Still wandering_ part two
SnakClub Read 2011
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2wandering_star
101. Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an early cry for civil rights by David Margolick
This book is about the history of the song Strange Fruit, and especially how people reacted to the song. The reactions seem to have been complex and often contradictory, not least from Holiday herself: according to different reports in the book, she insisted on singing it, she hated to sing it but it was always requested, or she sang it when she was angry with her audience. Hearing the song was a life-changing experience for some: for others, it was 'a marketing device' for Holiday, it was a song with too much of an agenda, it was a song that appealed only to bleeding-heart white liberals, or it was a song which they feared would stir up racial hatred and lead to more lynchings, not action to end them. One person said that Holiday's version 'lacked conviction because, as someone who'd spent most of her time in Northern cities, she couldn't possibly identify with the trauma of lynching.' There is even the allegation, but repeated by more than one source, that Holiday didn't understand what she was singing about. I don't believe this - I suspect that some of the more extreme negative comments are driven by envy of the song's success, or a sense that the speaker had just heard the song too many times.
There's clearly some very interesting material here. Unfortunately, there was little discernible structure to the book, which read like a cuttings job.
Sample: People still marvel at the performance and how understated and elegant it is. The Anglo-Irish jazz writer and composer Spike Hughes once lamented over how Bessie Smith had never sung "Strange Fruit", because "it is a song that neds to burn with the fierce fire of anger, as well as the flames of pathos." In fact, Holiday's subtlety makes it all the more powerful. "It is Billie's pure, un-self-pitying, distilled-emotion approach to the material that haunts our memories," Schuller writes.
This book is about the history of the song Strange Fruit, and especially how people reacted to the song. The reactions seem to have been complex and often contradictory, not least from Holiday herself: according to different reports in the book, she insisted on singing it, she hated to sing it but it was always requested, or she sang it when she was angry with her audience. Hearing the song was a life-changing experience for some: for others, it was 'a marketing device' for Holiday, it was a song with too much of an agenda, it was a song that appealed only to bleeding-heart white liberals, or it was a song which they feared would stir up racial hatred and lead to more lynchings, not action to end them. One person said that Holiday's version 'lacked conviction because, as someone who'd spent most of her time in Northern cities, she couldn't possibly identify with the trauma of lynching.' There is even the allegation, but repeated by more than one source, that Holiday didn't understand what she was singing about. I don't believe this - I suspect that some of the more extreme negative comments are driven by envy of the song's success, or a sense that the speaker had just heard the song too many times.
There's clearly some very interesting material here. Unfortunately, there was little discernible structure to the book, which read like a cuttings job.
Sample: People still marvel at the performance and how understated and elegant it is. The Anglo-Irish jazz writer and composer Spike Hughes once lamented over how Bessie Smith had never sung "Strange Fruit", because "it is a song that neds to burn with the fierce fire of anger, as well as the flames of pathos." In fact, Holiday's subtlety makes it all the more powerful. "It is Billie's pure, un-self-pitying, distilled-emotion approach to the material that haunts our memories," Schuller writes.
3wandering_star
102. Being Abbas El Abd by Ahmed Alaidy
This book, written in 2003, is billed as a view from the inside of Egypt's "autistic generation", cynical and rootless with no sense of how to achieve a better living environment. It plays with language - a translator's note explains how the work mixes up the registers from classical Arabic to American-inspired slang - and is deliberately shocking (the author credits Chuck Palahniuk as an inspiration), full of swearing and casual sex. It starts with a scene where the narrator turns up at a restaurant where his friend has set up dates with two women, and he tries to meet both of them and string both dates out at the same time. There are also some rather unpleasant flashbacks to the narrator's childhood, when his uncle, a psychiatrist, seems to have tried to cure him of every phobia there is through aversion therapy.
I have to confess that when I started to read this, I thought 'oh no, not another experimental novel which wants to shock us with its portrait of amoral youthful anomie'... but the book won me over with its undeniable energy.
Sample: A driver shouts from his window: 'Hey, you! First day behind the wheel?'
The driver delivers a melodious snort of disgust and says: 'Me?? I've driven further in reverse, sonny, than you've driven forwards. Go to hell and God speed!"
More teet ta-teet taata back and forth and everyone goes his own way.
This book, written in 2003, is billed as a view from the inside of Egypt's "autistic generation", cynical and rootless with no sense of how to achieve a better living environment. It plays with language - a translator's note explains how the work mixes up the registers from classical Arabic to American-inspired slang - and is deliberately shocking (the author credits Chuck Palahniuk as an inspiration), full of swearing and casual sex. It starts with a scene where the narrator turns up at a restaurant where his friend has set up dates with two women, and he tries to meet both of them and string both dates out at the same time. There are also some rather unpleasant flashbacks to the narrator's childhood, when his uncle, a psychiatrist, seems to have tried to cure him of every phobia there is through aversion therapy.
I have to confess that when I started to read this, I thought 'oh no, not another experimental novel which wants to shock us with its portrait of amoral youthful anomie'... but the book won me over with its undeniable energy.
Sample: A driver shouts from his window: 'Hey, you! First day behind the wheel?'
The driver delivers a melodious snort of disgust and says: 'Me?? I've driven further in reverse, sonny, than you've driven forwards. Go to hell and God speed!"
More teet ta-teet taata back and forth and everyone goes his own way.
4wandering_star
103. Creole by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
This unusual book is a classic picaresque adventure story, full of tall travellers' tales, but one with a serious subject at its heart. The hero is Fradique, a young Portuguese man who arrives in Angola in the late 1860s, to find a society where slavery, and slave trading, still flourishes, despite its abolition in other parts of the world. The people seem to understand that slavery is coming to an end - one trader claims to be sending slaves to Brazil because he believes that abolition will come more quickly there - but that does not mean they are willing to give it up. As Fradique becomes a campaigner against slavery, his life and welfare are threatened - across three continents.
Some readers might find it rather odd that this subject is handled in a not-at-all serious way. But I certainly enjoyed reading this.
Sample: Fradique used to say that cities, like women, could be told apart by their smell. The ports of French west Africa smelled strongly of onions fried in butter (so he said), a concoction which the young people would rub on their bodies like a perfume; Rio de Janeiro smells of ripe guavas, Lisbon of sardines, basil and Members of Parliament.
This unusual book is a classic picaresque adventure story, full of tall travellers' tales, but one with a serious subject at its heart. The hero is Fradique, a young Portuguese man who arrives in Angola in the late 1860s, to find a society where slavery, and slave trading, still flourishes, despite its abolition in other parts of the world. The people seem to understand that slavery is coming to an end - one trader claims to be sending slaves to Brazil because he believes that abolition will come more quickly there - but that does not mean they are willing to give it up. As Fradique becomes a campaigner against slavery, his life and welfare are threatened - across three continents.
Some readers might find it rather odd that this subject is handled in a not-at-all serious way. But I certainly enjoyed reading this.
Sample: Fradique used to say that cities, like women, could be told apart by their smell. The ports of French west Africa smelled strongly of onions fried in butter (so he said), a concoction which the young people would rub on their bodies like a perfume; Rio de Janeiro smells of ripe guavas, Lisbon of sardines, basil and Members of Parliament.
5kidzdoc
Very nice reviews. Did David Margolick discuss the story behind the song in detail? From what I understand, many people thought that Billie Holiday wrote the song; however, it was written by a Jewish poet, who I believe lived in New York, and it was published in one of the socialist magazines in the 1930s. It was made into a song, and later Holiday was encouraged to add it to her repertoire. I'm sorry that it wasn't better written, otherwise I would look for it.
