The Bookling

I think it's an illness...

2011-02-13T14:11:00.007Z

My name is Peta and I am a bibliophilic.

Recently, in comments, Jodie from Book Gazing assured me that if my TBR pile was not falling over then it was not too big. Erm. I don't think I could actually carry all the books I own but have not read towards a pile without putting my back out! My addiction is such that, off the top of my head, and yes just for this month so far, I've bought at least 13 books. So that's an average of one a day... Gulp.

It's time to face an unpalatable home truth. I honestly can not keep buying/receiving books at the rate I have been over the last few months and a) hope to find space to home them or b) actually ever read them all! Oh - and c) remain solvent!

When we moved house in May last year my TBR shelf (so more like twoish shelves...) got muddled up with the rest of my books so it's been relatively easy to hide the growing scale of the "problem" from myself. And, more importantly, my husband! Last night I went through my books and pulled all the TBRs into one area. This area is five shelves of books. Yes. Five shelves, each 80cm long, packed with books. Right. So I have four metres of books that I own and have not read. And that excludes oversize books like reference (e.g. I just had to buy a copy of Brewster's Dictionary in January) and graphic novels!

Yep. It's time to go cold turkey. I officially declare that from henceforward No More Books* will enter this house until at least my birthday - which is in June. No more reading a book review and moments later buying the damn thing. No more falling for tempting 2 for £7 deals at the supermarket. No more "just quickly looking" in charity shops then walking out with a bag I can barely carry. No more "reference books" that I neeeeeeeeded for the garden/veg patch.

In a heroic demonstration of my commitment to change, I have even managed to resist the lure of purchasing books for next month's "Women Of" reading clubs and actually been organised enough to place reservations for both Prospero Lost & Darkship Thieves with my library**. What heroic fortitude I am displaying and I am sure that they could do with the additional income of £1.10!

On a more serious note, and I think it's worth the digression, I do realise just how lucky I am to live in Norfolk, where the council is not closing a single one of our 47 libraries which serve around 250,000 active members. Just to our south, Suffolk council hopes to shut at least 20 of its 44 branches. Whilst I am very aware that the cuts have to come from somewhere, I hope that the government do step in to stop at least some of the cuts as once closed I can't imagine they'd re-open in the future.

So to summarise. No more book buying and reduce the TBRs by at least a metre by the end of the year!

* OK so I can't bring myself to cancel my pre-order for The Wise Man's Fear in March, the sequel to the fabulously awesome The Name of the Wind, and the two books already in transit to me don't count either...

** Although if I really enjoy them I reserve the right to add them to my wish list! :)

Sci-Fi Experience 2011

2011-01-03T11:12:00.005Z

I can't really believe that, firstly, we're in the second decade of this century and, secondly, that it's already time for my (third) annual participation in Stainless Steel Dropping's Sci-Fi Experience which runs until the end of February. Where on earth does time go to?

The "rules" are very simple and, as Carl says, "This is simply an opportunity to get together as a community and share a love of science fiction." I have a large stack of Christmas loot to get through and, for me, this is the perfect time of year to curl up and explore other worlds and new ideas without feeling too guilty about neglecting the huge amount of gardening we have to do. I consciously "save up" books for all of Carl's various challenges and am particularly looking forward to tucking into:

Peter F Hamilton's HUGE Night's Dawn Trilogy which totals c. 3600 pages... Gulp.
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (and possibly Anathem too)
Alistair Reynold's Chasm City
Dust - Elizabeth Bear

If I have time, I'd also like to use this as an excuse to return to Neal Asher's Polity series as I read, and really enjoyed, Gridlinked in last year's experience but somehow have not got around to reading any more of them.

As ever half the fun is seeing what other people are enjoying and using it as the perfect excuse to buy (or borrow) more! I'm also taking part in two book clubs this year that focus on female Sci-Fi & Fantasy authors and it's going to be really hard to resist reading some of the applicable books lined up for later in the year that are ready and waiting in my "library". The Elizabeth Bear book above is one of these reads so at least I can knock one off the TBR pile I have waiting! What temptation...

Graphic Novels Challenge - 2010 Wrap

2010-12-29T11:50:00.003Z

At the start of 2010 I signed up for The Graphic Novels Challenge, which I will be participating in again in 2011. I am really pleased that I read 19 books that (more or less) fit into my own loose definition of a graphic novel. I tried to make my choices varied but I am sure that I am only scraping the surface of the genre and I know from the bits of paper sticking out of my copy of 500 Essential Graphic Novels that there are plenty more out there to track down!

What really struck me when I was copying the list over was that, with the exception of The Guild, they were all written by men! What's that all about? I'll have to do some investigating and try to find some more female authors for 2011 as I think that the only one I have ever read is Marjane Satrapi's excellent Persepolis.

I'm kicking myself that I stopped reviewing in April but my 2010 graphic novel highlights, from a very strong selection, were Girl Genius (I sooooo wish I could afford to buy all the colour editions!), Absolute Sanman, The Guild and Blankets. None of which I would have read without the blogging community egging me on so thank you and I look forward to seeing what next year brings!

2010 Graphic Novels:
Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman & P. Russell Craig
The Magic Flute - P. Russell Craig
Absolute Sandman - Vol 1 - Neil Gaiman
Pyongyang: Journey in North Korea - Guy Delisle
Girl Genius: Omnibus 1 - Phil and Kaja Foglio
Death Note volumes 1 & 2 - Tsugumi Ohba
1: Out from Boneville & 2: The Great Cow Race - Jeff Smith
The Adventures of the Princess and Mr Whiffle - Patrick Rothfuss
When The Wind Blows - Raymond Briggs
The Unwritten: Vol 1 - Mike Carey & Peter Gross
Harlequin Valentine - Neil Gaiman & John Bolton
Comics: The Invisible Art - Scott McCloud
The Invention of Hugo Cabet - Brian Selznick
That's Not My Cow - Terry Pratchett
The Guild - Felicia Day & Jim Rugg
We3 - Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely
Blankets - Craig Thompson

2011: The "Women of Fantasy" & "Women of Science Fiction" Book Clubs!

2010-09-24T09:39:00.006+01:00

I've (already!) signed up for participation in two book clubs next year that I would like to mention here in case anyone else want to join in the fun too.

Firstly, Erika from Jawas Read, Too! is running the "Women of Fantasy" book club where each month we'll be reading a book published by a female author in the Fantasy genre. The perfect accompaniment to this is that TJ, from Dreams & Speculations, is hosting "The Women of Science Fiction" book club. I think that both the reading lists look fantastic and I am really struggling to resist the temptation to dive in to the selection right now.

These book club announcements have come at the perfect time for me. One of the (many) wonderful things about moving to this house is that I now have a room (rather grandly referred to as my "Library"!) in which all my books live. All of my books. In one room. In genre-themed sections. Bliss. As I unpacked box after box after box of books a couple of months ago, and settled them into their new homes, I realised that I have very little Sci-Fi and Fantasy by female authors and started to actively seek to redress that balance.

Although I have read four of the books Erika and TJ have selected that does leave 20 new books (and between them fourteen female authors whose work I have never read!) to get me going and that is a great start in the right direction - although I might need a bigger "library"...

"I Aten't Dead"

2010-09-11T09:07:00.003+01:00

Just a little note to say, in the words of the indomitable Granny Weatherwax, "I Aten't Dead".

In May this year we moved house to a very English thatched cottage in the country. Three and a bit months on and it still feels as if we are staying in a holiday rental and I can't quite believe that this is actually our home now! It took soooo long to get our internet connection sorted (vile, vile BT) that I just got out of the habit of blogging.

Once I'd caught up on my reader feeds, we'd unpacked, painted, started a veggie patch (look! I grew peas!) and settled in, it just didn't seem as though I had time to to write about the books I read as well as read them! Or maybe it's just not a priority.

So anyway. I'm still here. I'm still reading, I'm still following blogs, and at some point I might start writing on this one again. Or start a blog called "101 ways to eat a home grown courgette..." Seriously.

The Livingstone Tanzania Trust

2010-04-23T11:48:00.015+01:00

Without the discipline of participating in The Year of Readers I've rather neglected posting about what I am doing with the donations I make to charity for books I read.

Along with the usual payroll credit into my Charities Trust account I have been diligently adding in an additional £1 per book I read (after costs) and today I made my first (of many, I suspect) bookish-related donation to the Livingstone Tanzania Trust. They are a self-help development charity, focused on Tanzania, working to alleviate poverty through education.

I was born in Tanzania and my Grandmother was a teacher in Arusha for many years so I must admit that a large part of the reason that I chose this specific charity was that their efforts are, at the moment, centred on Babati which is in the northern Manyara region which is "near" where my family lived. I've been looking for a Tanzanian educational charity for a while and so am pleased to have found this one.

A browse through the projects on their website includes building classrooms, teachers’ houses and kitchen/toilet facilities; raising health awareness; farming development and training as well as community support including football pitch building. When my husband and I went to Kenya last year we had the pleasure of a walk through a nearby village to watch the (recently crowned regional champions!) girls team play football on the village pitch. It was such a delight to see their enthusiasm and to see just how much use that pitch got as a focus for the younger people in the community. We also talked about the distance travelled by students to attend school with our guide who was one of the lucky ones - he got a scholarship to enroll in an educational wildlife programme which in turn led to his job working for the company who owned the property we stayed at for a couple of nights.

Not sure how I got from reading to education in Tanzania to football pitches in Kenya but I am pleased to have found this charity to add to my list of ones I support and that I have (eventually) made my first reading donation.

Girl Genius - Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio

2010-04-18T07:51:00.021+01:00

This is both a Once Upon a Time IV & Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 read.

On Friday I read a glowing joint review from The Book Smugglers (who are currently celebrating a second Steampunk Week) about this omnibus edition of the first three volumes in the Girl Genius series. So, despite current attempt to resist adding to Book Mountain, on Saturday my copy arrived and I spent a rather lovely afternoon in the garden reading it whilst enjoying the sunshine. Which, it should be noted, had a rather detrimental impact on the book's spine. :(

Girl Genius is an online webcomic and can be read for free - starting here with new pages released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Described as a "gaslamp fantasy" featuring Adventure, Romance and Mad Science and, honestly, what more could you ask for?

The Girl Genius in question is the curvaceous Agatha Clay - a student at the Transylvania Polygnostic University who unable to build anything that actually works and seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. Chuck in a tyrant Baron Wulfenbach with an airship city, his son Gilgamesh (perhaps a hint of lurrveee for later episodes?) , a host of supporting characters (mostly made of awesome!) and an action-packed plot and you have a story that is both light hearted and funny. Oh - and I absolutely loved the artwork too.

After the first book, the series is released in colour however the omnibus was black and white. I don't think that was hugely detrimental to my enjoyment but having had a look at the panels online I would have definitely preferred to read in colour. I would absolutely love to be able to justify the purchase of the whole series in individual editions but am not sure even I can convince myself of the $23 a pop (plus post from the USA) investment when it's available free online. Unless it was an investment, of course....

Pink Lemonade

2010-04-17T14:19:00.003+01:00

A Bookling tried and tested recipe as enjoyed today.

Take half to one cup of sugar (depending on taste!) and one cup of hot water then, using a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar into the water. Add one cup of lemon juice and stir together. Add small handful of raspberries/blackberries and blend.

Dilute your pink lemonade mix with three to four cups of water (again depends on taste), add ice and enjoy sipping it in the sunshine whilst reading a book. Keep keen eye out for stealthily approaching small dogs though...

:)

Pyongyang: Journey in North Korea - Guy Delisle

2010-04-16T07:52:00.023+01:00

This was read for the Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 and was my non-fiction read participating in Heather at Tales of a Capricious Reader's April mini-challenge.
Last year I wrote about reading Guy Delisle's The Burma Chronicles and so when I saw the theme for this year's mini-challenge was non-fiction it seemed like a good time to read one of his earlier books.

Guy Delisle is a Canadian animator, illustrator and author who spent two months in early 2001 living in a drab hotel in Pyongyang whilst working on a project for Scientific Educational Korea. He can only leave the hotel when accompanied by his translator and official guide, who are unquestioningly loyal to the regime. As he is dragged around the compulsory, and propaganda filled, tourist sights his observations are both thoughtful and illuminating offering a rare insight into life as a foreigner in this very restrictive country.

Clearly Delisle found his experience living here incredibly frustrating as well as sometimes surreal. Pyongyang itself strikes me as a very weird and sterile city - kept immaculate by teams of creepy citizen "volunteers". In telling the story of his experience living there, his gentle humour, when paired with such deceptively simple and expressive artwork, works so well for me so although this was not a light-hearted book to read it was a thought-provoking and interesting one.

24 Hour Read-a-Thon

2010-04-11T08:39:00.004+01:00

Bother. Just checked my reader feeds and realised that the fabulous Dewey's 24 hour Read-a-Thon was this weekend. I could have sworn that it was next weekend but nope - based on the most recent post (and all the feeds I've seen from bloggers I follow!) it is now hour 20.

I participated this time last year and I had a great time although I remember that I did spend far too long reading about other people's experiences, and being distracted by twitter, than enjoying my own books! Re-reading those posts I am absolutely gutted that I didn't remember that it was this weekend. I have actually read half of The Little Stranger in the qualifying period but not sure it would be quite the same experience to join in now so I shall go and cheerlead some of the other participants who are better at planning than I am instead!

...and make a note of the October date on my calendar when it's announced!!

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

2010-04-03T19:15:00.026+01:00

This is a Once Upon a Time IV read.

I have one very strict rule when it comes to reading books that belong to a series. The series must have been already written. All of it. The only exception is if I am absolutely sure that the novel can be read as a stand-alone too. There is a reason...

Many years ago, in 1995, I had a summer job at the Bertram Books Warehouse. These are the guys who supply bookshops, and libraries, with stock. At this point it was still a family owned business and they had a massive warehouse near the centre of Norwich which was about a mile from where my parents lived. The point of this story is that they also had a staff bookshop where the damaged books were sold for 10% of cover value. As you may imagine this meant that they received a substantial proportion of my wages straight back!

To cut a long story short, with diligent application, I was able to build up a Wheel of Time collection for a fraction of its actual cost. All six books. The eagle-eyed reader will have spotted a flaw in this purchase but the younger Peta was very pleased with herself. I read all six books back to back. And then realised that although Lord of Chaos has an epilogue (you see, I'd flicked to the end of the last book to be sure that there was a "proper ending") this was not the Last Book in the series. The next year A Crown of Swords came out and, having waited for a while for it to be released in paperback, I started the whole series from the beginning and when I got to the end of the seventh book I realised that this was not the Last Book in the series... Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments ensued and it was at this is point that The Rule was implemented and it has not been broken since.

Now I have known for a while that Patrick Rothfuss is one pretty cool guy. I read his blog. I've bought (too many!) tickets for his fundraisers. I've seen evidence that he loves Ana from The Book Smuggelers. I've read other people's universally raving posts about his debut novel and watched the central character, Kvothe, progress to the semi-finals in the cage matches where he was beaten to the final by Jaime Lannister. Who stars in another rather famous series that I have not read. Because it is not finished.

So why give in now and come to the party so late? Well. I'd just finished Absolute Sandman One and wanted to read a really good fantasy novel. One that I knew would be excellent.

I also had a nasty feeling that I was missing out on something that I shouldn't be.

So having given in and broken The Rule was it worth it? Well. All I can say about this book is "Oh to the Em to the Gee". Please note that phrase was not used seriously! This guy can write and I absolutely LOVED this book. Kvothe has to be one of my favourite ever heroes, he has a great story to tell and I have (almost literally) not been without my nose in this book since picking up first thing yesterday. Hurrah for bank holiday weekends!

In fact I loved it so much that I have already placed a reservation for it with the library - even though there is no confirmed release date and amazon currently has it scheduled for August 2011. It seems that two other people from Norwich can't wait either though as I am already third in the queue!

Clearly I am gushing too much to be able to explain clearly why I loved it so I suggest reading what the following bloggers thought:
A Dribble of Ink (plus an interview in parts one and two)
Strange Horizons
Neth Space
The Book Smugglers
Fantasy Debut

Additionally, Orion Books have posted a really nice series of interview with Pat from Summer 2008 in three parts one, two and three. He really is such a cutie!

Absolute Sandman Vol 1

2010-03-31T07:26:00.013+01:00

This is both a Once Upon a Time IV & Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 read.

I think it might be time to tell all about a little book buying "accident" that happened earlier this month. I bought (on impulse) volumes one to four of Neil Gaiman's Absolute Sandmans... I've never even read them (which I feel perhaps I should have done to splash out just over £50 per book!) but in my defence I've known that I neeeeeeeeed to own them for at least two years and a couple of weeks ago I had what we shall call a "whoops".

Yes, dear Reader. I bought all four leather bound, hardbacked, slip-cased, digitally re-coloured and generally utterly gorgeous volumes. Whoops indeed! And even had the courage to 'fess up to Mr B before the arrival of the first package. Who kindly didn't point out that we will be moving house in the next few weeks and have to pay for boring things like stamp duty and solicitors fees and removal men and woodworm and damp and render and oh ye Gods what have I done...? Oh well - too late for regrets. :)

Volume One collects the first twenty issues of The Sandman series of comics, written by Neil Gaiman, with the story focusing on the character of Dream – one of the seven Endless - and so covers the trade paperback editions of Preludes & Nocturnes, The Doll’s House, and Dream Country. With guest characters from the DC universe, this books weaves mythology, folk-lore and history together to create something really rather special. What stood, not entirely unexpectedly, out for me about this series is the quality of writing. To be fair, I’ve not read a huge number of comics but some of these stories were so beautiful and I can’t imagine that many series have the guts to include whole episodes that are so self-contained (although do fit into the wider story)

Extras include an introduction, Gaiman’s original series pitch (with outline plot and concept art) and, my favourite inclusion of all, the complete script and Charles Vess’s draft sketches for the 'Midsummer's Night Dream'. As I was reading, I was thinking about the creation process between the story writer, the penciller, the colourist, the inker and the letterer so it was absolutely wonderful to get this insight and I spent ages pouring over this section.

When searching for images to use to illustrate this post I came across the following picture collected on on this blog showing just what a difference the re-colouring has made.
I know some have complained about the "cartoonish" quality of the above but me? Love it. Plus it justifies my purchase. *cough cough*

Genuinely, I am so very pleased that I splashed out as this book is really, really lovely and fantastic quality. It's massive with leather(ish) embossed cover with silver lettering and a black silk bookmark. I felt almost guilty just opening it (eek – cracking the spine! What if I rip a page?) and the dogs were most put out that I was reading a book that was so large there was no room for them and it on my lap. I have even kept the box it was packaged in so that it can be adequately protected during the house move (!) I think I might just be coming across as weird now but in my defence, a great deal of care and attention has obviously been lavished on its production. I can’t wait to read on to the next set of stories although naturally, other than this one, the only volume that’s actually arrived so far is the fourth one so some self-discipline is required of me… Never my strong point!

The Thief & The Queen of Attolia & The King of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner

2010-03-29T07:26:00.014+01:00

Gulp! Gulp! Gulp!The above is pretty much how I read Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief, , The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia* (up-to-page-260-of-which-more-in-the-footnotes) this weekend. I have now managed to finish the third book so whilst I wait for my library to get hold of a copy of the final book in the series, A Conspiracy of Kings, I figure now is about a good a time as any to post about the experience.

