Ghostwritten

Whoa! What a totally mental freaky book.  This is Mitchell's first novel published in 1999 and it's been on my shelf for over 10 years. Finally I got around to reading it and what a mad delight! It's taken me ages due to it being quite a dense read which needed lots of concentration and also because I have been spending more of my free time watching TV lately, as there has been such great stuff on the box!

  This author has a huge imagination and a brilliant grasp of different writing styles used in the different chapters in this book.   Each of these nine chapters were supposedly snapshots of random lives of different people around the planet but ultimately they all had little parts of their lives which interlinked or morphed into each other.  I loved these stories just as separate tales.  Especially the story about the  20 th century history of China as seen through the eyes of a woman tea seller and the disembodied soul of a Mongolian boy who jumps around from person to person like a virus trying to find a new host to exist in. 

Every story has a link to ghost or spirit of some description and characters randomly affect each other's stories. I think this is to highlight the random chances and happenings which occur in all of our lives. This book was so clever and even more relevant today, 16 years later, in a world of global terror. Mitchell uses the first Iraq war and the sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway as his reference points.  What would he use today?!  This book was even pre 9/11...weird. 

Ultimately though this book was fantastic linguistically and Mitchell's dialogue could be extremely witty edgy and thought provoking but by the end I was just thinking WTF?  This book in my opinion ended up trying to be so clever that it kind of failed to come to a satisfactory ending.  i just didn't really get it and I think I need to read it again even slower.  There is no real fun in reading a book that you suddenly realise is totally above your understanding. But, hey maybe Mitchell is having the last laugh, this book was awesome to read and that's all that matters.  This book can be whatever you want it to be!  For me the language, different dialogues and stories were fantastic and ultimately that is all that counts. I think it was all about how spirits and ghosts are around us and within us all the time and how these 'spirits' manifest is as varied and random as life itself. I didn't find this idea crazy or wacky at all, instead I kind of found it weirdly comforting.  If you want a great read,which by the end will leave you both entertained and infuriated, I highly recommend this book! 

Time to go I must catch the last episode of Fargo! 

A Brief History of Seven Killings

Wow. I have finished it! what a book. I'm both annoyed by it, in love with bits of it and frustrated by the last 350 pages of it.  To be honest if it was half the length I think it would have been a much, much better book.  

The first half was brilliant with the immersion into Jamaican gang violence, drug culture and ghetto lifestyle in the 70s. Even the Jamaican patois didn't give me no bombocloth r'asscloth fuckery.  (Translation: it was fine!) getting into the lifestyle, politics, grimness and culture of Kingston  just as Bob Marley was becoming a world music icon was just brilliant.   I loved the characters, the language and the brilliant sense of time and place. The  political angle with the CIA getting involved with Jamaican politics just to stop the Cubans getting a foothold in the country was cool too. ( something I knew nothing about. ) 

Marlon James can write, that is not under question. Every chapter was the voice of a different character and each character ( if they survived ) grew and changed over the 13 years of the book's narrative.  But every character was unremittingly grim and after the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1979, there ceased to be any more  plot. Everything just turned into 'scenes' and grabbed dialogue.  It was all a bit empty for me and has left me cold. No one, absolutely no one was redeemable.  But James did  write absolutely fantastic streams of consciousness when people were dying or shooting up places. The emptiness of their consciousnesses was just harrowing and bloody amazing to read. 

 This is not a book for the faint hearted, or anyone who wants characters to feel any redemption.  This book is hard and brutal in the hardest and most brutal terms. The only joy really was a short chapter in the middle where one of the gang leaders, because he has moved to New York to expand his crack cocaine business, finally comes to terms with himself being gay and what that actually means for him in his role as head of the gang. ( He's still hard as fuck. He just likes himself a  little bit more!) 

This book is grim with no let up and the second half reads like a shaggy dog story that just got on my nerves. But the first half, before Bob Marley dies of cancer ( after the attempted murder.)  is brilliant and it annoys me that the book lost direction for me after that. Too clever for its own sake I think and far too depressing and unremittingly bleak for me. Oh well, at least  I can attempt to swear like a Jamaican now if I want to.

Chaos Walking Trilogy

Phew that was a bit of a marathon! A whole series of Young Adut Fiction read and totally enjoyed. I just loved this series, especially the first book. Oh my god, the first book was brilliant and when I finished it I was in such a panic to get my hands on the second one I phoned up the Bicester library, found out they had it and ran down at 6.55pm just before it closed.( none of the shops here had a copy to buy!) 

Patrick Ness has created a great story here, all set on another planet where exiled humans turn up in their spaceships. They are creating a new world and as expected things go wrong, very wrong.  On this planet the indigenous creatures are obviously strange and need to be killed or tamed and men also have the added burden of all of their thoughts being instantly transmitted in NOISE to every single person. Every thought and hidden feeling is instantly heard or seen by everyone.  oF course  this sends the men a bit mad and it's a bit of a burden having to hear and see the inner thoughts of everyone. There is just no secrecy and most men are just thinking lots of annoying nonsense anyway! The worst thing is that women don't transmit this noise and their thoughts remain private.  This obvious unexpected difference creates  problems and war as communities fight over the kind of world they want to live in.

Phew, it all sounds pretty heavy and to be honest lots of the ideas are, but they are cleverly told through the adventures of Todd, Viola and Manchee their dog as they travel away from Prentistown, a town with no women or children.( all the women mysteriously died) to find a better life. Todd is the youngest boy in the town and when he turns 14 he will find out the secrets of this  woman free town and his father wants him to escape to find a better life. Todd has to run away quickly with just his mother's diary ( which he can't read because education is banned in this town) without any knowledge because if he had any knowledge of anything the elders would be able to read what he was thinking in his NOISE and stop him.

Anyway, then the story really kicks in. We meet men who can control their noise, learn about the terrorists who are fighting for freedom, witness a genocide of the local species, see how Todd succumbs to the power of leadership, see bravery when we least expect it. Witness mass branding of the women, see how fighting is a never ending display of bravado at the expense of the powerless, how to control feelings of revenge, the power of negotiation, how easily young people can be radicalised by their elders, how to deal with refugees and the innocent displaced masses and a great adventure story as Todd and Viola travel across this land trying to find peace. 

Yes, it all sound really worthy but it isn't. The inner life of the young are really well  described here and it's all very exciting but the adult characters are a bit one dimensional...but hey, this isn't surpring this book is for teenagers but I just wanted more depth to the adult characters as well! 

The third book did get a bit preachy and boring for me...I had gone off the boil after the excitement of the first two but worth the read. Especially reading how easily vulnerable children can get brainwashed. A great read for anyone over 12 I reckon....actually maybe older because many parts  of this book did give me graphic nightmares!

The Horse Boy.

