the remote control works. Thanks to lovely generous grandparents, we have the whole series to get stuck into. Already the first couple of chapters in the second installment has us gripped!

Der Vorleser by Bernhard Schlink

2009-01-19T22:54:00.007+01:00

Der Vorleser (The Reader) is the story of Michael Berg, a man who recalls an affair he had with an older woman at the age of 15. Home sick from school, suffering from jaundice, Michael meets Hanna, a tram conductor more than twice his age. After one embarrassing encounter where Hanna catches Michael watching her undress, they embark on an affair. During this affair, they establish a routine where Michael reads aloud to Hanna before they make love. Michael falls in love with Hanna despite the fact that she is abusive towards him at times. They continue their affair until she mysteriously and suddenly disappears one day with no explanation. He doesn't see Hanna again until he attends a war crimes trial as part of his studies and discovers his former love is one of the accused. Could she really be the main culprit responsible for the lives of so many Jewish women who perished in the war?

I thought this book was a tremendous read. At the same time as being a moving story of a man's effort to understand the repercussions of Hanna's influence on his life, it asks questions of modern Germany and Germans that I imagine may never be answered. A lot of the time the language is typically German- blunt, to the point. At the same time, I found the the imagery rich and characterisation utterly absorbing. I have no idea why I chose to give it a go in its original German but I'm very pleased I did. The German kicked my ass but I have come away from this book with a real smug feeling of accomplishment and having read one of the best books I've ever picked up. I will definitely read it again, and soon, but in English to make sure I have absorbed absolutely everything. This is another of those books that I want to buy copies of and give to friends and order them to read it so we I can talk at length about it.

This book has been kicking about for years. First published in 1995 in German, the first time I had heard of it was when Oprah chose the English language translation for her bookclub choice yonks ago. I suddenly chose to read it when I heard that it had been adapted into (by now award-winning) fillum starring two of my faves, the lovely Kate Winslet and the even lovelier (by sheer virture of the fact that he is a handsome man) Ralph Fiennes. I wanted to read it before I saw the film, something I'm really looking forward to now.

Out at the Movies A History of Gay Cinema by Steven Paul Davies

2009-01-16T23:26:00.003+01:00

Out at the Movies is a guide to gay cinema from the advent of the talkies through to the most recent gay interest films, some of which have only just been released in cinemas.

I went on a search for this book after I read a good review of it in the Guardian (I think) before Christmas. Fillums, reading, Jake Gyllennhaal and the gays all in one place, it was like it was written just for me. The book takes cinema decade by decade, and breaks each into a sections- a brief rundown of the films which broke through social barriers and taboos and brought issues of sexuality into the mainstream; a more in-depth look at a few of the films themselves; the actors and directors who broke moulds and took risks, professional as well as personal, to bring a greater understanding of homosexuality in society.

I read this book from cover to cover but it's very much a book one can dip into to grab a bit of info here and there. It's got loads of lovely pictures and quotes and features all the great gay films of recent years (Brokeback Mountain, of course, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, My Own Private Idaho and a scathing report of Philadelphia which surprised me at first but then made complete sense and thankfully, someone else saw through the complete rip-off and total waste of time that is To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar) as well as giving an insight into the importance of the gay subtext of older cinema. The only criticism I would have would be that the subsections of the decades do tend to get a little repetetive, featuring the same actors, films and directors and going over the same facts but not to a degree that it annoyed me.

This is obviously not a definitive guide to gay cinema but certainly a good place to start reading about it. Plus, it has pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal in it.

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

2009-01-16T23:23:00.004+01:00

Me Talk Pretty One Day is a collection of humorous autobiographical essays about the life of one man who grew up with a lisp in North Carolina, moved to New York via Chicago and eventually met a bloke and ended up in France. His stories tell of days growing up with a cast of odd characters in his family, working odd jobs in New York and eventually his struggles with the French language and making his new, French life work for him.

I feel like I'm the last person in the whole wide world to have read anything by David Sedaris. I never wanted to read it because a while ago I'd been sent the first essay in an email and because it was about a boy who was being bullied into correcting his speech by a hopeless speech therapist I assumed the book was going to be one of those awful misery-lit memoirs of growing up in an abusive household. I didn't get past the first 200 words and decided I simpy didn't want to read it.

And then my esteemed friend raved about Sedaris and how funny he is, and I thought maybe I should give him a go. God, I'm such a nong, I'm kicking myself for not researching Sedaris furhter and reading more of his stories sooner. This collection of stories is absolutely hilarious. Apart from his brilliant family (a younger brother who can't communicate except through the power of foul language, a sister Amy* who lived to mimic her elders, and the rest) he meets and tells us all about a whole host of the most wonderfully obnoxiously funny people who enrich his life stories to the point of hilarity. For my money though, he is at his best when being self-deprecating and for that, my favourite story of the collection was I Used To Be A Smart Guy which, lucky us!, you can read here. You can also read the title essay here.

I can't tell you how many times, since I've finished this book, I've had a quick thought of something I read in one of the stories and chuckled out loud. Super funny stuff.

*YouTubes of Amy Sedaris on David Letterman here and here.

Ricky Gervais presents The World of Karl Pilkington

2009-01-16T22:11:00.005+01:00

This is a collection of conversations between the enormously funny Ricky Gervais, his equally hilarious partner-in-comedy Stephen Merchant and some bloke with a head like an orange, Karl Pilkington. The conversations were previously broadcast on Gervais' "Most Successful Podcast in the World" (or whatever) which I don't subscribe to because I am a miser.

Anway, I've said before, I bloody love people who make arses of themself to make me laugh. In this book, Karl Pilkington, who is Ricky Gervais's (s? no s? who knows?) radio producer or something, puts his thoughts and theories on life and the world in general to Gervais and Merchant who take great delight in ripping them to shreds and telling him what an idiot he is. Actually, a lot funnier than it sounds. A hell of a lot funnier- I chuckled out loud and wiped tears from my eyes the whole way through this book. Karl's bizarre thoughts on Plato, going into space, population control, the monkey who had an affair with his zookeeper's wife (yes, really) and animals that don't work that much anymore are priceless and shouldn't be missed. Laugh? I nearly considered paying for the podcast. Nahh, I won't be doing that but I'd buy another one of these books again.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

2009-01-16T14:03:00.003+01:00

Another one on loan from the National Library of Doc, The Quiet American is the story of two men during Vietnam in the First Indochina war. Thomas Fowler is an aged English journalist who refuses to engage emotionally with either side in the war but who is desperately in love with a young Vietnamese girl named Phuong. Alden Pyle is the young, idealistic American fresh to Vietnam filled with the political ideaology of a favourite author of his, York Harding. After he meets Phuong with Thomas one night, he too falls desperately in love with her. A love triangle develops, politics get ugly and death and disaster ensue.

I enjoyed this book despite the fact that I usually steer well clear of books set in the middle of foreign wars that are so foreign I wouldn't have a hope of relating to them. (Do you know what I mean?) This was an atmospheric story of the horrors of war and love and friendship and challenges to personal belief and principles in the face of adversity. I know I have missed a lot of the political symbolism between the lines but, as was the case when I read The Power and the Glory, I found this slim volume challenging and entirely worth the effort. I'm glad I picked this one up if only to have read the ending which brought me to tears with its powerful sentiment.

