A lot of reading was done in March. In fact we had almost everyone present at the meeting so lots of talk too.
Being read this past month and brief comments of :
Confessions of Edward Day by Valerie Martin: A number of us have read and very much enjoyed Property by the same author which won the Orange Prize. This relatively short but exceptionally well written novel is narrated by the wife of a plantation owner who is a brutal master to his slaves and a pretty awful husband too. From all accounts Edward Day would appear to be a much easier read, a romp and entertaining. Perhaps it is good Property was read first!
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Stroud: this year's Pulitzer Prize winner. Bleak but a very good book.
Return to Paris by Colette Rossant: the second book in a memoir series, the first being Apricots on the Nile and the third being The World in My Kitchen. We read the first one some years ago and very much enjoyed it. This one takes us to Paris where Colette was taken by her mother at the conclusion of Apricots. Just as enjoyable and interesting as the first one, with delicious sounding recipes.
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd: this is another author we have read a lot of over the years and this is his latest novel. Very credible, totally compelling and riveting says the first reader of this.
An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay: Beautifully written emotional tragedy
The Life and Death of Laura Friday by David Murphy: After I gave this a great review (see blog) someone else finally read it and also loved it. Very funny with good movie potential she said!
The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling: Very weird, strangely attractive and compelling, vivid portrayal of life in 1850s London.
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger: This is the woman who wrote The Time Traveller's Wife which had mixed reviews in our group. This latest does not appear to be popular at all!
The Blue Notebook by James Irvine: This was mentioned in November book club notes. Slowly more people in the group are reading it, same excellent reviews, because it is such harrowing subject matter, it is hard to read and really enjoy!
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: Last year's Man Booker prize winner. All about Thomas Cromwell who served Henry VIII until his head got chopped off. By all accounts heavy going.
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes: This author's latest novel, great story and very relevant.
MARCH READING
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson
The hype surrounding this book, and any book for that matter that people start raving about, made me nervous about starting this. SO many people I know have read this, the reviews have all been very praise worthy and now of course it is out at the movies. I wasn't nervous about reading this just because of all the hype though. The few books I have read by Scandanavian authors have always been gloomy, dark, set in the middle of winter, matter of fact and generally hard work to get through. With the exception of Pippi Longstocking of course.
This book however has it all, apart from all the murder and blood and gore of course that seems to pepper any decent blockbuster nowadays! It has a great plot line that goes back and forth over fifty years or so, exceptionally well drawn characters, all of them, not just the major characters. The main half dozen characters are all incredibly interesting and complex people, and yet very realistic, even the girl of the title. Their relationships with each other, even the ones that are not healthy or good, are well portrayed and again very realistic in the way they relate to each other.
Plenty has been written about this book and the others in the series so I will say little about the plot other than an investigative journalist is commissioned to solve a long standing disappearance and finds himself more and more drawn into the complexities of the family he is investigating. His assistant is the girl of the title, damaged but brilliant and together the mystery is solved.
The book is written as a classic whodunnit, with the odd red herring thrown in. The story does travel quite a bit around Sweden and the reader gets a wonderful travelogue of the country and the climate as the story unfolds. After a gently paced beginning, the story picks up and becomes an absolute page turner, right to the last page. Can't wait to start the second one in the series.
THE OUTCAST by Sadie Jones
What a depressing, sad and sorry bag of bones this book is. I understand it was originally conceived as a screenplay, maybe that should have told everyone something that it didn't get further than that. But I also see that it is to become a movie directed by the guy who directed Shakespeare in Love. I really can't visualise how that will turn out, although movies have been made of much less. And that reminds me, even though the blurb on the back sounded a bit suspect, I took it to read because I knew it was being made into a movie. Big mistake.
Because, really not a lot happens in this novel. It has a busy sounding plot, with young Lewis Aldridge, growing up in post-war England in a suffocating satellite/commuter town of London where appearances count for everything. At the age of ten Lewis's lively, attractive and loving mother drowns in a river - the perils of drinking and swimming - and this changes his life quite dramatically. His emotionally retarded father, Gilbert, swamped by grief, cannot deal with his own grief, let alone that of his son. He quickly remarries, and life returns to 'normal' as Gilbert knows it, but of course not for Lewis. From this point on the downward spiral of Lewis's life takes off. Increasingly alienated from the people in his closed, insular community who quite simply don't understand him and don't want to, he becomes more isolated, takes to drinking, self harming, visiting a prostitute, ends up committing arson and goes to prison for two years, where by all accounts he was actually quite happy.
The second half of the novel focuses on his return to the town and to his father's and stepmother's house. Nothing has changed of course, and it is as if he has never been away. Nothing has changed in the neighbourhood either. The other main character in the book is Kit, a girl a few years younger than Lewis who comes from an equally dysfunctional family headed by a man who is a master in domestic violence but hides behind the enormous respectability of being the richest man around. There are some truly lovely people that live in this small community! Kit has always been desperately in love with Lewis, probably because she recognises a similarly damaged soul. Now that Lewis is 19, and Kit 15, they begin to notice each other, surprise surprise, and this is the main focus of the last third as they deal with the chaos of their lives.
But the whole thing is so depressing and monotonous and grey and gloomy. Perhaps Ms Jones is trying to depict life in the straightened and controlled times of the 1950s, which she does actually succeed in doing. Her writing is quite descriptive and very visual but it has so many 'ands' in every single sentence. I read another review of this book and the reviewer also commented on the excessive use of 'and'; apparently it is intentional to illustrate the monotony of everything. She succeeds here too. Reading it reminded me very much of Atonement by Ian McEwan, but way way more happens in the latter, plus being a better story, better characters, and you can see it becoming a movie, sad ending notwithstanding. I have no idea how this story will be turned into 90 minutes minimum of entertainment. I won't be going! The only reason I finished this book is because I have to review it for book club.
THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawer
Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.
Despite the historical backdrop which encompasses the Nazis, war, communism and all the rest it, the house remains, a symbol perhaps of the indestructibility of the human spirit and hope for the future. This is primarily a story of optimism. Throughout the story all the characters are looking to improve themselves and their lives, always looking forwards. And it follows, for once, that for a story about war and destruction it does actually have a happy ending.
Liesel and Viktor (who is Jewish) Landauer commission the house to be built in 1929. Its construction coincides with the pregnancy and birth of the couple's first child, symbolic of the new life as a family within the walls of the house. The plot follows the well known history of the time with the taking over of Austria and then Czechoslovakia by the Germans, the refugees who arrive in the locality, anti- semitism and how it all affects this family, their friends and associates. The family escape to Switzerland in 1938, leaving the house to its fate, and after a hurried journey across Europe in around 1942, finally finish up in the USA.
The house meantime lives through and survives to the modern day, and at the end of the story becomes the focus for the conclusion. The glass room is the main living room of the house, and encompasses the whole front expanse of the building with huge window panes of glass and an onyx wall. So much of the critical elements and events of the story take place in this room.
This is a fabulous piece of story telling, giving a slightly different take on the thousands of novels that have come out of the horror of the WWII, the Nazis, the holocaust, Communist rule, and subsequent breakdown. All that stuff happens in the background, the focus in this story is the people to whom it is happening to. There is some beautiful writing, without being overly sentimental, just a little mind you! I did find some of the characters a bit flat though, not enough depth or roundness to them. With the exception perhaps of Hana who is Liesl's best friend. Although she is not one of the main characters of the story, she certainly comes across as the most complex and interesting.
A most worthwhile book, that does take a little while to get going - till about page 75 from memory, but then the switch for me suddenly came on and I was away with it.
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford
A few years ago in the book club we read a fabulous biography of the famous Mitford sisters. Aristocratically born early in the 20th century, the five sisters came to adulthood between the wars where they literally took the world by storm. Nancy, the oldest, became a writer of biting satire towards her class, Unity and Diana were fascists - Unity in cahoots with Hitler and Goebbels, and Diana marrying the very well known fascist Sir Oswald Mosley who ended up going to prison for his troubles; Jessica became a journalist and went off to report on the Spanish Civil War not on the side of the fascists; and extraordinarily the youngest, Deborah, became the Duchess of Devonshire! And what is more they were all incredibly beautiful, rich, opinionated and famous.
So any writings that come out of this mix are bound to be interesting if nothing else. Along with The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate takes a satirical view of upper class society at a certain point between the wars - before the stock market crash of 1929 and after. The story is narrated by Fanny Logan, an 18 year old girl who lives with relatives due to her parents either being incapable or unable to care for her. Money however is no object! In this particularly wealthy area of England the Lord and Lady Montdore and their daughter Polly, also 18 live. Recently returned from being Viceroy in India, they are totally full of themselves and their position so high up the food chain. Except for Polly who really could not care less, and certainly does not want to be married off to the first available suitor as her mother wishes. Until Polly takes control of her own life of course, seriously threatening her mother's esteemed position in society, and forcing Lord Montdore to disown his only child. This results in the arrival of the male heir, Cedric, from the colonies of Nova Soctia and the upheaval he so delightfully foists on this small corner of English landed gentry.
As one expects the plot dances along, with sparkling and witty dialogue and gorgeous characters. The stereotypes abound - Lady Montdore is a monster, Polly is the beautiful, angelic, dumb blonde, there are mad and lecherous uncles and dotty aunts, absent minded professors, and of course the completely foppish and outrageous Cedric.
A lot of fun and easy to read. But I don't feel I need to read another of her books.