You definitely liked Being Abbas Abd better than I did! I didn't write a review of it, but only gave it one star; I haven't run across many books of this type that I haven't strongly disliked.
I have Creole in my library, and I'll try to get to it next year.
You definitely liked Being Abbas Abd better than I did! I didn't write a review of it, but only gave it one star; I haven't run across many books of this type that I haven't strongly disliked.
I have Creole in my library, and I'll try to get to it next year.
6baswood
Enjoying your reviews as always. From your summary of Strange Fruit it seems that you have done a better job than David Margolick.
7wandering_star
Darryl - re Being Abbas El Abd - hah! Most books of this kind I can't even finish, so I thought I should give this one points for keeping me reading all the way through.
I'm happy to send you Strange Fruit if you would like - I won't be keeping it, and it's not very heavy. PM me your address if you're interested. It does go into the history of the song.
I'm happy to send you Strange Fruit if you would like - I won't be keeping it, and it's not very heavy. PM me your address if you're interested. It does go into the history of the song.
8kidzdoc
>7 wandering_star: Thanks for your kind offer; however, since you weren't fond of it, and because I have far too many books that I'm eager to read as it is, I think I'll pass on it.
9wandering_star
Good point!
104. Murder On The Leviathan by Boris Akunin
I really enjoyed the first book in this series when I read it last year - a very funny pastiche of penny-dreadful type detective fiction. This one is similarly pastiche-y but the source material here is more Murder On The Orient Express/Death On The Nile - a collection of mysterious personalities, each of them with something to hide, all enclosed together (here, on a cruise ship).
I didn't find this as good as The Winter Queen, but that may have been because my expectations were much higher than when I read that.
Sample: It was possible to tell a great deal about a man from his moustache. If it was like Gauche's, a walrus moustache drooping at the corners of his mouth, it meant the man was a down-to-earth fellow who knew his own worth, not some featherbrain who was easily taken in. If it was curled up at the ends, especially into points, he was a lady's man and bon vivant.
104. Murder On The Leviathan by Boris Akunin
I really enjoyed the first book in this series when I read it last year - a very funny pastiche of penny-dreadful type detective fiction. This one is similarly pastiche-y but the source material here is more Murder On The Orient Express/Death On The Nile - a collection of mysterious personalities, each of them with something to hide, all enclosed together (here, on a cruise ship).
I didn't find this as good as The Winter Queen, but that may have been because my expectations were much higher than when I read that.
Sample: It was possible to tell a great deal about a man from his moustache. If it was like Gauche's, a walrus moustache drooping at the corners of his mouth, it meant the man was a down-to-earth fellow who knew his own worth, not some featherbrain who was easily taken in. If it was curled up at the ends, especially into points, he was a lady's man and bon vivant.
10wandering_star
105. Red Dust Road and 106. The Adoption Papers, both by Jackie Kay
I had thought that Red Dust Road, Jackie Kay's memoir, was mainly about her experience of tracking down her birth father. It turned out to be generally about her relationship with her family - both adoptive and birth parents - and some of the stories about her adoption sent me back to The Adoption Papers, the first half of which is an extended narrative poem telling the same story through the voices of three women, the daughter and both mothers.
Red Dust Road feels like a very raw retelling, especially of the meetings with her birth father. These were the most recent parts of the story - Kay tracked him down 14 years after she first tracked down her birth mother - and it's as if she hasn't yet had the time or the distance to process what must have been some quite difficult experiences. In particular, Kay manages to create humour out of something which must have been devastating when it happened, her first meeting with her birth father, in her hotel in Abuja. After he has spent two hours praying, reciting Bible texts and telling her of all the benefits that would come to her if she embraced Jesus, she tells him that she is gay and he gets a prurient gleam in his eye and starts asking her for details about how two women can have sex.
The relationship with her birth mother is also difficult, but those parts of the story feel more contained, somehow. It is a great relief to read the sections about her adoptive parents, who sound fantastic - warm, open, direct, loving, wise.
My mum used to say to on my birthday every year I can remember, 'Somewhere out there is a woman who is thinking, "That child I had will be eight today, nine today..."' This was a sad but lovely idea and my mum and I both thought about my other mother with compassion. My mum was crediting this other mother with exactly her own sensibility, her sensitivity, her outlook. Not for a single second was my mum thinking that there might be another mother somewhere who never bothered to think about me on my birthday. My mum was not capable of conjuring up a mother for me who didn't feel regret, or longing, or loss.
Elements from the memoir make it clear that the poem The Adoption Papers is largely autobiographical - the long search for an adoptive baby which is resolved immediately with a throwaway comment that "we don't mind what colour the child is", the fact that the young Jackie has a poster of Angela Davis on her wall (not the norm in 1970s Scotland), the eventual phone call to the birth grandmother when Kay is pregnant.
The poem has the three women talking in different fonts, which I can't replicate here, so in this section the mother is in italics:
After mammy telt me she wisnae my real mammy
I was scared to death she was gonnie melt
or something or mibbe disappear in the dead
of night and somebody would say she wis a fairy
godmother. So the next morning I felt her skin
to check it was flesh, but mibbe it was just
a good imitation. How could I tell if my mammy
was a dummy with a voice spoken by someone else?
So I searches the whole house for clues
but I never found nothing. Anyhow a day after
I got my guinea pig and forgot all about it.
I always believed in the telling anyhow.
You can't keep something like that secret
I wanted her to think of her other mother
out there, thinking that child I had will be
seven today eight today all the way up to
god knows when. I told my daughter -
I bet your mother's never missed your birthday,
how could she?
and this section, later on, has the voice of the birth mother:
Now my secret is the hush of heavy curtains drawn.
I dread strange handwriting
sometimes jump when the phone rings,
she is all of nineteen and legally able.
At night I lie practising my lines
but 'sorry' never seems large enough
nor, 'I can't see you, yes, I'll send a photograph.'
I had thought that Red Dust Road, Jackie Kay's memoir, was mainly about her experience of tracking down her birth father. It turned out to be generally about her relationship with her family - both adoptive and birth parents - and some of the stories about her adoption sent me back to The Adoption Papers, the first half of which is an extended narrative poem telling the same story through the voices of three women, the daughter and both mothers.
Red Dust Road feels like a very raw retelling, especially of the meetings with her birth father. These were the most recent parts of the story - Kay tracked him down 14 years after she first tracked down her birth mother - and it's as if she hasn't yet had the time or the distance to process what must have been some quite difficult experiences. In particular, Kay manages to create humour out of something which must have been devastating when it happened, her first meeting with her birth father, in her hotel in Abuja. After he has spent two hours praying, reciting Bible texts and telling her of all the benefits that would come to her if she embraced Jesus, she tells him that she is gay and he gets a prurient gleam in his eye and starts asking her for details about how two women can have sex.
The relationship with her birth mother is also difficult, but those parts of the story feel more contained, somehow. It is a great relief to read the sections about her adoptive parents, who sound fantastic - warm, open, direct, loving, wise.
My mum used to say to on my birthday every year I can remember, 'Somewhere out there is a woman who is thinking, "That child I had will be eight today, nine today..."' This was a sad but lovely idea and my mum and I both thought about my other mother with compassion. My mum was crediting this other mother with exactly her own sensibility, her sensitivity, her outlook. Not for a single second was my mum thinking that there might be another mother somewhere who never bothered to think about me on my birthday. My mum was not capable of conjuring up a mother for me who didn't feel regret, or longing, or loss.