I realised while reading this book that there was a recent film adaptation of it. I knew that Michael Caine played Thomas Fowler but was unaware that Brendan Fraser played Alden Pyle. I was surprised by the casting of Brendan Fraser since I never really envisaged Pyle as that build of man. I think I was thinking someone a little slighter, tall but slight. I shall be interested to see it soon.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

2009-01-10T22:49:00.004+01:00

A Prayer for Owen Meany tells the tale of a friendship between two boys, the eponymous Owen Meany and John Wheelwright, who grow up together in New England in the 1950s and 60s. John tells us at the very beginning of the book that Owen Meany is the reason he is a Christian and spins the yarn of his best mate Owen's life and death. Owen is of unusually short stature and distinctive screamy voice that will never deepen and John's first recollection of him is lifting Owen above his head in Sunday school with his classmates as a lark when the teacher is absent from the room. John goes on to tell how their friendship endures through tragedy, school, schoolboy pranks and eventually details Owen's death all the while explaining why Owen may well have been an instrument of God, as he constantly told John as they grew up. I don't think it's really spoiling anything to tell you that Owen is dead, since it's clear from the very beginning that he is with us no more.

I borrowed this book from Doc in France who is affronted and disturbed by the fact that I didn't enjoy either The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (I didn't mind it, I just found the old Southern Belles really, really annoying) and The Secret Life of Bees (I'd rather have my teeth removed one by one sans anaesthetic than have to read that cloying sentimental rubbish again) Anyway, Doc threatened me with physical harm if I dared to suggest that I found Owen Meany any less than the most perfect fictional character ever created.

Having said that, I did actually enjoy the crap out of this book. The characters were all brilliant, Owen obviously but his supporting cast had me enthralled as well. The older version of John who narrated was a fascinating bloke. I loved the family dynamic of his cousins, Hester, Simon and Noah and it was hard not to be touched by the paternal tenderness of Dan, John's stepfather and his Grandmother with all of her eccentricities. It was funny and touching and I had a great time reading it. The only criticism I might have was that the constant foreshadowing of events made the narrative drag at about the 3/4 mark when I just wanted everything to come together but I pushed through and it was completely worth as I came to one of the most compelling endings I've ever read. I read the last sentence of this book and gave a great, satisfied sigh. Loved it.

Count Karlstein by Philip Pullman

2008-12-01T07:35:00.006+01:00

In deepest Switzerland, in the village of Karlstein, Hildi, the parlour maid at Castle Karlstein discovers the evil Count Karlstein's plan to sacrifice his two lovely innocent daughters to the Demon Huntsman Zamiel. Hildi and a cast of characters from both the local village and new, visiting out-of-towners band together to save the misses Lucy and Charlotte from a fate worse than a fate worse than death.

This book was a present from way down in New Zealand; Michelle sent it back in the lovely Antipo's suitcase from her trip. Ewan and I read it together over our breakfasts and had great fun. We loved that it was set in Switzerland, we loved the German, Italian and French names. We loved the evil Count Karlstein and Hildi and Dr Cadaverezzi. It was fun and funny and exciting. We held our breath as we came to the end of each cliff-hanger chapter and when we finally finished reading, Ewan said, "Oh no! That was the best book, ever!"

Thanks, Michelle!

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

2008-12-01T07:34:00.004+01:00

Ahhh, Pride and Prejudice, ain't it lovely? I watched Lost in Austen not long ago and when it ended I found myself itching to pick up my battered and bruised old copy of Pride and Prejudice that my lovely mother-in-law gave me for Christmas yonks ago. Shock horror! I had never read Pride and Prejudice before Colin Forth made Mr Darcy all sex-on-legs-and-dark-curly-hair and she gave me the book for a present. Now, I read it quite regularly because it's just so romantic. Sigh...

What can I say about Pride and Prejudice that hasn't been said before? Maybe just that, you know at the end, when Lizzie has secured Mr Darcy's affection? Well, she asks him what it was that attracted him to her in the first place. Poor old Mr Darcy can't pinpoint what it was, and it wasn't polite back then to say, "You've got an awesome rack and legs that won't quit!" But Lizzie answers for him and says,

"... you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused and interested you, because I was so unlike them."

and I always think that makes Lizzie sound ever so slightly up herself, as we say in the 21st century. And, it kind of sounds like she's betraying the sisterhood and running other women down to make herself look good which we all know isn't nice. I kind of wish Jane Austen hadn't written that bit. I'm thinking of taking a black marker and just blocking that passage out and leaving Lizzie as lovely and funny and clever and without any tickets on herself, like she should be. Yes, that's what I'll do.

Also, I've used a picture of the BBC Darcys because I can't find a picture of my cover of Pride and Prejudice on t'internet anywhere. I can't scan my cover properly and I can't tell you how much it's annoying me. Why can't everything be just how I want it all of the time?

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

2008-11-11T11:20:00.004+01:00

There's this car crash in Edinburgh, right, and one bloke nearly gets knocked out by another bloke and then a different bloke steps in and saves the first bloke from being battered by the second bloke. And so begins a story with a cast of a thousand different characters, all of whom in some way or another are involved with the inital car crash but end up involved in a murder, Russian prostitutes, shoddy builders, embezzlement etc etc etc.

It's a right good read, this. A real page-turner which is an adventure/mystery/crime story that works for me because it doesn't compromise on characterisation for the sake of plot. The characters, even though they are Dickensian* in number are well drawn and all tie in nicely with story which twists and turns like a twisty, turny thing. Each chapter devoted to a certain character's involvement in the plot leaves you with a little morsel of delicious information that has you thinking you'll put the book down after the next chapter- moreish! I also enjoyed that it's set in Edinburgh although I did feel as though perhaps the characters in the tale managed to bump into each other a little too easily and frequently for the story being set in a city as big as Edinburgh. But, I just let that go and enjoyed the ride and was entertained from start to finish.

*Having never read Dickens (coz, like, yawn!) I didn't know what this meant until I started watching Little Dorrit on telly. But the word Dickensian is printed all over the cover of this book in all blurb so I felt it my duty to reproduce it here. Or something.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

2008-11-11T11:18:00.003+01:00

Ruby Lennox, daughter of a pet shop owner father and immensely dissatisfied with life mother tells us the stories of her life and her family's lives starting all the way back with her great-grandmother Alice who died mysteriously one night after having had her photograph taken by a French photographer. Ruby delves into her family history, painting us a picture of family life through the wars and up to the present day, showing how secrets and lies can shape and distort the lives of everyone around us.

This book came to me highly recommended by Antipo who raved and raved about Kate Atkinson. She had good reason to rave. Kate Atkinson has a wonderfully dry wit and tells a story in such a style that you can imagine you were having coffee with her, hearing all about the ins and out of what her family have done now. She leaps about chronologically, jumping from the past to the present day, knitting tales from the past with the present day successfully (Although at one point I felt like I just wanted her to keep on with the present day story because I simply wasn't interested enough in one of her flashback characters (the Canadian cousin) to read his story.) The writing is very rich and paints a vivid picture of life through the decades, much of it still very relate-able to us of a certain age. There was also a quote about the Fife town of Cardenden which made me laugh raucously from recognition (I should have taken note of it before giving the book back).

Reading Behind the Scenes at the Museum has been a very enjoyable experience. I shall definitely read more Kate Atkinson. Especially since I have practically her entire library at my disposal thanks to her number one fan and my number one soulie, Antipo.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

2008-10-27T14:22:00.007+01:00

Four siblings, Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy are staying at an old professor's big old country house during the air-raids in the war. One day, Lucy hides in a wardrobe and finds Narnia, a magical land where it is always winter and never Christmas because a witch has cast a spell. The rest of the family find themselves in Narnia one day and a life-long adventure begins.

I think if you haven't heard of, read, or seen something to do with Narnia, you must have been living on Mars. I myself grew up with all humanity raving about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Can you believe that despite having started this book about a dozen times in my childhood, this is the first time I have ever finished it?

I was surprised when my lovely in-laws sent it to James for his birthday one year because I remembered it being a big, thick book. In fact, it's only 200 or so pages long. Ewan and I read it together, as we do, and we both loved it; I even had a wee tear at one point (have a guess where). The imagery throughout the story is rich that we both came away with a craving for turkish delight and a longing to run our fingers through a lion's mane and stroke its beautiful velvet paws. Lovely.

