THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER by Shaun Bythell

Just thinking about this book brings a smile to my face. This is so much more than what a bookseller does in his day to day life. It is a wonderful account of the books themselves, the building the shop is in, the town and community of Wigtown - bookshop capital of Scotland. The vaguely eccentric staff Shaun has working for him, his interesting flat above the shop, Captain the cat, the ordinary and everyday people he visits to purchase books from, the even more interesting, annoying, charming and ordinary people who are his customers, their strange requests and behaviours. It is funny, wry, engaging, sentimental, so very human and a delight to read.

At the centre of the whole diary and core to the very existence of the shop is its ongoing perilous state with the likes of Amazon gobbling up bricks and mortar book stores around the world. Shaun is a bit like David up against Goliath. His wrath isn't just aimed at Amazon, but also the likes of Waterstones and other big book chains. Is it any wonder he gets a bit grumpy and ratty with the world around him. But I loved this about him, allowing his deeply human side to emerge. Is his favourite bit of the day getting out in his van, paying visits to those looking to get rid of book collections? The anticipation of what each collection will hold - adult children clearing out their recently deceased parent's house, the retired minister selling a theology collection, the downsizing couple where some gems on Antarctic/Arctic expeditions turn up, the endless fascination people have for books on trains and railroads, the elusive search for first editions in good condition.

A wonderfully satisfying escape into the world of books, the people who love them and read them. He has an entertaining facebook page too - TheBookshop. The place of Wigtown as world book capital must now surely be well and truly cemented. Long may it reign.

A WEEKEND IN NEW YORK by Benjamin Markovits

I can imagine Woody Allen getting his teeth into this and making a movie of it - so much angst, so much naval gazing, so much pontificating on the earliest relationships we ever know - those with our families, and how we endlessly agonise and analyse them. Woody would be in his element with the Essinger family.

Every year in August the family gathers together in New York to support son Paul in his latest quest to attain glory at the US Tennis Open. Paul has been on the professional tennis circuit since his early twenties, he made it as far as the quarter finals at a grand slam, but since then has floated around the bottom two thirds of the top 100. Stalled. Is this going to be swan song tournament? He lives with his ex-model girlfriend Dana and their two year child. His parents, successful academics Bill and Liesl are trying to decide whether to retire and if so to where; eldest son Nathan also an academic is being wooed for his writings by those with far right tendencies; middle daughter Susan, married with children who gave up a promising career to be a mum, going through her own quandry of whether to have another child or not; and finally youngest child Jean in her late twenties, a film producer in London having an affair with her married boss. So much that can so wrong in all of these lives. How will it pan out over the course of three days when they are all thrust back into the bosom of the family cauldron.

I found it boring. Nothing happens, there is endless indecisiveness, endless niggling amongst the siblings, endless avoidance of issues. Very few of the decisions you think might be made are actually made. I didn't really like any of the characters, even the two year old child was needy and whiney -  and probably the only one allowed to be. I thought this was going to be a novel about Paul's grand slam experience, but really the tennis was only a background against which to set the story. The city of New York was profoundly more interesting than the story and the characters as they all tried to deal with their various first world problems! Not one of my better reading choices. 

THE WOMEN IN THE CASTLE by Jessica Shattuck

Yet another WWII-and-after novel - why do I keep reading these I ask myself? The themes are always the same, revolving around the horrific treatment of the Jews, gypsies, handicapped, gays, resisters, and anyone else who happens to be in the way by a nation of people  that seems to have been effectively brainwashed by one crazy man. Do we read them because we wonder how such a situation could ever have arisen? Do we wonder how we would respond or behave if our own society was taken over by a bunch of crazies? What would we do if we were the ones persecuted and hunted? There is endless fascination, which of course is why we keep reading.