Elements from the memoir make it clear that the poem The Adoption Papers is largely autobiographical - the long search for an adoptive baby which is resolved immediately with a throwaway comment that "we don't mind what colour the child is", the fact that the young Jackie has a poster of Angela Davis on her wall (not the norm in 1970s Scotland), the eventual phone call to the birth grandmother when Kay is pregnant.
The poem has the three women talking in different fonts, which I can't replicate here, so in this section the mother is in italics:
After mammy telt me she wisnae my real mammy
I was scared to death she was gonnie melt
or something or mibbe disappear in the dead
of night and somebody would say she wis a fairy
godmother. So the next morning I felt her skin
to check it was flesh, but mibbe it was just
a good imitation. How could I tell if my mammy
was a dummy with a voice spoken by someone else?
So I searches the whole house for clues
but I never found nothing. Anyhow a day after
I got my guinea pig and forgot all about it.
I always believed in the telling anyhow.
You can't keep something like that secret
I wanted her to think of her other mother
out there, thinking that child I had will be
seven today eight today all the way up to
god knows when. I told my daughter -
I bet your mother's never missed your birthday,
how could she?
and this section, later on, has the voice of the birth mother:
Now my secret is the hush of heavy curtains drawn.
I dread strange handwriting
sometimes jump when the phone rings,
she is all of nineteen and legally able.
At night I lie practising my lines
but 'sorry' never seems large enough
nor, 'I can't see you, yes, I'll send a photograph.'
11wandering_star
October TIOLI tally:
Off TBR: 17 books read (I've had a month off my distance learning course, so more time to read)
Onto TBR: 15 (14 mooched in, one new audiobook)
Year so far: -50
Off TBR: 17 books read (I've had a month off my distance learning course, so more time to read)
Onto TBR: 15 (14 mooched in, one new audiobook)
Year so far: -50
13wandering_star
Sorry for the long delay in answering! I have quite a few books to catch up on, as well. The course is not very exciting, it's a Masters in Public Administration. But the module that I have started this month is very interesting - it's called 'War, Intervention and Development' and it dropped us straight in to some really knotty debates, using the case study of Sierra Leone where food (rice) was one of the items included in international sanctions - something welcomed by the opposition but deplored by many humanitarians. It's nice to be doing something like this rather than theories of management and policy-making, which is what the last few modules have covered - not that they weren't interesting, but politics (which was part of my previous degree) is something I find fascinating.
14wandering_star
107. The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan
Mousy Phoebe has always been overshadowed by her charismatic older sister, Faith, even though Faith died - falling to her death from a cliff in Italy - when Phoebe was ten. When she turns eighteen, she decides to go to Europe to find out what really became of her sister.
I enjoyed this book while I was reading it, although not as much as the other book by Egan which I have read, Look At Me. Phoebe is a bit mulish and a bit passive, and at times I did want to shake her out of her inertia - although what she discovers in Europe eventually did that for me. The part of the story which was most powerful for me was about families, and how family dynamics can play on each other, and the way that you can sometimes suddenly realise something about your family that you'd never noticed, because you have a chance to see it through the eyes of an outsider.
Sample: Wait, she thought, but wait - walking again, faster now - maybe she'd misunderstood, maybe the deal with her mother had been that they each would live a secret life and not tell the other, but Phoebe hadn't realized - she'd failed to live the secret life and now her life was only this, a hundred empty years stretched uselessly behind her.
Mousy Phoebe has always been overshadowed by her charismatic older sister, Faith, even though Faith died - falling to her death from a cliff in Italy - when Phoebe was ten. When she turns eighteen, she decides to go to Europe to find out what really became of her sister.
I enjoyed this book while I was reading it, although not as much as the other book by Egan which I have read, Look At Me. Phoebe is a bit mulish and a bit passive, and at times I did want to shake her out of her inertia - although what she discovers in Europe eventually did that for me. The part of the story which was most powerful for me was about families, and how family dynamics can play on each other, and the way that you can sometimes suddenly realise something about your family that you'd never noticed, because you have a chance to see it through the eyes of an outsider.
Sample: Wait, she thought, but wait - walking again, faster now - maybe she'd misunderstood, maybe the deal with her mother had been that they each would live a secret life and not tell the other, but Phoebe hadn't realized - she'd failed to live the secret life and now her life was only this, a hundred empty years stretched uselessly behind her.
15wandering_star
108. The Fortnight In September by RC Sherriff
This book, a Persephone publication, is the story of a very ordinary English family in the 1930s, and their very ordinary seaside holiday. It's not ordinary for them, of course - it's two weeks out of their mundane routine, and for the parents it's even more significant because it's probably the last summer where the almost grown-up children will be happy to holiday with their parents. But the story does take place on a very small canvas - the family walk by the sea, discuss whether they can afford to take a beach hut with a balcony, and follow their holiday routines.
I understand that the author's whole point is to say that even these sort of mundane stories are meaningful to the people who are living them, and they are just as worthy of recognition as those who lead more adventurous lives... but I think this book suffered being read at the same time as the dramatic highs and lows of The Invisible Circus. Despite this, there were some moving moments, and it's a very humane as well as gently satiric book.
Sample: But over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. There were no servants - no masters: no clerks - no managers - just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker. Round pegs resting sore places that had chafed against the sides of tight square holes - and pegs that had altered their shape, through softness or sheer will power, so that they felt no aching places on their sides.
This book, a Persephone publication, is the story of a very ordinary English family in the 1930s, and their very ordinary seaside holiday. It's not ordinary for them, of course - it's two weeks out of their mundane routine, and for the parents it's even more significant because it's probably the last summer where the almost grown-up children will be happy to holiday with their parents. But the story does take place on a very small canvas - the family walk by the sea, discuss whether they can afford to take a beach hut with a balcony, and follow their holiday routines.
I understand that the author's whole point is to say that even these sort of mundane stories are meaningful to the people who are living them, and they are just as worthy of recognition as those who lead more adventurous lives... but I think this book suffered being read at the same time as the dramatic highs and lows of The Invisible Circus. Despite this, there were some moving moments, and it's a very humane as well as gently satiric book.
Sample: But over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. There were no servants - no masters: no clerks - no managers - just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker. Round pegs resting sore places that had chafed against the sides of tight square holes - and pegs that had altered their shape, through softness or sheer will power, so that they felt no aching places on their sides.
16rebeccanyc
#14, I really should go back and read some earlier books by Jennifer Egan I enjoyed The Keep, although it was different from what I expected, and I really loved A Visit from the Goon Squad.
17wandering_star
I was actually reading The Invisible Circus as a way of clearing the decks so that I could buy A Visit From The Goon Squad - I have a rule that I shouldn't buy a book by a particular author if I own but haven't read other books by the same person. But then out of the blue a friend sent me a copy of A Visit From The Goon Squad as a surprise present! I'm really looking forward to reading it.
18wandering_star
109. Fordlandia: the rise and fall of Henry Ford's forgotten jungle city by Greg Grandin
This mind-boggling book is about Henry Ford's attempt to build a factory town in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Initially, the intention was to provide Ford factories with their own rubber, in the same way that they had access to their own timber, metals etc. But Ford was clearly a megalomaniac (and perhaps more importantly for this story, a monomaniac), and as the economic rationale for having a secure supply of Amazon rubber disappeared, the justification for the project also changed - it became a way for Ford to demonstrate the worth of his ideas about human society, and how the rational management of resources could make Nature work for Man.