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
This recently published book has taken the US by storm. Ms Stockett is an excellent story teller but in taking on a tricky subject such as the social structure of 1960s Mississippi, just as the civil rights movement is getting started she is setting herself up for all sorts of fallout and retribution. I almost always read the Acknowledgments/background notes pages written by the author before I start reading a book and this book has superb background information to her novel. Ms Stockett grew up in a house that had a black maid, and like the white children in this story, she had the same maid looking after her for most of her childhood. These maids would either stay with the family until retirement or death, or would move onto another family with young children. As you can imagine the bond that develops between the white families and the black staff is extremely strong, as is the huge variation in the way the staff are treated by their white employers. In this novel the relationship focus is on the white women employers and the black maids.
The main characters are a young white woman, Skeeter Phelan, who has recently returned to her home town of Jackson, Mississippi after being at college with dreams of becoming a writer and getting out of Jackson. She has to deal with her mother's determination to get a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black woman who I guess is in her 50s, now onto being nanny to her seventeenth white child and giving this child all the love and self esteem that the mother seems unable or unwilling to do. Then there is Minny, a younger black maid with a drunk abusive husband and five children, and a mouth on her that gets her into all sorts of trouble. Skeeter begins to write a book anonymously documenting the stories of the black maids in the town, and thus begins to walk a very fine line between the white-lady-expected-behaviour-line and giving a dignified voice to the not very dignified lives of the maids. Naturally the two collide in spectacular fashion!
So beneath the very serious message there is humour and love and graciousness. But at the core of this book is the tragic legacy left by slavery in the American South and the enormous rifts that arose between human beings of simply different skin colour. Not confined just to 1960s America either.
The hype surrounding this book, and any book for that matter that people start raving about, made me nervous about starting this. SO many people I know have read this, the reviews have all been very praise worthy and now of course it is out at the movies. I wasn't nervous about reading this just because of all the hype though. The few books I have read by Scandanavian authors have always been gloomy, dark, set in the middle of winter, matter of fact and generally hard work to get through. With the exception of Pippi Longstocking of course.
This book however has it all, apart from all the murder and blood and gore of course that seems to pepper any decent blockbuster nowadays! It has a great plot line that goes back and forth over fifty years or so, exceptionally well drawn characters, all of them, not just the major characters. The main half dozen characters are all incredibly interesting and complex people, and yet very realistic, even the girl of the title. Their relationships with each other, even the ones that are not healthy or good, are well portrayed and again very realistic in the way they relate to each other.
Plenty has been written about this book and the others in the series so I will say little about the plot other than an investigative journalist is commissioned to solve a long standing disappearance and finds himself more and more drawn into the complexities of the family he is investigating. His assistant is the girl of the title, damaged but brilliant and together the mystery is solved.
The book is written as a classic whodunnit, with the odd red herring thrown in. The story does travel quite a bit around Sweden and the reader gets a wonderful travelogue of the country and the climate as the story unfolds. After a gently paced beginning, the story picks up and becomes an absolute page turner, right to the last page. Can't wait to start the second one in the series.
THE OUTCAST by Sadie Jones
What a depressing, sad and sorry bag of bones this book is. I understand it was originally conceived as a screenplay, maybe that should have told everyone something that it didn't get further than that. But I also see that it is to become a movie directed by the guy who directed Shakespeare in Love. I really can't visualise how that will turn out, although movies have been made of much less. And that reminds me, even though the blurb on the back sounded a bit suspect, I took it to read because I knew it was being made into a movie. Big mistake.
Because, really not a lot happens in this novel. It has a busy sounding plot, with young Lewis Aldridge, growing up in post-war England in a suffocating satellite/commuter town of London where appearances count for everything. At the age of ten Lewis's lively, attractive and loving mother drowns in a river - the perils of drinking and swimming - and this changes his life quite dramatically. His emotionally retarded father, Gilbert, swamped by grief, cannot deal with his own grief, let alone that of his son. He quickly remarries, and life returns to 'normal' as Gilbert knows it, but of course not for Lewis. From this point on the downward spiral of Lewis's life takes off. Increasingly alienated from the people in his closed, insular community who quite simply don't understand him and don't want to, he becomes more isolated, takes to drinking, self harming, visiting a prostitute, ends up committing arson and goes to prison for two years, where by all accounts he was actually quite happy.
The second half of the novel focuses on his return to the town and to his father's and stepmother's house. Nothing has changed of course, and it is as if he has never been away. Nothing has changed in the neighbourhood either. The other main character in the book is Kit, a girl a few years younger than Lewis who comes from an equally dysfunctional family headed by a man who is a master in domestic violence but hides behind the enormous respectability of being the richest man around. There are some truly lovely people that live in this small community! Kit has always been desperately in love with Lewis, probably because she recognises a similarly damaged soul. Now that Lewis is 19, and Kit 15, they begin to notice each other, surprise surprise, and this is the main focus of the last third as they deal with the chaos of their lives.
But the whole thing is so depressing and monotonous and grey and gloomy. Perhaps Ms Jones is trying to depict life in the straightened and controlled times of the 1950s, which she does actually succeed in doing. Her writing is quite descriptive and very visual but it has so many 'ands' in every single sentence. I read another review of this book and the reviewer also commented on the excessive use of 'and'; apparently it is intentional to illustrate the monotony of everything. She succeeds here too. Reading it reminded me very much of Atonement by Ian McEwan, but way way more happens in the latter, plus being a better story, better characters, and you can see it becoming a movie, sad ending notwithstanding. I have no idea how this story will be turned into 90 minutes minimum of entertainment. I won't be going! The only reason I finished this book is because I have to review it for book club.
THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawer
Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.
Despite the historical backdrop which encompasses the Nazis, war, communism and all the rest it, the house remains, a symbol perhaps of the indestructibility of the human spirit and hope for the future. This is primarily a story of optimism. Throughout the story all the characters are looking to improve themselves and their lives, always looking forwards. And it follows, for once, that for a story about war and destruction it does actually have a happy ending.
Liesel and Viktor (who is Jewish) Landauer commission the house to be built in 1929. Its construction coincides with the pregnancy and birth of the couple's first child, symbolic of the new life as a family within the walls of the house. The plot follows the well known history of the time with the taking over of Austria and then Czechoslovakia by the Germans, the refugees who arrive in the locality, anti- semitism and how it all affects this family, their friends and associates. The family escape to Switzerland in 1938, leaving the house to its fate, and after a hurried journey across Europe in around 1942, finally finish up in the USA.
The house meantime lives through and survives to the modern day, and at the end of the story becomes the focus for the conclusion. The glass room is the main living room of the house, and encompasses the whole front expanse of the building with huge window panes of glass and an onyx wall. So much of the critical elements and events of the story take place in this room.
This is a fabulous piece of story telling, giving a slightly different take on the thousands of novels that have come out of the horror of the WWII, the Nazis, the holocaust, Communist rule, and subsequent breakdown. All that stuff happens in the background, the focus in this story is the people to whom it is happening to. There is some beautiful writing, without being overly sentimental, just a little mind you! I did find some of the characters a bit flat though, not enough depth or roundness to them. With the exception perhaps of Hana who is Liesl's best friend. Although she is not one of the main characters of the story, she certainly comes across as the most complex and interesting.
A most worthwhile book, that does take a little while to get going - till about page 75 from memory, but then the switch for me suddenly came on and I was away with it.
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE by Nancy Mitford
A few years ago in the book club we read a fabulous biography of the famous Mitford sisters. Aristocratically born early in the 20th century, the five sisters came to adulthood between the wars where they literally took the world by storm. Nancy, the oldest, became a writer of biting satire towards her class, Unity and Diana were fascists - Unity in cahoots with Hitler and Goebbels, and Diana marrying the very well known fascist Sir Oswald Mosley who ended up going to prison for his troubles; Jessica became a journalist and went off to report on the Spanish Civil War not on the side of the fascists; and extraordinarily the youngest, Deborah, became the Duchess of Devonshire! And what is more they were all incredibly beautiful, rich, opinionated and famous.
So any writings that come out of this mix are bound to be interesting if nothing else. Along with The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate takes a satirical view of upper class society at a certain point between the wars - before the stock market crash of 1929 and after. The story is narrated by Fanny Logan, an 18 year old girl who lives with relatives due to her parents either being incapable or unable to care for her. Money however is no object! In this particularly wealthy area of England the Lord and Lady Montdore and their daughter Polly, also 18 live. Recently returned from being Viceroy in India, they are totally full of themselves and their position so high up the food chain. Except for Polly who really could not care less, and certainly does not want to be married off to the first available suitor as her mother wishes. Until Polly takes control of her own life of course, seriously threatening her mother's esteemed position in society, and forcing Lord Montdore to disown his only child. This results in the arrival of the male heir, Cedric, from the colonies of Nova Soctia and the upheaval he so delightfully foists on this small corner of English landed gentry.
As one expects the plot dances along, with sparkling and witty dialogue and gorgeous characters. The stereotypes abound - Lady Montdore is a monster, Polly is the beautiful, angelic, dumb blonde, there are mad and lecherous uncles and dotty aunts, absent minded professors, and of course the completely foppish and outrageous Cedric.
A lot of fun and easy to read. But I don't feel I need to read another of her books.