This book fascinated and annoyed me in equal measure. Rowan is a six year old, highly autistic lad who can't connect with any children, can only babble like a baby and can't control his rages or his bowels. One thing Rowan can do though is connect with horses, and Betsy, who lives in the field behind their house, is Rowan's best friend. Rupert,the Dad is an experienced horse rider and he comes up with a plan to take Rowan into Mongolia to ride with the horses there and meet the shamans. Rupert is disallusioned with western approaches to autism so decides to put his trust into the Mongolian outback, Mongolian horses and the shamens there. 

The story of Rupert, his wife and Rowan's adventures across the Mongolian plains are well told but I always had a strong feeling of scepticism in the back of my mind.  Rupert was already a travel writer and had organised rights for this book he was going to write and they were also travelling with a film crew as he had sold the rights of a documentary for nearly 200,000 pounds before they even left for Asia. They also had to pay the reindeer shamans 500 US dollars before they would even see Rowan. Rupert's worries about his son are well told, heartbreaking and honest but ultimately I had the feeling that Rupert was basically writing about himself and how Rowan affected him. Do not expect a self help book about how to deal with autism. Honestly there is no guidance, all Rupert does is slag off the approaches of the West. 

 The  hardships of his wife ( who was never that keen to go to Mongolia in the first place) are barely mentioned. She just seemed to quietly and diligently follow behind saying jack shit.  When one of the shamens said that Rowan's problems were because of his wife's 'black waters ' in her womb and also because of a mad deranged Aunty on the mother's side of the family having 'control' over Rowan I almost spit out my beer!  His poor wife was ordered down to the river to wash out her black waters in her birth canal whilst the bloody TV crew filmed it.  More fool her is all I can say!!!  

Anyway, suffice to say Rowan came back after 3 months toilet trained. To be honest I think it was a bloody long way to take a kid to get them toilet trained...but hey good memories for them all! A holiday of a life time.  The one thing I do truely believe in though is the power of animals to sooth and help children. ( all children).  In my world though I think a dog or a hamster might do the job just as well! Ultimately though the author is a man who I found incredibly irritating yet fascinating. A hippy with a strong love for fox hunting. A devoted husband who barely seemed to acknowledge his wife's existence. (Even the cover blurb of the book annoyed me. It wasn't just him who was trying to cure his son. His wife was also there too. )  He was a devoted father who was always analysing how his son's extreme autism affected himself and a qualified travel writer who organised a way to use his son to further expand his travel writing profile. A strange reading experience for me!  But hey, he did write about Mongolia really well! 

The Leopard

My god, I'm on a Harry Hole binge! I don't know what it is but I love curling up in my bed all alone in my house  and reading about my hero, Harry Hole and his amazing fight against Norway's sadistic serial killers.  Along the way I enjoyed learning about a torture device, which astounded me in its creativity and foulness.   ( I have since found out that this supremely awful torture  device was totally created in the mind of Jo Nesbo, respect to you and your over imaginative sense of depravity. You sick man.) 

This book is just 007 on speed,( well actually, heroin and Jim Beam. ) Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride. This is the best way to deal with traffic problems on the A34 ( as well as under the covers at midnight.) total immersion into the dark side of life amongst the druggies of Hong Kong, via the depavity of the Congo and the worst sick psychos of Norway.  I loved how the snow and avalanches of Northern Europe could be utilised so well for depositing bodies along with the bubbling volcanos of Goma, in the Congo. Honestly, budding psycho killers of Bicester have no chance to deposit bodies so well. 

 ( Maybe Ardley tip...) 

Harry I love you and your 'armoured heart' ,the best sentence in the book contains  the original Norwegian title. 

This read is so cinematic, but never, never, never, will it be filmed as well or as enjoyably as what I gained from reading this over the past week and a half. Pure mad exhilaration. 

To Kill A Mockingbird

I first bought this when I was 16 and I suddenly realised I should read it properly.  I still have my old copy so just pulled it off my shelf and started.  To be honest I haven't got many memories of reading this.  I really don't think I ever managed to read it all!  ( I think the boring cover and small print affected my judgement and I found the opening Boo Radley storyline a bit hard going.)  But reading it again this week it has blown me away. What a fantastic book. I have been in tears every day on the bus this week because of the beautiful, honest writing and the clarity of the story. ( at least my unpopular train replacement bus is fairly empty so no one has seen what a state I have got myself into!) 

Harper Lee's winning formula is writing this from the perspective of a young girl who has lots of spirit, bravado and love of live.  The  characters who live in Maycomb, Alabama in 1935 are so well described by Scout I could almost smell them. All types of people are described: white trash, the desperately poor, snobs, gossips, mentally ill people, drug addicts, liars, violent drunks, lonely people, the honest and the brave and then there is the disenfranchised black community( who live in a tight community behind the rubbish dump.) A group of people in which the majority can't read. A group of people who are almost universally looked down upon and feared by their white neighbours.

 Cleverly nobody is judged in this book because as Harper Lee says the only way you understand people is by trying to 'stand in their shoes'. 

Atticus Finch's defence of Tom Robinson , a young black guy who is accused of raping a 19 year old white girl ,is the main focus of the central part of this book but to me this was just one section of amazing insights into the hypocrisy and petty minded fears of humans. The court room scene is electrifying and it is so obvious that everyone knows that Tom Robinson is innocent but as he is black he just has to be found guilty. Atticus having to deal with the strong belief that he will fight for Tom even though he knows it will be a lost cause is so sad, yet also so empowering , because in the end the town's conscience is put into the spot light  and everyone knows they have all been judged and all found guilty. 

Having the story told from the perspective of a funny, lively tomboy keeps this book fresh. It's funny and totally free of sentimentality. Scout sees things as they are and tells things as they are. Atticus is just so lovely to his kids too. What a super star of a dad! 

  The attack at the end is particularly grim yet also uplifting. All I can say is thank god Scout was wearing a Halloween costume, a piece of reinforced metal bacon, which managed to protect her! Later Scout said she was never afraid while it was happening and that it is only in books and in our imaginations where really scary things happen.  A great example of what Maycomb County had just been told, that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.

I sure am not going to wait 28 years before I read this again! Question is will I go and buy Go Set a Watchman now? Ummm.

The Miniaturist

I have devoured this book in less than 5 days and the sense of place and atmosphere of a freezing cold Amsterdam in the 17th century was excellent and I was totally enthralled at first, but ultimately this huge best seller left me rather cold too.  I felt really disappointed at the end. So many plot lines were just left dangling or just fizzled out. It's that same feeling of :

"ehh?!!  I didn't get that."   which I haven't felt so strongly since I read The Time Travellers Wife. ( another over hyped book!) 

The atmosphere and beautiful writing were great and I was totally sucked in but there were far too many holes in the plot, whole chunks left unexplained, 'big' reveals which were totally obvious and just as things were getting interesting the book ended!