You know how this story ends - Nature, and human society, bit back, and the project now seems like the very essence of grand hubristic folly. It is of its time, in many ways: I found myself musing on how today's billionaires don't seem to display anywhere near these levels of driven eccentricity, although the invention of computers and the internet has changed society as much as the popularisation of the motorcar. But in other ways, the haughty presumption that we know best, which led to Fordlandia eschewing mud huts with thatched roofs (so insanitary!) for concrete-floored and metal-roofed "galvanized iron bake ovens", is still very much with us.
Grandin tells the story well, regularly stepping back to tell us what is happening elsewhere in Ford's empire or life to set the context for the goings-on. I would have liked more information on how the bad decisions were being made - were Ford's managers afraid to send honest reports to Michigan or was their evidence ignored and recommendations countermanded by the man himself? But this is a small point - this was a fascinating book.
Sample: Balking at the attempt by Fordlandia's managers to 'apply Prohibition to Brazilian workers without accepting it themselves', a local magistrate ordered Oxholm to let liquor boats dock alongside Ford's property. When plantation managers turned to the itinerant Catholic priest to help preach against drinking, he refused. 'For heaven's sake', he said, 'I'm not a Baptist'.
This mind-boggling book is about Henry Ford's attempt to build a factory town in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Initially, the intention was to provide Ford factories with their own rubber, in the same way that they had access to their own timber, metals etc. But Ford was clearly a megalomaniac (and perhaps more importantly for this story, a monomaniac), and as the economic rationale for having a secure supply of Amazon rubber disappeared, the justification for the project also changed - it became a way for Ford to demonstrate the worth of his ideas about human society, and how the rational management of resources could make Nature work for Man.
You know how this story ends - Nature, and human society, bit back, and the project now seems like the very essence of grand hubristic folly. It is of its time, in many ways: I found myself musing on how today's billionaires don't seem to display anywhere near these levels of driven eccentricity, although the invention of computers and the internet has changed society as much as the popularisation of the motorcar. But in other ways, the haughty presumption that we know best, which led to Fordlandia eschewing mud huts with thatched roofs (so insanitary!) for concrete-floored and metal-roofed "galvanized iron bake ovens", is still very much with us.
Grandin tells the story well, regularly stepping back to tell us what is happening elsewhere in Ford's empire or life to set the context for the goings-on. I would have liked more information on how the bad decisions were being made - were Ford's managers afraid to send honest reports to Michigan or was their evidence ignored and recommendations countermanded by the man himself? But this is a small point - this was a fascinating book.
Sample: Balking at the attempt by Fordlandia's managers to 'apply Prohibition to Brazilian workers without accepting it themselves', a local magistrate ordered Oxholm to let liquor boats dock alongside Ford's property. When plantation managers turned to the itinerant Catholic priest to help preach against drinking, he refused. 'For heaven's sake', he said, 'I'm not a Baptist'.
19wandering_star
110. Amazing Disgrace by James Hamilton-Paterson
This is the sequel to Cooking With Fernet Branca, an extremely funny book about the grotesque Gerald Samper, a snobbish and grandiosely self-obsessed British expat in Italy. A lot of my LT friends had reported that this was a bit of a let-down, nowhere near as funny as the first, although those that went on to the third in the series, Rancid Pansies, reported a return to form.
I think this might have a lot to do with expectations. I would agree that Amazing Disgrace is not as funny as Fernet Branca, but (given my low expectations), I still found myself laughing out loud, and I also felt that in this book, Samper stops being just a monstrously comic creation and becomes a little bit more of a sympathetic character, as we see the cracks in the facade. It does end very weakly, though, as if Hamilton-Paterson gave up trying to tie together all the various threads of the plot.
Sample: Very occasionally the mood does come upon me and I have the urge to shine a bit. Frankly, certain people are better at playing host than others and I rather fancy I have underused talents in that direction. If I can temporarily overcome my utter disdain for most of the human race I can generally enter into the spirit of the thing and lay on a memorable occasion.
This is the sequel to Cooking With Fernet Branca, an extremely funny book about the grotesque Gerald Samper, a snobbish and grandiosely self-obsessed British expat in Italy. A lot of my LT friends had reported that this was a bit of a let-down, nowhere near as funny as the first, although those that went on to the third in the series, Rancid Pansies, reported a return to form.
I think this might have a lot to do with expectations. I would agree that Amazing Disgrace is not as funny as Fernet Branca, but (given my low expectations), I still found myself laughing out loud, and I also felt that in this book, Samper stops being just a monstrously comic creation and becomes a little bit more of a sympathetic character, as we see the cracks in the facade. It does end very weakly, though, as if Hamilton-Paterson gave up trying to tie together all the various threads of the plot.
Sample: Very occasionally the mood does come upon me and I have the urge to shine a bit. Frankly, certain people are better at playing host than others and I rather fancy I have underused talents in that direction. If I can temporarily overcome my utter disdain for most of the human race I can generally enter into the spirit of the thing and lay on a memorable occasion.
20wandering_star
111. Fair Play by Tove Jansson
This is a series of vignettes, sketching out incidents in the life of Jonna and Mari, both artists and now in their seventies. It's clear from the way they interact that they know each other very well, have been partners and friends for many decades. This was a slow burner for me. Not a lot really happens, and a lot of the stories involve bickering or small disagreements so for a long time I didn't think either of the women was especially likeable. But by the end it dawned on me that there is a deep reservoir of unspoken understanding between the two, and that these incidents were exactly the kind of small interactions that you remember when thinking about somebody that you know and love so well.
Sample: 'Take care of the boat', Jonna shouted, jumping ashore. She ran up to the cottage. Mari tied up Viktoria, two lines on the north side and two on the south. She walked up to the top of the island and saw that the curtain of rain was coming closer, albeit slowly. Jonna would have plenty of time to make her crucial first sketch.
This is a series of vignettes, sketching out incidents in the life of Jonna and Mari, both artists and now in their seventies. It's clear from the way they interact that they know each other very well, have been partners and friends for many decades. This was a slow burner for me. Not a lot really happens, and a lot of the stories involve bickering or small disagreements so for a long time I didn't think either of the women was especially likeable. But by the end it dawned on me that there is a deep reservoir of unspoken understanding between the two, and that these incidents were exactly the kind of small interactions that you remember when thinking about somebody that you know and love so well.
Sample: 'Take care of the boat', Jonna shouted, jumping ashore. She ran up to the cottage. Mari tied up Viktoria, two lines on the north side and two on the south. She walked up to the top of the island and saw that the curtain of rain was coming closer, albeit slowly. Jonna would have plenty of time to make her crucial first sketch.
21wandering_star
112. The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes
A small dilemma - the other reviews of this book all talk about the 'twist' and do not reveal what it is. But I don't think I can say what I thought of the book without being explicit about the 'twist'; furthermore, I already suspected what it was going to be, so for me it came as confirmation rather than a shock as it seems to have been for many of the other reviewers. So I guess I should put a spoiler alert before this review.
Driving through the desert to a family wedding in Arizona, Dr Hugh Densmore stops to pick up a young female hitchhiker. He suspects that she is a runaway, and does his best to make sure that she is safe while having as little to do with her as possible. But she has decided that he is a good mark, and he ends up reluctantly taking her all the way to Phoenix. Even there, he can't be rid of her - she turns up at his motel asking for help in a problem he doesn't want to get involved with. The next thing we know, she is dead, and he is being questioned for her murder.