Because this is the first time I've made it to the end of this book, I've got a bit of a hankering to see the recent film version of it starring my own personal friend, Tilda Swinton. Perhaps I can persuade Ewan to join me in that as well. Ewan was delighted to find that there are another six stories in the Narnia series. Frankly, my own personal favourite from the Chronicles of Narnia is The Magician's Nephew, we shall see if we can't get a hold of that one next.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

2008-10-27T13:57:00.007+01:00

Up in the North of Scotland, a woman called Isserly is looking to pick up hitchhikers. She's only interested in well-muscled, fine male specimens (aren't we all, sir?) that she scopes out thoroughly, driving past them three times before stopping to give them a lift. Once she has her man in the car, she engages them in conversation to discover their background, whether or not they have any family, any job to go to, etc. Meanwhile, the hitchhikers can see that there's something not quite right with this large-breasted, thick-bespectacled woman who has taken pity on them and given them a ride. It's soon apparent to the reader that there's nothing right with Isserly at all and everything is wrong, all wrong.

This is quite an atmospheric book which takes you on a ride somewhere and you're never quite sure where you're going to end up. With little clues dropped here and there, you think you know what's happening and then some giant clanger will be dropped in your lap and you discover that you have rethink the whole scenario all over again. At least I did. It was a rollercoaster of a ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the fact that I felt that some of the social themes could have been explored with a tad more subtlety and some of the imagery made me feel slightly queasy. A quick, exhilerating read, well worth the time and energy.

This book is on loan from the personal library of a very famous New Zealand radio journalist. I'd tell you who it is but then I would have to kill you. It was recommended to me when I started raving about one of the best books (if not the best book) I've ever read, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I can see why this book would be considered alongside Never Let Me Go but really, if you ask me, it's nowhere near as awesome. Still, this is a good book, Ishiguro notwithstanding. Or something.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

2008-10-27T13:17:00.006+01:00

White Teeth by Zadie Smith is the story of two families in London connected by a long-standing friendship between Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and English Archie Jones. Samad and Archie fought together in World War II. The novel opens as Archie, fed up with his mad wife and shit life tries to commit suicide but a chance encounter changes his mind. He talks to his friend Samad about his day and Samad counsels him to take a young wife, as he has recently married Alsana, much younger than him. Archie, in another chance encounter meets Clara and marries her.

The two young women bear children to their older husbands and the children's lives are inextricably linked and then linked with that of a middle class white family of intellectuals which leads to the book's compelling end. I wish I could write a better spoiler-free precis but I can't. Besides, that's about all I knew before I started reading this book.

I really liked White Teeth. It's filled to the brim with lots of social themes like immigration and racism tied in with more personal issues like the search for one's identity but I never felt bashed about the head with "the message". Some of the dialogue, especially from Irie, Archie and Clara's daughter, I found snortingly funny and so well accented that I could hear the voices as I read. The dialogue helped the characters seem very real too, they felt like people you may have met. All in all, a good read.

A few years back, you couldn't go anywhere without seeing someone somewhere reading this book or seeing it poking out of a handbag. True to form, I'm hoplessly behind the times but when I saw this in a charity shop last Summer I grabbed it for 50p. Bonus: it came with its original receipt so I could see how much money I'd saved. My (for it is mine now) copy of White Teeth was purchased in Edinburgh Airport and cost £7.99 on 16th January 2007. The original owner also bought a copy of Vanity Fair and a copy of GQ, both for £3.60. Is that how much glossy magazines cost now? Blimey, must have money to burn.

You're Dropped! by Andrew Daddo

2008-10-06T15:07:00.005+02:00

You might remember Ewan and I read Dacked! by Andrew Daddo a couple of months ago. We had such a good time we were both keen to pick up You're Dropped! quite soon after.

You're Dropped! is another collection of short stories about young Australian Fergus Kipper and his friends and family. In this collection, Fergus is learning all about love and we follow him in his quest to win the heart (and lips) of his best girl, Winona Williams. There are misunderstandings, mishaps and misadventures as well as an excellent game of lawn bowls with Fergus's grandfather and we meet lots of Fergus's funny friends and family along the way.

Like Dacked!, Ewan and I enjoyed this book immensely. The author gives us a proper Aussie connection which is good for Ewan since he was such a little nipper when we emigrated that I wonder sometimes if he remembers Australia at all. The stories and characters are fun and real and I can't recommend these books highly enough, especially for boys who, outside of classic and/or fantasy titles, seem a bit left out of the loop when it comes to children's/young adult fiction.

Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell

2008-08-29T08:35:00.005+02:00

Lipstick Jungle is the story of three friends, all three of whom are successful, powerful women in New York. Nico O'Neilly- editor of popular, well regarded magazine Bonfire but still has ambitions to go further with her career; Victory Ford- fashion designer to the stars, single and loving it; Wendy Healy- movie producer and wife to a stay-at-home husband and mother of three children.

Nico is having an affair! Wendy runs into marital problems and Victory's last collection was a dud. Suddenly all of their lives are turned upside down and they have to work together as friends to see each other through the tough times.

Despite being a card-carrying, box set-owning member of the I Love Sex & the City Club, I'd never read anything by Candace Bushnell before this. At first, I was loving it. All the glitz, glamour and excess of the rich and famous reminded me of those fabby 80s Jackie Collins novels I used to love (I was very young back then).The main characters of Wendy, Nico and Victory and their high-flying, champagne guzzling, sexy lifestyles all seemed so promising.

Sadly, about a third of the way in, I discovered I didn't actually care for any of our heroines. In fact finishing the book was more an exercise in hoping one of them would get their come-uppance than looking forward to a happy ending. She didn't, by the way. While the three women were all supposed to be best friends and met each other for lunch in times of crisis, the author failed to develop any real affection or sisterhood between them. The male characters were uniformly cretinous. There didn't appear to be any real story arc and the ending just kind of petered out and, for my money anyway, the last line of the book was one of the cheesiest last lines I have ever read.

But there's more.... At times I felt the author tended towards talking a load of rubbish (using a mobile phone- "I've used this phone on a remote island off Turkey but I can't get service in Connecticut?" Where does she think Turkey is? How remote can an island off the coast of Turkey be? But you know, I get the point.) and the excess of the rich and fabulous got to me a little ("-her daughter, Katrina, had recently become obsessed with cooking and had been insisting that Seymour take her to all the four star restaurants in Manhattan" My son has also recently become obsessed by cooking. So I let him cook, in my kitchen. Hello?!?) And then there was the repetetive whining ("It was a ridiculous job, being a fashion designer. Two collections a year, with barely time to breathe in between, having to come up with something "new", something "fresh".... It was a wonder any of them managed to keep going at all." Cry me a river, darling. Count your cash and cheer up, love!) which was one of the reasons I found it difficult to sympathise with or even like the main characters.

Oh God, I could go on and on and on. I won't though. I will say this: When I finished this book I thought I had kind of enjoyed it. After a bit of thought and running its pop-feminist message through my brain I've come to realise it's not really very good at all. It's probably the kind of thing I would have enjoyed in my late teens/early 20s but in today's female fiction it feels exceptionally shallow and out of place. If I wasn't a fan of Sex & the City, Lipstick Jungle certainly would not entice me to pick up anything written by Candace Bushnell again.

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

2008-08-24T16:13:00.007+02:00

From the blurb on the back of the book, "London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves- fingersmiths- under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her "family". But from the moment she draws breath, Sue's fate is linked the that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away."

This book is filled with Victorian melodrama; secrets, lies and twisty-turny plots abound. The writing is utterly absorbing and by the power of the author's descriptive skill and spot-on characterisation (I mean, it might be spot-on. How could I know, since I never lived in Victorian England.... you know what I mean though. ?) and dialogue, I sank into Victorian England every time I picked this book up.