This was going to be my first Once Upon a Time read but I don’t fell that these books are fantasy enough to count as they are set in a sort-of Greek alternative past but there’s no magic or elves or dragons, etc. Plus I am pretty sure I don’t need to scrabble for enough qualifying reads before the deadline!

Eugenides (Gen) is the titular thief and, after some wine shop bragging where he boasts that he can steal anything, he purloins the King of Sounis’ seal. In an unexpected opener, The Thief starts with him suffering in a dungeon cell having been caught and imprisoned for that crime. In return for his freedom, the King’s Magus offers him a deal – he has to steal the fabled “Hamiathes's Gift” without which the Queen of Eddis, another country will not marry the King of Sounis. Only one problem. Nobody is quite sure that it actually exists.

Humorously narrated in the first person, this is the story of an expedition into the neighbouring Kingdom of Attolia to locate the jewel and the attempt to pull off the ultimate theft that will cement Gen’s reputation as the greatest thief and win him his freedom.

What makes this book (and indeed series) for me is the character of Gen. At the start, he is cocky, lying, feckless, lazy, irresponsible and untrustworthy with questionable personal hygiene. However, as the story unfolds, we gradually realise (along with the rest of the party) that we might just have seriously underestimated his intelligence and that there is much more to him than meets the eye. I have to admit that I am not entirely unbiased as whilst reading these books, part of me fell a little bit in love with him…

Taken by itself, The Thief is a quick, easy and enjoyable adventure story but when read back to back with the next two books it becomes part of a larger and rather delightful experience. As the stakes start to rise, we are introduced to other central characters and in particular the Queens of Eddis and Attolia are all you could wish for as strong, intelligent and capable females.

There is understated but wonderful romance (swoon! swoon!), adventure, daring thefts, unexpected plot twists, some tough decisions and plenty of political intrigue. Nothing is ever quite as it seems and (you may have already guessed) I really, really enjoyed myself on this journey. For pure fun and a spot of escapism these books are be hard to beat.

It is worth mentioning, however, that these books are aimed at young adult audience. Harper Collins have samples available online but to avoid spoilers I would suggest starting with the first few chapters of The Thief and not even reading the blurbs for the later books!

* So - what happened to my race through The King of Attolia? Picture the scene. I'm snuggled in bed and I'm reading page 260. All very exciting and Stuff is Kicking Off. I move my eyes to the top of the next page. What? That can't be right. I've already read this. Oh. Instead of pages 261-292, I have pages 117-148. Again. Bah. Amazon tell me they are very sorry and send out a replacement on the same day. But it meant I had to WAIT! Arghhhhhh...

Ark - Stephen Baxter

2010-03-26T15:46:00.005Z

After a productive day off, I have just finished reading Ark, which is the sequel to Flood which I read in Febuary, and all I can say is what a journey!

At this point, please imagine me with beard, pipe and possibly a parrot on my shoulder saying (in a very authentic nautical manner) whilst pointing "Argggghh. Thar be spoilers ahead" and consider that to be due warning if you have not read Flood. Not too many give-aways but enough to perhaps spoil some of the suspense of the previous book...

From the blurb: "As the waters rose, high in the Colorado mountains the US government was building an ark. Not an ark to ride the waves but an ark that would take a select few hundred people out into space to start a new future for mankind. Sent out into deep space on an epic journey centuries, generations of crew members carry the hope of a new beginning on a new, incredibly distant, planet. But as the decades pass knowledge and purpose is lost and division and madness grows. And back on earth life, and man, find a new way."

So. To quickly recap. In the previous book the water level steadily rises and, as the earth is gradually covered, humanity struggles to adapt and survive. At the start of Ark, the water level is rising and the earth is gradually covered...and do you know what? It really didn't feel like I was covering old ground. Which is pretty impressive as there was a lot of ground covered in Flood (Those last words were not supposed to be a joke but now I read it I think I'll pretend it was intentional) and the impact of the rising water level was covered extensively in that book on both an individual and epic level.

The first third of this book largely follow a similar formula in that we see events on Earth through the eyes of several individuals (only a few of whom also appear in Flood) as the flood waters rise. Hinted at in the first book, these are the people who are directly involved in one of the handful of desperate plans that are in motion to try to save the wealthiest, or most influential, people left on the planet.

What makes it different is that we’re following the Candidates for a place in the Ark which, as can probably be gathered from the blurb, is the attempt to build a spaceship that can take a (genetically diverse) chosen few to another habitable planet in an attempt to ensure the survival of humanity. I rather liked the different perspective as here we are viewing the Flood through the eyes of characters who are insulated from the fight for survival that much of the human race is facing which means that all we see here is their reaction to witnessing events that actually happen largely to other people.

What I found most interesting about this book was the, very pessimistic, exploration of how society might develop under extreme pressure. I do have to say that Baxter paints a rather bleak view of life in claustrophobic living conditions with a small circle of other people – most of whom have been or are competing against each other for survival. At heart, it seemed to me that this is a book about the inability of people to get along and “play nicely” no matter what the stakes. Repeatedly self-government turned into despotic dictatorship and people (mainly men) seem to do some very awful things to other people that

I do have a couple of plot gripes – for example with so much emphasis being placed on the importance of selecting a genetically diverse crew why train up a crew of equal male and females? Surely it would be easier to fill a freezer with sperm and give a female crew some turkey basters? In crew training, there also seemed to be a focus on specialisation over diversification which didn’t feel very risk-averse to me but probably only there to assure some of the more interesting characters places on the programme! I am so picky.

Despite those grumbles I liked this book more than Flood - the story did absolutely need this second book and it was a great end to the duology.

I've found it really hard to write anything about this reading experience that doesn't give away too much plot so for a proper review I am going to direct you towards Thea from The Book Smugglers. I think it's safe to say that she's a fan - this book was her top read of 2009. I also really enjoyed this dual review from Strange Horizons which is well worth a read.

Once Upon A Time IV - The Shortlist

2010-03-26T11:07:00.009Z

Hip Hooray! Spring has officially Sprung! At last...

As I look out of the window I can see blue skies and bright sunshine, snowdrops are giving way to hellebores and primroses, my daffodils are nearly in bud, the crocuses are fading and there are tiny shoots starting to form on the roses and clematis. It won't be long now before I can enjoy walking through the woods carpeted in bluebells. I think this might be my favourite time of year in the garden - so much promise of what's to come.

My desk at work has no line of sight to the outside so I've only enjoyed the much needed sunshine we've been having this week on the walk there and back but as I've taken today off as holiday, I intend to spend it enjoying guilt-free blogging, reading and taking the dogs out to enjoy the gorgeous weather with me. If he's very good I might take Mr B out too but he's working on an epic cine-film transfer in a dark room with the curtains drawn and the black-out blind down so perhaps I had better not tell him how lovely it is outside...

I meant to put this list up last weekend but somehow time got away from me - actually I was feeling a little "under the weather" after a great birthday party for a friend - so now seems as good a time as any. This list is in absolutely no order whatsoever, is only made up of unread books I have to hand and is subject to whim.

Absolute Sandman - Neil Gaiman
Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti
Biting the Sun - Tanith Lee
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
The Night of Kerberos - Mike Wild
The Rain Wild Chronicles - Robin Hobb
The Crown Conspiracy - Michael J. Sullivan
The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner

As ever, half the fun is seeing what other people choose and I absolutely can't wait to start this challenge properly.

Howard's End is on the Landing - Susan Hill

2010-03-25T17:58:00.023Z

Credit (or perhaps blame...) for the impulsive purchase of this book has to go to Simon from stuck-in-a-book who thought so highly of it when he blogged about it last year that he even gave it a coveted place in his "50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About" list!

I thought the book sounded very much "up my street" when I read Simon's post but what clinched it for me was that stunning cover by Peter Dyer. Isn't it just to die for? When I saw it I knew that I *had* to buy it at once - and in hardback as I could not bear to risk that it'd be issued in a differently designed cover when released in paperback... I know. It's a condition, OK?

Having bought it on impulse it then sat forgotten and unloved on the downstairs non-fiction shelves until I chanced upon it whilst dusting.

On her inspiration, Susan Hill writes, "Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on my shelves, I encountered dozens of others that I had never read, or forgotten I owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired me to embark on a year-long voyage through my books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know my own collection again."

On her meandering journey through her shelves, Hill writes chapters dedicated to genres such as classics, 20th century fiction, travel, diaries/memoirs, children's books and even manages to cover pop-up books too. She also writes (among other things) about whether editions of books matter, the importance of a good title, how books end up huddled together, fonts and the memories a book can evoke.

As you can probably gather, this is quite wide-ranging and personal account of her years spent with books - reading, writing, reviewing, publishing and also reminiscing about some of the authors she's met. As a journey through her home and shelves I could not have asked for anything more from this very personal book which is written in an informal, chatty style by someone who has lived in and around books for most of her life.

Hill does have a manner of asserting her opinion allowing no rational alternative which I found irritating at times - for example I don't agree with her views on book blogging, e-readers or the entire Sci-Fi genre - but largely what she says about the pleasure of owning, and reading, a huge range of books hit so many right notes that I can't quibble about the occasional (for me) wrong one.

I fear Hill would look down on the semblance of order that my books reside in - far too organised for her taste! Upstairs in the "study" is Sci Fi & Fantasy, on the landing is contemporary fiction and children's, in the bedroom is imminent TBR (although honesty forces me to admit that there is a TBR overflow on the landing too...) whilst downstairs in the dining room is classics, plays, poetry, reference, travel, history, science, auto-biography and biography. Only the classics are arranged in alphabetical order by author but I can't promise things will remain this organised once we move house.

The book leads up to a "Final Forty" selection that Hill decides are her essential can-no-do-without books. I won't reveal it here as that would spoil the journey but Ido find it endlessly fascinating how people's reading tastes can differ (Hill hearts Hardy & Dickens, I heart Austen but at we both agree on Trollope) and I can't imagine how long it would take me to whittle down my books to a final selection of ones I love. Just thinking about doing it makes me a bit anxious to be honest and I commend her for putting it out there as well as I gather she's received some criticism for not having a wider choice. I rather liked her list myself, although should say that it would largely differ from my own final selection, and reading her memoir has certainly encouraged me to seek out some of the books she loves. Although I am still not sure about Hardy...

The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Arnim

2010-03-23T18:49:00.006Z

I bought The Enchanted April several years ago in an Oxfam because I liked the title (so shallow!) and it's sat on my bookshelf ever since. Last week I read a fab review by Nymeth that started with the following quote:

"To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain. Z, Box 1000, The Times."

It's this advert that inspires Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Artbuthnot to throw caution to the wind and, along with Lady Caroline Dexter and Mrs Fisher, they spend April in Italy. I'm not going to do a proper review so direct interested parties towards Nymeth's recent, very thoughtful one, instead. Like her I enjoyed the developing characterisations, the gorgeous nature descriptions and the gentle plot. Go read!

I will mention that, having read this delightful book, there is nothing I would like to do more than spend April in Italy right now! Mind you - not sure my budget could extend far enough to hire the castle in Portofino (see above nestled on headland) which was where Elizabeth con Arnim spent her own April and was inspired to write this book. Slightly offputting it's also where Rod Stuart/Penny Lancaster and Wayne/Colleen got hitched. Still trying to get over that and recover the magic of the story!

Once Upon A Time IV

2010-03-19T07:22:00.000Z

Yay! It's time for Carl from Stainless Steel Dropping's Once Upon A Time again.

Now in its fourth year, this reading challenge is all about the story. In this case the kind that fits roughly under our own personal definition of four categories: fantasy, folklore, fairy tale and mythology. The challenge officially begins on Sunday, March 21st and ends June 20th.

There are several levels of participation and I have chosen "Quest the First" which is to read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time IV criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

"Quest the Second" is to read at least one book from each genre and I'll try to do that but suspect I might get a bit tangled up with my definitions!

Glancing over my shelves there are so many books I have to choose from that I'm itching to start right away but after seeing this post by Nymeth , I'll be reading The Enchanted April first which should take me nicely through to the official start date.

In closing, I should also mention that I absolutely love the image that's been chosen for this year - the artist is Melissa Nucera and she also has a horribly tempting etsy site.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley

2010-03-15T17:59:00.006Z

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is another “quick read” borrowed on impulse from my Library which I picked up when I went in to collect the first Mistborn book. I faintly remembered reading a positive review of this book somewhere and rather liked the first line of the blurb

(Cue the blurb): “For very-nearly-eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, the discovery of a dead snipe on the doorstep of Buckshaw, the crumbling de Luce country seat, was a marvellous mystery - especially since this particular snipe had a rather rare stamp neatly impaled on its beak. Even more astonishing was the effect of the dead bird on her stamp-collector father, who appeared to be genuinely frightened. Soon Flavia discovers something even more shocking in the cucumber patch and it's clear that the snipe was a bird of very ill omen indeed.

As the police descend on Buckshaw, Flavia decides it is up to her to piece together the clues and solve the puzzle. Who was the man she heard her father arguing with? What was the snipe doing in England at all? Who or what is the Ulster Avenger? And, most peculiar of all, who took a slice of Mrs Mullet's unspeakable custard pie that had been cooling by the window...? “

I would say that the blurb gives a pretty good feeling for what this book is like. Our heroine, Flavia de Luce, has a deep passion for Chemistry and her motherless, unusual upbringing in the home she shares with two older sisters, a mostly absent father, the housekeeper and the groundsman, allows her to indulge her interests. I am quite sure that in real life Flavia would be utterly foul however when confined to the written page she makes an absolutely delightful heroine and this murder mystery was great fun to read.

I should say that the one gripe that I had with this book was that it is very clear that Alan Bradley is Canadian and although he is a self-confessed anglophile he’s not lived in the UK – and this meant that there were several glaring errors that escaped the editing process. Hopefully the next in the series will receive more attention as it was such a shame to see such obvious (to me anyway) errors sitting so jarringly out of context with the otherwise lovingly described rural 1950s English setting.

When I searched my blog roll to work out where I'd heard of the book from I realised that Carl had listed it as one of his books of the 2000s and you can read his (rather more thorough) review here.

Flood - Stephen Baxter

2010-02-18T07:40:00.010Z

This is a Sci-Fi experience book.

Embracing the spirit of the experience, I chose Stephen Baxter because I’ve not read any of his work before. I saw F lood when I was browsing the SFF shelves for inspiration of my library and thought it rang a bell – turned out it was because it was included in Book Smuggler Thea’s top reads of 2009. You can read their review of Flood over at their blog. After finishing it, I realised that it's part one in a duology (d'oh!) and the second book, Ark, has been recently released and is now reserved for me at the library!

The Blurb: “Four hostages are rescued from a group of religious extremists in Barcelona. After five years of being held captive together, they make a vow to always watch out for one another. But they never expected this…

The world they have returned to has been transformed by water—and the water is rising. As it continues to flow from the earth’s mantle, entire countries disappear. High ground becomes a precious commodity. And finally, the dreadful truth is revealed: before fifty years have passed, there will be nowhere left to run.”

Living in Norfolk, under the new policy of non-maintenance of coastal defences, and with the Broads providing a watery gateway into the heart of the county makes me already rather conscious of the potential impact of a relatively small rise in sea level.

The story of the flooding starts out in the UK so as the sea rises places I know start to go underwater and that makes the scenario Baxter describes really rather real. The book is divided into sections tracking significant rises in sea levels with accompanying (unnerving) maps as the catastrophe progresses.

Although following the experiences of a handful of individuals linked to the original hostages, this book is very much about the impact on humanity as a whole. There are massive human migrations that follow flooding events and the governments soon are stretched to breaking points as money is spent on sea defences that are overwhelmed before the projects can even be completed. With land reducing, agriculture is hugely impacted and it's not long before salvage platforms are built over submerged cities to extract tinned goods and other materials to try to enable those still alive to survive. There's plenty of food for thought in this book about the tough choices that would need to be made as land mass, and infrastructure, vanishes and people need to take to the extreme highlands, or rafts, to survive.

The impact of the rise in water levels is so huge that I found it hard to get to grips with most of the characters let alone to understand them as fully realised individuals. For most of them, there was little to empathise with and several of them seemed to be in the book just so that they could witness another flooding milestone. Or to die! I started the book being absolutely thrilled by it but if I am honest by the last few chapters I just wanted to know who "made it" through. I would say though, in fairness, that the story itself is so massive that it would be hard to keep the excitement of the first two thirds goin. Also, it can't have been that bad because I will absolutely be reading Ark because I am genuinely interested in following this story's journey.

Remnant Population - Elizabeth Moon

2010-02-03T08:04:00.007Z

This is a Sci-Fi Experience 2010 read.

I realised when choosing my next book to read that my Sci-Fi experience so far has been dominated by books from male authors. Last year, in an effort to redress this balance, I read a book by Ursula le Gruin so this time I thought I’d better try out a different female Sci-Fi author Elizabeth Moon and the book of hers that I chose to read is one of her (rare) stand alone novels, Remnant Population, a 1997 Hugo Award finalist.

The book’s central character, Ofelia, lives with her son and daughter-in-law on a colony planet that she came to with her husband when it was first settled. Along with the rest of the community the family is due to be re-homed onto a new world when the franchise is lost. Deciding that she does not wish to be forcibly evicted and start again on a new planet, Ofelia hides in the woods and evades the evacuation.

For the first time in her life, she finds herself free to do exactly as she pleases without having to consider the restrictions on her behaviour imposed by society. As the only person left on the planet, she has the freedom of the still functional abandoned settlement and for the first part of the book we follow Ofelia’s first steps to independence.

Her carefree way of life changes when, by chance, she is listening to the radio as new settler ships arrive on the other side of the planet. She hears them being slaughtered by a previously unknown, and presumably sentient, native population and this changes her attitude towards her solitary lifestyle.

After a slow build up, the book now turns into a "first contact" story and Ofelia becomes the link between the indigenous peoples and the skeptical scientists who soon arrive to investigate the loss of the colony.

I enjoyed Moon’s writing style and enjoyed watching Ofelia grow as a character and seeing her grow in confidence and capability. Although not explicitly stated, she has clearly had a hard, restrictive life and, judging by the attitude towards her from the human scientists, age is no longer respected. Again, Moon doesn’t explicitly describe how human society has developed and it was interesting piecing together snippets of information that implied what the human political and social development.

Overall, as a sci-fi experience this was another opportunity to try out a new-to-me-author and again it was a success! On the basis of this I’ll happily seek out Moon’s work again - starting with Sheepfarmer's Daughter from the Legend of Paksenarrion series which is available for free download from Baen Books!

The Magic Flute - P. Craig Russell

2010-01-31T15:34:00.003Z

Phew- managed to squeeze this read in only just in time to hit the deadline for this Graphic Novels mini-challenge! The brief was to read at least one classic novels in graphic form within the month of January 2010.

I wanted to read an adaptation of a story that I didn't know and that discounted all the options in my library's very small selection except one! This made choosing rather simple although it was a complete coincidence that the book I selected for this challenge was also illustrated by P Craig Russell who provided the artwork for Murder Mysteries which I read earlier this month.

The internet tells me that he is actually best known for his “Library of Opera Adaptions” series from around twenty years ago which have now been re-released. The Magic Flute is the first in this series and is, unsurprisingly, a 138 page graphic novel adaptation of Mozart’s opera of the same name.