You may think that as an innocent man, he should not be worried: but it's not as simple as that. The twist is that this is the early 1960s, at the very end of segregation in America, and Densmore is black, while the hitchhiker is a white girl.
I found this part of the story - the way the net of the law started to close inexorably around an innocent man - more chillingly realistic than any horror story I can think of.
The story then goes into the 'innocent man must track down real killer to save his own skin' trope, which is not badly done - it's realistic enough and I suppose the story would just be too depressing if he didn't try and fight back at all. But for me it didn't match up to the atmosphere of the first part of the case, or the portrayal of how it felt to be in this newly desegregated world, where the law said one thing but many people's expectations and attitudes were used to another.
Sample: They hadn't sneaked in. They didn't have to do it that way. They'd gone to the manager and been furnished a pass key. When the realization came, his rage turned to sickness of heart. Not for himself, but for those who would come after him asking for lodging at The Palms. They'd be measured against Hugh's status, against trouble with the police. He looked all right but... That's what happens when you let them...He could hear the reasonable, deprecating decisions. Or their anger. I don't care what the law says, from now on... And the tedious inching forward had become a long step back.
A small dilemma - the other reviews of this book all talk about the 'twist' and do not reveal what it is. But I don't think I can say what I thought of the book without being explicit about the 'twist'; furthermore, I already suspected what it was going to be, so for me it came as confirmation rather than a shock as it seems to have been for many of the other reviewers. So I guess I should put a spoiler alert before this review.
Driving through the desert to a family wedding in Arizona, Dr Hugh Densmore stops to pick up a young female hitchhiker. He suspects that she is a runaway, and does his best to make sure that she is safe while having as little to do with her as possible. But she has decided that he is a good mark, and he ends up reluctantly taking her all the way to Phoenix. Even there, he can't be rid of her - she turns up at his motel asking for help in a problem he doesn't want to get involved with. The next thing we know, she is dead, and he is being questioned for her murder.
You may think that as an innocent man, he should not be worried: but it's not as simple as that. The twist is that this is the early 1960s, at the very end of segregation in America, and Densmore is black, while the hitchhiker is a white girl.
I found this part of the story - the way the net of the law started to close inexorably around an innocent man - more chillingly realistic than any horror story I can think of.
The story then goes into the 'innocent man must track down real killer to save his own skin' trope, which is not badly done - it's realistic enough and I suppose the story would just be too depressing if he didn't try and fight back at all. But for me it didn't match up to the atmosphere of the first part of the case, or the portrayal of how it felt to be in this newly desegregated world, where the law said one thing but many people's expectations and attitudes were used to another.
Sample: They hadn't sneaked in. They didn't have to do it that way. They'd gone to the manager and been furnished a pass key. When the realization came, his rage turned to sickness of heart. Not for himself, but for those who would come after him asking for lodging at The Palms. They'd be measured against Hugh's status, against trouble with the police. He looked all right but... That's what happens when you let them...He could hear the reasonable, deprecating decisions. Or their anger. I don't care what the law says, from now on... And the tedious inching forward had become a long step back.
22baswood
Enjoying your reviews as always. I do like the snippets from the books that you post, it does give an idea of the style of writing.
23wandering_star
Thank you! I do like looking out for them - I always try to choose something which is representative of the writing in some way, either (or both) in style or theme.
113. The Best American Short Stories 2005, selected by Michael Chabon
In his introduction, Michael Chabon makes quite a point of saying that he wanted to choose stories which were entertaining - an idea he suggests is widely disparaged. There are certainly quite a number of stories or writers in this collection which could be described as 'genre' of one kind or another - but ironically I found it a much patchier anthology that other years' BASSes that I have read.
My two favourite stories were very different:
"The Smile On Happy Chang's Face" by Tom Perrotta, in which an embittered little league umpire tells the story of one match which turns out to be a metaphor for his own life, and perhaps life itself (and yes, it is an entertaining story).
So many things had happened since then. I was still living in the same house, but Jeanie and the kids were gone. And I had come to despise Carl, even though he'd done nothing to deserve it except live his own happy life right next to my sad one, where I had no choice but to witness it all the time and pretend not to mind.
"Hart And Boot" by Tim Pratt, in which a Wild West female outlaw imagines her perfect man into being.
There are other stories which are good - Alice Munro's "Silence" (of course) and a story about a journalist in Afghanistan and out of his depth, "Death Defier" by Tom Bissell. There are also several stories which don't really do anything - in the way that short stories can sometimes be unsatisfying. My least favourite was "The Secret Goldfish" by David Means, in which the state of a neglected goldfish bowl is a metaphor for a disintegrating marriage.
There was also a rather disappointing story, "Anda's Game" by Cory Doctorow, which had a brilliant set-up and then a pat and strangely moralising ending.
113. The Best American Short Stories 2005, selected by Michael Chabon
In his introduction, Michael Chabon makes quite a point of saying that he wanted to choose stories which were entertaining - an idea he suggests is widely disparaged. There are certainly quite a number of stories or writers in this collection which could be described as 'genre' of one kind or another - but ironically I found it a much patchier anthology that other years' BASSes that I have read.
My two favourite stories were very different:
"The Smile On Happy Chang's Face" by Tom Perrotta, in which an embittered little league umpire tells the story of one match which turns out to be a metaphor for his own life, and perhaps life itself (and yes, it is an entertaining story).
So many things had happened since then. I was still living in the same house, but Jeanie and the kids were gone. And I had come to despise Carl, even though he'd done nothing to deserve it except live his own happy life right next to my sad one, where I had no choice but to witness it all the time and pretend not to mind.
"Hart And Boot" by Tim Pratt, in which a Wild West female outlaw imagines her perfect man into being.
There are other stories which are good - Alice Munro's "Silence" (of course) and a story about a journalist in Afghanistan and out of his depth, "Death Defier" by Tom Bissell. There are also several stories which don't really do anything - in the way that short stories can sometimes be unsatisfying. My least favourite was "The Secret Goldfish" by David Means, in which the state of a neglected goldfish bowl is a metaphor for a disintegrating marriage.
There was also a rather disappointing story, "Anda's Game" by Cory Doctorow, which had a brilliant set-up and then a pat and strangely moralising ending.
24wandering_star
114. The Observations by Jane Harris (audiobook, read by the author)
At the start of this book, young Bessy Buckly, a sharp-tongued and street-smart Irish girl, is on her way to Edinburgh where she hopes to get a job in the castle. She passes a garden where a lady is trying rather hopelessly to catch a pig - it turns out that the maid has just walked out, trashing the kitchen (and letting out the pig) before she did so.
Bessy talks her way into the newly vacated position... and at this point, I thought I knew how the story was going to play out. Cunning maid, innocent mistress, and so forth.
But, although Bessy does turn out to have a shady past, nothing in this book plays out as the reader might expect. I think Jane Harris must have had great fun writing this, as the narrative leads the reader up all sorts of Gothic alleys, complete with brooding husband, hidden compartments, dark secrets and insanity.
She certainly seems to have had fun reading it, and I can't imagine anyone doing it better - certainly, Bessy's no-nonsense voice, full of earthy slang, was a delight to listen to and I am sure came over more vividly than it would have done on the page.
Perhaps the ending was slightly too neat given the twists and turns of the story before, but this was an absolute pleasure to listen to and I would recommend it to anyone.