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett
This recently published book has taken the US by storm. Ms Stockett is an excellent story teller but in taking on a tricky subject such as the social structure of 1960s Mississippi, just as the civil rights movement is getting started she is setting herself up for all sorts of fallout and retribution. I almost always read the Acknowledgments/background notes pages written by the author before I start reading a book and this book has superb background information to her novel. Ms Stockett grew up in a house that had a black maid, and like the white children in this story, she had the same maid looking after her for most of her childhood. These maids would either stay with the family until retirement or death, or would move onto another family with young children. As you can imagine the bond that develops between the white families and the black staff is extremely strong, as is the huge variation in the way the staff are treated by their white employers. In this novel the relationship focus is on the white women employers and the black maids.
The main characters are a young white woman, Skeeter Phelan, who has recently returned to her home town of Jackson, Mississippi after being at college with dreams of becoming a writer and getting out of Jackson. She has to deal with her mother's determination to get a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black woman who I guess is in her 50s, now onto being nanny to her seventeenth white child and giving this child all the love and self esteem that the mother seems unable or unwilling to do. Then there is Minny, a younger black maid with a drunk abusive husband and five children, and a mouth on her that gets her into all sorts of trouble. Skeeter begins to write a book anonymously documenting the stories of the black maids in the town, and thus begins to walk a very fine line between the white-lady-expected-behaviour-line and giving a dignified voice to the not very dignified lives of the maids. Naturally the two collide in spectacular fashion!
So beneath the very serious message there is humour and love and graciousness. But at the core of this book is the tragic legacy left by slavery in the American South and the enormous rifts that arose between human beings of simply different skin colour. Not confined just to 1960s America either.
FEBRUARY READING
THE GIRL'S GUIDE TO HUNTING AND FISHING by Melissa Bank
To be perfectly honest I found it difficult to really get into this book. It reads more like a series of short stories or vignettes of a young woman's life - Jane - from the time she is 14 years old observing her older brother's relationship with his then girlfriend, to what is probably twenty years later when she is still struggling withe the concept of love, forever love that is, and doing her darnedest to find and keep her man.
Perhaps I am getting too old to read such novels, not being on the hunt and fish for a bloke, but it does sort of reek of desperation to me. Jane is obviously very attractive and very smart. But in her professional life she seems to be taking a continual hammering from her power crazy female boss; her love life seems to be in a constant shambles. In fact there are many, many similarities to that icon of modern day single life Briget Jones. But nowhere near as funny or as self deprecating or as lovable or as real as the lovely Bridget. Has this author been inspired by Bridget in giving us this slightly gloomy and desperate look at modern urban love? I don't know, but for me, it just does not work.
Despite all the above, Ms Bank is a cool writer. She is funny, we get a very good idea of Jane's character and the influences on her life and personality. She captures a teenage girl quite well I think. I am an expert, currently living with two of them. She explores the complexities of being in a relationship with a much older man, and the heartache of a parent's terminal illness. To this extent the writing is quite real, easy to read and understand. Plus there is some great dialogue.
Would I recommend this? Only I think if you are single and angsting over the whole relationship thing. But it is just not for me. I have been deciding whether to keep it on the shelf or not, but have decided to as my girls may enjoy reading it and get something out of it in the future. Maybe.
THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold
So much has been written about this book over the years since it was first published I am not even going to begin analysing and critiquing and all that. I remember when it was first introduced into book club and I was horrified that someone could write a book about the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl, then have the girl watching from heaven how everyone deals with it. As the mother of 2 young girls this was the very last thing I wanted to read. And for all those years since it was published in 2002 I have strongly resisted, despite everyone telling me what a wonderful and uplifting book it is.
With fellow NZer Peter Jackson directing the recent movie, I had a vague interest in the film, but it was only when I read in an interview with him that he wanted to make a movie he could take his teenage daughter and her friends to, plus the involvement of Weta Workshop, that I thought I would take the plunge and see it. So I did. And I loved it. It is very unusual for me to see the movie before reading the book but I am glad it worked out this way. I thought the movie was beautiful, very uplifting and I hope heaven really is like that because it looks like a great place to be! I know people who read the book are disappointed in the movie, because it is different and so on, but having read the book now I do feel that the movie captures the essence of the story. The last 40 or so pages of the book dragged a bit, got all a bit spiritual and ghosty for me, souls climbing into bodies and so on, but despite this little hiccup I felt very satisfied and happy at the end of it.
BLINK THE POWER OF THINKING WITHOUT THINKING by Malcolm Gladwell
This is the second book by Malcolm Gladwell, following on from The Tipping Point. Essentially it is about intuition, but not that gut feeling intuition that you get. As Mr Gladwell explains it on his website it is more about intuition that comes from knowledge. For example the number of experts looking at an ancient Greek torso who believe it to be the genuine article, and the one or two experts who know instinctively just by a first look at it that it is a fake. Or the researcher who can tell within minutes of observing a couple, whether they are destined for the long haul or not.
Malcolm Gladwell helps us to challenge our preconceived ideas about people and situations and think beyond the basic instincts we may have, looking at it from a knowledge base. Just like his other books that I have read, this is also very thought provoking and interesting. It hasn't had the impact on me that Outliers had but still worth reading.
To be perfectly honest I found it difficult to really get into this book. It reads more like a series of short stories or vignettes of a young woman's life - Jane - from the time she is 14 years old observing her older brother's relationship with his then girlfriend, to what is probably twenty years later when she is still struggling withe the concept of love, forever love that is, and doing her darnedest to find and keep her man.
Perhaps I am getting too old to read such novels, not being on the hunt and fish for a bloke, but it does sort of reek of desperation to me. Jane is obviously very attractive and very smart. But in her professional life she seems to be taking a continual hammering from her power crazy female boss; her love life seems to be in a constant shambles. In fact there are many, many similarities to that icon of modern day single life Briget Jones. But nowhere near as funny or as self deprecating or as lovable or as real as the lovely Bridget. Has this author been inspired by Bridget in giving us this slightly gloomy and desperate look at modern urban love? I don't know, but for me, it just does not work.
Despite all the above, Ms Bank is a cool writer. She is funny, we get a very good idea of Jane's character and the influences on her life and personality. She captures a teenage girl quite well I think. I am an expert, currently living with two of them. She explores the complexities of being in a relationship with a much older man, and the heartache of a parent's terminal illness. To this extent the writing is quite real, easy to read and understand. Plus there is some great dialogue.
Would I recommend this? Only I think if you are single and angsting over the whole relationship thing. But it is just not for me. I have been deciding whether to keep it on the shelf or not, but have decided to as my girls may enjoy reading it and get something out of it in the future. Maybe.
THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold
So much has been written about this book over the years since it was first published I am not even going to begin analysing and critiquing and all that. I remember when it was first introduced into book club and I was horrified that someone could write a book about the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl, then have the girl watching from heaven how everyone deals with it. As the mother of 2 young girls this was the very last thing I wanted to read. And for all those years since it was published in 2002 I have strongly resisted, despite everyone telling me what a wonderful and uplifting book it is.
With fellow NZer Peter Jackson directing the recent movie, I had a vague interest in the film, but it was only when I read in an interview with him that he wanted to make a movie he could take his teenage daughter and her friends to, plus the involvement of Weta Workshop, that I thought I would take the plunge and see it. So I did. And I loved it. It is very unusual for me to see the movie before reading the book but I am glad it worked out this way. I thought the movie was beautiful, very uplifting and I hope heaven really is like that because it looks like a great place to be! I know people who read the book are disappointed in the movie, because it is different and so on, but having read the book now I do feel that the movie captures the essence of the story. The last 40 or so pages of the book dragged a bit, got all a bit spiritual and ghosty for me, souls climbing into bodies and so on, but despite this little hiccup I felt very satisfied and happy at the end of it.
BLINK THE POWER OF THINKING WITHOUT THINKING by Malcolm Gladwell
This is the second book by Malcolm Gladwell, following on from The Tipping Point. Essentially it is about intuition, but not that gut feeling intuition that you get. As Mr Gladwell explains it on his website it is more about intuition that comes from knowledge. For example the number of experts looking at an ancient Greek torso who believe it to be the genuine article, and the one or two experts who know instinctively just by a first look at it that it is a fake. Or the researcher who can tell within minutes of observing a couple, whether they are destined for the long haul or not.
Malcolm Gladwell helps us to challenge our preconceived ideas about people and situations and think beyond the basic instincts we may have, looking at it from a knowledge base. Just like his other books that I have read, this is also very thought provoking and interesting. It hasn't had the impact on me that Outliers had but still worth reading.
FEBRUARY READING - THE EXCITEMENT CONTINUES
HOTEL BABYLON by Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anonymous
Talk about being a fly on the wall! I expect we are all slightly voyeuristic about hotels and what goes on behind all those closed doors. And what about the staff? Are they really that polite and gracious and dare I say it deferential to guests, or is all that a big hypocritical facade? Do the hotels really love us, the guest, or are we just a means to an end.
The answer would appear to be yes and no to such questions! Being a business, the bottom line is all important, but to get the repeat business, the hotel does have to ingratiate ever so slightly to the guest, especially those at the top of the food chain such as sheiks, Madonna, Texan oil millionaires and so on. But the staff, being human, and thus in conflict with the business model, do find themselves, from time to time anyway, actually liking the guests and so do go out of their way to be, in a word, nice. Not always though, and generally the guest is the thing that keeps them in a job, and most importantly pays the tips, an incredibly lucrative part of being in the front line.