Although a fan of musicals, I’ve never actually seen an opera and I wonder if I should start with the recent Magic Flute film adaptation, directed by Kenneth Brannagh…

For those, like me, who are unfamiliar with the story, it’s a farcical fairytale (is that even a sub-genre?) following the noble Prince Tamino’s quest to rescue Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of Night, from the clutches of the evil Saratro. Accompanying him on his journey is the comic-relief providing bird-catcher Papageno who is on his own search for true love.

The plot/characters are not as complicated to follow as it might appear from the above synopsis and, from the point of view of someone who does not know the story from any other source, I thought it felt complete although I am sure that some elements were very simplified!

The panel layouts were absolutely excellent but the one issue I had with the book was that sometimes the illustrations themselves felt very dated. Pamina, in particular, looked as though she should be gracing the cover of a very old Mills & Boon which I found quite off-putting. If you want to get a flavour for the artwork, there's an extract here. Then you can make your own mind up!

January Reading Round Up

2010-01-31T10:13:00.008Z

Outside there are gorgeous blue skies, the current temperature is -3 and and my garden is covered in snow. Whilst I wait for Mr B's football game to be called off, I'm going to enjoy being warm and curl up in my reading chair with a graphic novel. And probably both dogs heaped on my lap as well! Snug.

I've eventually decided what to do after last year's Year of Readers. I am still going to "fine" myself £1 per book I read but rather than pay it all to one charity I am going to add it to my Charities Trust "freedom account" as an additional monthly top up. This money will be ring fenced for literacy-related donations and that (hopefully) means some decent money once my normal payroll deduction is taken into account as well.

This month reflects some post-Christmas impulse purchasing and I have read a few for the Sci Fi Experience so my list is a bit on the eclectic side!

Graceling - Kristin Cashore
Space Captain Smith - Toby Frost
The Stepsister Scheme - Jim C Hines
The Princess Bride - William Goldman
Fire - Kristin Cashore
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
The Real Story (Gap Sequence) - Stephen Donaldson
Forbidden Knowledge (Gap Sequence) - Stephen Donaldson
Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman & P. Russell Craig
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
A Dark and Hungry God Arises (Gap Sequence) - Stephen Donaldson
The Magic Flute - P. Russell Craig

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

2010-01-27T07:07:00.013Z

I was two (and a bit) books into Stephen Donaldson's Gap Into space opera series when I suddenly realised that I had Space Sickness and needed some antidote.

Deep in the throws of an attack of Bibliocolicism earlier this month, and for reasons I no longer remember, I purchased Sarah Water's novel Fingersmith (which was shortlisted for both the Man Booker and Orange prizes) and it has been the absolutely perfect read to break up a Sci-Fi overdose.

Told from the point of view of two orphans of a similar age, this is a great spin on one of my very favourite sub-genres – the Victorian crime novel.

Susan Trinder is the orphaned daughter of a hanged murderess who has been raised in London by her adoptive mother, Mrs Sucksby in a household with dubious moral values. The home’s lose family unit has an enterprising approach to making money including baby farming and the expert laundering of stolen goods.

At the age of seventeen, Sue is drawn into a plot to help Richard “Gentleman” Rivers woo an heiress. To help him to achieve this, she needs to play the part of a lady’s maid, befriend her new mistress and convince her to marry Gentleman. At which point, he will have the girl confined to a madhouse, claim her fortune for himself and pay Sue (and Mrs Sucksby) a healthy fee.

To this end, she travels from London to the very different environment of a lonely and crumbling country house, where she enters the service of Miss Maud Lilly – who was also orphaned as a baby. Maud’s mother died in a mental institution, where she was placed by her brother, and Maud was brought up by the nurses there for a number of years before her Uncle sent for her to take up secretarial duties and help him to compiling a dictionary of sorts.

As Sue gains Maud’s confidence, and grows fond of the lonely girl, she begins to doubt her ability to go through with the con and she wrestles with the conflicting need to bring home money to her adoptive family.

The book is split into three parts with Sue opening and closing the story and Maud’s point of view over the same initial time period taking the middle section. I found Sue to be a more sympathetic character but Maud’s narrative really helped to add another layer of perspective to events as they unfolded.

This is a book with a cracking plot and nobody’s motives are quite as straight forward as they seem. I really enjoyed reading it and feel an urge to delve into Victoriana for a while. Or buy Sarah Water's other books as, other than this one, I've only read Night Watch.

I've just discovered that Fingersmith was made into a BBC drama in 2005 so I am clearly well out of the loop on this one! I would rather like to watch it but might have to leave it for a while to give me a chance to forget some of the plot twists.

Murder Mysteries - Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

2010-01-19T07:24:00.006Z

This is my first Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 Read.

Murder Mysteries is the graphic novel adaptation of one of Neil Gaiman's short stories that appears in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. I've not read the source material so I can’t comment on how well it transferred to this format but taken by itself I thought it worked nicely.

Murder Mysteries has been on my wishlist for a while and yesterday I was looking at the Graphic Novel section of my library for Classic Graphic Novels mini-challenge (more on that in a few days) and I was very pleased to see it lurking on the shelf! "What's it about?" I hear you ask. Well...

The angels are hard at work constructing the world when one of their own is discovered dead, which prompts Lucifer to dispatch Ragual, Angel of Vengeance, to find the culprit. Hearing about the story of the first ever murder, from a stranger who borrows a cigarette from him, is a young man in contemporary Los Angeles for reasons that are initially unclear but become (slightly!) more so as the story progresses. Interestingly, Ragual’s investigation, and what he uncovers during it, provides the possible rationale for Lucifer’s eventual revolt against God.

In spite of the size of the book, this is a deceptively deep story - which I suppose I should expect from Mr Gaiman. In it's handful of pages it covers some meaty questions* and packages it up in a page turning whodunnit with a great ending. For a great review of this book pop over and visit The Book Smugglers - should have known it was their fault it ended up on my wishlist in the first place!

The adaptation to comic book was carried out by P. Craig Russell (who by coincidence also provided the artwork for the book I will be reading for the classic graphic novel challenge) and I really like his style. Very elegant, simple and with a lovely colour palette – I especially liked the very stylised images of the City where the angels live and work.

If I am honest, I’m not sure I’d have been as pleased with this book if I’d bought it unseen in hardback (which is quite hard to do as it seems to be out of print) as it is a very slim volume indeed. Given I borrowed it, I can’t but be delighted with the value for money and I very much enjoyed the unexpected story of an Angel of Vengeance. I really should get around to reading the Sandman books this year...

* Like the concept of free will v. pre-determination - now that brings back some ancient memories about my history of medieval political thought classes!

Happy Blogiversary to meeee!

2010-01-15T07:44:00.009Z

Wow. It's two years today since my first The Bookling post. In that time I have read around 275 books, thousands and thousands of reader feeds from fellow bookish bloggers, taken part in some fun challenges, "met" some incredible people and had a great time expanding my reading horizons.

I honestly believe that I would not have read even half of the authors I've discovered in the last couple of years without the recommendations, and support, from other online readers so thank you!

The Forever War - Joe Haldeman

2010-01-14T18:19:00.014Z

This is a Sci-Fi Experience read.

The Forever War was first published in 1974 and won the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel. It’s also the first of SF Masterworks series of books which, if I am honest, was why I picked it to read next!

Private William Mandella is a reluctant soldier conscripted into an interstellar war against the alien Taurans - about whom little is known. He is part of an elite group of troopers who have been chosen for their intellectual capabilities and subjected to a grueling training regime which few make it through alive.

The soldiers who survive training, and then battle against the Taurans, experience time dilation. This means that a couple of years in their lives equals significantly longer on Earth. On finishing their tour of duty, Mandella and his partner Margay return to Earth and struggle to fit into, or understand, a society that has evolved beyond their understanding. I won't go into the details for fear of spoiling the progressing of the story but both William and Margay end up re-enlisting rather than remain there.

As the war continues, centuries pass on Earth and Mandella becomes the "oldest" surviving soldier who is promoted and put in charge of a unit where he finds he no longer even understands the language. In order to communicate with him the soldiers need to learn his version of old English. To give a scale to the changes that take place during William Mandella's own lifetime, the books starts in 2007 and concludes in 3134. That's time for some pretty major changes and looking back to the early medieval period and imagining what anyone alive would feel if they came forward to 2010.

I don't want to go into the details of how humanity changes over that course of time as I had no idea what to expect from the plot and that allowed me to learn along with Mandella. I found the Future tech battle interesting ideas and Haldenman's ideas about developments in the acceptable social norm was intriguing although initially I was a bit shocked by Mandalla's reaction to some of them. Again I don't want to spoil the story but if you do read this book, there's a point to some of the earlier hard to accept view points.

Joe Haldeman was a soldier in the Vietnam War, where he was wounded and won a Purple Heart, and his experience there influenced much of his work. I understand that the alienation felt by Mandella, and the other long term soldiers, mirrored the disorientation that Haldeman himself felt on returning from that War and that certainly puts an interesting perspective on this intriguing novel.

Ridley Scott has bought the rights to the film version and it'll be made in 3D. Should be interesting!

Fire - Kristin Cashore

2010-01-10T07:17:00.006Z

Because of Kristin Cashore's debut novel, Graceling, I fell rather early on in the 2010 reduced book-buying steeplechase and on New Year's Day I placed an order for her second book, Fire which is a sort-of stand alone prequel. A combination of bank holiday and the snow that's currently covering much of the UK meant it took a week to arrive. What agonies!

When I finished The Princess Bride I meant to select another Sci Fi book for the Sci-Fi Experience I am participating in but somehow, at 10pm, I found myself holding Fire instead. I had only meant to read a couple of chapters (yeah right) but somehow read the whole book in one delicious gulp. Oh how my eyes stung!

Set over the mountains from the Seven Kingdoms, which was the setting for Graceling, is The Dells. With a very different manifestation of magic, this is a world filled with rainbow coloured "monsters" who are mutated versions of regular animals. Fire (named for her mane of red hair) is a rare mix of human and monster who is both stunningly beautiful and incredibly dangerous to those who are susceptible to her appeal. Her looks confuse the minds of those around her and she unwittingly inspires either mindless adoration or intense hatred.

Before his death her monster father, Cansrel, was adviser to the former king and she has inherited his ability to read people's minds and manipulate their actions. Cansrel was power hungry and encouraged moral depravity in the King and between them they drove the Kingdom to the brink of civil war. Now, the young King Nash has inherited his father's Kingdom and together with his brother, army commander Prince Brigan, they are struggling to hold their land together.

Conscious of the part her father played in causing the war, and under the guard of Brigan, Fire leaves the safety of her secluded home and ventures into the wider world. She is very aware of her almost unique power over others and is determined not to abuse it as her father did. This means that her desire to use her powers wisely is in conflict with the practical need to gather information that could help to win the war and she struggles to choose the right course of action.

Given I read both of these books within a week of each other, it's hard not to compare Fire with Graceling and I should say that I love them both but in slightly different ways!

Fire is both similar to, and very different from, Katya - the lead character in Graceling. Both are struggling to come to terms with their uniquely dangerous abilities and have to deal with the fear and distrust that they inspire in others. Both in their late teens and on a journey of self-discovery trying to define their identities and find their morality whilst dealing with almost constant personal danger. Both are beautiful, capable, independently minded and develop relationships in which they are very much equal partners.

More adult in tone, and with a more complex plot, than Graceling the story takes longer to establish itself but once it does it's so, so very enjoyable! At the risk of sounding like a gushing girly, Kristin Cashore is a definite new favourite author of mine and her next book, Bitterblue, is on my insta-buy list when it comes out!

The Princess Bride - William Goldman

2010-01-08T17:57:00.003Z

When he saw that I had picked up this book as my next read, Mr B commented that I should perhaps take a break from selecting so many “rotting my brain” books back to back. But with a streak of SF&F books as much fun as the ones I’ve had the pleasure of reading in the last couple of weeks there’s not much chance of that! Please note that I’m going to avoid getting into the whole debate with him about why just because a book has magic/dragons/elves or is set in a fantasy land/outer space that does not make it mind-rotting! I'll have to force him to read some...

The back cover of my copy of The Princess Bride (presented as William Goldman's abridgment of an existing book) describes this as “a fairy tale like no other” with “fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hunters, bad men, good men, beautifulest ladies, snakes, spiders, beasts, chases, escapes, lies, truths, passion and miracles.”

What’s not to love about that for a story taster?

The edition I read was the 25^th anniversary one (love Nathan Burton's cover!) which has an additional forward from William Goldman in which he talks about his struggles editing the first edition of S Morgenstern's classic, but occasionally impenetrable, Florintian tale. This is a story that his father read for him as a child and his version extracts only the "good parts" as selected my his father that move the plot along at a pace.

That meant that it took thirty-five bit-champing pages to get to the start of Chaper 1, The Bride, when the “proper” story eventually kicked off and we are finally introduced to Buttercup, who will grow up to become the most beautifulest lady indeed, and how she attracts the eye of the evil Prince Humperdink, and Wesley the farmhand who loves her very much indeed.

I am enormously fond of Rob Reiner's film version of this story and have watched it a number of times over the years. ('My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!') Allowing for differences between the screenplay and the book, this means that I pretty much knew what was going to happen to the characters from the outset but I don’t think that my reading experience significantly suffered as a result. The “story” of The Princess Bride is really only half of the book with the other half consisting of italicised asides from Goldman commenting on his experiences and decisions taken whilst editing Morgenstern’s original tale.

The edition I read also includes a new end section dealing with Goldman's attempts to secure the rights to abridge Morgenstern's follow up book (against stiff competition from Stephen King) called Buttercup's Baby. This includes a sample treatment of the first chapter of that book (with the usual asides from Goldman) which left too many threads dangling for my liking but does give more depth to Fezzik and Inigo's characters.

I must admit that I'd expected to read a book version of the film and I was very pleased to discover that wasn't entirely the case! At heart, this is an entertaining, swashbuckling romance and although I gather some readers find the asides extraordinarily irritating I was not one of them!

The Stepsister Scheme - Jim C Hines

2010-01-06T07:31:00.009Z

T he Stepsister Scheme is the first in Jim C Hines' Princess series of books and features the what-happened-next for Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

For Danielle (Cinderella) the story didn’t end when she marries Armand, her prince charming, and she discovers that life is not always happy ever after. Now a Princess herself, and living at the palace, she finds herself struggling with the lack of self-worth that is the inevitable result of years of systematic bullying at the hands of her (now deceased) stepmother and (still living) stepsisters. Suddenly, Charlotte appears at the palace, tries to kill Danielle with access to surprisingly strong magic that she shouldn't have had and hints that Armand, who she still feels should have married her instead, has been kidnapped. To top it all, Danielle discovers that she is pregnant...

(This is not your usual fairy tale).

Despite best efforts, Charlotte escapes and step forward Armand’s mother, Queen Beatrice, who has, it emerges, employed two Princess bodyguards aka Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. In this unusual spin on the usual fairy story, it’s the damsels who head off to rescue the Prince. Talia (Sleeping Beauty) was especially damaged by her “fairytale” experiences but all three Princesses have serious trust issues and the causes emerge throughout the course of the book as the three women risk their lives to get Cinderella's prince back.

The Stepsister Scheme has an action packed storyline featuring very capable (if emotionally damaged) heroines who are fearless, capable and brave. There is honestly never a dull moment in this ‘girl powered’ what-happened-after tale and I enjoyed it very much. Next in the series is The Mermaid's Madness in which the princesses face the (not so) Little Mermaid. Sounds interesting!

Graphic Novels Challenge

2010-01-04T07:04:00.004Z

I've just signed up for the Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 as this is a genre I'd like to explore further this year. In 2009 I dipped my toes in and read some amazing books like Maus, Persopolis and The Burma Chronicles (as well as a few lighter non-fiction ones!) and I would love to read more in 2010. Maybe I'll even get around to reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman!

There are three levels of participation - Beginner (3 Comics or Graphic Novels), Intermediate (3-10) or Expert (10+) and I am going to aim for Intermediate but secretly hope to hit Expert.

I do have a few books lurking on the shelves that qualify and Nymeth and Chris (who are hosting the challenge) posted a link to Flashlight Worthy's Best Graphic Novels of 2009 list which looks interesting. Another reference I will be using heavily is my copy of 500 Essential Graphic Novels which has been heavily marked with books I would like to read. In a bid to lower my 2010 book buying expenditure I will try to borrow as many as I can from my Library as it has quite a good comic/manga/graphic novel section. Famous last words!

Space Captain Smith - Toby Frost

2010-01-03T09:39:00.012Z

This is my first Sci-Fi experience read!

Gosh. How on earth do I start to describe Space Captain Smith in a way that it'll all even faintly make sense? Perhaps having a good look at the cover will help. See that Victorian looking chap with the immaculate moustache? Yes. That's Captain Isambard Smith posing for a photo with one vanquished alien...

The blurb: "Together with his bold crew- a skull-collecting alien lunatic, an android pilot who is actually a fugitive sex toy and a hamster called Gerald- he must collect new-age herbalist Rhianna Mitchell from the New Francisco orbiter and bring her back to the Empire in safety. Straightforward enough – except the Ghasts want her too and, in addition to a whole fleet of Ghast warships, Smith has to confront void sharks, a universe-weary android assassin and John Gilead, psychopathic naval officer from the fanatically religious Republic of Eden before facing his greatest enemy: a ruthless alien warlord with a very large behind…"

It's the 25nd Century and the British Space Empire is thriving. Space Captain Smith, as you have probably gathered, is a parody of the Space Opera genre. Frost has an affectionate sense of the absurd and this is a book that does not take itself at all seriously. Packed with action, and with an amusing cast of misfits, this book was effortless, chaotic fun.

With two published sequels, I'm sure this is a franchise that'll grow and I shall be keeping my eye out for the next installment! I know it's a bit late for the festive season but Toby Frost has written a couple of Christmassy short stories, When Slay Bells Ring and The Celery and the Ivy. Well worth reading if you fancy a series taster!

Graceling - Kristin Cashore

2010-01-02T09:31:00.017Z

It's New Year's Day. You did not get to bed until 4:30am. It's now 3pm and you've just taken the dogs for a snowy walk accompanied by friends. You feel it's time to snuggle up, and maybe have a little snooze, with the first book of 2010. There is an almost revoltingly (but not quite) large pile of reading options so you narrow it down to a few and pick one at random. When next seen it's 8pm and you've not had that nap. Bliss!

Credit goes to The Book Smugglers for alerting me to this book - those girls are going to ruin me! Young Adult fantasy, and New York Times bestseller, Graceling was Kristin Cashore's debut novel.

Occasionally people of the seven kingdoms are born with a Grace and are marked by odd coloured eyes. Some people develop the ability to excel at swimming, weather or cookery however Katya's Grace is that of Death. Since the age of eight, when she accidentally killed for the first time, her uncle, the King of Middluns, has trained her to hone her skills and he uses her as his personal enforcer. Known by her fearsome reputation throughout the kingdoms, and now in her late teens, Katya is beginning to question her obedience to her Uncle's demands and to develop her own moral framework.

Katya is an absolute delight of a female lead. She is strong, independent, courageous, loyal and unquestionably kicks ass. Since childhood she's been viewed by most people as a monster and the circle of people she can trust is tiny. She hates the work she has to do for her bullying uncle and each successful mission she undertakes on his behalf only cements her fearsome reputation and serves to set her further apart from normal people.