So here is another novel of ordinary people during and after the war. Three German women are united by the common goal of their husbands who are involved in the failed 1940 plot to  Hitler. All are executed leaving the women widows. One of the women, Marianne von Lingenfels is given the task by her leader husband to locate and protect the widows and families of the other resistors if anything should happen to the men. Marianne takes this role very seriously and after the war makes her way with her three children back to the family home - an old run down Bavarian castle. She does manage to locate Benita and her son Martin, as well as Ania and her two boys. Marianne's war time experience was comparatively good compared to that of Benita and Ania, one ending up as a sex slave to the Russians, her child in an orphanage, and the other married to a Nazi supporter, being rescued from a refugee camp. Together they find sanctuary in the castle, begin to carve out  a life of normality and routine. But the past has a habit of rearing up, throwing lives into chaos, despair and tragedy.

The plot is a good one, the characters are interesting, well thought out and my attention was held all the way. But what makes this book really stand out is the concept of collective guilt of the German nation in what happened. How did people not know what was really going on, how did they get sucked in so easily? How does a man involved in murders of women and children ever deal with this, how can he love another woman and her children? How do people deal with allied propaganda telling them they are guilty?  How does one justify a murder in self-defence? The author is clearly passionate about this subject and theme, and her writing is exceptional as she ferrets beneath the skin and surface of post-war German society. I especially loved her writing in these parts.

All in all, a good story, greatly enhanced by giving the reader plenty more to think about. 

THAT F WORD: GROWING UP FEMINIST IN NEW ZEALAND by Lizzie Marvelly

It seems like Lizzie Marvelly is someone everyone has an opinion on - a tall poppy who is poking sticks at a vast range of issues pertinent in our society not just to the sexual and emotional health of women young and old, but also to those in the LGBTQIA community, as well as to men young and old who she sees need to be reeducated on how to treat women and girls in our society.

I also suspect that there is a feeling there too, of how dare she - a talented privileged middle class girl, wildly successful as an international recording artist who has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, who suddenly turns her nose up at all those who put her there, supported her, bought her music, watched with tears in their eyes as she proudly sang the national anthem. A slip of a girl suddenly coming out with all this feminist zealot stuff, ranting, exclaiming, poking sticks, sweeping the curtains open, on all issues relating to being female in the 21st century. And that of course is her very point - her branding has needed rebranding to expose some much needed truths about the type of society we are currently living in, and is this what we really want for our children. Whether people like it or not, this young woman is challenging us to take a closer look at the community we live, work, socialise and grow our children in.

I knew I had to read this book with a very open mind. I am not the target demographic that she has written for, but I have grown up in and lived in NZ for most of my life, so understand the culture she is talking about and can identify, some of it from personal experience, with much of what she has to say. I also have two daughters in their early 20s, navigating the society that Lizzie is writing about, in fact her whole section on rape culture is something that a young woman we know is currently having to deal with. So extremely topical. How does she do?

Overall I think she has done very well. She is an excellent writer, does a superb job at getting her point and argument across with many illustrations and examples to support what she is saying. For someone so articulate though, with a great command of the language, I was annoyed at the overuse of the F-bomb especially in the first few chapters, and that word is not 'feminist' or 'female'! I see her point - she is very angry. By crikey she is angry, angry at the sexist treatment she has received from boys at school, young men, people of power in the recording industry. And above all the insidious damaging power and reach of the internet. It has to be said that her path to adulthood has not been the norm, and as interesting as it is, I do wonder how relevant or topical it will be to the majority of young women who may start to read this book. I doubt very much the average 29 year old has accumulated such a range of life experience and rage.  I gave the book to a 16 year old girl to read; she has read the first couple of chapters and is already bored with reading about Lizzie's life to date, none of it really relevant to her. I am telling her to keep going, it gets better!

However her story does the set the scene, it being her own personal experience of much of what she writes about in the rest of the book. Once I had got through the first third to half of the book, she really pulled the guns out focusing on how girls and young women in NZ are portrayed in the media, advertising, social media, broadcasting, the perils of having the courage to have an opinion,  the access of impressionable young teens to on-line porn and we aren't talking Playboy or dirty videos, the rape culture so deeply embedded in our society, that old goody abortion, the patriarchy. Not much of it is good I am afraid, it's a scary world out there for young women.