I am only disappointed that Harris has not read the audiobooks of any of her other novels.
At the start of this book, young Bessy Buckly, a sharp-tongued and street-smart Irish girl, is on her way to Edinburgh where she hopes to get a job in the castle. She passes a garden where a lady is trying rather hopelessly to catch a pig - it turns out that the maid has just walked out, trashing the kitchen (and letting out the pig) before she did so.
Bessy talks her way into the newly vacated position... and at this point, I thought I knew how the story was going to play out. Cunning maid, innocent mistress, and so forth.
But, although Bessy does turn out to have a shady past, nothing in this book plays out as the reader might expect. I think Jane Harris must have had great fun writing this, as the narrative leads the reader up all sorts of Gothic alleys, complete with brooding husband, hidden compartments, dark secrets and insanity.
She certainly seems to have had fun reading it, and I can't imagine anyone doing it better - certainly, Bessy's no-nonsense voice, full of earthy slang, was a delight to listen to and I am sure came over more vividly than it would have done on the page.
Perhaps the ending was slightly too neat given the twists and turns of the story before, but this was an absolute pleasure to listen to and I would recommend it to anyone.
I am only disappointed that Harris has not read the audiobooks of any of her other novels.
25wandering_star
115. The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore
Andrei is a paediatric doctor, who enjoys his work and is loved by his young patients. One day, a colleague asks him to take a look at a boy who is suffering from pain in his knee. All well and normal - except that the boy's father is the Commissar for State Security, a man whose name is normally only mentioned in whispers, a man whose expression has "a deformity, but not of the flesh. A confidence that everyone who sees him will be cowed. No one should look like that." Andrei's colleagues warn him off the case, but he has never enjoyed spending time on political manoeuvring, however necessary that may be in Stalin's Russia. And once drawn in to it, it proves very difficult to extricate himself.
This is a very believable, chilling and moving portrayal of how an innocent person could be caught up in the purges. At the end of the book, Dunmore gives a list of references, including Journey Into The Whirlwind which I read last month. This is a good fictional counterpart to that - Dunmore has picked up the atmosphere, but kept the story her own.
This is technically a sequel to The Siege, Dunmore's book about the siege of Leningrad, but these events take place more than a decade later and I don't think you would miss out if you hadn't read the first book. I have, and loved it, but it was a very long time ago and I don't remember very much about the specific characters.
And the betrayal? It seems to me that it is about the betrayal of the citizens of Leningrad, who fought tenaciously to survive the siege and were then presented with another oppressive situation that was almost worse.
Sample: As he follows her for a second time, Andrei is sure she is taking him to Volkov, and he gets the measure of what Volkov has already done. He has turned the hospital into his own place, running by his own rules. A doctor can miss a ward round and cool his heels in an empty office for half an hour. People can be sent for without explanation and even without reason. There is a larger reason, which is that they must learn that they have now entered Volkov's world.
Andrei is a paediatric doctor, who enjoys his work and is loved by his young patients. One day, a colleague asks him to take a look at a boy who is suffering from pain in his knee. All well and normal - except that the boy's father is the Commissar for State Security, a man whose name is normally only mentioned in whispers, a man whose expression has "a deformity, but not of the flesh. A confidence that everyone who sees him will be cowed. No one should look like that." Andrei's colleagues warn him off the case, but he has never enjoyed spending time on political manoeuvring, however necessary that may be in Stalin's Russia. And once drawn in to it, it proves very difficult to extricate himself.
This is a very believable, chilling and moving portrayal of how an innocent person could be caught up in the purges. At the end of the book, Dunmore gives a list of references, including Journey Into The Whirlwind which I read last month. This is a good fictional counterpart to that - Dunmore has picked up the atmosphere, but kept the story her own.
This is technically a sequel to The Siege, Dunmore's book about the siege of Leningrad, but these events take place more than a decade later and I don't think you would miss out if you hadn't read the first book. I have, and loved it, but it was a very long time ago and I don't remember very much about the specific characters.
And the betrayal? It seems to me that it is about the betrayal of the citizens of Leningrad, who fought tenaciously to survive the siege and were then presented with another oppressive situation that was almost worse.
Sample: As he follows her for a second time, Andrei is sure she is taking him to Volkov, and he gets the measure of what Volkov has already done. He has turned the hospital into his own place, running by his own rules. A doctor can miss a ward round and cool his heels in an empty office for half an hour. People can be sent for without explanation and even without reason. There is a larger reason, which is that they must learn that they have now entered Volkov's world.
26wandering_star
November tally:
Off TBR: 9
Onto TBR: 15, of which 12 were from a nearby bookshop which was having a 'buy half a book, get two-and-a-half books free' clearout, one an unexpected gift from a friend, one bookmooched in and one bought.
Year so far: -44
Off TBR: 9
Onto TBR: 15, of which 12 were from a nearby bookshop which was having a 'buy half a book, get two-and-a-half books free' clearout, one an unexpected gift from a friend, one bookmooched in and one bought.
Year so far: -44
27rebeccanyc
25. This is technically a sequel to The Siege, Dunmore's book about the siege of Leningrad, but these events take place more than a decade later and I don't think you would miss out if you hadn't read the first book.
I agree that you could read The Betrayal independently, but if anyone has any interest in reading The Siege, it would be better to read it first. For me, also, The Siege was a stronger book.
I agree that you could read The Betrayal independently, but if anyone has any interest in reading The Siege, it would be better to read it first. For me, also, The Siege was a stronger book.
28wandering_star
Yes, I'd agree with that.
29wandering_star
Did anyone else find that December passed very quickly?
I didn't finish many books, but I cleared out several more thanks to a TIOLI challenge to read the oldest books from my TBR. I didn't finish any, but I started several, and read enough to know that I wouldn't want to press on through!
But completed books first:
116. Felicia's Journey by William Trevor - a rather doomy story of a hapless Irish girl who travels to England to look for a boy. She sees him as the love of her life (and he's the father of her unborn baby), but the reader knows that for him, she was just a fling. I found the book hard going - everyone in it is exhausted and a bit hopeless, and it's told in quite a deadpan way which distanced me from the characters.
Sample: She will have to walk back to that factory to make certain. She should have made further inquiries, not just asked the security guard. She shouldn't have got into the car again; she should have said she'd like to be on her own, so that she could think about what to do next. But the disappointments that have accumulated, and the addition of this latest one, form a necklace of despair that shackles her will.
117. The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow - a picaresque story of rationality and the struggle against superstition, told through the persona of a young woman who wants to revenge her beloved aunt, burnt as a witch because of her scientific experiments, and touching on historical characters and events from Newton to the Salem witch trials, and narrated by a book. It sounds like the sort of book I would like but I found it a bit wearying - it may be an occupational hazard that picaresque stories go on a bit, and the period language was a bit too pastichey (for example, characters exclaim 'Faugh!').
Sample: Ben set the acacia-wood framework in place, then went off to check his agouti traps, leaving Jennet to fashion the walls from bark and fronds. Although the task seemed at first the paragon of monotony, its wearisome rhythms gradually combined with the pounding sun and the booming surf to put her in a rarefied state of mind.
I didn't finish many books, but I cleared out several more thanks to a TIOLI challenge to read the oldest books from my TBR. I didn't finish any, but I started several, and read enough to know that I wouldn't want to press on through!