'Anonymous' is apparently a veteran of the England hotel industry, having started in the kitchens and now on reception, the hotel's face to the world. The goings ons and shenanigans are highly entertaining, very interesting and make for compelling reading. During the 24 hours the book covers, where the narrator is required to work a double shift, the reader is taken absolutely everywhere in the hotel, from the reception area, to the offices, restaurant, hotel kitchens, staff kitchen, service areas and of course the rooms from the suites down. Then there are all the staff - the management, front of house, chefs and kitchen staff, cleaners and housekeeping. Then there are the guests in all their glory! There is death, prostitutes, love, sex, rage, drunkenness, in fact a whole microcosm of life occurring in this building over a 24 hour period.
I don't think it is the most well written book I have read, but highly entertaining nevertheless and of course fantastically well captured in the BBC TV series.
CLEO by Helen Brown
What a little piece of magic this book is. Have your hankie ready, Cleo and Helen would melt the hardest heart. For 24 years, this little black cat was the one constant in the lives of Helen and her family. From the most terrible tragedy that can strike a family, and the various ups and downs that occurred in the years afterwards, Cleo kept them all looking forward and up. That is all the plot info that I am going to give because you need to read this for yourself!
However Helen has inserted plenty of interesting facts and anecdotes about cats, from being worshipped by the Egyptians to their uncanny therapeutic ability to make us feel better and do such things as lower blood pressure simply by purring. But any cat lover will tell you how good having a cat with you makes you feel.
I was working in the same department in the bank that Helen's husband was working in when their daughter Katherine was born. There was quite a bit of talk at the time about how Helen was some years older than Philip, how her family had suffered in the past, and also what a total energy force she was. I never met her, but having read Cleo I now know exactly what my work colleagues were talking about. She is definitely a cup half full person, although she has had plenty of cause over the years to be cup half empty!
The one criticism I had of the book was the complete lack of photos. I already knew what Philip looked like of course, so had a small advantage. If you go to http://helenbrown.com.au/index.html, you will see lots of family photos with Cleo.
If you are having a bad day, start this book. You will soon see that your bad day is really not that bad at all, and by the time you finish this book, your bad day/week will have dissolved away.
THE TIPPING POINT by Malcolm Gladwell
This is a book about epidemics. Not simply a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease as one would immediately think, but more encompassing than that, specifically a very rapid spread and growth of an idea, or a development or just simply a change. Malcolm Gladwell looks at this concept of change and why change can happen very quickly and unexpectedly. He looks at social epidemics rather than medical. Although Chapter 1 does focus on an infectious disease epidemic, I guess to set the scene and help us understand how an epidemic works, he uses the more widely understand meaning of epidemic in its medical arena which we, the reader, are more familiar with.
It is difficult to classify what type of book this is. It is about human behaviour and why we behave the way we do, and why small changes, sometimes very small changes, can affect very dramatically our response to a situation. Malcolm Gladwell sees this as a book about change, and how it is 'that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.' (From http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html).
For example he looks at how Hush Puppies suddenly became the only shoe to wear, why Sesame Street and Blue's Clues were such phenomenally successful television programmes, how New York City went from being one of the most violent cities in the US to one of the safest, the three types of people that contribute to the success of these epidemics, and most importantly the three essentials of epidemics which make them happen. And how these same three essentials can be used to reverse epidemics such as smoking amongst teenagers.
Malcolm Gladwell's magic lies in applying all this theory to everyday situations and events, and historical figures, thus making it ridiculously easy to captivate the reader. He makes it oh so relevant to the man/woman in the street. We all understand being frightened of getting swine flu or another contagious disease; we have all watched Sesame Street at some stage; we all wonder how on earth did that particular fashion item become such a must have item eg Croc shoes, or low rider jeans; we have all been drawn to the allure of smoking at some stage whether it be through advertising such as the Marlboro Man, or the attraction of breaking school rules, or that it simply looked cool. These are things that we all have some knowledge or experience of. And this is what makes it such a good book to read!
Challenge yourself. In the same interview referred to in the web page above, Malcolm Gladwell hopes that we can learn to start positive epidemics of our own, so the book is also enpowering and motivating, giving us the power to change things in the world around us, hopefully of course for the better.
Talk about being a fly on the wall! I expect we are all slightly voyeuristic about hotels and what goes on behind all those closed doors. And what about the staff? Are they really that polite and gracious and dare I say it deferential to guests, or is all that a big hypocritical facade? Do the hotels really love us, the guest, or are we just a means to an end.
The answer would appear to be yes and no to such questions! Being a business, the bottom line is all important, but to get the repeat business, the hotel does have to ingratiate ever so slightly to the guest, especially those at the top of the food chain such as sheiks, Madonna, Texan oil millionaires and so on. But the staff, being human, and thus in conflict with the business model, do find themselves, from time to time anyway, actually liking the guests and so do go out of their way to be, in a word, nice. Not always though, and generally the guest is the thing that keeps them in a job, and most importantly pays the tips, an incredibly lucrative part of being in the front line.
'Anonymous' is apparently a veteran of the England hotel industry, having started in the kitchens and now on reception, the hotel's face to the world. The goings ons and shenanigans are highly entertaining, very interesting and make for compelling reading. During the 24 hours the book covers, where the narrator is required to work a double shift, the reader is taken absolutely everywhere in the hotel, from the reception area, to the offices, restaurant, hotel kitchens, staff kitchen, service areas and of course the rooms from the suites down. Then there are all the staff - the management, front of house, chefs and kitchen staff, cleaners and housekeeping. Then there are the guests in all their glory! There is death, prostitutes, love, sex, rage, drunkenness, in fact a whole microcosm of life occurring in this building over a 24 hour period.
I don't think it is the most well written book I have read, but highly entertaining nevertheless and of course fantastically well captured in the BBC TV series.
CLEO by Helen Brown
What a little piece of magic this book is. Have your hankie ready, Cleo and Helen would melt the hardest heart. For 24 years, this little black cat was the one constant in the lives of Helen and her family. From the most terrible tragedy that can strike a family, and the various ups and downs that occurred in the years afterwards, Cleo kept them all looking forward and up. That is all the plot info that I am going to give because you need to read this for yourself!
However Helen has inserted plenty of interesting facts and anecdotes about cats, from being worshipped by the Egyptians to their uncanny therapeutic ability to make us feel better and do such things as lower blood pressure simply by purring. But any cat lover will tell you how good having a cat with you makes you feel.
I was working in the same department in the bank that Helen's husband was working in when their daughter Katherine was born. There was quite a bit of talk at the time about how Helen was some years older than Philip, how her family had suffered in the past, and also what a total energy force she was. I never met her, but having read Cleo I now know exactly what my work colleagues were talking about. She is definitely a cup half full person, although she has had plenty of cause over the years to be cup half empty!
The one criticism I had of the book was the complete lack of photos. I already knew what Philip looked like of course, so had a small advantage. If you go to http://helenbrown.com.au/index.html, you will see lots of family photos with Cleo.
If you are having a bad day, start this book. You will soon see that your bad day is really not that bad at all, and by the time you finish this book, your bad day/week will have dissolved away.
THE TIPPING POINT by Malcolm Gladwell
This is a book about epidemics. Not simply a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease as one would immediately think, but more encompassing than that, specifically a very rapid spread and growth of an idea, or a development or just simply a change. Malcolm Gladwell looks at this concept of change and why change can happen very quickly and unexpectedly. He looks at social epidemics rather than medical. Although Chapter 1 does focus on an infectious disease epidemic, I guess to set the scene and help us understand how an epidemic works, he uses the more widely understand meaning of epidemic in its medical arena which we, the reader, are more familiar with.
It is difficult to classify what type of book this is. It is about human behaviour and why we behave the way we do, and why small changes, sometimes very small changes, can affect very dramatically our response to a situation. Malcolm Gladwell sees this as a book about change, and how it is 'that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.' (From http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/index.html).
For example he looks at how Hush Puppies suddenly became the only shoe to wear, why Sesame Street and Blue's Clues were such phenomenally successful television programmes, how New York City went from being one of the most violent cities in the US to one of the safest, the three types of people that contribute to the success of these epidemics, and most importantly the three essentials of epidemics which make them happen. And how these same three essentials can be used to reverse epidemics such as smoking amongst teenagers.
Malcolm Gladwell's magic lies in applying all this theory to everyday situations and events, and historical figures, thus making it ridiculously easy to captivate the reader. He makes it oh so relevant to the man/woman in the street. We all understand being frightened of getting swine flu or another contagious disease; we have all watched Sesame Street at some stage; we all wonder how on earth did that particular fashion item become such a must have item eg Croc shoes, or low rider jeans; we have all been drawn to the allure of smoking at some stage whether it be through advertising such as the Marlboro Man, or the attraction of breaking school rules, or that it simply looked cool. These are things that we all have some knowledge or experience of. And this is what makes it such a good book to read!
Challenge yourself. In the same interview referred to in the web page above, Malcolm Gladwell hopes that we can learn to start positive epidemics of our own, so the book is also enpowering and motivating, giving us the power to change things in the world around us, hopefully of course for the better.
JANUARY READING - This has been an amazing month for reading, being summer holidays there has been no shortage of time to do it!