Early on she encounters (and bests) Po, who is Graced with a talent for fighting, and at last she has someone in her life who can challenge her both physically and mentally. Katya has little experience of friendship, or how to relate to people, and Po helps her to take steps towards evaluating her own self-worth and growing as a person.

All of which sounds a little worthy but honestly it's not! Katya is just all over fab, Po is lovely and their blossoming romance is a delight. *swoons*. The engaging plot is filled with twists and turns and it was absolutely the perfect read for a cozy New Year's Day. Although Young Adult, this book never felt that it was compromising on plot or peril so I would comfortably say that anyone who likes a dollop Fantasy would enjoy it.

I should confess that when I was about half way through the book I took just one little break so I could order Cashore's next book, the standalone prequel Fire, as I neeeeeeded it. I am a little disappointed that my stern resolve to cut back on book buying fell apart on the first day of the year but I honestly just could not resist as I've read it's even better. Can't wait! :)

2009 Review

2009-12-31T15:27:00.013Z

As it’s the last day of December, the time seems right for a look back at what I read in 2009.

I’ll start this post with a quick look at my December reading list. I started the month by racing through the rest of the Sookie Stackhouse box-set then read William Boyd’s The New Confessions (large) and then The Quincunx (even larger) and then I zoomed through 13 Treasures and 13 Curses in the last couple of days. At £1 per book, that makes a £10 donation to Book Aid this month.

Whilst on the subject of Book Aid, I just want to mention again how pleased I am that Jodie from book gazing set up The Year of Readers. The self-imposed “fine” of £1 a book this year has meant that I have given £125 to Book Aid International in 2009. Or, looking at it another way, this year I effectively bought 62.5 books to send overseas which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I will definitely continue to support them next year but have not quite decided if it’ll be in the same structured way. I’ll post more about that in the new year.

And on to the almost obligatory (in blogging terms) 2009 review! Of the 121 books I read this year, the genre breakdown* was:

General Fiction: 57
Fantasy/Science-Fiction: 55
Graphic Novels: 5 (of which 2 were fiction and 3 non-fiction)
Non-fiction: 4

Blimey – that’s a lot of SF&F! In a nicely even split, 61 of those books were written by female authors and 59 by males. I also read books by 48 authors who were new (to me) in 2009.

Out of those 121 books, 51 were bought as new by me this year with an additional 16 new books coming in as gifts or prizes. 18 were purchased second hand (from either green metropolis or local book stalls) and 28 were borrowed from the library and two more from a friend.

That means that just a handful of the books I read this year came from the 2008 brought forward TBR pile… Gulp! I am also pretty confident that the actual number of books I personally bought this year was far higher than the 69 I read which is shocking! Perhaps I need to impose a stuck-in-a-book style “Project 24” buying cap in 2010…

It’s time for my worst stat of all… I only read one book that I have previously read. Yes. One. This utterly flies in the face of my constant assurances that I need to keep so many books in our home because I will re-read them. It strikes me that perhaps I should not have been quite so honest in this post in case my husband reads about it so let’s leave it as our dirty little secret for now!

All in all, 2009 was a pretty good reading year for me - although I did read a lower number of books than I expected to. I’ve just checked my 2008 total and that was a final count of 133 books so perhaps it was just in line with the norm!

Next year I would like to read more non-fiction (perhaps one a month?), catch up on un-read classics, delve into some poetry and try to push the boundaries of my reading comfort zone a bit further. Taking into account my Christmas book loot, and the additional 15 books I “accidentally” bought on Boxing Day, I’m definitely set up for an enjoyable first few months.

* Slightly arbitrary but it works for me!

13 Treasures & 13 Curses - Michelle Harrison

2009-12-31T08:11:00.006Z

As part of their annual Smugglivus celebrations, Ana and Thea at The Book Smugglers ran a YA giveaway sponsored by Simon & Schuster which I was lucky enough to win. Michelle Harrison won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize last year for 13 Treasures which was her first book. I remember seeing it on display at the time and being tempted to buy it as it looked as if it had an interesting take on fairies and could be something my niece might enjoy too. My first prize book, The 13 Curses, arrived the week before Christmas and, as it was a sequel, I just had to buy The 13 Treasures to get into the story properly! Any excuse…

I am leaping ahead of myself and should probably say what the books are about! The heroine of The Thirteen Treasures, Tanya, is a young girl who can (unusually for a human) see fairies. It’s clear from the outset that they are not always pleasant to her and their antics land her in trouble with her mother. Eventually reaching the end of her tether, her mother sends her to stay with her grandmother, Florence, at her old manor house in the country.

There she re-connects with Fabian, the groundskeeper’s son, and in the library they uncover an old photograph of Florence with a girl who vanished in the nearby woods fifty years ago. Fabian’s Grandfather, Amos, was the last person to see her alive and has been viewed suspiciously by the townspeople ever since. Fabian wants to prove his innocence and after a chance encounter with a very similar girl in the woods, the two children investigate further.

Into this mix, we add in secret tunnels, a homeless girl called Red, several fairies (and other magical creatures) , a mysterious local witch and the fact that more local children have been mysteriously disappearing…

What I love about books written for children/young adults is that they are all about the plot! The 13 Treasures is a great little story – lots of action and a vivid portrayal of the fairies living among us (I loved the grumpy brownie in the teabag jar!) and it serves as a great introduction to what I hope will be a series as well as telling an interesting story in its own right.

Although now centring on Red, events in The Thirteen Curses follow on from those in the first book and it’s definitely worth reading them in order. Broadly speaking the major characters are the same but this book feels like Harrison’s more comfortable writing and happy to tackle more perilous themes. It’s a longer book than the 13 Treasures and that allows for a more involved plot (including Red’s back story) where we learn more about the fairies and encounter their dangerous side. I enjoyed it even more than the first book and loved Red who is strong, courageous, loyal and independent. A great role model for young female readers.

I’d also like to mention the illustrated lettering at the start of each chapter which Michelle Harrison drew. They added a lovely dimension to the story and it’s nice to know that she wrote the words as well as drew these fabulous sketches. Both books race along and, as they are quite short, I was able to race through them in a couple of days and finish them off in time for a clean slate to start 2010. I hope that 13 Curses proves as successful for Harrison as 13 Treasures did and that this launches a loose franchise as I’d be very tempted to check out what happens next to the girls even though I am far too old to be part of these books target audience!

2009 in one liners meme

2009-12-30T11:03:00.001Z

Jodie at book gazing has posted about her 1 year blogiversary today (congratulations, Jodie!) and included a meme which I thought fitted in rather nicely as it is a look back at 2009 in one liners.

January: Seeing the year in from Tynemouth where I indulge in comfort reading and kick off the Sci-Fi Experience.

February: Really enjoying reading Sci-Fi but break it up with a Georgette Heyer blow out!

March: Have had enough of winter and being cold so convince Mr B we need to take a trip to somewhere warm.

April: We enjoy two fantastic weeks in Kenya and I succeed in reading all 2250+ pages of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle.

May: The Alphabet Weekends (inspired by a book read on holiday) schedule kicks off and Mr B and I cover off Art, Broads, Cycling and Dragon Hall!

June: Have post-birthday book splurge and realise I could have an out of control addiction.

July: Read far too much escapist historical romance but really enjoy myself in a slightly guilty way.

August: Wonder what on earth happened to our promised summer and sign up for three book challenges.

September: Reading rate drops to an all-time low and I only read five books this month.

October: I give up and accept that I am going to “fail” nearly all my 2009 book challenges.

November: We return from a trip to Toronto to visit some friends where we manage to cover a lot of Canadian ground but I only read one book!

December: I realise that I have raised £125 for Book Aid International by taking part in the Year of Readers!

The Quincunx: The Inheritance of John Huffam - Charles Palliser

2009-12-29T07:36:00.005Z

I received this book as a gift last Christmas and, at a whopping 1200 pages long, it nearly came with me to Kenya earlier this year before being put to one side when I realised that Neal Stephenson’s enormous Baroque Cycle was likely to comfortably occupy me for a fortnight. Which it most certainly did!

It then languished on the shelf until I read this post by Sam Ruddock from Vulpes Libris. After that, how could I resist selecting it as my reading material for the Christmas break? Motivated by the thought of carrying such an enormous book in my handbag on the walk to, and from, work for reading this week at lunchtime I stayed up last night until I finished it. Wow. That was a book worth reading although I really should mention that it’s not often that you get to the end of a book and feel as though what you really need to do next is to go back to the beginning and start it again!

Although The Quincunx was published in 1989 it is actually an incredibly authentic pastiche of the mid-nineteenth century novel. It is set in a very plausible mid-nineteenth century England with the action split between provincial village life and the grimy city of London. The book charts the fortunes, over the course of about fifteen years, of a single mother and her young son, John Huffam, as told through the eyes of the latter.

We follow John’s narration as the world collapses around him and his mother when, following an ill-advised investment on her part, they have to leave behind their relatively comfortable, and safe, life in the country to face increasingly grinding poverty in the slums of London. I think it’s worth an aside at this stage to mention that the depiction in this book of life for both rural and urban poor is absolutely excellent and so vividly portrayed. It’s clear from the early stages that this transition is not entirely his mother’s fault (although the young John may not agree with that) and that there is a mysterious plot against the pair of them centred on a codicil to a will written half a century before…

We unravel the mystery surrounding John’s birth, and who his family is, as he does and, like him, the reader struggles to sometimes understand the motives and connections between the individuals who are interested in him.

There is a really complex web of intrigue at play in this book and, to add to the challenge of following the twists and turns of the plot, we have a sometimes unreliable narrator. For a good part of the book this is because we are seeing events through the eyes of a young child. What I did enjoy was that evidence is presented to us (although sometimes we receive conflicting reports from protagonists) and the reader is allowed to draw their own conclusions about events which I found occasionally differed from those made by John. I also found that a couple of times he allowed a investigative thread to drift that I would have wanted to follow – which throws his position of trusted narrator into an interesting light.

The edition I read has an afterward by Palliser in which he explains more about the careful way in which the book has been structured and hints at more layers to explore than I found. For example the novel itself is divided into five parts, and each part is divided into five books and then five chapters… One device I did really like was that at the start of each part was a family tree that grew as John (and our) understanding of how his relatives fitted together and what their motives towards him might be.

I’m sure I’m not doing the book any justice at all but if you like the BIG Victorian novels (think Wilkie Collins) then you’ll probably really enjoy this one. As mentioned earlier, it is rare that you finish a book and feel the need to start again at the beginning so this is definitely a book I will re-read in a couple of years time. But next time I will be keeping a closer eye on the evidence as it unfolds…

Sci-Fi Experience 2010

2009-12-26T15:40:00.002Z

I really enjoyed taking part in the 2009 Sci-Fi experience at the start of this year and was delighted to see this post from Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings announcing the 2010 launch.

In his own, rather lovely, words: “More than any other genre of fiction, science fiction reading is to me an experience– not only does it transport me to another time and place in the future but it also transports me to my past and as such creates an aura of reading that is wonderful to experience but difficult to describe. I can only hope that you fellow readers are nodding your heads in agreement right now, recalling similar experiences that you have with various novels and/or genres of fiction.”

For those who have not heard of it, it’s taking place from January 1st, 2010 through February 28th, 2010. What I rather like about it is that there is no official sign up or requirement to read a certain number of books. Particularly useful for me as I have failed miserably at half the challenges I signed up for this year! Also included is film, TV and gaming so it should be fun to see what I can see or play in the genre too.

When I participated in the Sci Fi experience in January and February this year, I read some great books by new (to me) authors. I’ve definitely read more Sci-Fi this year than ever before and it really helped to expand my reading “comfort” zone. Looking ahead to the books I might read this time around *fanfares* I present to you…

My qualifying (book) shortlist:
The following books are already on the TBR pile and some of them have been there for a while so it’ll be good to finally check them out.

Ursula le Gruin - Left Hand of Darkness
Alistair Reynolds – Chasm City
Stephen Donaldson - The Gap series (five books)
John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar
Mark Helprin – Winter’s Tale
Larry Niven - Neutron Star
Philip K Dick - Beyond Lies the Hub
Charles Stross - Singularity Sky

Perhaps I should have looked at my bookshelves before ordering the following from amazon and Green Metropolis!

Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
Neal Stephenson - Anathem
Toby Frost - Space Captain Smith
Frederik Pohl - Gateway
Orson Scott Card – Wyrms

I clearly have more than enough books to read for the experience but never mind – at least it was a good excuse to pick up some books from my wish list that fit into the Sci-Fi theme! I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in with this not-really-a-challenge and also to seeing what everyone else is reading and (hopefully) discovering some new great authors.

The New Confessions - William Boyd

2009-12-14T07:50:00.004Z

Last year Mr B and I both really enjoyed William Boyd's excellent novel Restless so I thought it was worth digging out more of his work as otherwise I've only read his African novels.

The New Confessions is the story of John James Todd who, now aged seventy, is looking back on his life and reflecting on his achievements. After a lifetime of obsession with Rousseau’s Confessions, his own version of a confessional memoir recounts his life as lived through the course of two World Wars and includes his memories of friends, relationships family, romance and recounts his career as an early film director.

Before I start, it’s definitely worth mentioning the book’s fantastic opening: “'My first act entering this world was to kill my mother. I was heaved - a healthy eight pounds - lacquered and ruddy from her womb one cold March day in Edinburgh, 1899.”

After this inauspicious entry to the world, Todd begins by recounting his lonely, and largely loveless, childhood in Edinburgh he is dominated by his stern father, bullied by his older brother and is effectively brought up by their housekeeper, Oonagh. We follow the young Todd to an austere boarding school where he meets the wonderfully named Hamish Malahide – his only childhood friend.

Following adolescent heart-break, Todd enlists in the army and the story moves to the battlefronts of WW1. Following the war, he embarks upon a career as a film director and the action moves from London to pre-war Berlin and then on to Los Angeles.

Because the book is written in the style of an autobiography, events are depicted through the eyes of Todd and I felt that he was not always a reliable narrator. As a character, he is selfish, self centred, not very pleasant to those closest to him although endeavours to paint himself in the best possible light wherever possible. This makes for an interesting reading experience as the reader needs to form their own opinions about his honesty and try seeing events through the eyes of the other participants to try to dig out the truth of the situation.

For me, the early years of Todd’s life are what made this book. Perhaps this is because he was a more forgivable person in those years but also because Boyd really brought the WW1 and Berlin sections of the book to life for me as events were so vividly portrayed. The last third of the book didn’t really do it for me in the same way and, although it was interesting to read about Todd’s brush with McCarthyism the Los Angeles / present day section didn’t live up to the earlier part for me.

The True Blood Series - Charlaine Harris

2009-12-08T07:46:00.004Z

When I posted my November reading list at the start of this month, I mentioned that I’d bought the first eight of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books from the book people for a bargain £8. I also said that I’d read the first two but was not sure that the series was going to be my cup of tea.
Erm – well… Since that post on the 1^st December I have read all eight books back to back. Yes. All eight books. Back to back. In nine days. Gulp! …and I’d be reading the ninth if it was not already out on loan at my local library!!

Set in the contemporary world, soon after the world’s previously secret Vampire community have “outed” themselves, this series of books focuses on the experiences of Sookie Stackhouse, a cocktail waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana who has an
unusual talent – the ability to read minds. The first book covers her developing relationship with Bill Compton who is a vampire who’s moved in next door. Her unusual ability means that she’s not really had a chance to form close relationships before as she’s found it hard to block out the constant chatter that she picks up from those around her and part of Bill’s appeal is that she can’t read the minds of vampires.

Her relationship with Bill brings her into contact with other members of the vampire community and life becomes significantly more complicated, and dangerous, for her. She becomes useful to several powerful vampires and, as she becomes more a part of their society, she learns more than most humans about the other “Supes” that live amongst humans – like shape shifters and werewolves.

I’m not entirely sure what I found so addictive about the series. I think it might be just the sheer escapism of a series that features (amongst others) vampires, were-creatures, shape shifters, witches and fairies… The storylines are not complex, the characters are easy to follow and there is plenty of blood and guts action to keep you interested even when her tangled love life isn’t centre stage.

I read Bitten and Stolen by Kelley Armstrong earlier this year and, although slightly steamier, I would imagine that these would appeal to the same audience.

Worldbuilders 2009

2009-12-03T07:31:00.005Z

I think that author Pat Rothfuss is one hell of a guy. Last year he ran a rundraiser for Heifer International that raised over $100,000. His efforts attracted donations of over $53,000 and he matched the total raised. Personally.

This year, under the banner of Worldbuilders, he is running:

a lottery, at $10 a ticket, with over a thousand (!) prizes that he's posting about over the next month. One of which is a "Golden Ticket" where he will owe the winner one (1) favour. Brave!
a "sure thing" where you can buy personalised items directly from him. If only I could justify a dedicated first edition for $145 but maybe I'll win a signed one with my lottery tickets!
an auction featuring some of the rarer items, specialised donations and "miscellaneous cool". The rare books and manuscripts auction is coming on the 6th December and I'm a bit excited...

The fundraiser ends on the 16th Jan so there is plenty of time left to get involved. In his own words "So you'd like to make the world a better place while simultaneously winning fabulous prizes?" Hell yes!

Reading List

2009-12-01T06:24:00.004Z

I am beginning to feel as if this blog has turned into a “reading list” repository rather than a regularly updated, and even vaguely interesting, bookish blog but I shall charge ahead with my monthly post without too much remorse as there is clearly no point in promising to change my ways yet again!!

So it’s that time of the month once more and, luckily for Book Aid, this month’s donation was boosted by the recent arrival of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series of books from the Book People which they have for sale at a mere £8.99. I’ve read a few blog posts recently about the series, and they’re the books that the recent True Blood series is based on, and at that price I could not resist… I’ve only read the first two so far and I hope Sookie grows on me or this could be a series that finds a new home as I'm not sure I can read all eight. Although I am such a finisher-completer personality that no doubt my December reading list will contain the next six!

Aaanway. Here’s the bit where I list What I Read in November and avoid guiltily promising to catch up on my reviews as that never seems to happen…

The Summer Tree & The Wandering Fire & The Darkest Road (Fionavar Tapestry) - Guy Gavriel Kay
Dry Store Room No. 1 - Richard Fortey
Pandaemonium - Christopher Brookmyre
Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town - Cory Doctorow
Dead Until Dark & Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris

T is for Tegan & Sara (and N is for Natural History Museum)

2009-11-15T11:18:00.008Z

We took a hiatus from alphabet weekending as we were going through a very busy patch at work, and knew we were going to Canada, so agreed that taking 6 weeks off was better than arranging half-hearted alphabet activities.

Tegan & Sara were playing this weekend at the Shepherd's Bush Empire and, in a stoke of genius, I nabbed this as my "T" activity for the re-launch of our weekend alphabeting shedule. They are actually Canadian and we'd checked out their tour list in the hope that they were playing in Toronto/Montreal whilst we were out there only to find that the week after we got back they were in London. It was a really good gig (although I thought that the crowd was a bit on the quiet side) and I absolutely loved hearing them sing "Where Does The Good Go" live as well as listening to some of their new material.

I'm reading the fascinating Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey at the moment and, as we were in London, it seemed like a good opportunity to fit in a visit to the newly opened Darwin Cocoon at the Natural History Museum. this area of the museum was built to house the museum's enormous collection of plant and animal specimens.