 I think the writer was just trying to pack far too much modern stuff into a 17th century back drop. Ideas about gender, race, homophobia, greed, corruption, bigotry, along with food and religion were all packed in and  the 18 year old main character seemed to take it all in her stride. The title is misleading too, the bloody miniaturist just fizzled away. The main plot device which made me read this book at speed was a damp squib! I didn't get it. Maybe I just wanted a rational explanation at the end but this book just petered out. Oh well, Jessie Burton seems to have done lots of research and she creates a great atmosphere but this book was no way as satisfying at the end as I wanted it to be. This book ended up being more like a painting to me, rather flat! 

The House of Silk

A Sherlock Holmes pistache of which I wasn't expecting much and wow,  I was really surprised.  I loved this book.  I enjoyed reading it a lot and my bus journeys last week were a dream as I read through all the traffic disruption quite happily!
Horowitz did a great job keeping in the spirit of Conan Doyle but also updating the story for the 21st century reader.  The plot was great,a bit slow at the beginning but then it took off and I was hooked.  Everything was in this including murder, disguise, abuse, drugs, corruption, poisoning, and an escape from a locked room.  I never guessed the solution to anything and every twist and turn was a total surprise for me.  yes, it was a great read and I suddenly have realised how much I love mysteries and murders.  This book was not violent at all but the implied violence was there and to be honest that is all you need sometimes.  Plus the research into Victorian London was brilliant.  Horowitz took the reader into much seedier and sordid places than were common in the original books. (Dr. Watson wrote this book from his retirement home.  He was recording a case after Holmes death, a case which was too sensitive to publish in his lifetime.)  It was a great story and to be honest I'm a bit sad I read it so quickly. I wont give anything away but if you are a fan of Holmes then this book is for you. My only problem is I couldn't get the face of Benedict Cumberbatch  out of my head as I read it.

The Snowman

I picked up this book rather tentatively because I wasn't a great Stieg Larson fan. ( the yellow sticker on the book, didn't work for me at all) But I'm glad I did because the only thing they have in common is that both authors are Scandinavian.

I loved the tension in this book and all the false leads and threads. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would! Nesbo has a quirky humour in this book too. I also totally fell for the troubled inspector, Harry Hole, what a great character! I loved his demons and the complicated relationship he had with the one woman he loved.  I also enjoyed reading about his relationship with alcohol. All very informative, getting inside the mind of an alcoholic!

Yes, this book was creepy, gruesome and scary but always a great read and nothing was gratuitous ( my biggest issue with Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series.) Infact the story was great and I was totally hooked. The imagery of the snowman and the implement of choice used by the psycho killer was brilliant. I even enjoyed the terror of reading this late at night under my bed covers! Yes, I enjoyed freaking myself out. But to be honest I've read far worse stomach churning novels. But I'll never look at a Snowman in the same light again! Most of all it was a fast paced thriller, which was also translated really well. Often books in translation have a really clunky style, but this didn't! Well done Don Bartlett. 

Today I've already been round the charity shops in Bicester and bought a few other Nesbos! gonna keep them for later when I need a fix of Harry Hole and an adrenaline rush of fear! 

Lost In a Good Book

What a great read. This book is bonkers, bonkers, bonkers. Even maybe a little too bonkers because in each chapter so much happens and my brain was just constantly being fried. The parallel universe of 1985 becomes even more craz y in my second adventure with Miss Next as she realises that she is pregnant by her husband who is suddenly eliminated from the world and all conscious memory ( apart from hers) when the Goliath World Dominating Company black mail her into releasing Jack Schitt from his eternal damnation and hell like existence from within the confines of the pages of Edgar Allen Poe's

The Raven. 

Just writing this weird nonsense above makes me feel strange. I can't write about this book successfully because it is all so crazy and wonderfully insane! Thursday Next realises she has a special talent for book jumping and she can literally move into the pages of novels when  she reads them aloud. She ends up in Great Expectations and Miss Haversham becomes her book jumping or rather 'jurisfiction' guide. ( top notch book jumpers can move from book to book without the need to re-enter reality.)  Miss Haversham teaches her a lot and even Miss H  manages to jump into this real parallel world of Swindon in 1985 in order to buy books at a pound sale and drive fast cars (because Miss Haversham is a demon car racer at heart.)   Thursday Next then learns more tricks from the book librarian, the Cheshire Cat. I loved the surreal world of the eternal book library, to me it was like the Bodleian Library personified, because every book was a living breathing entity.  Thursday Next then deals with characters from books posing as humans, she also ends up trapped in the world of written washing labels on clothes and then simply travels through the centre of the world in a gravitube in 40 mins to Japan.  ( There are no aeroplanes in this parallel existence!) it's all so mad it sounds ridiculous..which it is but I LOVED IT and didn't want it to end.

I especially loved the time warps and bits on coincidences when all probabilities and coincidences merge at one point. The bits on time travel were weird but still fun and the characters who only speak through footnotes were bonkers too.

This book is not for everyone. But hey give it a go if you are a complete freak who would also appreciate   Neanderthals, mammoths and dodos being reintroduced on our planet and Wales to be a Socialist Republic and also if you are someone who literally likes getting lost in a good book!

Great fun! 

Our Man in Havana

I had to read this for my book club and with great trepidation I started it on Friday and finished it today. Not too bad, over quickly! Infact I have never been a Graham Greene fan. Fusty, boring and old fashioned in my opinion. I have never been able to get past page 10 in previous novels I have tried to read. All this spy/thriller shite with cobwebbed men slinking about drinking whisky leaves me cold. Well I DID read all of this and I have to say..not bad. 6/10 but not something I can rave about. 

It's meant to be funny...I didn't get half of the jokes. It's meant to be a spoof spy and I got that. It's meant to be thrilling, well in my opinion it wasn't that thrilling. Infact Greene is supposed to be one of the best writers of the 20 th century. Well, for me he reads more like an Enid Blyton for adults. Simple, spare, modern writing seems more like a script for a play to me with people talking to each other like robots. I then get confused about which character is actually speaking as there are no references. It's just a style of writing that I'm not used to and don't like.

The spoof part I did enjoy. The British Secret service comes across as so ridiculous that they employ an English vacuum sales man (an expat living in Cuba, for over twenty years ) to spy for them. He obviously knows no spies and no massive plots to overthrow the Americans but he wants the money for his Kim Kardashianesque, Pony loving, Virtuous Catholic yet also an implied tart, 16 year old daughter. He makes up stories about spies and draws copies of his vacuum parts and makes them out to be secret weapons being built by the communists in the mountains. All mad and funny but then people really do start to die and Mr. vacumn seller gets involved in more than he can chew. ( this part of the story I loved as it made me think of our government's response to Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Were these just drawings of enlarged hoover parts too?!   I think so! )This book was written in 1958 though, well before and also a year before Castro came to power.

This book revolves around a sad,squirrel like, dried up old expat racist trying to earn a few extra bucks whilst spending most of his time in his mans club drinking whisky and daiquiri with his German chum and  deceiving MI6.