OVERTHROWN BY STRANGERS by Ronan Bennett
Ronan Bennett was introduced into book club a few years ago and quickly became a favourite. His stories are tragic, full of despair and moral decay, with the little guy fighting forces much bigger than he is. All the settings of his novels are different, ranging from pre-revolution St Petersburg to 1950s Congo, to 17th century peasantry superstition, to modern day Northern Ireland. In this book the setting is the capitalism of Los Angeles and the corruption, revolutions and misery of the Central American countries Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. As one review I read on Google said, (I now can't find it to acknowledge the writer), Mr Bennett takes apolitical people who are unwittingly thrown into political events and have to deal with it. These are not pretty books, but because Mr Bennett has the ability to get not only inside the heads of his protagonists, but also into the depths of their souls, his books are stunning. I have read that Bennett spent two years in an Irish prison for supposed involvement of an IRA bank robbery that resulted in a policeman being killed, but through lack of evidence he was released. On reading his books, it is very clear that this experience has heavily influenced a lot of his writing.
And this is the one that I think is the best. It is simply an outstanding book, from the complexity of the story line, the variety of his characters and the depths he takes us to them. He throws some tough themes at the reader - the desperation of displaced people trying to survive in a violent, revolutionary, guerilla environment; erosion of traditional economies vs western capitalism; how power corrupts; and the chilling normality of horrible people going about their everyday lives.
I bought this book in a second hand book shop and before putting it into the book club, I did some hunting on the net for reviews etc of it. None. The blurb on the back was so lacking in information I really thought I might have bought a dud. Maybe that is why it was in the second hand shop! So it was with some trepidation I contributed it, and finally read it, the first of us to do so. Took a few pages to get into it, but once started couldn't stop!
Three people, all damaged and troubled for various reasons from completely different countries and backgrounds - an Irish ex-prisoner, a thief from Peru, and a woman with a legal background from San Francisco find themselves on the run from the New Era Mission of Christ which seems to have a rather unhealthy interest in spreading the word in politically unstable countries. The story alternates between the present and the past as each of the three character's story is told and how they come together. This past interspersing with the present is a bit confusing to start with until it is clear who all the characters are, but very quickly takes on a force of its own.
This is a thriller, a political statement and love story combined. Excellent reading. I will now reread all his other books!
OPEN by Andre Agassi
So much has been written about this book since its recent publication, with Andre's astonishing revelations. In this day and age, the drug use revelation didn't really surprise me, but the control his hair had over his self-worth and win or lose, plus playing tennis commando brought on bouts of hysteria at the ridiculousness and bizarre complexity of such a life-in-the-lights existence.
Andre's telling of his life is incredibly personal, it is almost as if he is sitting on the couch telling it. He is a very gifted man, not only as a tennis player, but also as a story teller and writer. With his amazing memory and recall ability, plus his observations of the human condition, he has given us an invaluable and not particularly pleasant insight into the highly charged world of professional sport. I am in awe of this man, the passion, love and respect he has inspired through his life, and can only wonder what he might have achieved had he ever had the opportunity to travel his own path in life. More photos would have been brilliant too!
A RESPECTABLE GIRL by Fleur Beale
Fleur Beale is a New Zealand author who mostly writes fiction for teenagers and young adults. This novel, though has universal appeal and is an excellent read for anyone after an historical novel. Set in the province of Taranaki in 1859, (which incidentally is the part of New Zealand where the author comes from) the story centres on Hannah Carstairs. Although only 15 years old, and still a girl to our way of thinking, she is on the brink of adulthood. The main town of New Plymouth is essentially a frontier town, raw, unplanned, unformed, dirty and often chaotic. Hannah lives with her twin brother Jamie, her English father, her Maori stepmother Rawinia and half brother Arama. Her mother died giving birth to Hannah and her brother. An independent and spirited girl, Hannah is conflicted as to her eventual place in the world. She is smart enough to see how hard life is for the women in her community and consequently doesn't want a bar of marriage or babies. But she knows she cannot stay living with her parents forever, simply because there isn't enough work or money to support everyone.
In New Plymouth and the province at large, war between the colonial settlers-the British-and the local landowners-the Maori-is looming over control of the land. Hannah finds her loyalties tested due to her peculiar family situation; at the same time she discovers interesting and alarming information concerning her parents and her origins. Which in her forthright and independent fashion, with all the single mindedness and passion of a teenage girl she sets about resolving.
Very well written, god plot and character development, with enough romance, intrigue and adventure to keep any young adult and not so young adults hooked. Nothing too complicated, just a jolly good read.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF LAURA FRIDAY by David Murphy
Bullock, a provincial town of unknown size, but larger than a village and smaller than a city, situated somewhere on the coast of New Zealand. It could be anyone of dozens of towns but I can't help but imagine it to be somewhere on the West Coast, where the people are plain speaking, can't abide pretentiousness, have their peculiarities and oddities as we all do, a strong sense of community, and prone to ship wrecks way back then, which is how Bullock came to be established. And not on the smell of an oily rag, but on the very rare and wonderful weed that accompanied the pioneers on the ship and that was saved from the wreck. This is not a huge part of the story, but certainly contributes to some very comic moments and memorable characters.
Young John Kennedy is born and bred in Bullock, descended from one of the ship wreckees as is most of the population. The heavy hand of the Catholic Church presides over Johnny's family life, especially that of his mother and casts a long shadow for many years. Johnny is a teenager when the novel begins in the late 1960s, and along with his friends lusts after any number of nubile teenage girls, with the determination to become a writer and so escape small town Bullock. Which in a most bizarre set of circumstances actually comes to pass. The 'circumstances', which you have to read to find out about, result in his creation of Laura Friday and Pavarotti the Parrot, characters which make him very famous and very rich. Until, one day, he has enough and decides to return to Bullock.
This is an extremely entertaining and heartwarming novel, chock full of highly interesting and diverse characters and small town life in Bullock with all its eccentricities and correctness. Johnny chases his dreams with enthusiasm, naivety and brilliance. At times there is a bit too much silly boy humour based on bodily functions, but really it doesn't matter, and it is actually funny. Well I thought so.
I couldn't find out much about the author David Murphy other than what is in the biography notes in the book. Born in England, he now lives in a small town in New Zealand, not on the west coast of the South Island as I imagine Bullock to be, but inland on the east side of the North Island where the weather is better! Nevertheless he captures beautifully the tone and pace of small town life, and the "OE" experience of so many young New Zealanders.
THE APOLOGIST by Jay Rayner
Jay Rayner was born in the UK in the mid 1960s and became a journalist. During his writing career he has also been a restaurant critic which seems to have stood him in good stead with this book.
The Apologist is Marc Basset, a very well known food critic, renowned for his reviews which pull no punches and make him very hard to like! He adores chocolate, is a great cook and lives with the very patient and understanding Lynne, which he considers a minor miracle: that anyone would want to live him. A classic case of low self esteem? This tenuous control he has over his world completely unravels when a chef he has reviewed most unfavourably kills himself as a result. Marc does feel responsible and he decides to apologise to the widow. He has never apologised for anything in his life before. The feel good factor he gets from it ultimately takes on a life on its own, until he finds himself apologising for no end of things that apologies are needed for or perceived to be needed for. This is political satire at its best, very tongue in cheek, and very relevant to the world we currently live in, with all it religious and cultural intolerances, political correctness, grievances against colonial powers going back hundreds of years, the concept of instant fame and celebrity, how easy it is to lose one's sense of self. Tightly written and well controlled, this is a highly entertaining and thoughtful book, its main character being not entirely likable, but who we do come to feel sympathy and empathy for.
THE LAST DAYS OF DOGTOWN by Anita Diamant
If you have read The Red Tent, and loved it, and expect something similar with this book, you won't get it. But this is still an extremely good book. The main difference I think is that this book is essentially character driven rather than plot driven. Little happens in this novel, other than the decline and decay over time of the town of Commons Settlement, more commonly known as Dogtown for the packs of dogs that frequent the area. It is not a pretty story, with very little positive or uplifting in it. The main characters have had hard lives, and continue to do so in the harsh climate and environment of rural Massachusetts in the 1800s. Yet despite all this there is plenty of humanity among the community with people looking out for each other. The beauty of the book is in the writing, how she creates her characters, making them human and believeable in such an inhospitable environment.
Ronan Bennett was introduced into book club a few years ago and quickly became a favourite. His stories are tragic, full of despair and moral decay, with the little guy fighting forces much bigger than he is. All the settings of his novels are different, ranging from pre-revolution St Petersburg to 1950s Congo, to 17th century peasantry superstition, to modern day Northern Ireland. In this book the setting is the capitalism of Los Angeles and the corruption, revolutions and misery of the Central American countries Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. As one review I read on Google said, (I now can't find it to acknowledge the writer), Mr Bennett takes apolitical people who are unwittingly thrown into political events and have to deal with it. These are not pretty books, but because Mr Bennett has the ability to get not only inside the heads of his protagonists, but also into the depths of their souls, his books are stunning. I have read that Bennett spent two years in an Irish prison for supposed involvement of an IRA bank robbery that resulted in a policeman being killed, but through lack of evidence he was released. On reading his books, it is very clear that this experience has heavily influenced a lot of his writing.
And this is the one that I think is the best. It is simply an outstanding book, from the complexity of the story line, the variety of his characters and the depths he takes us to them. He throws some tough themes at the reader - the desperation of displaced people trying to survive in a violent, revolutionary, guerilla environment; erosion of traditional economies vs western capitalism; how power corrupts; and the chilling normality of horrible people going about their everyday lives.