After an initial wobble when I realised that to enter the cocoon itself I'd have to cross a glass lined walkway on the 7th floor (I don't handle heights well!) I enjoyed the experience. Although visitor numbers are limited by the booking of timed slots, it was quite busy and as a high percentage of the displays are interactive it was sometimes hard to get a "go". You're issued with your own NaturePlus Card which you can scan at interesting points as you go around and then visit content online when you get home. The picture below (not by me) is of a section of a gorgeous display that gives a flavour of the variety of the plant and insect collections the museum holds and, as I read Dry Store Room No 1, my respect for the knowledge, dedication and passion that the scientists working here must have increases.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is also on at the NHM at the moment and, despite the museum being insanely busy, we managed to get tickets. It was a shame that there were so many people allowed into the room at once as it was hard to absorb the images properly whilst shuffling past people and whispering "excuse me" repeatedly but I would imagine that this is a huge earning opportunity for the otherwise free museum and they need to maximise their income from it. There are some stunning images in that exhibition and I would love to be talented (or patient) enough to take photos of that quality myself. I muttered something about my "need" for a good camera with zoom to Mr B and hope that he's bracing himself for the inevitable purchase next year when I have recovered from the cost of Canada/Christmas!

The Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy - Guy Gavriel Kay

2009-11-11T08:05:00.008Z

Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry trilogy comprises of The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire and The Darkest Road. These books are set partly in contemporary Toronto (which is where our five lead characters are plucked from) but events are set mostly in the fantasy world of Fionavar. Fionavar is the first of all the worlds and Kay uses this concept to thread myths and sagas from our own world into the story as reflections of events in this, and other, versions.

This trilogy is an "epic fantasy" in the Tolkein tradition. This is probably an analogy used too frequently for this author as I learn today that Kay helped Christopher Tolkein edit The Silmarillion but it is one that feels apt especially as it has elves, dwarves, noble kings, powerful magicians and "ordinary" people thrust into the middle of a grand conflict between Good and Evil.

The edition I read was an omnibus and I rather liked reading the trilogy in this way as it didn't feel as if I was reading a trilogy of books but one large novel with sections. At one point, I admit, I was beginning to wonder just how many themes and characters one trilogy could sustain but Kay brought the story back together towards the end and re-connected (nearly all of) the strands in an ultimately satisfying way and without losing the impact of some of the sub-plots.

It's also worth mentioning that Kay does not shy away from killing, or hurting, major characters and this meant that I didn't feel as if anyone was "safe" which can be a plot issue when reading fantasy fiction. This is a, sometimes tear jerking, story of free will, forgiveness and ultimately the nobility of sacrifice for the common good and I would recommend it to fantasy fans looking for an epic read.

World's Biggest Bookstore - Toronto

2009-11-04T14:54:00.009Z

Whilst in Toronto I "accidentally" discovered that the World's Biggest Bookstore* was very close to our friend's apartment so I gave my husband the choice of spending some time there or visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum...

He chose a trip to the bookshop (on condition he could buy books too!) and when I realised just how many books this place stocked, I genuinely felt a bit overwhelmed... and a bit over-excited too. Aside from a library, I honestly don't believe that I have ever seen this many books in one room! It was such a delight as well to see so many Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre books on display and I spent aaages browsing through them - oh the novelty of visiting a book shop that actually stocks an entire series! They also have a great graphic novel and manga section and it was fabulous to be able to look at books that I've only read about online and get a real feel for the artwork.

I only allowed myself to buy three books there and they HAD to already be on my wish list although I concede that given the length of my wish list that's not exactly difficult to do. I bought an anthology of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, Cory Doctorow's Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town and Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The first two have a Toronto connection so it seemed appropriate to buy them there and the third I have had my eye on for a while and just looked too interesting to pass up. A seriously crazy looking book that would have been perfect for R.I.P. IV! I am a bit cross with myself that I ended up not buying any of Alice Munro's work whilst there, given she's a prominent Canadian author whose work I have not read, but I honestly felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer choice.

If I could have worked out how to get them home, I could so easily have bought many, many, many more books as just by browsing I found so many tempting reads that I'd not previously heard of. There really is something about being in a book shop and having such a huge choice about what to buy there and then that is so alluring. Just as well that shop is in another continent really or my bank balance would be (more of) a disgrace. I wish that there was somewhere near me where I could go and look at books I have read about online but I doubt Norwich is really large enough to support this scale of shop. :(

* actually no longer the case but it was certainly a big one and given that's the name of the shop, I am not sure how else to refer to it!

October reading list and an apology

2009-11-01T17:25:00.007Z

I feel as if I should hang a large "I Aten't Dead" note around my blog's virtual neck and my humble apologies for my utter lack of posting. I've been visiting friends who live in Toronto for the last couple of weeks and I write this post from Montré al, Quebec as Mr B and I come towards the end of our trip to Canada. We've been really lucky that the leaves are still on the trees so the countryside is a delight to drive through as the remnants of the Fall colours are incredible.

As well as doing some Toronto downtown exploring and obvious tourist things like dinner in the CN Tower, we were lucky enough to get tickets to see the Toronto Raptors win their first game of the season (Go Raptors!), visited Gananoque, Sandbanks National Park, Niagara Falls/Niagara-on-the-Lake and we've just spent a couple of nights in Québec City. Phew.

In contrast to the last couple of months, I've read a grand total of 13 books this month - although weirdly only one whilst I have actually been on holiday - s0 that's another £13 to my Book Aid fund which is now over the £100 mark! I've had a great time reading recently and nearly every book I read in October was the result of an amazon splurge where I bought books I knew I'd enjoy and race through. Rather shamefully I only blogged about the first book that I read this month and I really don't think I am going to get around to catching those posts up...

Reading List:
Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes
Fables: Legends in Exile - Bill Willingham
Teremaire & Throne of Jade & Black Powder War & Empire of Ivory & Victory of Eagles - Naomi Novik
Unseen Academicals - Terry Pratchett
Grimspace - Ann Aguirre
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
The Good Thief - Hannah Tinti
Ariel - Steven P Boyett
Singularity Sky - Charles Stross

Past Imperfect - Julian Fellowes

2009-10-03T10:58:00.008+01:00

Last week I saw a review of this book by Anne Brooke over on Vulpes Libris and could not resist buying it immediately - which meant I had an excuse to buy other books and therefore bought far too many but that's another story...

Damian Baxter is very, very rich. But he has one concern, which is becoming more urgent as the weeks go by: who should inherit his fortune. A letter from an ex-girlfriend suggests that, as a young man, Damian may have fathered a child, but the letter is anonymous. Finding the truth will not be easy – and the only man who knows where to look is Damian’s sworn enemy.

I shall begin by mentioning the black and white image that graces the cover of Past Imperfect. I think that it's an absolutely stunning choice - just look at the intensity - for a book that describes the collapse of the old British aristocratic way of life. The book is narrated by an man who was part of the London scene 1960s and chronicles the end of The Season as a crop of débutantes (often heavily guided by their parents) scramble for suitable husbands as the social upheaval of the Sixties takes its toll and their way of life changes forever.

Whilst the light Fellowes shines on most of the characters is an unflattering one it was almost impossible not to feel compassion as the social order utterly changed almost overnight and left a generation floundering and struggling to adapt. For an excellent and thorough review do go and read Anne's one and I absolutely agree with her observations about what lets down an otherwise excellent book.

Clearly this is a book that divides opinions though and I trot out Exhibit A from Kate Kellaway writing for the Observer in October last year "Reading Past Imperfect is like being stuck at a party with a bore and being forced to do that unpardonably rude thing - look over his shoulder in the hope of spotting someone, anyone - more interesting on the horizon." Ouch.

The author, Julian Fellowes, is the same Julian Fellowes who wrote Gosforth Park (I suspect that the clue was in the name but I really didn't connect it) and by complete coincidence on the day I started reading this book I listened to a recent Simon Mayo/Mark Kermode film podcast where he was a guest and they mentioned this book. Apparently it's been optioned and, if made well, this could be a really interesting film and I would love to see who they cast!

September Reading List

2009-10-01T07:10:00.002+01:00

I am really not sure what is going on with my reading/blogging this month. In September I read just five books and wrote only ONE post. This must be a record low for me and I honestly feel guilty that Book Aid International will only get £5 from me this time around. I have however just had a slightly naughty splurge at Amazon so I now have a toppling stack of books waiting to be read and hopefully that will mean that I have a slightly faster turnaround in November. I say "slightly naughty" as I have enough books to read on my shelves for the next year and a half and really didn't "need" any more...

Challenges Update:
Twelve Step Poetry - This month I re-visited a favourite poet from my teens, Wendy Cope, but I've not written about that experience yet. Ignoring the huge selection available on my shelf for reading, and telling myself I needed extra poetry books in preparation for future months, I've bought Christina Rossetti's The Goblin Market and Carole Anne Duffy's The World's Wife and I'm really looking forward to reading those.

Graphic Novel Challenge - a pathetic zero books read this month to contribute to this challenge but part of the above mentioned Amazon order was Fables and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which both count. Although it doesn't count as a book read, I should mention that Mr B and I watched Waltz with Bashir this month. It's a film based on the autobiographical graphic novel of the same title by Ari Folman and it was absolutely wonderful.

R.I.P. IV - The wonderful The Thirteenth Tale was the only book that I read this month that "counted" towards this challenge. Again, I've not managed to write a review of it but it was such a good book that I really should and hopefully I'll get time to do so this weekend.

September Reading List:
Un Lun Dun - China Miéville
Court of the Air - Stephen Hunt
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
One Day - David Nicholls

Un Lun Dun - China Miéville

2009-09-06T10:28:00.019+01:00

This is China Miéville's first book for children and he both wrote and illustrated it. I should also mention that it won the 2008 Locus Award for Young Adult Book. I've read, and enjoyed, all of his books written for adults and could not resist giving in to temptation when I saw this on offer. Perhaps that's why my TBR pile is so large...

The blurb from amazon: "UnLondon is at war. We're under attack. And it's been written, for centuries, that you you will come and save us.' Stumbling through a secret entrance, Zanna and Deeba emerge in the strange wonderland of UnLondon. Here all the lost and broken things of London end up, and some of its people, too including Brokkenbroll, boss of the broken umbrellas and Hemi the half-ghost boy.

UnLondon is a place where Routemaster buses have legs, where Librarians are 'bookaneers', intrepid adventurers dedicated to hunting down lost books, and postmen spend years tracking the mobile addresses of the ever changing Puzzleborough. But the girls have arrived at a dangerous time UnLondon is under siege by the sinister Smog; it's a city awaiting its hero."

Un Lun Dun is set in a parallel London, his surreal version called UnLondon contains components that would be familiar to Londoners but with a twist. For starters, the double-decker buses float in the sky or walk around on feet...
Looking at the cover, you can also get an idea for the slightly different housing standards in the alternative version of the city! I really thought that the illustrations were great - some of them in particular have a very disturbing quality that should appeal to gruesome youngsters and I really enjoyed the part they played in building up an image of UnLondon.

Miéville excels at taking the ordinary and subverting it into something new. Characters introduced included the awesome "Binja"'s (as featured leaping on the cover) which are guard dustbins with arms and legs and kick-ass martial arts skills. Other notable mentions for me include the roaming packs of feral flesh-eating giraffes who feed on the unwary and the Black Windows who live in Webminster Abbey.

Amongst others, Deeba's sidekicks include a bus conductor, a book of prophecy that is trying to come to terms with the discover that it's inaccurate, and a small, empty milk carton called Curdle. Together they adventure around the districts that make up UnLondon and battle against the mysterious cloud of smoke, the Smog, which it turns out has been banished from London by the Klinneract (the Clean Air Act).

He has a fantastic imagination and is not afraid to kill off characters which means that this story was enormous fun to read even as an adult. You could see where it was going but you were never quite sure how it would get there. Perhaps my only criticism would be that there were so many inventive characters and concepts that they sometimes distracted me from the main story. It's an odd thing to say but I found at times that there were too many really interesting ideas in the book and I wanted to explore tangents rather than follow the fight for freedom.

Thankfully, the book is left with plenty scope for a sequel and I'd love to see what he could do with some of the other cities alluded to like No York, Lost Angeles, Hong Gone, Sans Francisco, Helsunki or Romeless. Or just to go back to UnLondon and explore more of it!

For the interested, Del Ray have made a great Un Lun Dun sub-site for the book with an excerpt, teachers notes, more illustrations and an interesting China Miéville interview.

August Reading List

2009-09-02T07:16:00.003+01:00

I have been a VBB (Very Bad Blogger) recently and am waaaaay behind on book (and alphabet weekend) posts which makes it rather difficult to link my reading list this month to them! I'm not quite sure how this happened but I think it might have a lot to do with having an iPod Touch. I used to log in to my PC when I got in from work to check emails and have a general pootle but now I use my iPod to check mail when at home I don't bother. This means that I only log in before I go to work to read feeds and update my blog which has had a serious impact on my posting rate.

I'm currently taking part in four challenges, which I think has to be a record for me, and here's a very general update on my progress:

Non-Fiction Five - Technically complete as I've read six non-fiction books, but there's always scope for another cheeky addition before the end of September as I used it as an excuse to buy a couple of books so I feel as if I should justify that indiscretion! I've enjoyed taking part in this challenge more than I thought I would and might make a "rule" for myself that I should try to include at least one non-fiction book in my reading pile each month.

Graphic Novel Challenge - I've got a few more books to read before I hit even the 6 target but I have a Plan. My local library has had a big increase of it's Teen section (which is, of course, where they house graphic novels) and I plan to raid it in a couple of weeks. There are a few novels that I want to buy as well (I should never have bought the 500 Essential Graphic Novels book!) but I might have to leave those for the Christmas list as can't really justify it to myself. If only I could afford the Absolute Sandman collections... *drool*

12 Step Poetry Programme - This one kicks off this month and I'm looking forward to reading my first book of poetry this weekend. I have not decided who to choose just yet but luckily I have plenty to select from on my shelf and I'm really looking forward to seeing what other participants read too.

R.I.P. IV - Another one that started this week and I've yet to even choose my short-list of books to read over the next two months to take me up to Halloween! I've been saving up some Poe and James audiobooks for months in preparation and I am tempted to re-read The Woman in White too. I'm planning to have a look through other blogger's short-lists this weekend so should have plenty of options to choose from when I've done that!

Whilst I'm talking about challenges, I'll wrap up my Year of Readers progress too... In September I read only 8 books, which was less than I thought I'd manage a week or so ago when I finished Tigana in just a few days, so that's a donation of £8 to Book Aid International taking my total to £87 but £111 when you include the tax rebate. Which I will because it looks better! When I get around to writing more reviews I will update my September reading list links below. Promise...

Darkest Hour & Always Forever - Mark Chadbourne
The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie
A Touch of Love - Jonathan Coe
Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay

RIP IV Challenge

2009-08-26T07:50:00.008+01:00

Yay! It's R.eaders I.bibing P.eril time again. Hosted by the lovely Carl from Stainless Steel Droppings, R.I.P IV officially runs from September 1st through October 31st. Covering the genres of "Mystery. Suspense. Thriller. Dark Fantasy. Gothic. Horror. & Supernatural", I'm aiming to complete Peril the First - which is to read four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories by the end of October.

It honestly does not feel like a year since I took part in R.I.P. III and I see, slightly to my horror,
that I managed seven books last year! I'm not committing to read that many this time around but I am definitely aiming to read four and I have a few things in mind. Some of which I planned to read in R.I.P. III but didn't quite get around to. Those were:

The Quincunx - Charles Palliser
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Ghost Stories - MR James
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield
The Ghost-Feeler - Edith Wharton

I've also saved listening to some audiobooks of the short stories of MR James, Edgar Allan Poe & HP Lovecraft for this challenge and last year, when I read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, I said I would read more of Shirley Jackson's work so I will be hunting out a copy of The Haunting of Hill House too. I'd also really like to get hold of a copy of The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski but at £20 it's probably going to stay on my wishlist instead :(

Most of all though, I'm looking forward to seeing what other participants read and getting inspiration from them!

The Twelve Step Poetry Program

2009-08-20T11:34:00.004+01:00

Jodie from Book Gazing (who is also the instigator of the Year of Readers) has launched a new challenge called The Twelve Step Poetry Program.

The Rules:
Challenge runs: 1st Sept 2009 – 30th Aug 2010
Option 1: 12 books of poetry, each by a different author
Option 2: 12 books of poetry, each by a different author, with two books chosen from female poets, translated poets, dead white male poets, poets who have held an official poetry post, black/ hispanic/ asian poets, GLBT poets or Great War poets.
Option 3: Option 2 + a poem a day from Poetry Daily until the end of the challenge

I think this challenge ticks so many boxes for me and I am really looking forward to starting. I used to read a lot of poetry and although I do still dip in, and out, of the genre I really don't read as much as I used to and I am not really sure why. In the last few months, I have (finally!) been able to get all my books from the attic and arrange them around the house so for me this is a great excuse to visit, and expand, my poetry shelf.

I'm going to go for Option 1 and read at least one book of poetry each month by a different author. I will do my best to try to make this a diverse selection so that I can tick off some of the categories in Option 2 as well. Now - who to select as my September poet. Decisions, decisions!

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

2009-08-15T10:14:00.017+01:00

Winner of the 2008 Man Booker prize, The White Tiger was Aravind Adiga's debut novel. I meant to read it months ago, after hearing the very eloquent author talk on a BBC radio show however somehow it ended up in the toppling TBR pile for several months instead...

The blurb (from amazon): "Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer. Balram, the White Tiger, was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop, crushing coal and wiping tables, but nurses a dream of escape. When he learns that a rich village landlord needs a chauffeur, he takes his opportunity, and is soon on his way to Delhi behind the wheel of a Honda. Amid the cockroaches and call-centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls, and the crippling traffic jams, Balram learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. Driven by desire to better himself, he comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage..."

The novel takes the form of a series of letters written late at night by Balram to Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, who is about to visit Bangalore to learn more about the city's embracement of the entrepreneurial spirit and experience as a centre for outsourcing industry. Balram explains in these letters how he's managed to crawl his way up from crushing village poverty to becoming a successful entrepreneur and, in doing so, share some of his insights into the challenges that he's experienced getting there that he feels the Chinese could learn from.

"Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us (Indians) in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation (India), though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs."

Balram is a very interesting central character. He's amoral, selfish, greedy, opportunistic, lacking in family loyalty (although to be fair I don't entirely blame him!) and acts without compunction if he can see the chance to better himself. In many of the stories he is telling Wen Jiaboa, he's bitter about his place in life, he demonstrates that he bears grudges and he's angry at the world for not being able to recognise his intellect and allow him to succeed as he should. This book gives, to my eyes, an unflattering view of modern India and clearly demonstrates the deep divides in Indian society drawn along lines of wealth and caste as well as giving an insight into human nature at its worst.

"To sum up-in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with big bellies, and men with small bellies. And only two destinies: eat or get eaten up."

I should mention that I was not entirely convinced by the device of using letters to Wen Jiabao to tell Balram's story - it felt as if slightly too convenient confessions were being made that would probably be very unwise to commit to paper if you were someone who had an interest in staying off the radar. I do concede though that the format does allow the reader in to experience Balram's reactions to events in his life that may not have been possible in other ways.