So why did I find it a) so hard to read large chunks of (I could only read it for 15-20 minutes at a time) and b) so hard to finish? I did finish it but not without considerable skip-reading of the last part and when I read the last sentence and shut the book I just felt a huge surge of relief rather than satisfaction at what I would normally consider to be a top-notch ending.

Maybe 550 pages of relentless melodrama just got too much for me. Who knows? Any thoughts?

First Love, Last Rites by Ian McEwan

2008-08-22T16:28:00.005+02:00

First Love, Last Rites is a collection of short stories, unsurprisingly (or maybe not) about first loves and death. It's made up of eight different stories with subject matter ranging from a man who makes his wife disappear after reading his great-grandfather's diary to a boy who makes friends with a larger lady only to witness her drown to a couple having sex on a stage in a rehearsal of an orgy or something (for my money, the weakest of the collection).

Absolute stand-outs for me were Conversations with a Cupboard Man about a man desperate to crawl back inside the uterus after a lifetime of being infantilised at the hands of his own mother and Disguises, the story of Henry, a young boy sent to live with his decidedly odd aunt who makes him wear different costumes and indulge her in roleplay after his mother dies. I felt the instant urge to reread these two stories after I'd reached the end of them.

The subject matter of the stories in this collection of short fiction is often unpalatable (incest, murder, child abuse (you can see the development of McEwan's later novel, The Cement Garden in these tales.)) but each story's unique narrative voice make for compelling reading. It's atmospheric and absorbing stuff.

This was Ian McEwan's first published work and "brought him instant recognition as one of the most influential voices writing in England today". It also won an award of some sort or another. I reckon it's worth all the hoopla.

Baby Proof by Emily Giffin

2008-08-22T15:52:00.005+02:00

Baby Proof is the story of Claudia; young and successful, she is absolutely decided she never wants to have children. Finding a man who wants to share a childless future with her is difficult but she meets Ben, her perfect man who feels the same way. They enjoy their life together until the unthinkable happens and Ben has a change of heart. Their marriage breaks down and Claudia and Ben, devoted to each other in every way but this, look set to spend their futures apart.

I absolutely loved Emily Giffin's two previous books, Something Borrowed and Something Blue so I was super duper excited to have won (yes, won!) a copy of Baby Proof from Trashionista, ages ago. I finally got around to reading it on my summer hols. I have to say, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the others. I found the actions of Claudia and Ben rash and that annoyed me. Plus their lack of communication for a couple who were apparently so in tune with one another I found perhaps a little untrue as well. The compromises Ben and Claudia expected of each other if they wanted to make their relationship work made me feel uncomfortable. Having said that, it's probably because personally, I always knew I wanted children so I couldn't really put myself in their place and say, "Well, I would have done/said this...." It was hard to empathise.

Still, it was a good read and I ripped through it at speed and I look forward to Emily Giffin's next book, Love the One You're With. I think she's a great new(ish) voice in American chick lit.

The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage

2008-07-17T07:43:00.009+02:00

The Doctor's Wife is the story of two couples, a doctor and his wife (duh!) and an artist and his wife in small town America. The doctor, ordinarily obstetrician/gynaecologist in the local hospital, moonlights in an abortion clinic helping out an old school friend. His wife is having an affair with the artist who is married to a total nut-job. The story starts as the doctor is attacked and nearly killed, only to be saved from death by the artist's wife who drives him out to her old house and locks him in the cellar to recuperate. The book weaves its way through the characters' back stories, twists and turns aplenty, before coming to some sort of conclusion.

I hate giving up on books. Hate it. But I had to with this one. From quite early on the plot holes drove me insane. To start with, a woman "raised a strict Catholic and still longed for its sacred rituals" goes to the local protestant church because there is no Catholic church in her town. Leaving aside the fact that a strict Catholic is highly unlikely to turn to a Protestant congregation in the absence of a Catholic church in her town, the doctor works in a Catholic hospital and the artist and the doctor's wife both work in a Catholic college. What kind of town supports a Catholic hospital and Catholic college but no Catholic congregation? At the very least, there would be a chaplain celebrating mass in those institutions.

Added to that, when some of the doctor's nurses find out that he is moonlighting in the abortion clinic, they refuse to work for him, "One nurse anaesthetist, a devout catholic, had herself removed from all of Michael's cases." So if this nurse is devout, where is she worshipping in the Catholic church-less town?

The characterisation leaves a lot to be desired too. The doctor's wife is a feminist, an educated woman but she appears to fall for a man who has no charm or any other qualities that would entice a woman into an extra-marital affair and who says such things as, "Married to someone like her...... it's a fucking pain in the ass.", along with other, even less flattering remarks, of his wife. The artist- twisted, dark and troubled- drives a shiny black Porsche with red leather seats; his pride and joy. Call me a cynic but those people just don't sound real to me.

The last straw, that made me give up, was when the author referred to Aerosmith as heavy metal. "The car grumbled to a start and the radio came on, Aerosmith smashing the silence. Simon shut it off, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry."

"I didn't know you were into heavy metal."

"I'm into heavy basically. Heavy is good. Heavy is really good.""

Heavy is good but Aerosmith is as heavy as it gets? Pfft. I had to shut the book before I felt the urge to burn it.

And you know, I'm really disappointed because the concept of story is quite good what with anti-abortionists, right-wing Christian groups, marital infidelity and what-not. And the cover, my God, the cover is so beautiful. I had the book in my possession for a quite a few months before I even realised that there is a woman standing on the porch of the house. She frightened the crap out of me when I saw her for the first time and I really expected that when I looked back, she would be gone- a ghostly figment of my imagination. This book promises to be such a good read but I'm afraid the plot holes frustrated me to the point of distraction. I can't go any further with it.

The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl by Shauna Reid

2008-07-11T22:16:00.005+02:00

The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl is the book of a very successful weight loss blog written by Australian Shauna Reid. Shauna made a decision one day to lose weight- to lose half of her body weight in fact- and this book is her story. Not only does Shauna record her astounding weight loss achievement, she also details her move to Scotland, her travels around Europe, falling in love with a Scottish bloke and getting married, all the while sharing her most intimate thoughts, feelings and insecurities with her readers.

I'd never read Shauna's blog before I read this book but I had heard lots and lots of good things about both. I read this book very quickly and found it to be funny ("They say you're supposed to do cardio three times a week- does this mean I'm supposed to be completely bloody bored three times a week for the rest of my life?") and real ("I tell you, if one more person tells me how they gained so much weight while travelling overseas, I will punch them in the face.") and, most importantly, honest ("But falling in love has made sex scary. The problem isn't desire- just his laugh or the arch of his eyebrow makes me hot- but the way I feel about my body.") Personally, it was also a little bit inspiring. Not the whole Oprah-epiphany-moment inspiring but little bits and pieces kept jumping off the page at me which suggested maybe I too can get off my arse and discover the healthy girl within (Just the one, dear?). In the £gajillion diet industry, this book is a real voice from a real person who achieved a real goal and tells us about it in a fun and accessible way.

On another personal (and perhaps slightly stalkerish) note, this book was sent to me by Lesley who wrote, "I thought you may enjoy the Australia - Dunfermline connection." Shauna moved from Australia to Dunfermline- like me, but in reverse! She writes, "Mercifully we arrived in Dunfermline. He showed me round the Abbey and walked me back to his flat via the local park where I saw my first real live Scottish squirrels!" That's exactly how I won Mr Mac over! It's obviously a tried and true Dunfermline method of scoring a spouse. After Shauna moved to Dunfermline, I spent the rest of the book trying to work out where their flat was from the clues she peppered throughout the book. But honestly Shauna, if you ever discover this silly little blog post, I'm not an deranged and psychotic axe-murderer. Promise.