I know I probably didn't 'get it' and I'm not intelligent for the 'humour' but I didn't like any of the characters, apart from the fascist policeman with his human skin cigar case. But hey, he was a great James Bond villain. The love story was rubbish ( like a teenage boy writing a love story for homework.) The sexism and racism I could accept, because that's how these important novelists wrote but the whole story was rather sordid and unpleasant. It was redeemed by one scene through... Draughts played with tiny bottles of whisky and bourbon instead of pieces. So when you take a piece you have to neck the miniature bottle. I liked this idea because it meant the better player would get drunk quicker and then lose his powers of concentration. The players were weasel Wormold ( vacuum seller man) and my favourite character, the James Bond villain. I loved him trying to win, stay in control and then finally get totally plastered! 

Oscar and Lucinda

phew, what a book. Such a weird one.  It took me an age to read and in the middle I got that 'walking through treacle' feeling but ultimately it's a book I absolutely loved!  A strange one that I can't really put into words because parts of it were pretty tough to get through whereas other parts were brilliant to read.  Carey is an amazing writer who just takes you on a roller coaster ride.  Both Oscar and Lucinda were born a century too early.  If they had been born 100 years later they would have got together in Las Vegas, made a fortune in the dot coms of silicon valley and then settled down to a life of farming,  all night card games for pennies, household chores and true love.  This was what was so sad and frustrating about their love for each other, the fact that the restrictions of their uptight Victorian lifestyle kept them apart and kept them from understanding each others true feelings. it was so infuriating (as bad as Remains of the Day, another book I loved.)
I also enjoyed the harsh portrayal of life in Sydney.  This was a life full of people with no redeeming features.The landscape is harsh, the people are harsh and even the rivers are full of menace. I loved it. But the way Carey writes is so brutally funny.  He doesn't do sentimentality but some of his sentences are truly beautiful. He just seems to cut through all the crap and get to the heart of things.
I also liked how he described his characters.  His descriptions were so good it's like they were all in 3D, right in front of you and Victorian life was going on right in front of you too.  Scenes from this book will stay with me for ever. Especially the boat crossing from London to Sydney and Oscar's life with his strict father in Devon.
My favourite part of the book was the beginning and how Oscar and Lucinda 's lifestyles built up to their independent expressions of their gambling addictions.  Both had such different upbringings but the joy they got from the 'logic' or 'peace'  of a good card game or a great run at the races was really well described. I especially enjoyed how both of them enjoyed losing just as much as winning. This last feature of their gambling addiction came into true focus by the end of the book and it was just so sad I had to stop reading it 50 pages before the end and have only just finished it off today. the ending was weird.  Almost like Peter carey was suffering from an author ending frenzy.   It was very different from the rest of the book...but hey, that's why I like this author. He's full of surprises. I'm sure when I read it again it will be a completely different book!

Inferno

This has been bloody painful reading.  I was looking forward to reading it because I found the Da Vinci Code a really fun page-turner but this was just dull, stupid and annoying.
Yes, yes, yes, I know I should have stopped reading it and given it away but I kept on believing that it would get better and it never did. What a waste of my time and such a heavy book to carry around in my bag for the last few weeks. It ended up being just a rather naff tourist guide to Florence and Venice with a bit of mad cap charging around Istanbul at the end. Infact I finished it this morning and just 8 hours later I have forgotten it and don't really know what to write about the plot. One good thing though Dante's Inferno looks like an interesting, gory read. It's made me think I should give that a go!

The Eyre Affair

A book I would never have read or even heard of if it weren't for my book club. And well I loved it. What a great read. Really good fun, full of imagination and a great story. What more could you want from a book?! 

I don't even know how to write about it. It's set in a parallel reality in 1985 in a secretive government department in Swindon. It's a Britain where Wales is an unfriendly breakaway Republic, the Crimean war has been raging for over 150 years and extinct animals can be bought back to life. People can also time travel and also portal into the pages of classic novels and chat to the characters and change the plots for ever. Infact books, plays and literature are the number one pastime of people. Books are the beating heart of this society and the evil Mr. Hades has decided to take Jane Eyre hostage for a ransom of a billion pounds.

Miss Next is the full on Swindonian heroine of the novel and she sure kicks arse with her time travelling car, her first edition of Jane Eyre in her pocket and her old friend Mr Rochester who can also magically portal in the other direction out of the novel to help her in times of need. Infact in this reality Jane Eyre has a different ending and Mr Rochester is totally heart broken that Jane marries St. John Rivers. So Miss Next goes out of her way to help change Mr Rochester and Jane's destiny.

Yes, it all sounds completely mad and in many ways it truely is bonkers but I loved it. I think having read Jane Eyre is a must and having a copy comes in handy. The only thing I didn't like were the dumb names. Here I just think Jasper Fforde went a bit over the top and I don't think I understood all the little in jokes. OK, Jack Schitt was obviously a baddie, but why the main character was called Thursday Next, I don't know. I just found it irritating. I understood the character of Oswald Mandias but that's only because I checked out Ozymandias on line after watching an episode of Breaking Bad. So yeah, I can kind of see why the novel has gained a cult following. But hey, me too! I loved it, loved it, loved it. Pure brilliant, geeky barminess with great use of language. Get a copy.( Sorry mine is not going to be lent out.  I will read it again when I'm feeling glum and in need of a laugh! )

Blood and Beauty

This book was really enjoyable. But I'm glad that I don't have to lug the enormous hardback copy I had around with me any more. (It was another 9p bargain from 'Help' the Aged.)

I have never watched anything  about the Borgia family of Rome on TV because I don't have Sky but after this read I feel like I know a damn lot. I have been transported into the corrupt Vatican of the late 15th century and I loved it all. Everyone there was a political, selfish tyrant using the power of God, (trademark) and warfare to gain more land, more political support, more power and more money. Reading about the war plans was like being inside the head of a despot. Loyalties constantly were shifting between the houses which ruled the independent states of Italy, the most powerful States for the Borgias of Rome, being Naples and Milan.   The Borgias were constantly at war with  their neighbours with a bit of French and German interference thrown in to help and hinder. Not forgetting of course that Alexander Borgia, the Pope, was actually a Spanish guy, so even Spanish mercenaries were shipped over too.

Game of Thrones must have been based a bit on this family and their outrageous ways. There was a rumour that the son and daughter of Pope Alexander had an incestuous love affair but Sarah Dunant disagrees and in this book the local people just gossip about them. Also the oldest son of the pope might have killed the youngest son but again Dunant reserves judgement and the murderer is never found.   I actually liked the outrageous pope and his beautiful daughter, Lucrezia, who is just a political pawn who the pope marries off three times at his whim, destroying her previous husbands when they become enemies. I also liked Cesare, her brother, but what a bad, bad man!!!  Watching him change from a handsome young lad full of life , to a man who only wears black and a mask because of his facial pock marks from getting the new 'french' disease of syphillis was fascinating. Yes, a good read. Sarah Dunant wrote really well, making it all seem quite modern and also quite funny. A much better historical novel than that tedious Wolf Hall! 