This book is well paced, easy to read (the very large font in my edition helped with that!) and Balram makes several very well written observations about those with money's attitudes to the poor and disenfranchised. In itself it's an interesting read that serves as a good introduction to "seedier" Indian literature if you've not really read much before.

Overall though, this was not quite as "good" as I was expecting. If it hadn't won the Booker last year I would, no doubt, be far less critical as I'd be viewing it on its own merits as a debut novel and perhaps that's what I should do rather than inspect it closely for some kind of stamp of literary quality! If I'd just picked it up and read it then I would probably say that it makes some interesting, and pretty damning, observations about India in the 21st century and that the central character is a repulsive but ultimately fascinating one whose circumstances certainly made me think about how I'd react to being in his situation.

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

2009-08-14T18:56:00.017+01:00

This book counts towards both the Non-Fiction Five and the Graphic Novel Challenges. I think that this might actually make it a Non-Fiction Six but I'm sure that can't hurt!

With my recent (rather tardy) joining in with the Graphic Novel challenge, and in a bid to get enough books read to earn my "Minor" badge, it seemed a good time to read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. My paperback edition contains both The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return.

Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel set in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. At this time, Satrapi is the six-year-old daughter of two Marxists. As she grows up in Tehran she witnesses first-hand the effects that the revolution, and the war with Iraq, have on her home, family, friends and school. The second book in this omnibus covers her adolescence years spent in Vienna as, at the age of 14, her parents sent her out of the country to keep her safe and then finally her return to attend college in Iran which takes us up to her mid-twenties.

Like Maus, which I read earlier this year, the story is told using deceptively simplistic black and white images however this does not mean that the story is a simple one. It's a very personal, and honest, account of a girl growing up in very difficult circumstances. Satrapi uses a very dark sense of humour to skirt a fine line between comedy and tragedy which works effectively in allowing her to tell her personal story as well as recount some pretty horrific events happening around her. The contradiction between public and private life in Tehran lent itself well to depiction by illustration and the nuances of rebellion, whilst her and her friends were ostensibly conforming in dress and behaviour, were fascinating.

I think that condensing the book to standard paperback size, as in my edition, was a shame as sometimes the text was a bit hard to read and the layout felt compromised. Having said that, I still enjoyed it and I think I have been incredibly lucky to have read three such good examples of non-fiction graphic novels this year. I've also tracked down an excerpt which gives a good sense of what to expect from this book.

The Graphic Novels Challenge

2009-08-10T07:55:00.004+01:00

Fashionably late to the party, I've just seen, and joined in with, the Graphic Novels Challenge!

Hosted by Laza of Gimme More Books, the challenge has four grades to mark achievement and I am aiming for at least a Major by the end of the year but I might even get my Masters!

Minor: Read 6
Major: Read 12
Masters: Read 18
Doctorate: Read 24

So far this year, I've already read two non-fiction graphic novels which are Maus by Art Spiegelman and Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle. I know I have at least four more books lurking in the TBR pile that would qualify for this challenge and my local library has recently expanded it's "Teen" section which, for some reason, is where the Graphic Novels are all kept. Hopefully I'll be able to earn my Minor grade without succumbing to the temptation that my recent purchase of the book 500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide has made me very vulnerable to as well...

I'm really looking forward to this one!

M is for Market!

2009-08-02T08:36:00.007+01:00

According to its very own official website, "Norwich Market is unique in Britain. It boasts over 190 stalls and is the largest Monday-to-Saturday open market in the country. There’s been a market in Norwich since Saxon times and it’s been on its current site longer than any of the buildings that surround it."

Cor.I walk past this market on my way to and from work but, for some reason, have not really used it since I was a teenager in search of second hand romantic novels and Mr B hadn't visited it for years so it seemed like a good alphabet activity. We spent absolutely ages exploring every stall and it was fabulous. I honestly had no idea just what an enormous range of products were available in this relatively small space.

Look at all the pretty/tasty things we bought:

These burgers from Pickerings were absolutely delicious and I can safely say that I know where we'll be going to buy any future ones!

I have to say that we were really impressed with our trip and would recommend it as a great place to shop in the centre of Norwich.

July Reading List

2009-08-01T09:12:00.007+01:00

Blimey - another great month's reading and I have to give credit to our new "reading chairs" for this. I just love snuggling up in them with a book and I wish we'd bought them ages ago!

When I was looking through the books I've read this month I was surprised to realise that seven of them were from the library - no wonder my TBR pile never seems to get any smaller! In total I read 14 books this so that means a donation of £14 to Book Aid International. My total so far this year is now £79 which I am really pleased with although other donations are, of course, very welcome ;)

July's reading list:
King of Foxes & Exile's Return - Raymond E. Feist
The Hazards of Hunting a Duke - Julia London
Splendid & How to Marry a Marquis - Julia Quinn
Arabella - Georgette Heyer
The Streets of Babylon - Carina Burman
Burma Chronicles - Guy Delisle
Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama
The American Future - Simon Schama
Sprig Muslin - Georgette Heyer
Lord of Scoundrels & Not Quite a Lady - Loretta Chase
World's End - Mark Chadbourne (first in a trilogy so I will review next month)

Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase

2009-07-29T07:46:00.016+01:00

Lord of Scoundrels is described on The Book Smugglers site as "the One Romance to Rule Them All". High praise indeed and when Ana posted a comment on my blog saying "...I urge you , no I BEG of you to search for Lord of Scoundrels - that is not only the best Loretta Chase novel but also , quite possibly,the best romance I have ever read. period." I felt that it was time to take up the challenge. I won't even go into the painful details of my experience attempting to locate it at my library (one hour, three staff and an increasingly frustrated Peta) but they kindly ordered in another copy for me to replace the mysteriously lost one and as soon as I received it I plunged in.

The blurb: "They call him many names, but Angelic isn’t one of them . . . Sebastian Ballister, the notorious Marquess of Dain, is big, bad, and dangerous to know. No respectable woman would have anything to do with the “Bane and Blight of the Ballisters”—and he wants nothing to do with respectable women. He’s determined to continue doing what he does best—sin and sin again—and all that’s going swimmingly, thank you, until the day a shop door opens and she walks in.

She’s too intelligent to fall for the worst man in the world . . .

Jessica Trent is a determined young woman, and she’s going to drag her imbecile brother off the road to ruin, no matter what it takes. If saving him—and with him, her family and future—means taking on the devil himself, she won’t back down. The trouble is, the devil in question is so shockingly irresistible, and the person who needs the most saving is—herself!"

That synopsis had me cackling with glee - a rake, a determined heroine = sparks flying. Joy! Like her other books, there is more depth to this romance that their might appear and the character of Jessica Trent is a delight. She is fearless, intelligent, brave, clever, beautiful (of course) and more than a match for the angry, painfully insecure, vulnerable and filled with self-loathing, Dain.

Without going into the details of Dain's childhood, I should mention that it struck me whilst reading this book how unusual it is to have a properly thought out back story to explain why our hero became a selfish, dissolute rake in the first place. This also allows us to be convinced that he's got genuine motivation and desire to turn a new leaf and be reformed by his heroine! And that's what makes Chase special - she's not turning out a story without thought for her characters but thinks about why they act as they do.

I followed reading Lord of Scoundrels with the final book in her Carsington series - Not Quite a Lady. I'm not going to do a "proper" review, as I have not got time, but like Miss Wonderful, MrImpossible and Lord Perfect it was a delight to read and, yet again, a fabulous example of how to write romance novels that feature interesting characters that you genuinely care about and with a story line that didn't feel generic. This one actually made me cry!

In summary, Loretta Chase is surely the Queen of Romantic Fiction!

L is for Latin Dance!

2009-07-26T09:33:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post to say that this week's alphabet activity was Latin Dance. I had tried to get in touch with a local dance instructor who teaches the Lindy Hop but sadly they didn't respond to emails. Or perhaps just as well as it does look pretty energetic!

Armed with only a jug of mojito and a "Discover Latin Dance" DVD, we spent quite some time learning the Cha Cha along with some associated set moves - to the bemusement of our dogs. Once we'd mastered the dance (!) we were exhausted, and a bit sore from treading on each other, we decided to skip the rumba and samba sections of the DVD for now. Perhaps a teacher would have been more effective for beginner dancers but I am sure they would have frowned on the frequency of our mojito breaks!

The American Future - Simon Schama

2009-07-25T10:21:00.021+01:00

This is my fifth Non-Fiction Five read.

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University in New York. I had the pleasure of attending a conversation/reading in May featuring Simon Schama as part of the Spring UEA literary festival and really enjoyed his lecture based on the contents of his newest book, The American Future. Being too tight to buy it in hardback, I waited until the paperback edition was published this month before splashing out!

Subtitled "A History from the Founding Fathers to Barack Obama", this book was written to accompany his four part BBC2 documentary series of the same name, aired last October, which I must admit I didn't watch. The book is split into four thematic sections (presumably to tie in with the four episodes) and I found each one fascinating.

Schama examines conflicts from America's past in order to understand their legacy in influencing the country's contemporary political situation and he splits this examination into "American Plenty", "American War", "American Fervour" and lastly "What is an American?". This allows him to hop around time, people and events to suit the point he is making rather than be tied by the demands of a conventional chronological history book.

He clearly illustrates just how deep the roots of racial segregation grow in this country - and tragically how the impact of this legacy could have been so easily reduced if different political decisions had been made at pivotal points in history; for example the withdrawal of federal troops from the south in the 1870s allowed white extremism in the form of the KKK to take hold. Within this topic, he covers not just the impact of slavery on modern America but also its fraught relationship with Mexico, the plight of immigrant workers and even the ethnic cleansing of native Americans. Big themes for such a slim book and I'm very impressed how clearly he links events of the past to the current political arena.

I must admit that my knowledge of American history is limited however I didn't feel that I was ever out of my depth in understanding the backdrop to events he covered. If anything, this book has made me want to seek out more books on America to learn a bit more about the country's history and that of some of the people who were so influential in shaping it. I'm really glad that I read this book after Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father as it helped me to understand the history behind some of the deep rooted racial divides that he examines in a modern context.

K is for Kayaking!

2009-07-20T07:16:00.005+01:00

Well. Actually we slightly cheated and hired a canoe rather than a kayak in the end as that was more practical option for two novice paddlers, their two dogs and a picnic!

We paddled along the River Waveney, on the Bungay Loop, and look how beautifully tranquil it was!
I should probably put the following trauma into some kind of context.

1) We are not experienced canoeists and had only paddled together once before in Florida when we were in search of manatees. That was over a year ago!
2) Keep in mind that we had two small dogs in the canoe with us and that this was their first trip on the river.
3) I was a little fragile having attended a hen do the night before where I imbibed far too many cocktails.

Now imagine several swans floating serenely on that river...

It took the dogs a couple of encounters to work out what these big white things were but once Safi twigged it, things became a bit tricky. We managed to get past the first group of five swans without too much incident (other than me ending up in a patch of nettles) and then past a young, very inquisitive, male whilst managing to hold both collars, the paddle and keep moving upstream before we decided to pause and enjoy the riverbank with our picnic for a while!

At this point, of course, it started to rain but we had waterproofs and were happy to get a bit damp. Then a swan came to check out our canoe and decided to start fishing near it. The swan doesn't want to leave. Eventually we decide to launch the canoe anyway and hope he stays downstream. He does not. We ended up stuck in the reeds, me twisted around holding Oscar's collar (keen to jump in) with Safi firmly clamped between legs (keen to bark) and pinned in by the swan who was alternating between curiously attempting to locate the source of the restrained and increasingly frantic whines and then hissing at us.

Remember that hangover. I am ashamed to admit that I did shed a couple of pathetic tears before Mr B heroically extracted us. After spotting a pair of swans further down the river with their cygnets we decided that it was probably best if we returned upstream.

The dogs must have sensed that they were skating on pretty thin ice as they behaved beautifully for the rest of the trip and the experience of allowing the current to take us through the group of the five swans we'd encountered earlier was absolutely magical. It quite made up for the earlier trauma. I'd love to go out on the river like this again - but next time I think we might leave the dogs at home!

Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama

2009-07-16T07:50:00.009+01:00

This is my fourth Non-Fiction Five read.

I was lucky enough to see Simon Scharma speak about his newest book The American Future at the UEA as part of their last literary festival and he urged the audience to read this book by Barack Obama saying that it was beautifully written. Being an obedient little soul I ordered myself a copy straight away!

Dreams from My Father, sub-titled "A Story of Race and Inheritance", was commissioned following Barack Obama's election as the first African-American president of the "Harvard Law Review" and I would strongly suspect that this book was not at all what the publisher expected to receive. It is, in essence, a very honest personal memoir of his life up to his entry to Harvard to study law. Perhaps surprisingly given why it was commissioned, it doesn't actually cover his time at Harvard and that's only briefly touched upon in the epilogue.

The book is divided into three sections. "Origins" covers his childhood, adolescence and college years. In "Chicago" he reflects on his experience after accepting a challenging position as a community organiser in Chicago. The last section, "Kenya", (which is the one I found most interesting) is about a month long trip that he took to Kenya to visit his, now deceased, Father's extended family before starting to study law at Harvard. Each section covers his increasing awareness of his own confused identity as a child of mixed race in modern America and gives an absolutely fascinating insight into the journey he takes to try to understand himself and his place in the world.

I knew that Obama's background was unusual but had no idea how much so until reading this book. His maternal Grandparents lived in Kansas before eventually moving to Hawaii, along with their daughter. It was there that she met his Father, a Kenyan studying locally, and you have to wonder just how willing two white Kansas ex- farming stock were to accept their daughter's marriage to a black Kenyan student. Following the collapse of his parent's marriage, she re-married and moved her family out to the Philippines and it's clear that this was quite a culture shock for them both although the young Barack seems to have adapted more successfully than his mother. It was really during the last section of the book where he meets his extended paternal family that I realised just how different the two worlds that his parents inhabited actually were and that whole experience must have been quite something for a young guy in search of his heritage.

The young Obama is eloquent and perceptive - I wish my younger self had displayed even half of the empathy and thoughtfulness that this young man does. Barack Obama is very honest about his thoughts and experiences in this book and I wonder if he'd write the same story if documenting his early years now. It's this very openness, and willing to share, that makes the book special and, completely setting aside who he became, it remains a very well written, thought provoking and moving account of a young man coming to terms with his heritage and finding his place in the world.

My next non-fiction read is Simon Scharma's The American Future which will hopefully be an excellent choice of book to read straight after this one.

Burma Chronicles - Guy Delisle

2009-07-14T18:09:00.021+01:00

This is the third book I have read for the Non-Fiction Five challenge and, like Maus, it's a graphic novel. I'm really enjoying reading non-fiction graphic books - I think it allows a much lighter touch with more freedom than a prose book on the same topic would.

Guy Delisle is a very talented illustrator/author originally from Quebec, Canada and his wife works for Médecins Sans Frontières. The Burma Chronicles as written as a result of her being posted to Burma in 2005 and Guy accompanies her with their infant son, Louis, in tow. The challenges he faces as a stay at home father are probably the most delightful snippets within the book and the opening sequence of the book where he covers the journey to get there is genuinely funny. He certainly manages to sum up the horror of long-haul travel with an infant very effectively...

The book is made up from a series of snapshots covering his attempt to adjust to ex patriot life in Rangoon and his experiences include the challenges of shopping, meeting local people, getting to know the other stay at home parents (who all seem to be female) and his efforts to join the nirvana that is the Australia club.

Alongside this, there are sections covering the political situation in Burma and his observations as he accompanies his wife on trips into the field a couple of times. The statistics on heroine addiction and related AIDS infection rates are absolutely horrifying and one imagines that the situation can only have worsened in the years since 2005. In sprite of the sometimes difficult subject matter, Delisle's ability to tamper even the bleakest of observations with understated humour make this book very easy to read whilst remaining thought provoking.

NYMag have a "sneak peek" from the book covering the pages where Delisle first attempts to visit imprisoned Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. This gives a great over-view of his gentle style and I hope that it tempts readers to read this book! Guy Delisle has also written earlier books covering his solo travels in Pyongyang and Shenzhen and I look forward to experiencing his observations on life in North Korea and China.

J is for Jokes!

2009-07-10T07:51:00.003+01:00

Thinking of a J alphabet weekend activity was surprisingly hard especially as I was slightly hampered by our pre-existing weekend commitments. Jazz - no events this weekend. Jousting - unable to work out how to arrange this in Norfolk. Jelly - a bit lame. Learning the Jitterbug - no teacher with availability in the tight time slot I had. Eventually inspiration hit and I decided to try for Jokes and victory was mine!

Having "accidentally" slipped up and revealing, via email, that we were off to a Jam Making course being run by the local branch of the Women's Institute last night, Mr B was extremely relieved to discover, when he met me in Norwich after work, that I had in fact bought tickets to the Comedy Store's mini-festival being held at the Unthank Arms instead. Good of him to turn up to be honest as he was reasonably confident that his wife was random enough to have actually booked a jam making session.

We had dinner before heading up to the pub and I succeeded in getting the start time completely wrong so as we sneaked into the marquee that the pub had erected in the garden, the MC took the opportunity to make several jokes about women making men late. Aided by Mr B's supportive palming all blame off on me... The overall line up was very strong and the second comedian, Mike Gunn, was very funny indeed although I suspect you really had to be there!

(PS - inexplicably I failed to post this last week having written the whole thing! Weird)

The Hazards of Hunting a Duke - Julia London

2009-07-06T07:44:00.011+01:00

In what is becoming a recurring theme of my reading pattern at the moment, Julia London is another author of historical romances who I first heard about over at The Book Smuggler's blog. I happened to see one of her books on the just returned trolley at my library and, in spite of the very 80's looking cover, thought it would be worth a try.

"Ava and Phoebe Fairchild and their cousin Greer, popular young ladies of the ton, discover they're destitute when their mother dies. Their stepfather has absconded to Paris with their mother's fortune, leaving them with a miserly stipend and under the watchful eye of his sister, an austere spinster. In order to maintain the lifestyle they are accustomed to Ava, the eldest girl, hunts down handsome Jared Broderick, the Earl of Middleton and heir to a dukedom, and marries him. Only after their passionate wedding night does Ava realize Jared had ulterior motives for marrying her. He intends for Ava to serve as his socially-acceptable wife so his very proper father will not disown him for pursuing a love affair with a beautiful, sophisticated widow."

This is the first in a trilogy of books featuring Ava, Phobe and Greer called the "Desperate Debutantes". Now I realise that there is a certain amount of freedom allowed to a book in a historical setting* given that the story needs to appeal to a modern audience but for me, this book could have been vastly improved with some decent research and the removal of several unnecessary Americanisms that jarred horribly.

A really simple example to illustrate what I mean - calling the hero Jared Broderick just felt wrong and as though he should be a cowboy rather than an Earl. I felt that neither him or Ava acted in a convincing way based on their places in society (or the ton as it was referred to far too often) and the social framework of the day. Frankly, Jared would have been more likely to make Ava his mistress than his wife and I wouldn't have blamed him and I'm not entirely sure what she could have done about it either. It is quite possible that I am over-thinking this one but I had to wonder why bother setting this book loosely in this era if you're not going to bother accurately applying research that I would presume did take place? I notice that the synopsis of the book featuring Greer (another odd choice of name) includes reference to the Prince of Powys. Suspect I'd better avoid that one if I want authentic history as a backdrop!