A Place in My Country by Ian Walthew

2008-07-09T12:47:00.014+02:00

A Place in My Country is Ian Walthew's memoir of leaving the hustle and bustle of the big city and business behind and moving to a slower, less frantic pace of life with his wife in a cottage in the Cotswolds, England. Ian and his wife Han waste no time in getting to know their new neighbours, fellow villagers and the local pub landlord and soon make good friends with Norman, the robust, down-to-earth farmer next door and Tom, a gamekeeper and all-round country gent. Ian also embarks on a journey of therapeutic self discovery as he remembers his childhood and recovers memories of the father and brother he lost at a young age while he and his wife prepare for and welcome the arrival of their new, longed-for daughter.

I enjoyed reading this book. I can't tell a lie, it took some time to grab me but once it did I finished it quite rapidly. Something about the initial move to the countryside just didn't seem to hold my attention for long periods of time to start with, but once Ian and Han had been firmly established in the village and had been welcomed into the neighbourhood I felt as though their new friends were my new friends. The author did such a good job of bringing them to life through his words, I cared about them just as you could tell, Ian and Han cared about Norman, Douglas, Tom and the rest of the village. I cared so much that I was brought to tears on no less than four occasions. Living in a small village myself, a lot of the shock of moving from a hectic city to the country life struck chords with me. The author also informs the reader of issues facing country dwellers and farmers without hammering you over the head with a biased point of view and when I finished reading this book I felt I had learned a lot about life in the English countryside. I thought A Place in My Country was a caring, honest and moving picture of life in a small English village as well as an intimate account of a man rediscovering himself, his family, his grief and his identity, as someone who had spent many years abroad, as an Englishman. It was well worth a read.

Another Book Meme

2008-07-06T15:36:00.008+02:00

Tailor made for this here blog, taken from Keris.

1) Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? The Lord of the Rings and all of the Tolkien books. I tried my hardest to pay attention to The Hobbit when I was in school and the teacher was reading it to us. And then I tried to read it to the boys when I was younger. I just find it all a bit of a snore-fest. I fell asleep through the fillums as well. Bore, boring, bored.

2) If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be? I have thunk long and hard (that's what she said) about this question and there's absolutely no doubt that I would want to be friends with and in the middle of the social circle of all of the characters in Susan Howatch's Church of England series. But which three? Venetia Flaxton, for sure. I am quite sure she and I would make the very best of friends. Lyle Ashworth would be icily fascinating to meet. Dido Aysgarth may be one of the most intriguing characters ever written, I'd love to meet her. But then I wouldn't be able to meet Charles Ashworth or Alex Jardine or the Aysgarth boys. How can I pick just three? Naturally, I would want to go to one of Venetia's fab coterie parties where the veuve clicquot flows freely and somebody ends up in a moral dilemma.

3) (Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for a while, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave? Well, I already read The Human Stain by Philip Roth. I thought Vanity Fair was boring enough to give up on. Three times. What if I say I'll try my best to finish Vanity Fair?

4) Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it? Honest, guv'nor, I aint never done that. I've pretended I've read Vanity Fair all the way to the end but really, I watched the Reese Witherspoon movie of it.

5) You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? It depends on who the VIP is. Maybe the rule book?

6) A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? Bill Watterson's first Calvin & Hobbes book.

8) That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. It would have a complete Enid Blyton collection, like Keris. It would also have that Ladybird edition of Cinderella at the side there and all of the Calvin & Hobbes collections. It would be a soundproofed room with a lock and a fabulous opulently upholstered chaise longue and there would be a collection of weekly and monthly-renewing glossy magazines for my perusal. It would come complete with an exclusive book buyer who would pick out books they know I would enjoy and procure books I've wanted to read for ages and ages. And, I'd probably want some kind of self-replenishing fridge filled with sushi within reach of the chaise longue too. Is this fairy ever actually going to show? Because I'm going to be disappointed if she doesn't now.

Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison

2008-06-22T21:09:00.004+02:00

Shoe Addicts Anonymous is the story of four women who are brought together by their love of shoes. Lorna, deep in debt starts a shoe swap group as a way of being able to have new shoes without paying for them; Helene is the wife of an ambitious politician dissatisfied with her choices in life; Sandra, an overweight telephone sex-line operator with self-esteem issues that have plunged her into agoraphobia; Jocelyn, a nanny for the family from hell who doesn't know a Jimmy Choo from a Manolo Blahnik (neither do I) but who needs to get out of the house she works in on Tuesday evenings. They form a new friendship based on their common interest but which extends past that and reaches further than they imagined, changing their lives for ever.

This is the type of chick lit book that chick lit detractors really love to hate. It's pink and it has shoes on the cover. Well to them I simply put my fingers in my ear and sing, "la la la la la!" loudly because I loved it. I know it's fairly formulaic and predictable- I could spot the love-story before the author had probably even written it but I still got a thrill from the first kiss- but the characters were lovely and endearing enough in their strengths and weaknesses to balance that out. The story moved swiftly along with a couple of teeny plot twists, one I picked from the beginning, the other which made me gasp out loud. Probably the only complaint I'd have would be that there were a couple of loose ends left untied mainly to do with Sandra but, you know, whatever. I read this book in one sitting on a sunny afternoon on the balcony, it was the perfect accompaniment to the day.

Author Meme

2008-06-12T22:01:00.003+02:00

Keris- sweet, lovely Keris- tagged me for this booky meme.

1. Who is your all-time favourite author, and why?

I don't think I can really answer this question because then the meme will just get repetitive. Last year I discovered Margaret Atwood and loved her and claimed her as my all-time favourite author. But before that it was Susan Howatch for, like 15 years or something so I'm not fickle.

2. Who was your first favourite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favourites?

Enid Blyton because I grew up with her and learned lots of lessons from her. I read her short stories about naughty children who didn't write their thank you notes as a wee girl and then I grew into The Naughtiest Girl in the School and the Famous Five (totally crushed on Julian as an 8 year old) and then I just wanted to go to boarding school as I read and reread the St Clares and Malory Towers series later into my teens. I don't have any of my Enid Blyton books but I still think of her fondly because she really was instrumental in my reading and learning as a girl.

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favourite authors, and why?

Err.... Kazuo Ishiguro. I've only read three of his books and all in the past year but I adored them all and perhaps Never Let Me Go is the best book I have ever, ever read. I have When We Were Orphans to read at my leisure.

4. If someone asked you who your favourite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Joanne Rowling (for the boys, really but I did love Harry Potter) and I still love to reread all of my Susan Howatch novels. See, I told you it would get repetitive. And in chick lit I love to read Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella's stories and newly, Emily Giffin and possibly my favourite chick lit book was Dorothy Koomson's My Best Friend's Girl (but don't tell her I said that because she doesn't like the term chick-lit).

5. Taggage. Consider yourself tagged if you read. If you like.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

2008-06-09T01:53:00.006+02:00

Blimey! I found this book hidden in the depths of the boys' bookcase this week. I didn't even know I had it. It's a book I nicked from high school! I remember my English teacher lending it to me over 20 years ago, after he recommended I try reading some Graham Greene. He trusted me to hand it back and I abused that trust completely. The book even has the headmaster's stamp inside. Heh. I'm not sure I ever did read this even after my English teacher loaned it to me. Maybe he gave it to me only a week before I left school in a fit of pique, who can say?

Anyway, I'd been hankering to read some Graham Greene after I watched the Ralph Fiennes film version of The End of the Affair which I loved. I read up more about Graham Greene and discovered he was a late convert to Catholicism. Converts to Catholicism (or any religion, really) fascinate me. I suppose because I have always had the church in my upbringing and it never really interested me to a great degree. I suppose I must wonder what others find so attractive and/or valuable in that which I was given by my parents at birth but most of the time, can't be bothered with. So, blah, blah, blah- that's why I'd been interested in Graham Greene for the past few months.