But completed books first:
116. Felicia's Journey by William Trevor - a rather doomy story of a hapless Irish girl who travels to England to look for a boy. She sees him as the love of her life (and he's the father of her unborn baby), but the reader knows that for him, she was just a fling. I found the book hard going - everyone in it is exhausted and a bit hopeless, and it's told in quite a deadpan way which distanced me from the characters.
Sample: She will have to walk back to that factory to make certain. She should have made further inquiries, not just asked the security guard. She shouldn't have got into the car again; she should have said she'd like to be on her own, so that she could think about what to do next. But the disappointments that have accumulated, and the addition of this latest one, form a necklace of despair that shackles her will.
117. The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow - a picaresque story of rationality and the struggle against superstition, told through the persona of a young woman who wants to revenge her beloved aunt, burnt as a witch because of her scientific experiments, and touching on historical characters and events from Newton to the Salem witch trials, and narrated by a book. It sounds like the sort of book I would like but I found it a bit wearying - it may be an occupational hazard that picaresque stories go on a bit, and the period language was a bit too pastichey (for example, characters exclaim 'Faugh!').
Sample: Ben set the acacia-wood framework in place, then went off to check his agouti traps, leaving Jennet to fashion the walls from bark and fronds. Although the task seemed at first the paragon of monotony, its wearisome rhythms gradually combined with the pounding sun and the booming surf to put her in a rarefied state of mind.
30wandering_star
118. The Best American Short Stories 1989 selected by Margaret Atwood
I really enjoyed this collection - most of the stories were very well written and there were only a few I didn't like. I noticed that many of the stories had in common that they were narrated by very distinctive voices.
Some of the best lines:
She looked over at her son. 'What I hate about being my age is how nice everyone tries to be. I was never nice, but now everybody is pelting me with sugar cubes. (from Fenstad's Mother by Charles Baxter)
Patrick had thick wavy hair the shade of an Irish setter's, and a big rolling mustache the same color... Hindsight shows me he ran with other women, but I managed not to know anything about that at the time. (from Customs Of The Country by Madison Smartt Bell)
We have taken hits of acid with our breakfast juice. Or, rather, Carlton has taken a hit, and I, in consideration of my youth, have been allowed half. This acid is called windowpane. It is for clarity of vision, as Vicks is for decongestion of the nose. Our parents are at work, earning the daily bread. We have come out into the cold so that the house, when we reenter it, will shock us with its warmth and righteousness. Carlton believes in shocks." (from White Angel, later part of A Home At The End Of The World, by Michael Cunningham)
Trish left at the end of two years, during which the children, according to individual predispositions, grew taller and developed the hands and feet and faces they would always keep. (from Edie: a life by Harriet Doerr)
I really enjoyed this collection - most of the stories were very well written and there were only a few I didn't like. I noticed that many of the stories had in common that they were narrated by very distinctive voices.
Some of the best lines:
She looked over at her son. 'What I hate about being my age is how nice everyone tries to be. I was never nice, but now everybody is pelting me with sugar cubes. (from Fenstad's Mother by Charles Baxter)
Patrick had thick wavy hair the shade of an Irish setter's, and a big rolling mustache the same color... Hindsight shows me he ran with other women, but I managed not to know anything about that at the time. (from Customs Of The Country by Madison Smartt Bell)
We have taken hits of acid with our breakfast juice. Or, rather, Carlton has taken a hit, and I, in consideration of my youth, have been allowed half. This acid is called windowpane. It is for clarity of vision, as Vicks is for decongestion of the nose. Our parents are at work, earning the daily bread. We have come out into the cold so that the house, when we reenter it, will shock us with its warmth and righteousness. Carlton believes in shocks." (from White Angel, later part of A Home At The End Of The World, by Michael Cunningham)
Trish left at the end of two years, during which the children, according to individual predispositions, grew taller and developed the hands and feet and faces they would always keep. (from Edie: a life by Harriet Doerr)
31wandering_star
119. Look At Me by Anita Brookner
This story is narrated by Fanny, a young woman working in a photo library, about her fears and desires for her future life. This are reflected through the people she sees around her - colleagues and library users, who are mostly pitiful creatures, with the exception of the charismatic Nick and his glamorous wife Alix. Drawn into their magical circle, Fanny hopes to emulate their limitless self-belief and ability to ignore everything that is sad, and ugly. "I needed to know that not everyone carries a wound ... I needed to be taught that life can put on a good turn of speed ... I needed to learn, from experts, that pure egotism that had always escaped me." But that will mean leaving her own personality behind and breaking away from the friends she has developed before - as well as making sure that everything she does fits with Alix's view of the world. The book is narrated by Fanny and is more about her changing emotions than about the events that trigger them, but it is sad and rather chillingly believable.
Sample: I am very orderly, and Spartan in my habits. I am famous for my control, which has seen me through many crises. By a supreme irony, my control is so great that these crises remain unknown to the rest of the world, and so I am thought to be unfeeling. And of course I never speak of them. That would be intolerable.
This story is narrated by Fanny, a young woman working in a photo library, about her fears and desires for her future life. This are reflected through the people she sees around her - colleagues and library users, who are mostly pitiful creatures, with the exception of the charismatic Nick and his glamorous wife Alix. Drawn into their magical circle, Fanny hopes to emulate their limitless self-belief and ability to ignore everything that is sad, and ugly. "I needed to know that not everyone carries a wound ... I needed to be taught that life can put on a good turn of speed ... I needed to learn, from experts, that pure egotism that had always escaped me." But that will mean leaving her own personality behind and breaking away from the friends she has developed before - as well as making sure that everything she does fits with Alix's view of the world. The book is narrated by Fanny and is more about her changing emotions than about the events that trigger them, but it is sad and rather chillingly believable.
Sample: I am very orderly, and Spartan in my habits. I am famous for my control, which has seen me through many crises. By a supreme irony, my control is so great that these crises remain unknown to the rest of the world, and so I am thought to be unfeeling. And of course I never speak of them. That would be intolerable.
32wandering_star
120. Harpole & Foxberrow, General Publishers by JL Carr
This book purports to be a history of the publishers of the title, and is written with long quotes from journals, letters and interviews with the surviving characters. It's published by JL Carr's own printing press, Quince Tree Press, and it feels as if there are lots of in-jokes in there about the publishing world. This sensation is heightened by the fact that the characters had appeared in previous of Carr's books - both Harpole (George) and Foxberrow (Emma) had lead roles in A Season In Sinji and a lot of the minor characters were also from other books. So it felt a little bit like being out with people who all already know each other - but the book was interesting and accessible enough that I came back from the outing feeling that I'd like to get to know them better, not 'what a rude bunch of people, I never want to see them again'!
Sample (from meeting minutes): Chairwoman said freedom of speech not handed down by anybody's forefathers. From Stone Age onwards freedom of speech suppressed by axe, rope, bullet and, in latter days, by High Court injunction. Asked for definition of 'blasphemy'. G.H. retired to consult Shorter Oxford.
This book purports to be a history of the publishers of the title, and is written with long quotes from journals, letters and interviews with the surviving characters. It's published by JL Carr's own printing press, Quince Tree Press, and it feels as if there are lots of in-jokes in there about the publishing world. This sensation is heightened by the fact that the characters had appeared in previous of Carr's books - both Harpole (George) and Foxberrow (Emma) had lead roles in A Season In Sinji and a lot of the minor characters were also from other books. So it felt a little bit like being out with people who all already know each other - but the book was interesting and accessible enough that I came back from the outing feeling that I'd like to get to know them better, not 'what a rude bunch of people, I never want to see them again'!