Perhaps I have read too many historical romances back to back now but I found myself a little disappointed in this one but to be fair only for the reasons above. The characters themselves were fine and the plot much as expected. Maybe I've not chosen the right Julia London book to read first, and am being overly picky, but I just didn't enjoy this book as much as I have the other books I've been reading recently so don't think I'll bother reading any more of hers unless I hear otherwise!

*For example, just how many Dukes and Earls did Great Britain have in the 1800s to feature as husband material in all the novels of this genre I've been recently reading?

I is for... Italy

2009-07-05T17:20:00.005+01:00

After a very lazy Saturday (I finished one book, read another in it entirety and then started another...) I felt that we should actually leave the house today so this morning we went on a bit of a jaunt around the area that we're looking at buying a house in - driving around Barton Broad (including the village of Irstead) and then up through Smallborough/Dilham and on towards North Walsham. The more we explore Norfolk, the more I realise that we are so very lucky to live where we do. It is a really beautiful, and surprisingly rural, part of England and I am so glad that we're coming to know it better this year. Sadly, dogs are not allowed on the Norfolk Wildlife boardwalk at Barton Broad (we probably should have checked first!) so we didn't get to see the view across the Broad but as they were getting very hot and bothered, in spite of lots of water, perhaps that was just as well.

This week's alphabet weekend theme was I is for Italy. Sadly, Mr B did not actually whisk me away to Italy for the weekend (although he assures me that he looked into it!) but after getting back from exploring and dog walking, we went out for a very pleasant Italian lunch together, enjoyed ice creams and then watched the director's cut (at 2:47!) of Cinema Paradiso. This is a lovely Italian film from1989, that neither of us had seen before, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes.

I'm already dreading my letter J for next weekend. The only time we can really do anything is Friday night or possibly during the day on Saturday. Jam making...? Eating Jelly...?

2009-07-01T21:14:00.002+01:00

June breaks the record for number of books read and as a result I had great pleasure in making a £15 payment to Book Aid International.

Another really weird month of reading though with lots of romance (both human and faerie!), a bit of Sci-Fi, some more magic, superheroes and then several excellent books set during WW2. Looking back it really doesn't seem as if I can possibly have crammed so many books into what was a really busy month for me so clearly the answer is to pick books you are going to be able to effortlessly enjoy when you are feeling frazzled! The last six books of the month certainly fit that bill but hopefully I'll be back on track soon and feel able to tackle something a bit more challenging. Like most of my TBR pile!

Maus - Art Spiegelman
Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange & Fragile Eternity - Melissa Marr
Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies
Instructions For Living Someone Else's Life - Mil Millington
Miss Wonderful & Mr Impossible - Loretta Chase
Mine till Midnight & Blue Eyed Devil - Lisa Kleypas
Lord Perfect - Loretta Chase
Talon of the Silver Hawk - Raymond E. Feist

H is for Holkham Hall

2009-06-28T20:16:00.005+01:00

Being a very decisive woman (!) I selected five Norfolk locations as "H'options" for Mr B to pick from for this weekend's activity. They were:

"Behind Door 1, we have a 3000 acre country park with designated walks, resident herds of deer and a famous beach nearby.
Behind Door 2 is a stately home - once that of our first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. The gardens are (apparently) famous and the park is home to over 1,000 head of white deer.
Continuing the theme of large county houses, Door 3 is a hall with a beautifully landscaped fifteen acre garden. I know that will appeal...
Behind Door 4 there is a 100 acre country park just a short walk from the historic Norfolk town of Holt.
Finally we have Door 5 - behind which is the largest expanse of open water in the Broads system."

Who knew Norfolk had so many tempting attractions beginning with H and Hunstanton, Happisburgh Lighthouse, Horsey Wind Pump and the Holme Dunes didn't even make the short list!
Not very surprisingly, he chose Holkham Hall as our destination and, even though it was very overcast, we packed up the dogs, plenty of water and headed out. I am ashamed to say that I've never actually been to Holkham before even though it is one of the county's landmark buildings. Should also confess that we didn't take the opportunity to go into the house itself but then we did have the dogs with us...

It's free to enter and enjoy the grounds so we had a lovely walk around the 1 mile long lake followed by delicious ice-creams made on the estate. Well. We had ice-creams and the dogs had water! The plan was to then have a walk on the gorgeous Holkham Beach however one of our dogs is not well and she had clearly had enough of exercise for the day and as the sky had cleared it wasn't safe (or fair) to leave her in the car by herself whilst we took the other one for a romp.

I'd definitely like to return there but as it's a surprisingly long drive from Norwich perhaps we'll leave the dogs at home and stay overnight next time!

Lord Perfect - Loretta Chase

2009-06-27T10:33:00.005+01:00

Well honestly. What is a girl to do when returning her stash of romance novels to the library but to "just check" to see if any other Loretta Chase books are on the shelf? Then to just borrow another one. Then read it very, very quickly indeed? Sadly the copy I borrowed did not have this wonderfully genre cover but I laughed so hard when I saw it online that I felt that I just had to use it to illustrate this post!

Lord Perfect is book three in the series and follows on the from events of Miss Wonderful and Mr Impossible. The eldest Carsington brother, and the Earl of Hargate's heir, Benedict Carsington is tall, dark, and handsome. He is known as "Lord Perfect" for his impeccable manners, good breeding and is a stickler for social rules.

That is until he meets the gorgeous Bathsheba Wingate, who is both recently widowed and a member of the notorious De Lucey family. She has a very high spirited daughter who lures Benedict's nephew into a quest for a legendary treasure and to recover the pair before scandal breaks they set off on a rescue mission. With predictable results.

Loretta Chase's wonderful sense of the absurd, in combination with a good sense of humour, made this book a joy to read. The dialogue between Benedict and Bathsheba was great fun and there are a couple of delightful scenes between that made me laugh out loud. In particular the scene in the bathroom but I am quite confident that I could not explain just why it made me chuckle.

Another very enjoyable read from Loretta Chase and with only one Carsington brother left unmarried I suspect he'll be next up! What fun.

Mine til Midnight & Blue Eyed Devil - Lisa Kleypas

2009-06-26T18:15:00.000+01:00

Another author I’ve seen featured a few times over on the Book Smugglers blog is Lisa Kleypas and whilst I was browsing in my local library, I saw that they had a few books by Kleypas on the shelf. I really feel in the mood for a decent batch of escapist and frivolous reading so, committing to the experience, I picked up copies of Mine Till Midnight and Blue-Eyed Devil to go with the Loretta Chase books I posted about earlier this week.

According to the back cover, Mine till Midnight is the first in a series of books presumably centred around the Hathaway family. He is Cam Rohan - handsome, strong, commanding, manly and possessive. She is Amelia Hathaway - the beautiful eldest of four impoverished but gentile sisters who has shouldered the responsibility for holding her family unit together following the death of their parents and the descent of her elder brother into dependency on alcohol and drugs. They are irresistibly attracted to each other...

The twist is that he is a half-gipsy who, for reasons he still does not understand, was turned out from his tribe whilst young. Since that time he has made a financial success of himself and mixes with powerful people however he is not quite comfortable fitting in with his position in society and hankers for a simpler life on the road.

I’d suspect that Amelia's sisters will feature in future novels in this series of and that there is potential for the back history of her sister, Win and Merripen (another abandoned gypsy with a mysterious tatoo who was taken in by the family as a child) to be explored in more depth.

The second Lisa Kleypas book I read was Blue Eyed Devil which turned out to be a sort-of-sequel to a previous book called Sugar Daddy but I don’t think it really mattered that I’d not read that. This is the first of my “romantic reading” books this week to have a contemporary setting though as the location is Texas, it still felt suitably removed from normal life. The fact that it was set in present time did mean that initially I was more drawn to compare it with that guilty pleasure of my teenage years – the Mills & Boon novel!

Haven Travis is the only daughter of oil magnate and has led a sheltered and privileged life but not one without its own difficulties. Keen to assert her independence, and to prove that she is capable of making her own decisions, she elopes with her college boyfriend Nick and her father cuts her out of his life as he is convinced that he is only with her for her family’s money. The marriage does not go as expected and Haven finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship which she has to escape from. Helping her to recover confidence in herself as an attractive and capable woman is Hardy Cates enemy of the family, who is (yep – a clear trend developing here) also sexually active, handsome, strong, capable and all man! Oh - and he has blue eyes but I am not entirely sure why he would be called a devil.

My hat goes off to Kleypas for managing to combine an authentic story of someone in an abusive relationship with the contrasting lightness of storyline required for a developing passionate romantic attachment.

Miss Wonderful & Mr Impossible – Loretta Chase

2009-06-24T07:45:00.006+01:00

Loretta Chase is an author whose name I have seen appearing on The Book Smuggler’s blog several times and when this week featured an interview with her, along with a link to their review of her new book, I though it was about time to see what all the fuss was about. I stumbled upon Miss Wonderful and Mr Impossible in the library, which are the first two books in Chase’s “Carsington Quartet”, and decided that they would make a marvellous starting point.

I say stumbled upon. I actually checked the online catalogue to see if books were in stock first and then searched for books by Loretta Chase in the romantic novel section as indicated. These books are irritatingly mixed up as a sub-genre on revolving carousels rather than neatly arranged by author and I had no initial luck but then finally tracked these books down in the main fiction area where, of course, authors are properly alphabeticalised. I could get into a side ramble about the difficulty of locating books in a large city library where they create these sorts of genre zones that they don’t then stick to but I shall spare you. For today.

And on to the books! First up is Miss Wonderful, which features my favourite type of romantic hero - The Reformed Rake. The third son of the Earl of Hargate, 29 year old Alistair Carsington has been falling in, and out, of love with unsuitable women for years and it’s costing his exasperated father a fortune. His father gives him an ultimatum – marry an heiress or he’ll sell of his younger brother’s inheritance to fund his lifestyle. In a bid to remove himself from the path of temptation, and to prove that he can earn his own money from a business venture he’s entered into with an old friend who saved his life on the battlefields of Waterloo.

Arriving in Derbyshire, he meets Mirabel Oldridge – a woman who dresses so unflatteringly that undressing her is “practically a civic duty”. Mirabel has taken on the responsibility for running her increasingly eccentric father’s estate and the last thing she needs is a stunningly attractive aristocrat arriving on her doorstep and reminding her she has a heart. Their romance develops and it was very refreshing to read a novel where the almost obligatory misunderstanding between a couple on the cusp of developing a relationship was missing. Alistair himself was not quite arrogant and rakish enough to be quite my dream book hero but his charm won me over.

In Mr Impossible Alistair’s younger brother, the dashing, reckless and permanently in trouble Rupert, is sent to Egypt by his long-suffering father. Daphne Penbroke is a highly intelligent Egyptian scholar however, with her brother’s help, disguises her research as the product of his mind rather than hers. Daphne’s brother is kidnapped and an ancient scroll she was studying is stolen from their home so she turns to Rupert to help her to rescue her brother.

Both books are great fun with heroes who are Real Men and heroines who are intelligent, strong, capable and independent. Loretta Chase has a delightfully wicked writing style and the exchanges (both verbal and physical) between her lead characters are a delight.

G is for Great Yarmouth!

2009-06-21T09:34:00.009+01:00

In a bold move, Mr B's alphabet weekend activity was a trip to Great Yarmouth. I do have to say that the tourist board have done a great job with that website as it successfully glosses over the seedier aspects of an outdated seaside resort and this link is a lot more realistic!. Having said that, and now feeling a little unfair, I should say that it's clear that a lot of money has been spent on re-vamping the sea front and it's considerably better than it was last time I went there.

I confessed that somehow I'd never experienced the pleasure of vising the Merrivale Model Village and Mr Banks insisted that we fork out £5.50 each (!!) and explore the acre of "captivating model village and its charming inhabitants". I actually really enjoyed the experience and there is something awfully English about obediently following a winding path (in the rain) and admiring the effort that has clearly gone into creating this attraction.

Next up it was a walk along the sea front (as the tourist information site explains "Frequently called The Golden Mile"), and along to Britannia Pier where Mr B decided he had to attempt to win me a teddy bear on the grab machine. 60p later and I was the slightly embarrassed recipient of a very large, and to be honest unexpected, Winnie-the-Pooh. No shame no gain so proudly clutching my new friend it was a quick ride on the Ghost Train before fish and chips looking out over the beach/Scroby Sands wind turbines - and at the black clouds rolling in. See pic for both evidence of delightful British summer weather at the beach and Mr B's grab machine prowess!

We finished off our trip with a game of Adventure Golf. Which I was comfortably winning until the last two holes when it all fell apart for me - serves me right for starting to gloat. :( We didn't have time to check out Great Yarmouth's newly re-developed Heritage Quarter but as we've been told that the Time and Tide museum is a must by my father-in-law so perhaps it'll get slipped into a weekend later this year...

The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies

2009-06-19T07:20:00.016+01:00

It felt right to stay in the era of WW2 so I picked up my copy of The Welsh Girl, with it's gorgeously illustrated cover, that's been languishing neglected on my shelf for too long. This book managed to be on both Richard and Judy's summer reads list and the Man Booker long list.

From the blurb: "In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie."

I'm really not sure that the above gives a good feel for what this book is really about. It's an odd mixture of slightly interlinked stories and I felt that the two characters I learnt most about were Esther Williams, the titular Welsh Girl, whose father farms sheep whilst she works in the village pub (because she can speak English and serve the soldier) and Karsten, a German POW who is battling with his shame and self-loathing at letting himself be taken prisoner. I'd expected more of a story from the Rudolf Hess aspect of this book to be honest and don't really understand why he's a character in it other than to allow facts about Nazi Germany to be placed into context.

There are some very strongly portrayed side-characters - I liked the pub landlord Esther's father is a complex, and difficult man to live with, and I really felt for Jim, the young evacuee who lives with them, and his attempts to integrate with the Welsh community. I'd also love to read a book about Mary, who is a BBC radio entertainer broadcasting from the relative safety of Wales and understand more about what lies beneath her brittle humour.

To try to explain what this book is about, and what it meant to me, I scrawled some notes: importance of landscape, sense of place, the meaning of patriotism, identifying the real enemy, belonging to a group or community, responsibility for the expectations of others, isolation. Sadly, not a very helpful exercise to shortcut pulling together actual sentences but I've struggled to put it any more clearly.

This book is beautifully written, and some of the prose is gorgeous, however ultimately it is somehow lacking in heart. I think that Peter Ho Davies is a very talented writer but that this book ended up being about the technique rather than the soul of a story - not sure that makes sense but luckily it's my blog so I can write what I like :)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2009-06-17T08:21:00.012+01:00

I will make my post about reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society short and sweet as surely everyone has read, if not the book itself at least one post about it by now! I had the pleasure of reading this book in one evening which is a rare treat indeed. I got in from work and had a lovely bath whilst reading it. Then continued reading it in the kitchen whilst munching on ginger cake. Finally I moved into my new snug where I sat in one of our new winged armchairs and , accompanied by two small dogs and a glass of wine, finished it off. It was a fabulous evening and a winning formula that I intend to repeat!

So - on to the book "It's 1946 and author Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under the German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name."

Before starting, I'd not grasped that this novel is told in a series of letters between a London-based author, her friends and the members of a Guernsey book club. After a couple of failed attempts to read Dangerous Liaisons I tend to avoid epistolary novels but I can firmly state that this book is really, really charming and was a joy to read from cover to cover.

The very recent Nazi occupation that the inhabitants of the Channel Islands had lived under was something I only had the vaguest knowledge of and the simplest of stories about those years recounted by the various letter writers really moved me. The variety of characters themselves are honestly delightful and I thought that the balance between humour and sorrow in the letters was just about right.

I received a copy of Libby Cone's novel War on the Margins, which is set on Jersey during WW2, through the post a couple of weeks ago and I think that will make a really interesting companion read to this one.

Soon I will be Invincible - Austin Grossman

2009-06-16T07:20:00.004+01:00

This excerpt from the first page of Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible (hopefully) gives an indication of what to expect from this debut novel:

"This morning on planet Earth there are 1,686 enhanced, gifted or otherwise-super powered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crimes, while 441 use their powers to commit them. 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more - 18 to be exact. Including me . . ."

This book has a great premise - it takes a wide range of super-power comic book clichés and pokes gentle fun at them. The chapters alternate between the perspective of a much-thwarted and twelve times imprisoned super villain (Dr Impossible), who is plotting his next escape from prison whilst pulling together his latest scheme to take over the word, and a young woman (new name of Fatale) who, following an accident, has woken up with cyborg powers. As well as regretting her choice of hero name, Fatale is not yet clear what her new physical limitations are and has recently joined the elite "New Champions" super team and soon, inevitably, these two characters find themselves on opposing sides of a battle of Good against Evil. If sides are really that simple to define…

Key to the success of this story is the depth of knowledge, and affection, Grossman has for the genre. He succeeds in avoiding the trap of merely parodying comic books and as a result this book has more to say about its characters than I expected – what might drive an intelligent young man to become a villain rather than a hero? Could his life have taken a different path? What challenges might face an evil genius recently escaped from prison in his attempt to raise funds to realise his latest plan? What’s the bedding in process for a woman who wakes up with what are effectively super powers as she settles into a team of established team of famous heroes?

I do have to say though that the book felt as if, after a terrific start, Grossman was not quite sure where to go with his idea and the latter half, although enjoyable did not live up to the potential of the first.

F is for Failure

2009-06-14T08:29:00.007+01:00

This week is my call for our alphabet weekend activity but sadly we just don't have time for anything exciting. Mr B was filming a wedding yesterday and today he'll be playing (and I will be watching) cricket all day today so there was no chance of fitting in my planned day trip. When I accepted that this was going to be a rubbish effort weekend, I settled for going into M&S on my way home for work on Friday in search of French food and Fine wine to eat/drink whilst watching a Film. As it was looking nice and summery (and their choice of French food was pretty limited) I went for moules and frites, followed by lemon souffle and washed it down with some Fitou. I bought some pretty Flowers too but these were clearly me stretching my panic-theme to my own advantage!

I'd planned on us watching a couple of french films, as we have a small selection at home that we've not seen yet. But... at the end of the working week something less challenging was required so we ended up with (I am almost ashamed to type this) The Tale of Despereaux on the basis that it sounded as if it could be set in France. It wasn't. A bottle of Fitou later and we watched the considerable more intellectual Shape Of Things which was written and directed by Neil LaBute and starred Paul Rudd (who can do no wrong in this household) and Rachel Weisz.

My lesson - keep an eye on the calendar and ensure that at least one day/evening of the weekend is actually free! Roll on H...

E is for Evita!

2009-06-09T07:40:00.006+01:00

A return to Mr B's choice for this weekend's alphabet activity and, in a first for us, it was on a Monday! Under the shrouds of much secrecy, Mr B arranged to meet me after work and was very pleased with himself when he was able to produce two tickets to see Evita at the Theatre Royal. Definitely a case of him falling on the sword for this one but he admitted that he quite liked it in the end.

Rachel Wooding, who played Eva Peron, was absolutely fantastic. She really brought the life to part and her stamina, both vocally and acting, was incredible. My hat goes off to her and the ensemble for an enjoyable and professional production.

I wish I could praise Seamus Cullen, who played Che, so highly. I really felt that he let the production down with his weak vocals - and his delivery of the final line of the show...? Dear me. I'd hoped he was the understudy but sadly not.