And this is why I think it is an important book for the young women in our families and friends to read. Young women need to know that what they are seeing, reading, listening to, having to deal with in their social/sexual/work lives, is not uncommon, that many others are having similar experiences and reactions to it. This book will normalise the experiences that many many women in New Zealand are/have experienced. There is power in the sharing of information, experiences. There is no big call for unity or protest marches or petitions to Parliament. But there is power in knowing that you aren't alone when unpleasant or bad stuff happens.

My one criticism - the title puts people off.  I work in a book shop - we haven't sold a single copy, even though the book is right at the counter. There is no way people are not seeing it - based on the comments people make about Lizzie, her newspaper column, her personna. I think it is actually that word 'feminist' putting people off, and I asked my 21 year old daughter about this too - she also said the 'feminist' title theme is off putting. Lizzie  touches briefly on what a feminist is in her writings - inconclusive really and not enough to warrant the title. If I was buying a book for my teenage daughter or my young self, I would be much more likely to pick up a book called  'Growing up Female in Aotearoa' or similar rather than 'feminist'.

But don't let this 'judging a book by its cover' put off the young women in your life or yourself for that matter, from reading this. In light of the #metoo movement, the ongoing drive for pay equality, the anxiety and self esteem issues many women have about their image, the savagery and trolling on social media/internet to anything related to female empowerment, I think this book is compulsory reading. Go Lizzie!

THE GREAT ALONE by Kristen Hannah

After reading her previous novel 'The Nightingale', I thought how could a writer possibly top that. Well, this writer has - this is simply outstanding. There are many novels out there telling the stories of the civilian population during and after the war, 'The Nightingale' being a great example. But how many stories do we read of such a wild and untameable area as Alaska? Here is a novel that not only tells a great story, but also increases one's knowledge of the largest and least populated state in the US. The landscape, the rivers, the forests, the frozen lakes, and the never ending taming of the elements are as much a part of the story as the characters in it. I have been to Alaska, in the spring - it was cold but outstandingly beautiful, vast, dramatic, simply stunning. I want to go back, but not in winter......  

Anybody who takes it upon themselves up to sticks and live in this environment has to be both mentally and physically tough, very well resourced, prepared to co-exist with neighbours and in communities of equally tough people and go in with eyes very wide open. Survival of the fittest is taken to a whole new level.

This novel is narrated entirely from the point of view of a teenage girl, Leni, who is 13 when the story begins. It is 1974, she lives in Seattle with her parents Cora and Ernt. Ernt is a returned Vietnam vet. He has returned home a changed man - traumatised, angry, unsettled, prone to violent outbursts, unable to hold down a job. Living with him is not easy. He is gifted a tract of land with a cottage by a fellow soldier who died in Vietnam. You guessed it - it is in Alaska. On a whim, determined that this is going to be his one big opportunity to greatly improve the lives and outcomes of his small family, he announces they are all going to live in Alaska. So off they go. Fortunately they arrive late summer, which does give them some time to organise food, wood, resources, patch up the house before winter settles in. This process allows the reader to meet all the locals who turn up to help the new migrants settle in. What an interesting and diverse bunch they are. And tough

We are constantly told and warned as readers, how wild and hard the winters are. Not just the cold, but that it is dark for nearly 24 hours, there is no TV, unless you have a snow machine you are stuck in your little house with only each other for company, going outside is always a risk due to the unpredictability of the weather. Everyone goes a little stir crazy especially those already unbalanced in some way as Ernt is.

Leni's story takes place over some 15 years during which her spirit is always being challenged in some way, but as in 'The Nightingale', resilience and internal human strength shine through. Life in Alaska is brutal, not just the environment but also within the family as each of Cora, Ernt and Leni are constantly tested. It is not always an easy read - it could be very confronting for some, but wow, is it worth it. I still want to go back to Alaska, nothing has changed.