The Power and the Glory is set in the state of Tabasco, Mexico in the 1930s. At this time, the Mexican government were suppressing the Catholic church, killing priests and bishops, making it illegal to celebrate mass, hear confessions etc. They forced priests to marry and procreate while preventing the Catholic citizens of Mexico from partaking in any church-related services and activities. This is the story of one priest, a whisky priest, on the run from the authorities. While he is a drunk and the father of a little girl (the result of a drunken weakness one night), he still takes his vocation as a priest seriously and knows that refusal to marry will force his execution. As he strives to escape his fate, he meets a host of interesting and diverse characters who help and hinder him in equal measures. He is torn between wanting to be caught and wanting to be able carrying on serving God. He indulges in a lot of introspection and theological thinking in his travels.

I enjoyed reading this book. It's very worthy and intellectual and all that but I found the characters the whisky priest came across all very interesting and wanted to know more about all of them. In particular Padre Jose, a humble, non-intellectual priest forced to marry and left to live forever humiliated. The whisky priest himself was a character study full of flaws and contradiction which left me reeling. The whole story was very evocative and descriptive, almost suffocating at times and still relevant. This was another book that exercised my brain, left me thinking and despite its often depressing atmosphere was ultimately hopeful. I like books like that.

Good Things by Mia King

2008-06-09T01:38:00.004+02:00

Mia King's Good Things is the story of Deidre McIntosh, a 40 year-old local tv presenter in Seattle. She lives with her gay best friend, William, and presents a popular local show called Live Simple. Seeming having lived a charmed life before, where she was in the right place at the right time, Deidre is unprepared for her life to come crashing down around her ears one day. Her tv show is cancelled and her best friend moves in with his lover leaving Deidre looking for a new place to live. By chance, Deidre meets Kevin in a restaurant, impossibly handsome and generous, he offers her a place to stay while she starts to build her new life which may or may not include him.

Good Things is a fast, easy, cute and fluffy chick lit story filled with loveable characters for whom you just want everything to work out well in the end. It's been a while since I picked up something so feel-good and I enjoyed every last minute of it.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 & 3/4 by Sue Townsend

2008-05-31T23:46:00.004+02:00

Ewan and I read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 & 3/4 this week. I first read this book somewhere around 1984 when I was 14 or so myself. It was popular in our school because Adrian Mole referenced his "thing", a novelty in those days for Young Adult fiction. Ahhh, those were the days. Anyway, I decided Ewan and I would read Adrian Mole together because although I knew from recollection that there would be some themes that would go over Ewan's head, he would enjoy the humour and this is one of the books from my youth that I remember most fondly.

Adrian Mole is a teenaged boy who suspects he is an intellectual. A bit of a misfit, he thinks a lot about life and records his thoughts in his diary. Through his diary, we meet Adrian's family, his Old Aged Pensioner friend, Bert Baxter and his dog, Sabre, his neighbours, friends and enemies and of course, the object of his undying affection who eventually becomes his girlfriend, Pandora. In the year, Adrian's mother leaves his father for another man, he makes friends with Bert through a school initiative to help in the community and Adrian is bullied by Barry Kent, the school bully. Nothing is left out of his diary, even the length of his penis is recorded for posterity.

Ewan and I had a great time with this book. We laughed both with and at Adrian and the silly things he said and did. As I suspected, a lot of the humour was targeted at an adult reader and went over Ewan's head but there was still plenty to amuse him. The diary style made for a fairly fast read. We took turns reading a few days each which made reading time fly by and we looked forward to reading time every morning and evening. Ewan enjoyed it thoroughly and I think, now that I can get the adult jokes, I enjoyed it even more than when I read it as a teenager. I'll have to dig out the sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, now for later on.

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

2008-05-30T09:16:00.006+02:00

At Swim, Two Boys is a very generous donation from Andy who sent it to me all the way from England. I wanted to read this book for some time. In fact, since a friend of mine told me it was his favourite book.

At Swim, Two Boys is set in Ireland during the first world war. Ireland is awash with rebellious nationalism and republicanism. It is the story of Jim Mack and Doyler Doyle, two Irish teenaged boys who fall in love with each. Doyler promises to teach his friend to be able to swim strongly enough to swim out to an island in Dublin Bay which they will claim for Ireland. Additional characters include the boys' fathers who were good friends who fought together in the Boer War and Eveline MacMurrough who fights for Ireland and her gay nephew Anthony. In the absence of Doyler, Anthony teaches Jim not to be afraid of his sexuality and falls in love with the young lad. The book culminates with the boys' swim to Muglin's Rock and the 1916 Easter Rising, testing the characters' love for their country and one another.

I took me a while to bend my mind around to the stream of consciousness style of writing employed by the author to get under the skins of the characters in this book but once I did I was absorbed in all of their stories. I loved the innocence of Jim, the cunning of Doyler, the feisty Aunt Eva and I even liked Mr Mack, Jim's dad who to all intents and purposes was a bit of a knob but who loved his children intensely. I loved the relationship between the boys which was so tender and loving and I was thankful that the Anthony MacEmm didn't turn out to be the clichéd, villainous pederast, a role the author could so easily could written him into (although, you know, his preference did tend towards the adolescents.) Actually, now I think about it, I didn't really come across a single character that I didn't sympathise with. I think I liked and cared about all of them and their stories which is unusual for cynical, cranky old me. This was an emotional read which moved me to tears. It wasn't an easy read by any means. In the beginning it took some patience on my part to keep going with the writer's style but giving my brain a good workout was well worth the effort for this story. At Swim, Two Boys is something to take your time reading and then take your time thinking about. It's tender and touching and poignant and quite lovely.

Dacked! by Andrew Daddo

2008-05-16T10:47:00.008+02:00

Andrew Daddo is a high profile celebrity in Australia, at least he was when I left five years ago. He comes from an acting family of brothers and is my personal favourite from the Daddos because I always felt he had a good sense of self deprecating humour. Terry Denton is a very popular children's book illustrator, best known in our house for his work with Andy Griffiths on The Bad Book and The Day My Bum Went Psycho.

Ewan was sent a couple of Andrew Daddo books for his birthday last year. I hoped that it would encourage Ewan to read more on his own, he being the only one out of my three boys who is not a voracious reader but for some reason they were left untouched (while he devoured those Goosebump books) until I suggested we read one together for a bit of light relief after we'd finished reading The Book Thief.

Dacked! is a collection of five short stories centred around Fergus Kipper and his family and friends. Fergus is a typical young Australian teenaged boy whose mind is preoccupied by surfing and girls and appearing cool. He does lots of silly things that get him into scrapes and adventures. His adventures all involve outdoorsy activities like fishing, water-sports and snorkelling, a great way of reminding young lads that there is life away from their Xbox, and illustrate the Aussie lifestyle perfectly. The stories are so much fun and so funny that Ewan and I raced through this book in a week. We had a great time reading it together but a special treat was having Dad read one of the stories with us in his best Aussie accent which brought a special authenticity to the dialogue and atmosphere and made us giggle all the way through.

What a delight this book was. It was refreshing to find something perfectly suited to Ewan's age that wasn't fantasy and that reminded us of Australia and was so much fun to read. Lucky us, we have another Andrew Daddo book to read later on!

Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair With the Bay City Rollers by Caroline Sullivan

2008-05-16T09:19:00.008+02:00

Another on loan from the National Library of Antipo, Bye Bye Baby is music journalist Caroline Sullivan*'s memoir of her years as a founding member of The Tacky Tartan Tarts, a band of groupies devoted to following the Bay City Rollers around the USA as they rose to fame and landed back down to reality with a thud all those years ago.