I bought this book in a second hand book shop and before putting it into the book club, I did some hunting on the net for reviews etc of it. None. The blurb on the back was so lacking in information I really thought I might have bought a dud. Maybe that is why it was in the second hand shop! So it was with some trepidation I contributed it, and finally read it, the first of us to do so. Took a few pages to get into it, but once started couldn't stop!
Three people, all damaged and troubled for various reasons from completely different countries and backgrounds - an Irish ex-prisoner, a thief from Peru, and a woman with a legal background from San Francisco find themselves on the run from the New Era Mission of Christ which seems to have a rather unhealthy interest in spreading the word in politically unstable countries. The story alternates between the present and the past as each of the three character's story is told and how they come together. This past interspersing with the present is a bit confusing to start with until it is clear who all the characters are, but very quickly takes on a force of its own.
This is a thriller, a political statement and love story combined. Excellent reading. I will now reread all his other books!
OPEN by Andre Agassi
So much has been written about this book since its recent publication, with Andre's astonishing revelations. In this day and age, the drug use revelation didn't really surprise me, but the control his hair had over his self-worth and win or lose, plus playing tennis commando brought on bouts of hysteria at the ridiculousness and bizarre complexity of such a life-in-the-lights existence.
Andre's telling of his life is incredibly personal, it is almost as if he is sitting on the couch telling it. He is a very gifted man, not only as a tennis player, but also as a story teller and writer. With his amazing memory and recall ability, plus his observations of the human condition, he has given us an invaluable and not particularly pleasant insight into the highly charged world of professional sport. I am in awe of this man, the passion, love and respect he has inspired through his life, and can only wonder what he might have achieved had he ever had the opportunity to travel his own path in life. More photos would have been brilliant too!
A RESPECTABLE GIRL by Fleur Beale
Fleur Beale is a New Zealand author who mostly writes fiction for teenagers and young adults. This novel, though has universal appeal and is an excellent read for anyone after an historical novel. Set in the province of Taranaki in 1859, (which incidentally is the part of New Zealand where the author comes from) the story centres on Hannah Carstairs. Although only 15 years old, and still a girl to our way of thinking, she is on the brink of adulthood. The main town of New Plymouth is essentially a frontier town, raw, unplanned, unformed, dirty and often chaotic. Hannah lives with her twin brother Jamie, her English father, her Maori stepmother Rawinia and half brother Arama. Her mother died giving birth to Hannah and her brother. An independent and spirited girl, Hannah is conflicted as to her eventual place in the world. She is smart enough to see how hard life is for the women in her community and consequently doesn't want a bar of marriage or babies. But she knows she cannot stay living with her parents forever, simply because there isn't enough work or money to support everyone.
In New Plymouth and the province at large, war between the colonial settlers-the British-and the local landowners-the Maori-is looming over control of the land. Hannah finds her loyalties tested due to her peculiar family situation; at the same time she discovers interesting and alarming information concerning her parents and her origins. Which in her forthright and independent fashion, with all the single mindedness and passion of a teenage girl she sets about resolving.
Very well written, god plot and character development, with enough romance, intrigue and adventure to keep any young adult and not so young adults hooked. Nothing too complicated, just a jolly good read.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF LAURA FRIDAY by David Murphy
Bullock, a provincial town of unknown size, but larger than a village and smaller than a city, situated somewhere on the coast of New Zealand. It could be anyone of dozens of towns but I can't help but imagine it to be somewhere on the West Coast, where the people are plain speaking, can't abide pretentiousness, have their peculiarities and oddities as we all do, a strong sense of community, and prone to ship wrecks way back then, which is how Bullock came to be established. And not on the smell of an oily rag, but on the very rare and wonderful weed that accompanied the pioneers on the ship and that was saved from the wreck. This is not a huge part of the story, but certainly contributes to some very comic moments and memorable characters.
Young John Kennedy is born and bred in Bullock, descended from one of the ship wreckees as is most of the population. The heavy hand of the Catholic Church presides over Johnny's family life, especially that of his mother and casts a long shadow for many years. Johnny is a teenager when the novel begins in the late 1960s, and along with his friends lusts after any number of nubile teenage girls, with the determination to become a writer and so escape small town Bullock. Which in a most bizarre set of circumstances actually comes to pass. The 'circumstances', which you have to read to find out about, result in his creation of Laura Friday and Pavarotti the Parrot, characters which make him very famous and very rich. Until, one day, he has enough and decides to return to Bullock.
This is an extremely entertaining and heartwarming novel, chock full of highly interesting and diverse characters and small town life in Bullock with all its eccentricities and correctness. Johnny chases his dreams with enthusiasm, naivety and brilliance. At times there is a bit too much silly boy humour based on bodily functions, but really it doesn't matter, and it is actually funny. Well I thought so.
I couldn't find out much about the author David Murphy other than what is in the biography notes in the book. Born in England, he now lives in a small town in New Zealand, not on the west coast of the South Island as I imagine Bullock to be, but inland on the east side of the North Island where the weather is better! Nevertheless he captures beautifully the tone and pace of small town life, and the "OE" experience of so many young New Zealanders.
THE APOLOGIST by Jay Rayner
Jay Rayner was born in the UK in the mid 1960s and became a journalist. During his writing career he has also been a restaurant critic which seems to have stood him in good stead with this book.
The Apologist is Marc Basset, a very well known food critic, renowned for his reviews which pull no punches and make him very hard to like! He adores chocolate, is a great cook and lives with the very patient and understanding Lynne, which he considers a minor miracle: that anyone would want to live him. A classic case of low self esteem? This tenuous control he has over his world completely unravels when a chef he has reviewed most unfavourably kills himself as a result. Marc does feel responsible and he decides to apologise to the widow. He has never apologised for anything in his life before. The feel good factor he gets from it ultimately takes on a life on its own, until he finds himself apologising for no end of things that apologies are needed for or perceived to be needed for. This is political satire at its best, very tongue in cheek, and very relevant to the world we currently live in, with all it religious and cultural intolerances, political correctness, grievances against colonial powers going back hundreds of years, the concept of instant fame and celebrity, how easy it is to lose one's sense of self. Tightly written and well controlled, this is a highly entertaining and thoughtful book, its main character being not entirely likable, but who we do come to feel sympathy and empathy for.
THE LAST DAYS OF DOGTOWN by Anita Diamant
If you have read The Red Tent, and loved it, and expect something similar with this book, you won't get it. But this is still an extremely good book. The main difference I think is that this book is essentially character driven rather than plot driven. Little happens in this novel, other than the decline and decay over time of the town of Commons Settlement, more commonly known as Dogtown for the packs of dogs that frequent the area. It is not a pretty story, with very little positive or uplifting in it. The main characters have had hard lives, and continue to do so in the harsh climate and environment of rural Massachusetts in the 1800s. Yet despite all this there is plenty of humanity among the community with people looking out for each other. The beauty of the book is in the writing, how she creates her characters, making them human and believeable in such an inhospitable environment.
DECEMBER READING
December has been a good month for reading. Since last post I have read some great books. December book club was lovely with a Christmas theme - bubbly and delicious home made mince pies and other treats. Books being read are much the same as last month, the most popular and up for most discussion being The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Can't wait to read it myself. The sequels to this first novel have also been put in, so now the whole series is there for us. The Blue Notebook, about child prostitution in India also provoked a lot of talk. Far too depressing and awful for me to read, especially since my year living there. Well and truly over exposed to this underbelly.
Book club books I have read are as follows :
BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin
I loved this beautifully written and thoughtful story of a young girl's easing into the adult world. Eilish is born and bred in a small Irish town, in the 1950s, the town not having much to offer young people. The expectation is that she will get married and have children just like all the other young women in the town have done for decades. Even if there are few eligible and attractive men around. There is a sense that she has no control over her life. Quite by chance and quite fortuitously the decision is made for her by her mother and the priest that she move to New York and begin a life there. And she does. Although it does take a while, as one would expect, for her to find her feet with a job, the boarding house she lives in with good Catholic girls, and a social life. Slowly the quiet, shy country girl blossoms into a confident, interesting and interested young lady. Until she is called back to Ireland following a tragedy. There she finds that the ties that bind are indeed very strong and some serious decision making is required.
The style of writing is a little detached and some of the others in our group who have read this book did not like it for this reason. I think that is what makes such a mundane, ordinary life so fascinating and such a great read. We come to care very much about Eilish and the decision she has to make. In fact, for me it became a page turner. I have read The Blackwater Lightship and just could not get excited about it at all. This however is a completely different book, it feels to me that he loved writing it, that he loves and cares for all his characters and this comes through in his writing. As in real life there are plenty of oddities about all the characters in the story, but that just makes it more real and endearing to the reader.
We also learn quite a bit about New York City at this time, and I think Mr Toibin also has a great affection for this city as well as the variety of people that live in it.
Highly recommended.
THE CARPET WARS by Christoper Kremmer
This is not the first book I have read about this deeply troubled area of the world. It would appear the conflict of the last fifty years or so is nothing new, we just know more about it now, and the impact on the rest of the world is more profound. The first book I read was in the 12 months or so after 9/11 when places we had never heard of were in the daily news all the time. In An Unexpected Light Briton Jason Elliot recounts his time in Afghanistan in the early 1980s disguised as a fighter for the anti-Soviet mujheddin resistance movement. Scary enough. English foreign correspondent Christina Lamb details her involvement in most of the world's conflicts of the last 25 years in Small Wars Permitting, one of her favourite countries being Afghanistan.