Sample (from meeting minutes): Chairwoman said freedom of speech not handed down by anybody's forefathers. From Stone Age onwards freedom of speech suppressed by axe, rope, bullet and, in latter days, by High Court injunction. Asked for definition of 'blasphemy'. G.H. retired to consult Shorter Oxford.
33wandering_star
121. The House Of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
This is a 'new' Sherlock Holmes story. I borrowed it from my sister who is a guilty non-reader and bemoans the fact that I read so much more quickly than her. I finished this in a couple of days, causing her to wail, but that's more because it was a real page-turner than anything to do with my reading speed - it kept me up late at night to see what happened next. I'd recommend it to Holmes fans - it's told pretty straight, without much messing with the formula. There's even a good reason why it's just appearing now - too scandalous for the time, Watson put it in a bank vault with instructions to open in 100 years.
122. God And I Broke Up by Katarina Mazetti
This short YA is told by Linnea after the death of her best friend Pia. I really liked the girls' relationship:
I wanted to cheer her up. "I read in a magazine that when you want a guy to notice you, you should moisten your lips, flare your nostrils and stare at his lower lip with your eyes half closed," I said. "I tried it out at the last school dance, but the guys wouldn't even come near me! What did I do wrong?" "You probably got it mixed up and moistened your nostrils and flared your lips,"said Pia.
But apart from that there wasn't much to the book - it's really a short novella, if you can have YA novellas...
This is a 'new' Sherlock Holmes story. I borrowed it from my sister who is a guilty non-reader and bemoans the fact that I read so much more quickly than her. I finished this in a couple of days, causing her to wail, but that's more because it was a real page-turner than anything to do with my reading speed - it kept me up late at night to see what happened next. I'd recommend it to Holmes fans - it's told pretty straight, without much messing with the formula. There's even a good reason why it's just appearing now - too scandalous for the time, Watson put it in a bank vault with instructions to open in 100 years.
122. God And I Broke Up by Katarina Mazetti
This short YA is told by Linnea after the death of her best friend Pia. I really liked the girls' relationship:
I wanted to cheer her up. "I read in a magazine that when you want a guy to notice you, you should moisten your lips, flare your nostrils and stare at his lower lip with your eyes half closed," I said. "I tried it out at the last school dance, but the guys wouldn't even come near me! What did I do wrong?" "You probably got it mixed up and moistened your nostrils and flared your lips,"said Pia.
But apart from that there wasn't much to the book - it's really a short novella, if you can have YA novellas...
34wandering_star
And the abandoned books for this month/year:
The Country Of The Pointed Firs - I can see why people enjoy this but it was just a bit too sweet and low-key for my mood.
The Cheese And The Worms - I seem to have had a phase of buying books about early modern European history - this was similar to The Great Cat Massacre which I read earlier in the year. Not uninteresting but I just don't have enough general knowledge about the era to put this in any sort of context.
The Game by AS Byatt - a novel about a very strained relationship between two sisters. It's heavily symbolic - the sisters fell out in their youth over a man who is now an expert in... snakes! And the characters are hugely unsympathetic.
Pangs Of Love by David Wong Louie - one of the stories in this collection was in the BASS anthology, and it was one of the few duds, so I ditched this book (I also disliked the novel of his I read earlier in the year).
The Trotter-Nama by I Allan Sealy - a big sprawling novel about several generations of an Anglo-Indian family. I really enjoyed it while I was reading it but I never felt like picking it up after a break - because the language and wordplay was very lush and wonderful, but it over-weighted the story.
Emperor Of China by Jonathan D Spence - subtitled 'self-portrait of K'ang-hsi', this is an attempt to tell us about the K'ang-hsi emperor (reigned 1661–1722) through his own words. Spence has edited together paragraphs and lines from his writing - official texts and private letters - to show us what his interests and concerns were. It's a fascinating idea and Spence puts the words together well - the text flows naturally even when the style or subject changes (eg K'ang-hsi gives advice about hunting, and then there is a paragraph about his memories of a particular hunt). It's vividly translated and not too formal - and amazing to be reading the Emperor's own words. In the end, however, the subject matter is a little dry.
Sample: "On hunting trips or campaigns, the selection of a base camp is also of the greatest importance... in summer and autumn be aware of the danger of flooding, and choose high dry ground... If there has been a prolonged drought, a sudden rainfall will lead to flooding of the mountain streams, and you must observe by what routes the water is likely to come, and avoid those places, for the flood might come at night".
The Country Of The Pointed Firs - I can see why people enjoy this but it was just a bit too sweet and low-key for my mood.
The Cheese And The Worms - I seem to have had a phase of buying books about early modern European history - this was similar to The Great Cat Massacre which I read earlier in the year. Not uninteresting but I just don't have enough general knowledge about the era to put this in any sort of context.
The Game by AS Byatt - a novel about a very strained relationship between two sisters. It's heavily symbolic - the sisters fell out in their youth over a man who is now an expert in... snakes! And the characters are hugely unsympathetic.
Pangs Of Love by David Wong Louie - one of the stories in this collection was in the BASS anthology, and it was one of the few duds, so I ditched this book (I also disliked the novel of his I read earlier in the year).
The Trotter-Nama by I Allan Sealy - a big sprawling novel about several generations of an Anglo-Indian family. I really enjoyed it while I was reading it but I never felt like picking it up after a break - because the language and wordplay was very lush and wonderful, but it over-weighted the story.
Emperor Of China by Jonathan D Spence - subtitled 'self-portrait of K'ang-hsi', this is an attempt to tell us about the K'ang-hsi emperor (reigned 1661–1722) through his own words. Spence has edited together paragraphs and lines from his writing - official texts and private letters - to show us what his interests and concerns were. It's a fascinating idea and Spence puts the words together well - the text flows naturally even when the style or subject changes (eg K'ang-hsi gives advice about hunting, and then there is a paragraph about his memories of a particular hunt). It's vividly translated and not too formal - and amazing to be reading the Emperor's own words. In the end, however, the subject matter is a little dry.
Sample: "On hunting trips or campaigns, the selection of a base camp is also of the greatest importance... in summer and autumn be aware of the danger of flooding, and choose high dry ground... If there has been a prolonged drought, a sudden rainfall will lead to flooding of the mountain streams, and you must observe by what routes the water is likely to come, and avoid those places, for the flood might come at night".
35wandering_star
And that's it for 2012. Just remains to do a quick TBR check -
Tally for December:
Onto TBR: 28 (about half of which I bought or mooched, the other half gifts and loans)
Off TBR: 14
Total for year: a rather depressing -30. At this rate it'll take 20 years to get to a manageable pile!
Not a great year for reading - 2010 had a lot more good reads - but my top three reads, in order, were: The Dream Life Of Sukhanov, The Stone Angel, and (cheating slightly) a paired read of Journey Into The Whirlwind and The Betrayal.
Please come and join me on my 2012 thread!
Tally for December:
Onto TBR: 28 (about half of which I bought or mooched, the other half gifts and loans)
Off TBR: 14
Total for year: a rather depressing -30. At this rate it'll take 20 years to get to a manageable pile!
Not a great year for reading - 2010 had a lot more good reads - but my top three reads, in order, were: The Dream Life Of Sukhanov, The Stone Angel, and (cheating slightly) a paired read of Journey Into The Whirlwind and The Betrayal.
Please come and join me on my 2012 thread!