I had a conversation with a Swiss friend the other day which went a little like this:

"I'm going to read my book on the balcony, I think. It's about a woman in Iceland, I'm really enjoying it..."

"Oh, I'm gonna do that too, I'm reading this book about, well, I don't know if they ever would have made it here, a Scottish band called the Bay City Rollers..."

"The Bay City Rollers! Yeah, I used to love the Bay City Rollers! Corr, that was a long time ago!"

It was. I was only four years old when the Bay City Rollers made it big so I don't remember much about them, only that I loved them. This book fills in lots of gaps in my young, patchy memory with names of their songs that I'd forgotten and descriptions of their album covers to name only a couple. Sullivan explains how, despite the fact that lead singer Les McKeown's voice was weak and they played their instruments very poorly, their clean-cut, milk-drinking image was marketed at young girls who made them the phenomenon they were.

This book is not just about the Bay City Rollers though, its a personal account of a teenage girl growing up and exploring her impending adulthood using appreciation of rock & pop music as a way of expressing herself. Her obsession with the Bay City Rollers is so typically teenage that I'm sure most women could relate even though she took it to an extreme and eventually managed to bag a Roller (coyly referred to as "My Roller"). It's every young girl's dream come true and yet, not, as Caroline discovered in her bittersweet* way.

Bye Bye Baby is a funny, intimate and honest account of teenage years and idol-worship. I had a great time reading it.

*Caroline Sullivan's Guardian Comment is Free profile reads, "Caroline Sullivan is a Guardian music critic. When not at gigs, she enjoys walking in the country, and a few weeks ago narrowly avoided being trampled by a herd of cows, which would have amounted to the least rock'n'roll death in history ..." Excellent.

**Are all memoirs bittersweet? I'm thinking, yes.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2008-05-08T23:28:00.006+02:00

Ewan and I read Markus Zusak's The Book Thief together. The Book Thief is the story, narrated by Death, of Liesel Meminger, a young girl and daughter of a communist who is fostered to a family in Bavaria during the war years. On the trip from her home town to her new home in Molching, a town outside Munich, Liesel's brother dies suddenly and is buried. Liesel, who cannot read very well, finds a book, "The Gravedigger's Handbook" which she secrets about her person and, when her new, beloved, foster father finds it, he uses it to teach Liesel to read and to appreciate the power of words. Liesel goes on to read more and more, stealing books as she needs them, eventually writing her own story which Death then takes it upon himself to share with the reader.

I was unaware that this book is classified as Young Adult fiction until Ewan (aged nearly 11) and I were a good way through the book. I didn't find that much of the story was inappropriate to Ewan's age and we both loved it. Ewan even asked if I would wake him 15 minutes earlier every day so we could have more breakfast reading time. It was a very interactive book for us to read together; some of the dialogue was in German which Ewan read for me in his Swiss accent and the story was punctuated throughout by little asides in bold typeface which were Ewan's responsibility to read aloud. The author did a good job of taking the terrifying (not only scary to children, I would imagine) concept of Death and, by giving him heart and emotion, turning him into a sympathetic story-teller who doesn't much enjoy his job. Liesel and new new family were hard not to fall in love with. The same could be said for most of the characters in the story. Apart from the evil Nazis, naturally, but even then, the author subtly made it clear that not all German soldiers were Nazis, a fact which didn't escape Ewan's notice when I suspected it might. The message of this book was a bit in-your-face! as an adult reader but for Ewan (and Patrick & James, who I hope to persuade to read this) I think the author managed to convey it without patronising his young adult readership.

This was an emotion-filled story with loveable characters and an important message. Ewan and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

2008-05-08T23:22:00.007+02:00

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is an historical romance with a little bit of sci-fi thrown in for good measure. It is the story of Claire Randall, an English nurse in the post-war 1940s. She is holidaying with her history-buff husband in Inverness when one day, at the touch of one of the stones in a magical stone circle, she is thrown 200 years backwards in time into Scottish history. There she meets, among others, Jamie Fraser, a young Scot with a tale or two to tell who is in trouble with the English. They fall in love, get married, have lots of sex and lots of adventures while escaping the English oppressors. The end.

Oh, how I wanted to love this book. I wanted to love it for many reasons: many of my friends (including Laura and Kathy) have read and adored this series of historical romances; I was excited at the thought of finding a new series of fiction to keep me occupied in the summer sun; I had been assured that I would fall in love with Jamie Fraser and I do love having a new crush to obsess over every now and then; and so on and so forth.

Sadly, I have to report that, even though I made to the end of this 850 page whopper, I didn't really enjoy it all. To start with, I found it hard to willingly suspend disbelief and enjoy a time-travelling romp when neither how nor why Claire had been cast into the past were explored in any detail. It could also have benefited from a whack of editing. 850 pages were simply far too many; too many adventurous scrapes and close shaves in one story for my liking. By page 600 I was skip-reading, having learned from experience that I wouldn't miss anything important in the text. Coincidentally, by page 600, we'd been introduced to one of the most annoying female characters ever written, Jamie's sister, Jenny. Their sibling relationship was so unbelievably sentimental and twee that I felt nauseous. And then, of course, it was all wrapped up in a Hollywood, Braveheart-esque ideal of 18th Century Scotland complete with a half-hearted attempt at dialect which I found patronising.

As if all that wasn't reason enough to dislike the novel, I was also offended by one particular scene in which Jamie gives Claire, by this time his wife, a leathering for having disobeyed him. He beats her black and blue one night in order to save face in front of his peers. Claire fights back but the next morning she is bruised and sore and can hardly ride a horse. By this time I was fairly horrified but it was a couple of days later when Claire (a modern woman of the 1940s, remember) comes to realise that she deserved that beating from her husband that I was truly offended and outraged. This is a dangerous and irresponsible message to send women (and men), especially when this is a piece of escapist fiction written for (women- I can only assume that, of course) and marketed to women of all ages. Sadly, the misogynist message doesn't quite stop there; Scotsmen and English soldiers alike in this novel are stereotyped as drunken oafs with insatiable sexual appetites who women are taught to be afraid of and to expect and accept the fact that rape is a fact of life. Another dangerous and irresponsible message which raised my hackles on more than one occasion.

Despite all this, and despite the fact that I didn't find either Jamie or Claire particularly engaging, I did enjoy their fledgling relationship and the fact that they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Ms Gabaldon manages to write a few hot love scenes which I enjoyed thoroughly and reread a couple of times, just because. I'd give this book a 2/5 for that alone. However, given how deeply offended I was by the inherent misogyny left un-addressed by author I'm not in any hurry to read the sequels. Sorry Laura.

The Page 123 Meme

2008-04-23T13:04:00.005+02:00

Gabrielle tagged me for this meme which I thought appropriate for the book blog. Here are the rules.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you (and I understand that etiquette calls for you to avoid "tagging" someone else who has already been sent the meme, if possible).

The nearest book is Hoi- Your Swiss German Survival Guide by Sergio J Lievano & Nicole Egger

Page 123, the fifth sentence, followed by the next two sentences:

"Swiss German: Das isch kais Honigschläkkä
Literally Translated: It's not a honey lick
Meaning: It's difficult"

OK, so that was the nearest book. But if I stretch a little further, the book I'm reading, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, is also to hand.

Page 123 is the end of a chapter and only contains two sentences which are:

"I made my way slowly back to the castle, thinking about men who lived in cold mud and ate grass. It didn't occur to me until I had reached the courtyard that I had forgotten all about his shoulder."