Australian journalist Christopher Kremmer uses his passion for Oriental carpets as his device to take him from country to country and regions within the Middle East prior to 9/11. Afghanistan features heavily of course, but the chapters on Iran and Kashmir are particularly interesting. He also travels to Iraq, Pakistan, and the various -kistan countries north of Iraq/Afghanistan and west of China. Plenty of history, right back to Alexander the Great, plenty of war and horror, both past and present, and the sheer indestructibility of the peoples who live in these areas of the world. They have seen it all before, it seems there is no longer horror, but simply inevitability that things never change.
My only criticism of the book is that I would have liked an introductory chapter on Oriental carpets that summarised all the information distributed through the book into some logical organised form. I wish too the photos of the carpets were in colour! I became so interested in all this that I went to the local public library and looked at books there.
This is a book to expand and open the mind about an area much maligned by the West. We can learn from Mr Kremmer's travels and observations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq prior to 2001.
OUTLIERS:THE STORY OF SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell
This would have to be one of the most thought provoking, interesting and fascinating books I have read in a very long time. In a society infatuated with the concept of success, beginning right from when a child is born, this book is a revelation. We obsess over our children's academic achievement, the best school to go to, their class mates, the calibre of the teachers, league and result tables and so on. Whereas in fact it seems that these are not the only factors that influence a person's final success. In a lot of cases it is the well-worn adage '20% talent, 80% effort' (the 10,000 hours scenario), or what time of the year you happen to be born (early in the year for Canadian ice hockey or the under 20 All Blacks if you play rugby in New Zealand), or what culture you belong to (Asians and maths). I found this last example particularly interesting as at the local high school about 1/3 of the school roll is of Chinese or Korean birth, or 1st generation born. The academic achievement from this school is very high, as is the very high representation of academic prizes going to these students. This is at the expense of the WASP students,
who excel in the sports and cultural (except music) areas. Again Asian students take out the music prizes. Virtually all these Asian students have out-of-school tuition, and as Mr Gladwell points out, these high achievers don't necessarily have the highest IQs, but through sheer hard work, effort and constant practice at subjects like maths they beat the pants off everyone else.
The other section of the book I found very interesting was the culture differences between an airline such as Korean Air which traditionally is very hierarchical and a Western airline which is more egalitarian. These are of course direct reflections of the overall cultures the airlines operate in, the cockpit being a very focussed and intense example. My husband flies for a Western airline and spent 20 months flying for an Indian airline which was also very hierarchical. He related very easily to the behaviour in the cockpit of the Korean Air airplane.
For Christmas I was given Blink and The Tipping Point. From reading other book blogs these sound better than Outliers and I am very much looking forward to reading them.
POMEGRANATE SOUP by Marsha Mehran
A most interesting mixture between small town Ireland complete with all the personalities such a community could throw up, and the exotica of three beautiful Iranian exiles and their culinary traditions. Very similar to Joanne Harris' Chocolat in terms of plot, protagonists, eccentrics and baddies. Uncannily so. Nevertheless with a Middle Eastern leaning to it rather than chocolate and gypsies, this is also a light hearted and heart warming read, good for summer holidays or evenings by the fire. I don't think it is nearly as well written as Chocolat, being far more syrupy and too touchy-feely for my liking. The food thing and the recipes however sounded beautiful and I could imagine the aromas and tastes from how they were described. Maybe Ms Mehran should be a food writer.
Book club books I have read are as follows :
BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin
I loved this beautifully written and thoughtful story of a young girl's easing into the adult world. Eilish is born and bred in a small Irish town, in the 1950s, the town not having much to offer young people. The expectation is that she will get married and have children just like all the other young women in the town have done for decades. Even if there are few eligible and attractive men around. There is a sense that she has no control over her life. Quite by chance and quite fortuitously the decision is made for her by her mother and the priest that she move to New York and begin a life there. And she does. Although it does take a while, as one would expect, for her to find her feet with a job, the boarding house she lives in with good Catholic girls, and a social life. Slowly the quiet, shy country girl blossoms into a confident, interesting and interested young lady. Until she is called back to Ireland following a tragedy. There she finds that the ties that bind are indeed very strong and some serious decision making is required.
The style of writing is a little detached and some of the others in our group who have read this book did not like it for this reason. I think that is what makes such a mundane, ordinary life so fascinating and such a great read. We come to care very much about Eilish and the decision she has to make. In fact, for me it became a page turner. I have read The Blackwater Lightship and just could not get excited about it at all. This however is a completely different book, it feels to me that he loved writing it, that he loves and cares for all his characters and this comes through in his writing. As in real life there are plenty of oddities about all the characters in the story, but that just makes it more real and endearing to the reader.
We also learn quite a bit about New York City at this time, and I think Mr Toibin also has a great affection for this city as well as the variety of people that live in it.
Highly recommended.
THE CARPET WARS by Christoper Kremmer
This is not the first book I have read about this deeply troubled area of the world. It would appear the conflict of the last fifty years or so is nothing new, we just know more about it now, and the impact on the rest of the world is more profound. The first book I read was in the 12 months or so after 9/11 when places we had never heard of were in the daily news all the time. In An Unexpected Light Briton Jason Elliot recounts his time in Afghanistan in the early 1980s disguised as a fighter for the anti-Soviet mujheddin resistance movement. Scary enough. English foreign correspondent Christina Lamb details her involvement in most of the world's conflicts of the last 25 years in Small Wars Permitting, one of her favourite countries being Afghanistan.
Australian journalist Christopher Kremmer uses his passion for Oriental carpets as his device to take him from country to country and regions within the Middle East prior to 9/11. Afghanistan features heavily of course, but the chapters on Iran and Kashmir are particularly interesting. He also travels to Iraq, Pakistan, and the various -kistan countries north of Iraq/Afghanistan and west of China. Plenty of history, right back to Alexander the Great, plenty of war and horror, both past and present, and the sheer indestructibility of the peoples who live in these areas of the world. They have seen it all before, it seems there is no longer horror, but simply inevitability that things never change.
My only criticism of the book is that I would have liked an introductory chapter on Oriental carpets that summarised all the information distributed through the book into some logical organised form. I wish too the photos of the carpets were in colour! I became so interested in all this that I went to the local public library and looked at books there.
This is a book to expand and open the mind about an area much maligned by the West. We can learn from Mr Kremmer's travels and observations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq prior to 2001.
OUTLIERS:THE STORY OF SUCCESS by Malcolm Gladwell
This would have to be one of the most thought provoking, interesting and fascinating books I have read in a very long time. In a society infatuated with the concept of success, beginning right from when a child is born, this book is a revelation. We obsess over our children's academic achievement, the best school to go to, their class mates, the calibre of the teachers, league and result tables and so on. Whereas in fact it seems that these are not the only factors that influence a person's final success. In a lot of cases it is the well-worn adage '20% talent, 80% effort' (the 10,000 hours scenario), or what time of the year you happen to be born (early in the year for Canadian ice hockey or the under 20 All Blacks if you play rugby in New Zealand), or what culture you belong to (Asians and maths). I found this last example particularly interesting as at the local high school about 1/3 of the school roll is of Chinese or Korean birth, or 1st generation born. The academic achievement from this school is very high, as is the very high representation of academic prizes going to these students. This is at the expense of the WASP students,
who excel in the sports and cultural (except music) areas. Again Asian students take out the music prizes. Virtually all these Asian students have out-of-school tuition, and as Mr Gladwell points out, these high achievers don't necessarily have the highest IQs, but through sheer hard work, effort and constant practice at subjects like maths they beat the pants off everyone else.
The other section of the book I found very interesting was the culture differences between an airline such as Korean Air which traditionally is very hierarchical and a Western airline which is more egalitarian. These are of course direct reflections of the overall cultures the airlines operate in, the cockpit being a very focussed and intense example. My husband flies for a Western airline and spent 20 months flying for an Indian airline which was also very hierarchical. He related very easily to the behaviour in the cockpit of the Korean Air airplane.
For Christmas I was given Blink and The Tipping Point. From reading other book blogs these sound better than Outliers and I am very much looking forward to reading them.
POMEGRANATE SOUP by Marsha Mehran
A most interesting mixture between small town Ireland complete with all the personalities such a community could throw up, and the exotica of three beautiful Iranian exiles and their culinary traditions. Very similar to Joanne Harris' Chocolat in terms of plot, protagonists, eccentrics and baddies. Uncannily so. Nevertheless with a Middle Eastern leaning to it rather than chocolate and gypsies, this is also a light hearted and heart warming read, good for summer holidays or evenings by the fire. I don't think it is nearly as well written as Chocolat, being far more syrupy and too touchy-feely for my liking. The food thing and the recipes however sounded beautiful and I could imagine the aromas and tastes from how they were described. Maybe Ms Mehran should be a food writer.
NOVEMBER READING
Been a while...
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery
A most surprising book in every possible way, from the intriguing title, the cover, the author, the plot and the way it is told! Firstly the author. Muriel Barbery is not English or American or from an English speaking country as you would imagine, but is French! Google her and she appears to be the epitome of French chicness and refinement. She is a philosopher, and lives in Japan of all places with her husband. She loves Japan and everything Japanese. The story is translated from the French, and that must have been one helluva job for the translator. The sentences are very long, but extremely very well put together and punctuated so you never feel too lost. Her vocabulary is, to say the least, extensive, using words I have never heard of so the dictionary was close by. But don't be put off by all this. Not at all, as I said, everything about this book is surprising, including of course the story and how it unfolds.