Women in England

I bought this book years ago from a charity shop and to be honest it never really appealed to me. Maybe the title and the ugly book cover put me off, but last month I finally picked it up and I have been mesmerised ever since. most evenings I just dipped into it and I found it fascinating. It's weird I never studied history past the age of 13 at school but it's something I find more and more fascinating as I get older. Anyway this was social history at it's best and all from a woman's perspective. Lots of topics were put into context. How different classes of woman lived and worked. I particularly enjoyed the working class section ,of which over 75% of women belonged to in the 19th century. All women were industrious at doing piecework and running their own businesses from their homes, but everything was recorded as money earned by their husbands. My god, their lives were hard. Running the house, toiling from sunrise to sunset, doing hourly paid work when you could, looking after the kids, being constantly pregnant, not being able to say no to your husband when he wants sex,   The industrial revolution bought lots of changes, where children and women, were treated as cheap slave labour.  Unmarried women were often given boring , laborious tasks and men were often given more interesting work. This resulted in women often having different entrances and departments in jobs so they couldn't actually see what men did ( this carried on in the post office until the 1950s!) as soon as women married they were ordered to leave their jobs and women in service to the gentry had to remain single. 

The section on sex and sexuality was really interesting. Premarital sex before 1760 wasn't really looked down on at all and lots of women got married pregnant as people were far less judgemental.  but after this time more and more women got jilted as people were beginning to live away from their families and they didnt have to live under the watchful eyes of their families anymore. 

English law codified what 'full sex 'actually meant in the 18th century.( before this time I think anything was permissible!!)  From this time adultery in the eyes of the law had to be full sex with a person of the opposite sex.  Penetrative sex was now seen as the only ' correct' way and I believe after this time English society became far more prudish and the rights of women became less as society became far more judgemental and less pragmatic. After this time being single or celibate or married without kids was looked down on and the result was a huge population boom and lots more vulnerable women.

 The word lesbian didn't even exist at this time and there are no real historical records of lesbians because it wasn't a crime , but even so many women lived happily with other women and they were often just left in peace. Lots of men died in wars during this time so the over spill of too many 'independent' minded woman was smoothed over by not minding if women lived together, but these women had to be rich and financially capable of not needing a husband.  Lots of middle class women at this time( both lesbian and straight I presume!)  often went to the colonies at this time too because of the lack of appropriate husbands here. True independent travel for women was born!  

The section on religion was all about how women's political roles were filled by belonging to a church. And my god, lots of churchs were created in England at this time!!  Far more women than men went to church and this was how women could really get involved with local and worldwide issues. Many women were involved in fighting against workhouses, Jamaican slave holdings and Indian women living in purdah through belonging to a church. Church was often a legitimate way for women to feel involved in the society and it really made me rethink what the role of churches played in women's lives then. 

The fear of syphilis and VD was rife at this time. Nearly a half of all soldiers had a sexual disease. The clean streets act resulted in all prostitutes in England having to be subjected to violating checks by the police and doctors. Unlike other European countries the majority of prostitutes here were self employed(no madam or huge brothel to protect them/control them.) 

  The Poor Law Acts of the 1830 s really took the country backwards for about 15 years. Lots of vulnerable and poor women were picked off the streets and dumped in workhouses. The government stopped giving money to local authorities to fund poverty on a local level and money was centralised around workhouses. Here all your dignity was stripped away and husbands, wives and children were separated and lived a life of abject poverty and fear. The word 'undeserving poor' had been invented and the country turned into a place of even more fear, crime and corruption until the reform acts later in the century. 

The sections on education and suffrage were also brilliant. An interesting fact I learnt was that some educated middle class women hated it when working class men got the vote before them. They got involved with voting rights after this law was passed. They weren't really that bothered about voting rights for all women, just that farm labourers and uneducated men shouldn't be treated better than them!  Women were often more entrenched in their class than fighting for their rights as women. 

Infact the whole book was a complete gem and I recommend it, (if you are into this kind of thing. ) It was never dull, really well written, easy to follow and very interesting It made me realise that women have not just been passive victims or spectators in history but true players. It is just that their voices are more likely to get lost in the passage of time. 

the Forgotten Waltz

A well written book. Yes, I liked it but god, it was dark. Based around the adultery of two married people. Anne Enright is a great writer and the character of Gina is really well described and you really get into her head but hey, I really didn't like her.  She is one of those woman I would just not get on with, so for a few days it's been really weird to be in her head. Normally I need to like a character to get on with a book but this time I didn't.  everyone was just obsessed by money and things and having stuff. but Gina is incredibly honest. As her life falls apart she knows exactly what she is doing and she doesn't give a damn.  

This book is so honest it almost feels like it isn't a book.  The writing style is like you are in the head of this incredibly lonely and selfish 34 year old woman. A grim book about nasty people. To be honest I'm glad it was short and that I can move onto something else soon.  i have to stop reading depressing books.  Summer is here!

The Luminaries

HELP ME!!!!!     I just can't take it any more. I'm over half way through this book but I have to STOP. Life is too short to read this pretentious junk. Yes, it's clever. Yes, it's well structured. But for me it's just dull, dull, dull. The characters are just paper thin, the story line is  turgid and it just goes round and round like the planets. All of the links to astrology, planet movements and stars and all that nonsense don't compensate for a boring story. It's so bloody full of itself that the first chapter is 360 pages long, (360 like the  angles in a circle.  get it? wow! how 'clever' , yawn.) the waning of the chapter length from here is meant to be important but  for me it is just bloody irritating and each of the 19 characters are either linked to static planets or star signs with weird planetary pictures before each chapter, which I have had to google to understand. 

  Well, enough is enough, I've tried to get into it but I can't. The story is just too lame because of the structural constraints, which is a shame because I think she is a good writer and could have done so much better. Reading is meant to be fun and this isn't. Oh dear, I'm not having much luck with my reading lately. Freia thanks for the birthday present but I have to finally admit defeat! PS Freia, would you like to have my copy?! 

Empress Orchid

I really need to sort my reading choices out. I thought I would like this book with lots of intrigue and sexual politics inside the Forbidden City but nah, it's dross. But dross I have devoured over the past few days and been addicted to! 

 It's so badly written I sometimes thought it was translated from Chinese by a Second Language student but it wasn't .  I loved Memoirs of a Geisha but this is a poor cousin.  The characters are bland, one dimensional puppets and the first half was pretty dull. 

Plus my cheap, naff copy was badly printed and some of the pages were just pages of blackness, so I had to just guess the content. All in all just a tad unsatisfying! 

My family and other animals

Due to rubbish traffic over the last few days into and back from work I have been stuck with this book club choice for many hours. OK, I know it's a classic and all that and a puffin book (sorry, but the language is so outdated there are not many kids who would enjoy this unless they are beetle loving freaks...but beetle loving freak kids would rather be hunting for beetles than reading this I guess.) but my god, it has bored me rigid and infuriated me. maybe that is because 40 something women with no pets ( and no children) are not really its target audience I suppose.