A WELL BEHAVED WOMAN by Therese Anne Fowler

Such a dreary cover for a woman extraordinary in her time. In this densely packed, but never overwhelming book of biographical fiction, the author has been voracious in her research to tell the story of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. A Google search of Alva will label her as either an American socialite or an American suffragette, but she was much more than this - an architect, a campaigner for equal rights for women, and a social activist to both empower and educate women in hygiene, family health, reproduction and contraception. History of the time being generally written by men, it is hardly surprising that she received a lot of bad press, labelled a social climber, shrewish, aggressive, domineering - you get the picture. And she probably was all those things because she had to be to be heard, but she was also a most interesting woman who determined from a young age that she was going to be in charge of her own life.

Born into a highly respectable but impoverished family, by the time she was in her early 20s in late 1870s, she knew she had to marry well to have any hope of saving herself and her family from a life of poverty. She used her good name and breeding to land herself the prize of a young man from the very wealthy but socially inferior Vanderbilt family. The higher echelons of New York society never being an easy nut to crack, this marriage gave the Vanderbilt family its much needed entry into the right crowd, with Alva being the director of proceedings.  From that point on Alva was unstoppable. Known for having a manner well suited to her social standing that upset many people, she was also well known for her energy, her intelligence, strong opinions and willingness to challenge the tightly defined conventions of the day.  She had three children, successfully divorced her unfaithful husband in a time when divorce was a social suicide, remarried for love, and never stopped championing the rights of women and children. 

This is a great read, never boring, and gives a fascinating insight into a time and city when enormous wealth was being made by those willing to take risks in the very new country of America. And how appropriate to read about such a woman in this year of celebrating 125 years of  the first country in the world to give women the vote, and it wasn't the US, it was New Zealand - not a fake news in sight. 

DANCING BEARS by Witold Szablowski (Translated from Polish)

The full title for this most interesting and curious book is Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Held Captive to Old Ways of Life in Newly Free Societies. The author is Polish, so is himself from one of the very societies that in recent decades has gone from being Communist controlled to being 'newly free' - democratic, capitalist. The world he was born into has gone from one where fear, compliance, blind obedience in thought, word and action has morphed into one where freedom in thought, action and deed is the name of the game. But not everyone adapts quickly, easily or even willingly to the new way of doing things. This is a really interesting, informative and easy book to read.

The author has taken a very sensitive and empathetic journey through some of the recently communist countries to see just how people and communities have coped with these upheavals. I don't know how he chose the places he has  - it is a most diverse bunch. He begins his narrative in Bulgaria. Since joining the EU, Bulgarian gypsies are no longer allowed to keep bears and use them for their earning capacity as entertainers. For such families, training and keeping bears is all they have ever known for generations - the transition has not been easy, they mourn the old days. Despite the blatant cruelty to the bear!

The author goes to Cuba where the death of Castro has left considerable uncertainty over what comes next. The locals are fearful of losing the excellent health care and education systems that have been in place under Castro for 50+ years. In the Ukraine he is involved in smuggling a car across the border; he is in Kosovo as it declares independence from Serbia's' authoritarian rule; he is bemused by the love and adoration for Stalin in his native Georgia. In London's Victoria Station he finds an old Polish woman, homeless, who lives in the station on donations, receives a pension in Poland, but prefers life in London. Odd.

It is a clever title - not only is it the end of the dancing bears in Bulgaria, symbolising new beginnings, but it also refers to many of the people of these countries and communities who are struggling with the notion of independence, not being under the authoritarian rule of communist doctrine. For the bears, even though they are now 'free' from living in captivity, are totally incapable of living in the wild, so now live in sanctuaries. Their 'training' is so deeply ingrained in them, that even though they don't have to, they still get up on their hind legs and dance when they see human beings. Such is the lot of many of the people - they can't go back to what they know, and they are unable to navigate the new present.