Mme Renee Michel is 54, of very lowly poor origins, uneducated in the traditional sense. She has been a widow for ten years and a concierge at a very high-end apartment block in Paris for 27 years. She is 'invisible' to the inhabitants of the building who include amongst others old money, a high ranking politician, self- proclaimed greatest food critic in the world. Also included are the spouses, children, pets etc. But like the book, Mme Renee is also full of surprises being self-taught in art, music, literature, current events, philosophy and so on. The other main character is Paloma, a 12 year old girl, daughter of said high ranking politician who hates her life, everything and everyone in it. She plans to kill herself on her 13th birthday and take the whole building out with her.
These two extreme personalities eventually come together along with a number of others in the building. Through a series of events and encounters their individual views of the world and their places in it change. It surprises all the way to the last sentence. From my own personal point of view there was a bit too much philosophising from the various characters, especially in the middle where I was starting to get a bit fed up with the author's take on the world. The story of course does come back to reality and some action, plus in parts it is exquisitely written (and translated), so naturally I was compelled to continue reading. Glad I did.
FINDING TOM CONNOR by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Molly is trying on her wedding dress, when through the ground level changing room gap she sees a very sexy pair of red high heels standing very close to a pair of very familiar looking men's shoes. With her wedding dreams and her future life of wedded bliss and lots of children in tatters, wearing only her dress and a pair of Doc Martens, she flees from Auckland to Ireland with her very wealthy career woman aunt in the search for a long lost uncle/brother by the name of Tom Connor. Parallel to all this and in alternate chapters is the story of the inhabitants of a small Irish village that finds itself the center of religious fervor as the result of a sighting of the Virgin Mary, who then proceeds to show herself at 4pm every day. You wonder when or even if these two wildly disparate plots will ever join, and eventually in a roundabout protracted sort of journey they do. With some great stories and episodes in the meantime. Thoroughly enjoyable story with the hapless Molly coming to grips with her imploded life, and the aunt also discovering a side of herself she had lost touch with. Excellent book to take on holiday, a good story told with much warmth, affection for the subject and lots of humour.
THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER by Linda Grant
Linda Grant is an English journalist and author whose book The Clothes on Their Backs was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. It was apparent from reading this book last year that she has a love of clothing and dress, not just for protection or warmth, and not just to show off brands, size of budget and so on. For her dress and clothing are an integral part of one's self-expression, who we are and where we have been. This latest book takes a very personal look at the business of dressing, why we dress the way we do, why females of all ages are seemingly biologically programmed to love clothes and males aren't. She writes about some very interesting people and stages in twentieth century fashion history. The one thing I have really taken away from this book is not to hide a love of clothing or colour, or to be afraid to wear what you really like rather than just what is in the shops or in the fashion pages. She also makes the comment that if you look at old photos of yourself, what you are wearing more than anything else will instantly bring back memories of the person that you were then, how you were feeling and so on. A most enjoyable read that also makes you think.
ALSO BEING READ THIS MONTH
Hot
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn - funny story about the world through a dog's eyes. Easy read
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill - story of young girl kidnapped by slave traders, her life as a slave and as a free woman, ultimately ending up back in Africa where she started from. Inspiring.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - first in the recently published trilogy by a Swedish writer, taking the world by storm. People are mad for this book.
The Adventure of English and Son of War by Melvyn Bragg - one of our readers loves Melvyn Bragg so is introducing him to the rest of us. First book is about the history of the English language, and the second one is part of a trilogy about a man, his experiences of the wars, and how they affect his subsequent life.
Between Assainations - by Aravind Adiga - follow up to his Man Booker winner The White Tiger. Not a novel as such, but reads more like short stories. Similar tone and themes to his first book.
The Blue Notebook by J. Levine - more harrowing reading about modern day India, child prostitution in this case. Very moving but also very horrific.
Where Underpants Come From by Joe Bennett - entertaining and interesting read of Joe's journeys to discover where his Made In China underpants actually come from.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - if you spend 10,000 hours doing anything then you too can be as successful as the world's most successful people! A look at what builds success and why some people seem to have it more sorted than the rest of us.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - poignant and beautifully written tale of a young Irish girl and her new life in New York during the 1950s. Mundane subject matter made exquisite.
A December Week by Sebastian Faulks - from the first person to read it, an excellent book by this popular author
Luke warm
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Nieffienger
The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte - apparently not nearly as beautiful as his other books.
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery
A most surprising book in every possible way, from the intriguing title, the cover, the author, the plot and the way it is told! Firstly the author. Muriel Barbery is not English or American or from an English speaking country as you would imagine, but is French! Google her and she appears to be the epitome of French chicness and refinement. She is a philosopher, and lives in Japan of all places with her husband. She loves Japan and everything Japanese. The story is translated from the French, and that must have been one helluva job for the translator. The sentences are very long, but extremely very well put together and punctuated so you never feel too lost. Her vocabulary is, to say the least, extensive, using words I have never heard of so the dictionary was close by. But don't be put off by all this. Not at all, as I said, everything about this book is surprising, including of course the story and how it unfolds.
Mme Renee Michel is 54, of very lowly poor origins, uneducated in the traditional sense. She has been a widow for ten years and a concierge at a very high-end apartment block in Paris for 27 years. She is 'invisible' to the inhabitants of the building who include amongst others old money, a high ranking politician, self- proclaimed greatest food critic in the world. Also included are the spouses, children, pets etc. But like the book, Mme Renee is also full of surprises being self-taught in art, music, literature, current events, philosophy and so on. The other main character is Paloma, a 12 year old girl, daughter of said high ranking politician who hates her life, everything and everyone in it. She plans to kill herself on her 13th birthday and take the whole building out with her.
These two extreme personalities eventually come together along with a number of others in the building. Through a series of events and encounters their individual views of the world and their places in it change. It surprises all the way to the last sentence. From my own personal point of view there was a bit too much philosophising from the various characters, especially in the middle where I was starting to get a bit fed up with the author's take on the world. The story of course does come back to reality and some action, plus in parts it is exquisitely written (and translated), so naturally I was compelled to continue reading. Glad I did.
FINDING TOM CONNOR by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Molly is trying on her wedding dress, when through the ground level changing room gap she sees a very sexy pair of red high heels standing very close to a pair of very familiar looking men's shoes. With her wedding dreams and her future life of wedded bliss and lots of children in tatters, wearing only her dress and a pair of Doc Martens, she flees from Auckland to Ireland with her very wealthy career woman aunt in the search for a long lost uncle/brother by the name of Tom Connor. Parallel to all this and in alternate chapters is the story of the inhabitants of a small Irish village that finds itself the center of religious fervor as the result of a sighting of the Virgin Mary, who then proceeds to show herself at 4pm every day. You wonder when or even if these two wildly disparate plots will ever join, and eventually in a roundabout protracted sort of journey they do. With some great stories and episodes in the meantime. Thoroughly enjoyable story with the hapless Molly coming to grips with her imploded life, and the aunt also discovering a side of herself she had lost touch with. Excellent book to take on holiday, a good story told with much warmth, affection for the subject and lots of humour.
THE THOUGHTFUL DRESSER by Linda Grant
Linda Grant is an English journalist and author whose book The Clothes on Their Backs was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. It was apparent from reading this book last year that she has a love of clothing and dress, not just for protection or warmth, and not just to show off brands, size of budget and so on. For her dress and clothing are an integral part of one's self-expression, who we are and where we have been. This latest book takes a very personal look at the business of dressing, why we dress the way we do, why females of all ages are seemingly biologically programmed to love clothes and males aren't. She writes about some very interesting people and stages in twentieth century fashion history. The one thing I have really taken away from this book is not to hide a love of clothing or colour, or to be afraid to wear what you really like rather than just what is in the shops or in the fashion pages. She also makes the comment that if you look at old photos of yourself, what you are wearing more than anything else will instantly bring back memories of the person that you were then, how you were feeling and so on. A most enjoyable read that also makes you think.
ALSO BEING READ THIS MONTH
Hot
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn - funny story about the world through a dog's eyes. Easy read
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill - story of young girl kidnapped by slave traders, her life as a slave and as a free woman, ultimately ending up back in Africa where she started from. Inspiring.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - first in the recently published trilogy by a Swedish writer, taking the world by storm. People are mad for this book.
The Adventure of English and Son of War by Melvyn Bragg - one of our readers loves Melvyn Bragg so is introducing him to the rest of us. First book is about the history of the English language, and the second one is part of a trilogy about a man, his experiences of the wars, and how they affect his subsequent life.
Between Assainations - by Aravind Adiga - follow up to his Man Booker winner The White Tiger. Not a novel as such, but reads more like short stories. Similar tone and themes to his first book.
The Blue Notebook by J. Levine - more harrowing reading about modern day India, child prostitution in this case. Very moving but also very horrific.
Where Underpants Come From by Joe Bennett - entertaining and interesting read of Joe's journeys to discover where his Made In China underpants actually come from.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - if you spend 10,000 hours doing anything then you too can be as successful as the world's most successful people! A look at what builds success and why some people seem to have it more sorted than the rest of us.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin - poignant and beautifully written tale of a young Irish girl and her new life in New York during the 1950s. Mundane subject matter made exquisite.
A December Week by Sebastian Faulks - from the first person to read it, an excellent book by this popular author
Luke warm
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Nieffienger
The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte - apparently not nearly as beautiful as his other books.
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