It annoyed me because there is not enough about his family, it's all about Gerald's love of beetles, pigeons, turtles, dogs and general creation as seen through his 8 year old eyes in his run down villa in Greece. 

The descriptions are lovely I suppose ( but not that great) and ultimately dull if you don't get off on natural history. Plus my annoyance comes from the language . I dislike all this privileged, upper class, rather batty British literature nonsense. Durrell's family, his mother, his sister and two older brothers are all obvious eccentrics with weird ways but local Greeks are the ones who are called 'mentally defective'. Somehow over a couple of pages the Durrells seem to pick up almost perfect Greek, how do they manage that?  Who is supporting their hippy like existence in 'romantic' 1930 s Corfu and why does no one seem to work or do anything apart from waft around in lots of capes and cloaks, sunbathe a lot and let Gerald run lose to collect beetles with Roger the dog? 

I haven't finished this book. I can't, I've had enough and will donate it back into the charity system. But reading this has made me realise that I am a lover of people and plot in my books. Daft individuals and whimsical characters, with a heavy dose of animal antics and barely veiled British superiority just doesnt do it for me. 

God, I sound awful slagging off a puffin book. But hey, it's the truth!   Come to think of it I never liked Wind in the Willows as a kid. How I felt reading that ,so long ago, is probably similar to how this book made me feel; bored and irritated! 

The Various Haunts of Men

 This book was awful. A total waste of time. The only joy I have in writing this is that this copy cost 9p from Help the Aged Charity shop. A bloody ridiculous price. I didn't help the aged much did I? but they had the last laugh because I was dragged down into a grim, surreal 'Little England' reading this nonsense. I was forced to finish it because I needed to find out who the murderer was. I think Susan Hill cast an evil spell over me and forced me to waste valuable hours reading this tripe. I got dragged down into a totally unsatisfying, boring and badly plotted story. Don't ever read this!!

I think my love of decent crime series on TV like the Bridge and the Killing have set my standards really high and books like this are just a total disappointment. I'm going to give it back to Help the Aged!!  Ha. 

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

 I have just realised that I have just read two books about French men on the trot.  This has been on my bookshelf for years and I've never read it and I fancied a short read. (One of my friends became inspired after reading it to become a speech therapist.)

Well what can I say really, I can't be negative about a book written by a guy with locked in syndrome. A man who dictated this book letter by letter to his speech therapist via the blinking of his one eye. This being the only part of his body which still moved after his stroke. What dedication and commitment by the pair of them to write this.
Of course it is a short book and a totally unsentimental account of how Jean feels in his cocooned  prison.  He has no ability to communicate but feels everything.  All he can do is blink and look out of his one, functioning eye. To see how people in the care system treat him is heartbreaking.  When he wakes up to see a doctor sewing his left, unworking eye up it's awful. Not once did this doctor interact or communicate with him about what he was doing and his total, abject fear that this Stasi like doctor might routinely continue on and then sew up his other eye, the only opening left to him on the world around, was absolutely terrifying. Just thinking about this part of the book makes my heart race.

This book makes you feel incredibly grateful for all the little things and also how resilient people are but the dream  like sequences make it a bit of a dislocated read.  I suppose this is what Jean Bauby wanted us to feel, as close to the truth of what it is like to be completely locked in and unable to do anything apart from swivel your head and look through one eye. It is also a lesson in humility. This guy was the editor of Elle magazine one minute and 'locked in' the next. I loved how unsentimental he was and also so observant. I loved the way he described how different friends tried to communicate with him via his alphabet board , it being the ones who liked scrabble who fared the best. Jean Bauby died in 1997, one year after finishing this. What a testament to leave behind. 

How to live. A life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer.

 

Wow, what a great read. For the past week I have been taken away to meet, get to know and respect this amazing man of words, Michel Montaigne. If you are anything like me you might not have a clue who he was. Well he was born in 1533 near to Bordeaux, France and he was the first ever blogger. He wrote over 103 essays and invented the word. (essay not blog.)  But these essays were far from boring they were his thoughts, warts and all. They were all encompassing one question, how to live? ( a direct French translation because there isn't really a good English one.) he poured his heart out and wrote rambling, personal essays on things such as How not to be drawn into a pointless argument. How to protect your house. What do you say when your dog wants to play and you want to write.  He wrote about canabilism, smells , coaches and thumbs.  Any oddity really which came into his mind he wrote about it. ( but the titles were deceptive, often hardly anything in the title was covered.)

Well this book is not his essays but about him, his life, the times he lived in, the writers through time who admired him ( including Shakespeare)  the Catholic Church which banned his essays for over 200 years, the mad ISIS like world of religious war he lived through,his travels, his kidney stones, his tower he wrote in, his love for his friend who died of plague, his crazy childhood where he was bought up by peasants for 3 years and then suddenly transported to the upper class protected life where people could only speak Latin to him and he was woken up in the morning by lute players. 

All respect to Sarah Bakewell she definitely remains in the wings writing this book but she is so damn clever splitting the book into 20 different chapters which are the basis of how Montaigne tried to live his life. Sarah Bakewell in this book attempts to answer Montaigne's question of 'how to live ' as she thinks best fits him. And to be honest, she does a fine job!

 Of his own addition he was neither very intelligent, nor hardworking but my god, he poured his soul out into his essays and this is what people love so much about him, his absolute honesty and his ability to put himself into the footsteps of other people. Not only did he try to view things from other people's perspective but also from an alien view. Infact it was his writings on animals which got him banned on the Catholic reading list until the 1850s! 

 Reading this book both relaxed me and comforted me. It made me laugh and cry because basically all the crap in the world is a cycle. If anyone lived through bad times, Montaigne did but he managed somehow to keep a clear head and kept things downright human. Reading what he put down on paper makes you realise how the basics of good and bad human relationships haven't  changed at all much over time. ( well, ok people aren't ripped to pieces anymore on a wheel here in Europe) To be honest I'd much rather Montaigne were alive today so I could vote for him in six weeks' time. He'd do a grand job in parliament.  Ok, he came from a wealthy family but his life was far from easy and the best thing is he wrote down EVERYTHING! giving just support and belief to people in themselves  in this mad world, and inspiration to countless writers. 

I don't think I'll read the essays yet, but one day I will.  I'm sure they will infuriate me with their ramblings and archaic waffling on. But Sarah Bakewell has given me a perfect introduction to a 16th century French  blogger, the Greeks and Romans who inspired him,and the later people,who in turn, were both inspired and infuriated by him. Fab read! 

True History of the Kelly Gang

Joining a book club means that I get to read completely different books, ones I would never chose, like this one. But luckily  I really enjoyed this and got into it. 