I'm not sure I feel about this book yet. Claire, a WWII nurse has found herself in a spot of time-travelling business. She seems a little too ready to accept the fact that she has time-travelled and hasn't entertained the thought that she might be dreaming for my liking. She's not, like. She is actually time-travelling but you know, if I suddenly found myself time-travelling I think I would have explored a number of other reasons for my sudden displacement in the space-time continuum before I suddely said to myself, "Oh I know! I must be time-travelling!" And some of the Scots dialect is annoying me- I feel as though the author should have followed through with the dialect or just left it alone. It feels a bit like a half-arsed attempt at a Scottish accent by substituting You with Ye and Well with Weel. Ken whit I mean, hen?

But I'm only 100 or so pages in, I have another 750 pages to go so plenty of time for Ms Gabaldon to drag me into her historical/romantic/science fiction adventure.

Tagging. Consider yourself tagged if you read.....

Out of the Tunnel by Rachel North

2008-04-19T20:22:00.007+02:00

This book is on loan to me from the National Library of Antipo. I never read Rachel North's blog about her experience of surviving one of the London bombs which killed 52 innocent people and four suicide bombers on 7th July, 2005. I knew of her though, strangely enough because I had stumbled upon a blog (as you do) which was written by a woman who declared Rachel North to be a maniacal stalker and liar. It turned out that it was the very author of that blog who turned out to be a complete lunatic but even after I had clicked on various links to Rachel's blog, I never really read any further than the first post or so, always having the feeling that I had arrived far too late to the party. For want of a better phrase.

Anyway, Out of the Tunnel is Rachel North's account of surviving one of those London bombs on that day, and the psychological hurdles she and her fellow passengers on the train faced for the next few months including PTSD and Survivor's Guilt. It is a well written (although it could perhaps have done with a bit more editing- I found some parts repetitive), honest and moving read which brought me to tears on a couple of occasions. This book shows how the internet can be used as a powerful tool and a positive force in times of crisis. It's not just for porn and selling Viagara, you know. Rachel, who previous to the bomb attacks had survived a brutal rape attack in her home, comes across as a strong, loving, forgiving and genuinely humble person who I'm sure inspires most of those who meet her. I'm glad I read this.

God's Callgirl by Carla van Raay

2008-04-17T14:55:00.005+02:00

I don't know what possessed me to buy this book. I think I must have been in the mood for some really salacious gossip when I ordered it from Amazon. I can't even imagine what else I would have bought that Amazon would have said to me, "Oh, well you bought this so you'll probably get a kick out of this!" in their recommendation. Perhaps it was the draw of the Melbourne convent and Australian immigrant that got me. Who knows? In any case, I never read anything from this horrible new genre, misery-lit, which profits from a victim mentality to make a few bucks from the pockets of ghouls and saddos. There, I've said it now. In case you hadn't noticed, I feel quite strongly about this new genre of writing. Feel free to disagree with me.

Sadly, I have to say that this book has done nothing but reinforce my strong opinions. God's Callgirl is the autobiography of Carla Van Raay whose Dutch family emigrated to Australia. In the first third of the book, we learn about Carla's family life, growing up with a father who sexually abused her, emigrating to Australia and being educated by nuns. The second third tells of Carla's entry into the order of sisters who educated her and her eventual disillusionment with that life. The last part of the book tells of Carla's exploration of her sexuality and her career in prostitution before eventually overcoming her past. I assume she overcame her past because I couldn't finish it.

The main problem for me was (even after making allowances for the sexual abuse) Carla's seemingly unending victim mentality and paranoia which permeated every area of her life. She had no friends, none of the nuns liked her, everyone was always picking on her, she was being sabotaged at every turn- wah wah wah! Added to that, she seemed unable to take responsibility for any of her actions. Catholic guilt gets a good workout in the pages of this book, a concept I have absolutely no patience for. Mashed all this together and I got a dislikeable narrator who couldn't really hold my interest and who contradicted herself over and over. I also found an underlying tone of superiority (moral, intellectual, whatever) unpleasant. I skip-read the last third of the book during which Ms Van Raay felt it necessary to delve into intimate detail about her sexual awakening and then monotonously into the details of far too many of her clients. By this time, I actually had lost all interest in how she overcame the mental scarring the sexual abuse had left on her and simply shut the book and vowed never to pick up a book from the Tragic Life Stories shelf ever again.

Another big problem for me was the fact that she was able to recall key events from her life from the age of 2 & 1/2 which I simply find implausible. It's not that I don't believe she was sexually abused as a child, but the implausibility of her earliest recollections did taint the rest of her memoir as far as I was concerned.

In all, I found this to be a tedious read which made me feel like I needed a good shower afterwards. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I just discovered that she's written a follow up which has just been released. I won't be picking it up any time this century.

Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag

2008-04-11T08:07:00.005+02:00

I would never have read this book had it not been given to me one of my Swiss friends. I mean, look at it! A long-haul flight attendant, this particular friend passes her airport blockbusters on to me- aren't I lucky? I'd never even heard of Tami Hoag before this book came into my possession. And I know from first-hand experience that #1 New York Times Bestselling Authors and I very rarely get along (I think the last one was Dan Brown) but I thought I'd give this a go anyway.

Prior Bad Acts (Terrible title but that's not really the author's fault, I suppose, that the legal system in Minnesota uses such juvenile jargon) is a murder-mystery in which a man is on trial for the gruesome murders of a mother and two foster children. The judge, Carey Moore, impossibly attractive and perfectly dedicated to doing the right thing, rules that the defendant's "Prior Bad Acts" are inadmissible in the prosecution's case against him. And so the story of good cops, bad cops, unfaithful husbands and escaped murderers begins.

I found this to be a surprisingly engaging and absorbing read. One of those page-turner types of novels that everyone (including me) talks about. It's filled with gung-ho law enforcement types and shifty untrustworthy suspects. The dialogue is peppered with Hill St Blues style cop-talk and Ally McBeal lawyer-isms which I would normally find cheesy but for some reason found perfectly readable in this story. The female characters are mostly strong women who know how to handle themselves but you can tell all they yearn for is the love of a good man. The men in turn, the police in particular, all want the love of a good woman except they're all married to the job- you know the drill. The pages are filled with action and grisly descriptions of murders and crime scenes. The author does quite a good job of creating suspense and tension which carried me along eagerly to the end of the tale which was all wrapped up nicely with a semi-unexpected plot twist and a reasonably happy ending. All in all, this book is a bit of entertaining and good, old-fashioned, mindless escapism; an honest piece of popular fiction that doesn't pretend to be something it's not (I'm looking at you, Jodi Picoult!). I shall definitely encourage my friend to try another Tami Hoag novel when she goes away again. I wonder if I've just found myself another guilty pleasure?

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

2008-04-06T13:10:00.007+02:00

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro is a story of Etsuko, a Japanese widow, living in England. She has recently lost her first daughter Keiko, born in Japan to her first husband, to suicide and is being visited by her second daughter, Niki, to her English husband. The two sisters were so was estranged from each other that Niki did not attend Keiko's funeral. During Niki's awkward visit with her mother, Etsuko recalls a particular hot summer in Japan before she emigrated. She remembers a friendship with the enigmatic Sachiko and her strange daughter Mariko, as well as a visit from her kindly father-in-law who shares a strained relationship with his son.

I love to read Ishiguro's writing because it's evocative and intense and has me sucked in from the very first sentence. Comparing this book to The Remains of the Day, I admire his ability to evoke the very Englishness of the butler Stephens and here, to be able to transport me to Japan with the power of his descriptive writing. There is so much left unsaid in this novel that the ambiguity of the narrative left me thinking long after I put the book down. Sadly, I know there's a lot about this book, (the themes, the literary devices etc and it's only 183 pages long!) that have flown straight over the top of my head. This is the kind of book that makes me wish I'd paid more attention in school so that I could delve really deep and enjoy every single aspect of it. Ahh, the curse of the dilettante.