This is the 'true' story of Ned Kelly, the infamous outlaw/ highwayman/ bushranger from 1880s Australia. I never knew anything about him  so I came to this story with no knowledge but now I have a vivid picture of him, his lifestyle and the harsh, yet beautiful land of NE Victoria. I also feel I have seen the realities of starting up farms , or selections, as they were called, when you are first generation, poor Australians. These were young kids in their late teens with mothers and fathers who were often seriously physically and mentally scared from their years as  convicts in Van Diemans Land, Tasmania, given scraggy bits of land to build their farms.  Life is tough, very tough, and often the local police and high ranking officials are just out to lock up these ' scoundrels' and rid the land of these free ranging, villainous vermin.

Ned's life is tough. His Irish father is totally scarred from his awful treatment in prison( and ends up being locked up again for a crime he never commit.) his Ma is a bright, wild, Irish woman who runs illegal pubs in the back of their shack. Kids keep being born and different men take over the father role but at the age of 11 Ned leaves school.( I love the description of his primary years at school, he saves a boy from drowning and really enjoys being the ink well monitor at school. In a different world he might have grown up to pass exams and become educated.  Anyway, his mother sells her older son to Harry Power and he starts to lead the life of a bushranger. Ned's mum wants her older son out of the way.  Ned's desire to protect his Mum is getting on her nerves. She wants to marry a guy who Ned doesn't like and needs him out of the way. 

Now, Harry Power is much older but Ned is the brains, he can kill, skin and cook any animal which crosses his path and can build temporary shacks quickly, whereas  Harry seems lazy and a bit stupid. But he successfully grooms Ned and turns him into the talented outlaw he becomes. Infact the underlying theme of this book is how adults have the power to shape kids into what they become in the future. 

I love all the stories the guys tell each other and the jokes they share and the bare knuckle fighting. ( I love descriptions of boxing. What the hell is wrong with me?!) The descriptions are so good I really felt I had been transported to the outback. Infact secretly I wanted to be with them, living their crazy, mental lives. These guys are all nuts and hard as nails but they are nothing more than a product of their harsh environment. Tarred with the brush of the crimes of their parents their loyalty to each other is amazing. And through Peter Carry's ability to put us under the spell of Ned' s true history from his own hand ,you really believe everything he says. This is a story that Ned must tell to his newly born daughter. He wants her to know the truth of his life and Carey writes in a style which is very honest but also lacks any commas and is more like a brain splurge on a page. This style obviously makes the story even more realistic because you feel you are right inside Ned's head. He  explains the reasons behind everything he has done and everything makes sense. NOTHING is his fault. He is just urgently putting his life down on paper so that he can tell the story of his life, in his words. ( a bit like a Clockwork Orange.)  the style is unique, but yes, I liked it.  I liked that the roughness of their characters came across strongly, as well as Ned's desire to clear the name of his Mother . The way Ned put his Mum on a pedestal was rather irritating for me. This woman was no saint and I had a strong feeling that the unquestioning love Ned had for her was not reciprocated. Anyway, great read. Much more fun than I thought it would be. I always think Booker winners will be a bit dry or worthy but this was just clever, fun and a great story. Plus I am a bit of a sucker for a bad man and it's far safer for me that they stay safely within the pages of a book! 

Empire of the Sun

C

I read this in 5 days because I suddenly decided to go to a book club yesterday evening. After 3 years of waffling on alone on this blog I decided it might be good to discuss a book with a group. Last  week I found out about this Meet Up, signed up and bought the book.

Luckily I enjoyed reading it, but the evening was totally ruined by my eating a totally rank mussel chowder at the Jam Factory before the club started. I knew the soup was awful as I was eating it, but I stupidly carried on. My god, I was ill last night. Luckily now, about 18 hours later I feel a bit better. DO NOT EAT at the Jam Factory. Infact don't drink there either. Everything is over priced and rubbish. I have always disliked the Jam Factory, but now it's personal, the bastards poisoned me. 

Anyway, this book was great. I really enjoyed it. Jim is a priveliged 11 year old boy who lives a comfortable life with his English family in Shanghai. Suddenly , when the Japanese take over Shanghai in 1942, Jim's life is turned upside down. He is thrown into a world gone mad. He loses his parents, watches the Japaneese brutally kill most of the locals and he is left to roam around Shanghai under his own devices. He lives in various houses, living off cocktail biscuits and soda water and riding his bike through the big houses. He seems to have been totally forgotten about. I loved this opening third of the book. A weird, yet kind of fun, abandoned apocalyptic, playground for Jim. He has no idea what is going on. All he knows is that he is in awe of the Japanese and their lack of fear. Infact he wants to join the Japanese army and also thinks he is personally responsible for starting the war. 

Jim is then finally 'seen' and taken off to an internment camp. The book becomes highly strange and disconnected. You think Jim has travelled for days but the camp is just up the road .  He seems a brave little urchin ,whereas the adults around him are obviously totally disturbed by the war experience. Jim is the only person in the group brave enough to ask the Japanese guards for water. The Internment section is disturbing, this book is all about what people will do to survive and how Jim begins to view death and mutilation as normal. He is addicted to the planes and trucks, these machines are his only real friends. He does ask an old woman about when souls leave the body and he suddenly believes that he can bring dead people's souls back to them. This belief gives him great comfort. This section was very beautiful and so well written. This talk of souls was like a shining diamond in a pretty rough, relentless story.  

It all sounds pretty grim and to be honest it is, but Jim's positivity and desire to see only the good, (as only an innocent young lad can) is what keeps this book going.  People are treated so badly,especially the Chinese, and by the end of the book you understand that the Chinese were treated so appallingly by both the British overlords and then by the Japanese. They were treated as nothing more than dogs. 

 The death marches are again rather surreal, but I think that is because Jim is starving and he can't clearly see or interpret anything. The moments when one or two adults suddenly appear to care for Jim  are really moving because these times are so infrequent.  Every adult seems totally wrapped up in themselves. This book is totally devoid of sentimentality and even though the subject is grim,by the end you feel totally in awe of the human desire to stay alive.  (especially such a vulnerable lad) 

Ballard wrote this book from his own memories as a teenager in a Prisoner  of war camp in Shanghai. But this book is more fiction than truth because Ballard was interned with his family throughout and never became a feral child , living off his wits.

This 'made up 'section didn't bother me but many people at the book club were annoyed that Ballard had cheated the readers by making a ' Boy's Own adventure' out of events. I kind of agreed but hey, it's a novel and Ballard wanted to get across the isolation. Plus seeing all this destruction from the perspective of a naive , 11 year old abandoned child makes the war events even more chilling.

Now I need to watch the movie. I've heard it's far, far, less hard hitting than the book .  I will see! 

Case Histories

I loved Kate Atkinson's first book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but this one was just OK. I read most of it on the plane home, so it was like a good solid page turner.  But to be honest I didn't like any of the characters apart from Theo ( the fat guy) and even he was just desperately sad. Infact all I got from this book was quite a lot of sadness imvolving not living your life to your full potential because of the unsolved murder of someone you loved. 

 There were three murders in different decades and Jackson Brodie is the sad, lonely ( book theme) investigator bought in to solve these crimes years later. The beginning of the book was great as all murders were described and for the first 100 pages I was totally hooked. Then I lost  momentum as the style of writing and the depressing characters took over.   Each crime was cleverly looped in on each other within the book and from the point of view of writing style,  social commentary and structure this book was great. But from the point of view of plot and entertainment value it was a bit sluggish and in the end just a bit disappointing. The crime solutions just didn't work for me at all apart from the axe murder of the husband. 

I found out last week that this book also has been a mini series on BBC 1. I have to move away from reading these British mini- series kind of books, they ultimately annoy me. Maybe because all these books are all too close to home. I shouldn't read about modern British problems when I see them all around me every day!  What the hell shall I choose next?!  I know, something from a different country and a different time period! 

Elizabeth is Missing

I am honestly in a good mood this Sunday morning. In about half an hour I am off out with my brother and his kids to walk up and down some nearby hill.   So I thought i would settle down for an hour before and try and get into this book before he arrived.  Well, I have ended up cancelling my hour of reading pleasure and have decided to ditch the book and moan on my blog.   I have to stop reading this tripe. It was So boring and depressing I feel I am losing the will to live. Even the writing style got on my wick. Yes, I love descriptive books but descriptive for a reason.  ' She picked up her spoon and stirred her tea' or 'she watched the  rain drop go down the wall'. These are just dull as ditch water sentences.
If there was an ITV 7 channel this book would be on it as the midday drama for the terminally soul destroyed. How the hell did it get such good reviews?  This is bullshit. I blame Penguin publishers. If I remember rightly  'A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian' was similarly over hyped by them and accordingly I read this I almost died of boredom.  More wonderful  fodder for an  ITV 7 drama script.

Reviewers houldnt  mis-sell books with the blurb:  'Momento' meets 'Gone Girl' when it so obviously isn't. At least now I have stopped reading it. This is the second book in a row I have ditched.  This is unheard of for me, but hey, it feels good. 

Maybe the topic was just too grim for me. Writing about Alzhimers is bloody depressing.  I just didn't want to be inside the head of someone with this disease.   

Right time for something good! 

The Potter's Hand

X

As I was visiting my friend Jo in Stoke over New Year I decided to find out more about this city.  I realised I didn't have a clue about the life of WEdgewood and the potters of Staffordshire.  I got this book because I thought I would get a good story about this interesting time in the 18th century when people like Wedgewood were taking England into the industrial revolution. 

Unfortunately I was disappointed. The story was like wading through treacle.  All the characters were really flat and dull and when I read a novel I want a good story first.  Unfortunately A N Wilson didn't agree with this idea so this book was just a ploy to bang your head against the history wall. It really didn't work. It was just too much. Stories from Burslem in Stoke, mixed with tales of Catherine  the Great in Russia, who wanted Wedgewood to make her a massive tea service, all running alongside Wedgewood's nephew in the United States trying to get white clay from the Cherokee Indians and unfortunately getting caught up in the War of Independence and falling in love with an Indian woman.  It was just too much and didn't work because the characters were just too weak.    Honestly, Wilson should have just written a pure history book like all of his other ones, it would have been more successful.  Infact I got so annoyed by this ' book' I sped read the last half on the train to Reading and then wished I could have left it behind, but unfortunately it's a library book and I have to take it back.

A Gift for Rain

 

What an amazing book. I loved this so much and I feel so sad that I have finished it. Everything about it was beautiful from the cover, to the story; the setting to the poetic language. It was the story of 16 year old Philip Hutton, who was born in Penang , Malaysia to an English Dad and Chinese mum. He is an outsider and just before the war an enigmatic Japanese man comes into his life who teaches him aikido. (Aikujitsu, as it was called then.) and changes his perception on life. They become good friends/ soul mates/ lovers and of course this Japanese guy ultimately is a major force behind the military assault on Malaysia in the Second World War. Both Philip and Endo-San, his friend, have to come to terms with being pawns in this awful war and Philip has to accept that Endo-San has betrayed his confidences and deceived him. 

I felt like I had been transported to Penang Malaysia for the period before, during and after the  Japanese invasion. I honestly felt like I was back in SE Asia with the smells, the sound of the sea, the people, the buildings, the food, the descriptions of the land. This book portrayed so clearly what it was like to live under the Japanese in Malaysia during the Second World War.  How brutal was it?! Bloody hell. The Japanese invaders were ( mostly) highly cultured, barbaric monsters.  I always thought the ingenuity of the Japanese torture methods were figments of people's imagination, until I read this.  But yet , the human stories in this book and the ties between families and friends were totally enthralling and I was hooked on the beauty of  this book completely! 

Philip's English family were amazing. They never left Penang even though the majority of Brits fled Malaysia on boats as soon as the Japanese started to advance through the jungle. All of his family were supported by the local Indian, Malay and Chinese communities apart from Philip who decides that in order to keep his family safe he must work for the Japanese invaders. How Philip squares his duplicitous life working for both sides is extremely interesting. I loved trying to work out how he could live with himself and also how he could have done anything different.  I also loved Endo -San, just like everyone else does in this book.. What a dude he is! a dangerous, powerful, enigmatic, spiritual martial arts expert...

Endo-San and Philip's Chinese Grandfather have a kind of spiritual understanding. They both seem to know and accept that what happens on this Earth is part of a bigger continuing cycle and that we will meet our closest friends, lovers and family members again in another adventure the next time we battle/love each other on earth.  I loved these references to reincarnation. For me it is so refreshing and comforting to read about reincarnation when it is talked about with such strength.  I think this is rare in many English language books. 

A huge story told with a lot of compassion. Yes, a gem of a book and one I will not forget quickly. 

The Steep Approach to Garbadale

I really enjoyed an Iain Banks book at the beginning of 2014 so I thought I would do the same this year. All I can say is this book could have been so brilliant and the start was amazing!   The main character, Alban, was a sexy dude and the story had potential. But unfortunately Banks couldn't keep up the momentum and apart from the odd few pages of brilliant writing this was a pretty average read.   it was a shame because it could have been so good  but I just think Iain Banks just run out of steam.

It seemed like Banks was using Alban, the main guy, as a mouth piece for his own political views and it all turned into a weird rant against America and capatalism. the sort of sound bites that would come out of the mouth of a 17 year old student. Stuff that seemed a bit out of place and disjointed in a novel.

The first half was really good and pretty funny but it just didn't keep up the momentum and I really feel like I've wasted my precious time reading it to the end. I feel a bit disappointed. It is as if a gremlin author came along and sabotaged the second half of the book.  I had to carry on reading because I just believed that it would get better but it never really did. Oh well.  I won't waste any more time writing about it!