I was (am!) a big fan of Antonio Banderas as Che in Alan Parker's film of this show. Sadly YouTube don't have the clip of him dancing in the fountain (Warner seem to be very vigilant) so we'll all have to make do with this one until they pull it instead:

*swoon*

Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card

2009-06-07T12:09:00.008+01:00

I read, and really enjoyed despite myself, Ender's Game back in January as part of the Sci-Fi Experience and when I saw this indirect sequel in the library I could not resist borrowing it.

Speaker for the Dead is set three thousand years after the events that took place in Ender's Game however Ender remains young due to travelling in stasis. In that time he has become famous as the man who killed an entire race of thinking, feeling beings.

On the recently colonised Catholic planet of Lusitania another sentient race is discovered - offering mankind a chance to redeem themselves. The Pequeninos, known as "piggies", live in the forests and, once their presence was known about, a strict policy of non-interference is implemented to avoid contaminating them with any human technological advances or ideas. This means that only a handful of authorised scientists, operating under strict guidelines, are allowed to leave the fenced settlement to interact with the native population of the planet.

Despite these measures, there are fundamental cultural misunderstandings between the Humans and the Piggies that results in the murder of one of the human scientists. Novinha, a young biologist, blames her self for this dead and calls Ender, as Andrew Wiggin, to Lusitania in his capacity of Speaker for the Dead to uncover the truth and to present the results back to the community. His arrival twenty years later, having been in stasis, finds that Novinha recalled her request just a few days later and that she, and her family, bitterly resent his presence.

I enjoyed the plot, and characters, in this book but what I liked most was the thought provoking "shades of grey" that underpin the human view towards other sentient races. Some interesting moral questions were raised that are not easily answered, even in a fantasy setting. It was interesting to see a future take on the changing internal power structure of the Church versus State in conflict - although I do wonder if the Catholic church will be quite that influential in several thousand years if humans are living on 100 different worlds light years apart!

Like Ender's Game, this book won the Hugo Award (1987) and Nebula Award (1986) for outstanding science fiction novel - making Card the first author in history to win both these awards in two consecutive years. This book manages to explore complex ideological concepts and still entertain - an impressive accomplishment - and I look forward to getting my paws on the sequel!

Maus - Art Spiegelman

2009-06-02T17:50:00.010+01:00

This is my second read for the non-fiction five challenge. Unusually, it's a graphic novel which tells the (true) story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe.

Art Spiegelman, who won the Pulitzer prize for this work, is their son and this work is the result of conversations with his father.

It's hard to describe this book so from the blurb: "By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance."

I’ve really struggled to write this review and, after putting it off for several weeks, I think that the solution is not to really write one at all.

If you are at all interested in the prospect of reading a non-fiction book about the Holocaust where the Jews have been drawn as mice and the Nazis as cats then you should do so. This is an absolutely superb work and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

May Reading List

2009-06-01T07:14:00.005+01:00

So - ten books read this month at £1 each means a £10 donation to Book Aid which brings my total donated for this year so far to £50 plus another £14.10 in gift aid. I'm pretty impressed that already I've "fined" myself enough to send more than 40 books overseas and it's nice watching the total funds grow. I set myself a target of £150 for the year so either I need to read 100 books in seven months or encourage sponsorship!!

May's reading was quite heavy on the fantasy side with magic, dragons and werewolves all featuring:

The Dragonfly Pool - Eva Ibbotson
The Adamantine Palace - Stephen Deas
Son of the Shadows & Child of the Prophecy - Juliet Marillier
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - Nicholas Drayson
Heir to Sevenwaters - Juliet Marillier
The City & The City - China Miéville
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale
Bitten & Stolen - Kelley Armstrong

The inclusion of one non-fiction book was much needed and, now that my bookshelves are all organised, I'm looking forward to reading more non-fiction work in June. Famous last words as I have a birthday haul due and I have my fingers crossed for several books featuring dragons, magic or both!

D is for Dragon Hall!

2009-05-31T16:03:00.012+01:00

This week's alphabet weekend was my call and, as we had Mr B's end of season football "do" on the Friday followed by a family day out to the coast and an engagement party on Saturday, I reluctantly called off plans for a Dancing lesson for two and reverted to Plan B!

This morning was gorgeous so we walked along the river and into the city to visit Dragon Hall. This is the only medieval merchant's trading hall known to have survived in Europe which makes this building unique. Dragon Hall was built for one wealthy merchant, Robert Toppes, in 1430 on King's Street in Norwich and the museum covers the story of the building as well as putting the life of Toppes into historical perspective.

The hall is named after a carving of a dragon in the rafters of the Great Hall which reflects the importance of the Guild of St. George in the city. Walking around the building, it's hard to imagine that until the late 1970s this impressive medieval hall appeared to be three separate properties - one of which was a pub! Although the building is not that large, the audio-guide and displays were informative and relevant so we left feeling that we'd learned more about the city that we live in.

Much to Mr B's delight, (I know sarcasm is hard to read on the interwebs, so should point out that there was a dab used just now) on our walk back home, I noticed that The Bishop's Garden was open in aid of the charity Livability. This is a lovely four acre walled garden in the centre of the city and, as might be expected, is right next to Norwich Cathedral. I'd not visited it before and it really is a delight - it has a big vegetable garden, a wild flower labyrinth, a lovely herbaceous border the border (see above) and a large expanse of lawn. If only I could afford a house with such a lovely big garden in the city centre! Drool...

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale

2009-05-26T07:58:00.014+01:00

This is my first read for the non-fiction five challenge.

Along with other prizes, this book was last year's winner of the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction but what first attracted to me to this book was the cover which I think is fabulous. The wonderfully titled The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House has been on my shelf for a few months and joining the non-fiction reading challenge was the perfect reason to pick it up and actually get around to reading it!

From the blurb: "It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home.

Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects. A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body; a detective; a country house steeped in secrets."

Covered in this book is not just the investigation of the murder at Road Hill House (which is horribly fascinating in its own right) but also of the emergence of the professional detective and the social values of Victorian society at that point in history. The sensationalism of this case in the press across England was fascinating and it's very easy to understand why this particular chilling murder caused such public interest.

I found Kate Summerscale's writing style to be very accessible - she writes with clarity and it was clear throughout that this book was meticulously researched. I should be very clear here - this is a work of non-fiction and not a novelisation of the crime! This is the true story of a real Victorian family dealing with an extremely unpleasant murder carried out by someone living within their home and then being placed under a spotlight whilst the whole country speculated about their domestic arrangements.

Looking at the scores given by readers of the book on Amazon, there's a really interesting polarisation of views - clearly people either love or hate this book! I definitely fall into the first camp as I think that this book provides a fascinating glimpse into the era and the crime itself, whilst horrifying, is only part of the story.

C is for... Cycling!

2009-05-24T08:53:00.010+01:00

Yesterday our Alphabet Weekend activity (as chosen by Mr B) was cycling!

As I've not actually been on a bicycle for around ten years, the original plan was to drive down to Thetford Forest and enjoy the off-road tracks there but the staff at Bike Art were so incredibly rude and unhelpful to my husband that we refused to support their business by renting from them and we switched to Plan B. Which was to borrow two bikes from my mother! One trip to Halfords for a new inner tube later and we were off.

We've walked our dogs from the centre of Norwich to my mother's house a few times along the start of the Marriott's Way, which is also part of National Cycle Network Route 1, and it follows the track-bed of a decommissioned railway line from 1883. We decided to explore this traffic free route a bit further along and cycled from Hellesdon to Thorpe Marriott (and back). The route does cross the road a couple of times but this was no problem at all and where the road was busy there was a horse and bicycle crossing.One clear advantage of a route along an old railway line (and living in Norfolk) is that it is generally very flat which was a definite bonus - see below for evidence! I'm really pleased that we went cycling so close to home - the start of the Marriott Way is under 1/2 mile from our home and it really is a lovely route that starts off along the River Wensum and then winds through fields.

I'd love to explore further along the route as we stopped for our picnic at what turned out to the last bit of the "urban" section before crossing the fields towards Reepham. I'd like to cycle the whole route but my saddle-sore bottom might need to recover before I can even contemplate getting back onto a bike any time soon!

(Route pictures from the Wensum Valley Trust's website and the sign was from Peter Boggis's account of a trip he took along the route in the 1990s. )

The City and The City - China Miéville

2009-05-21T06:27:00.012+01:00

A new book from China Miéville is a cause for celebration and it's been a while since I got my last "fix" as Iron Council was published in 2005. I could not justify buying the hardback edition but was more than happy to fork out the 55p demanded by my library to reserve it in advance of release day. That's actually quite an honour in my view, as the only other item I have been willing to pay to reserve was the audio book of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book as I wanted to hear the banjo version of the Dance Macabre he'd chosen to use on it. As usual though, I digress!

Miéville is described as a "New Weird" genre author and, although I am not entirely clear what that actually means, The City & the City would probably fit into that category - although it's not set in quite the same sort of alternate world as his other books.

"When the body of a murdered woman is found in the extraordinary, decaying city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks like a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he probes, the evidence begins to point to conspiracies far stranger, and more deadly, than anything he could have imagined. Soon his work puts him and those he cares for in danger. Borlu must travel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own, across a border like no other."

It's worth mentioning from the outset that the city of Beszel co-exists in shared physical space with the city of Ul Qoma although the inhabitants of the two cities don't officially "see" each other... Hrm. That made much more sense as a concept when Mr Miéville wrote it in his book... The acceptance and difficulties that this way of living imposes on the citizens, and visitors, is explored alongside the murder-mystery aspect of the novel and that's what's really thought provoking about this book.

Anyway - perhaps this book could be described as an "alternate reality crime thriller" where the process of investigating a murder plays out across international borders and the unique political landscape plays a large part in the complexity of the story.

This is a relatively short book (by his standards anyway) however as you are thrust straight into the heart of this world, without much in the way of explanation, it felt longer than it actually was. By this I mean that the slight sense of disorientation at the outset actually added to the sense of exploration - I had to concentrate to gather the full implication of throwaway geo-political references and it was a nice change not to be spoon fed a world. There is so much detail within the story that it's difficult to understand how it could all be packed into this brief book however credit for that achievement must go to his elegantly economical use of language.

Oh my word. I've just discovered that China Miéville was born in Norwich although he was brought up in and lives in London. I appreciate that it's a pretty tenuous link for my home city but one I am pleased to learn anyway!

Speaking of links - here's one to a video of him discussing the book!

Non-Fiction Five Challenge

2009-05-20T06:20:00.013+01:00

Whoops - I've joined another book challenge!

It was the lesser of two evils though as I was very, very close to joining the "pre-printing press" book challenge (which looks fascinating!) when realisation hit me. I really, really don't need to be distracted from working through my current pile of fabulous TBR books and Jodie from Book Gazing kindly suggested that I sign up to this one instead!

The rules for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge are pretty simple:

1. Read 5 non-fiction books during the months of May - September, 2009
2. Read at least one non-fiction book that is different from your other choices

This is a great way to work through some of my non-fiction TBR pile that always gets neglect in favour of fiction instead. I have no idea why this is as I do want to read every book that I have listed below it's just I tend to pass them over for easier, escapist books instead.

The Bolter - Frances Osborne
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House - Kate Summerscale
Dry Store Room No 1 - Richard Fortey
The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
The Origin of Humankind - Richard Leakey
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters - Charlotte Mosley
Works on Paper - Michael Holyroyd
Our Hidden Lives - Simon Garfield
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich - Alison Owings

Oh dear - and these are just the unread non-fiction books that are on the bookshelves near my computer! Clearly this challenge came at the right time for me.

I have three new bookcases arriving on Friday and that will mean that the last of the "attic books" can come downstairs so I can have a proper rummage for books to read for this challenge - although clearly I have enough to hand to complete the prescribed five!

B is for Broads!

2009-05-17T11:16:00.005+01:00

Yesterday our Alphabet Weekend destination was The Broads which is a nearby protected wetland with national park status that's managed by The Broads Authority. The whole ecosystem spreads across the eastern edge of Norfolk and into Suffolk and we're lucky enough to live just a short drive from this area of natural beauty. Except we never go there! I have absolutely no idea why this is but I thought that this weekend was a good opportunity to head out and explore a couple of the nearby ones to remind ourselves what we're missing out on.

The broads we visited were Ranworth Broad and Cockshoot Broad - both of which are nature reserves looked after by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. The picture above is of the Ranworth Wildlife Centre which has viewing windows with binoculars on the top floor and floats on the broad itself. They both have wheelchair/pram friendly board walks to lead visitors around them and, no doubt, to protect the wildlife from people trampling all over them!

As it's spring, there were loads of baby birds testing out their swimming ability which I have to say was adorable. There's something so incredibly cute about fluffy ducklings and goslings swimming around! There was a huge variety of bird life to see - it was really nice to realise how lucky we are to live where we do and that we really should learn more about our local environment. Sadly, we didn't see an otter or a water vole but next time...

Inexplicably, I appear to have taken only two photos yesterday (one of a sign and one of Mr B enjoying his pub lunch at a local Brewery (see what I did there?). We did take along our new video camera though and got some great footage of Birds on the Broads but I've not imported/edited that yet. The more I use this camera, the more I love it - such great quality footage that I think we'll need a new TV to do it justice ;)

Heir to Sevenwaters - Juliet Marillier

2009-05-15T07:58:00.014+01:00

Here are the links to my previous posts about the Sevenwaters series - Daughter of the Forest and Son of the Shadows/Child of the Prophecy.

I was very pleased to realise, when I returned the last two books of the series, that I was able to borrow this one! The joy about reading books from the library is that it's totally guilt free as the extra reads don't join the toppling TBR pile. Actually, now I think about it, not totally guilt free as by reading books from the library, I'm not exactly making inroads into the pile. Hrmmm. More ethical thinking required!

Anyway.

Heir to Sevenwaters focuses on Clodagh, daughter to Lady Aisling and Lord Sean who is the twin brother of Liadan, heroine of Son of the Shadows. Keeping up? Good...

It's now three years after the events of Child of the Prophey, and at the start of the book, having given birth to six daughters, Aisling is pregnant however this is cause for concern rather than celebration as she is well past the safe age for childbearing. During her difficult pregnancy, management of the large household falls to the very ordinary and practical Clodagh as her father is distracted by concern for his wife as well as tension between rival neighbouring clans. A heightened sense of responsibility for others means that after her baby brother is born, Clodagh adds looking after him to her list of tasks until one night he is stolen and a changeling that only she can see is left in his place...

This book is more fairytale-ish than the others as Clodagh enters the Otherworld in search of her brother and to confront the powerful fairy Lord Mac Dara who lives there. Reluctantly helping her in her quest is Cathal, who is a fearsome warriors trained by her cousin, who has a very prickly nature and a lack of self-belief. Unlike previous Sevenwater heroines, Clodagh doesn't have any special abilities that help her fulfil her task so it's only her courage, quick thinking, ability to make friends and determination that can help her to succeed.

This book has more emphasis on romance than the darker Child of the Prophecy did - which was a definite plus for me. The developing trust and affection between Clodagh and Cathal is quite sweet if slightly lacking in emotional intensity. Like the other books in this series, the importance of duty and family is a central theme but there's plenty of adventure and magic too. One thing I would comment on is that it felt a bit less mature than the other books in the trilogy - which is not necessarily a bad thing - but the tone of the book struck me as more like that of her delightful young adult book Wildwood Dancing so perhaps writing for a younger audience has influenced Marillier's style in the years between writing those books and this one. I enjoyed the latest installment in the Sevenwaters saga all the same and want more!

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - Nicholas Drayson

2009-05-13T07:39:00.006+01:00

This was a book I bought as part of my hopelessly optimistic glut to take on holiday with me. It seemed very apt given I was going to Kenya and... I liked the font on the cover!

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa is by Nicholas Drayson who lived in Nairobi for a couple of years. It's a gentle paced book set in that city that, of course, has been likened to Ladies Detective Agency - probably only because it's set in Africa...

From the blurb: "For the past three years, the widower Mr. Malik has been secretly in love with Rose Mbikwa, a woman who leads the weekly bird walks sponsored by the East African Ornithological Society. Reserved and honourable, Malik wouldn't be noticed by a bystander in a Nairobi street but beneath that unprepossessing exterior lies a warm heart and a secret passion.

But just as Malik is getting up the nerve to invite Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball, who should pop up but his nemesis from his school days. The jokester Harry Khan, good-looking in a flashy way and quick of foot, has also become enraptured with the object of Malik’s affection. So begins the competition cooked up by fellow members of the Asadi club: whoever can identify the most species of birds in one week’s time gets the privilege of asking Ms. Mbikwa to the ball."

The two men's approach to the contest is very different. Harry Khan approaches the task by enlisting two Australian tourists to help him and then making short trips around Kenya to a variety of habitats to try to see as many species as possible. Mr Malik takes a gentler approach to the contest and has a number of other things to deal with during the week that takes his focus off the contest. I thought this was a nice approach to the story as otherwise it could have been in danger of becoming a trip around Kenyapunctuated by lists of birds!

You don't need to be a bird-watcher to enjoy this book, although I can imagine it would add a layer of enjoyment, and where they are mentioned it's always in an easy, entertaining way. Mr Malik's warm heart makes this story a gentle delight. As an elderly gentleman with what sounds like a quite alarming comb-over, he could so easily have been merely a figure of fun but he's also thoughtful and observant. This is an enjoyable, sweet book that I wish I'd read when in Kenya itself!

An interview with Nicholas Drayson in which he reveals he is working on a sequel... Breaking news from The Bookling indeed!

Son of the Shadows & Child of the Prophecy - Juliet Marillier

2009-05-11T18:37:00.016+01:00

I read, and really enjoyed, Daughter of the Forest back in January as part of the Sc-Fi experience reading challenge and when I saw that the library had the last two books in the series, just sitting there on the shelf, I could not resist them! All three of these books work as stand alone reads but I think, to get full enjoyment, they would be better if read in order.

Son of the Shadows takes up the story of the children of Sorcha, who in the last book had to try to save her brothers after a sorceress had turned them into swans, and Hugh, the Briton she married. Her daughter Liadan is a gifted seer and healer who thinks, in spite of her visions, that she knows what the future has in store for her - caring for her dying mother and then an alliance marriage to a strategically important near neighbour, Eamonn. A chance meeting on the road carries her off to care for a dying man - one of the mercenaries of the sinister Painted Man, Eamonn's arch-enemy and a killer for hire. Liadan discovers that she cannot choose where she loves and that she and the Painted Man are as bound up in destiny as her mother and father were before her.

The developing romance between Liadan and the Painted Man is a delight and I really enjoyed seeing their relationship grow. This book felt like more of a traditional historical romance with talk of strategic marriages, chieftain alliances and well trained warriors. There is still plenty of magic and the family's heritage is a central theme as the ramifications of the ancient prophecy continue to be felt by them all. Having said that, I really liked this book - Liadan and the Painted Man made a great couple (him = strong silent type so Peta = happy) and the story was exciting throughout.

In Child of the Prophecy we follow the next generation of the family and this is the story of Fainne, the daughter of Liadan's sister, Niamh. Fianne has been raised in isolation and trained in magic by her loving but remote druid-father, Ciaran, and her ruthless sorceress-grandmother, the Lady Oonagh. Who was the evil sorceress from the Daughter of the Shadows. They send Fianne to Sevenwaters to live among relatives, who had no knowledge of her existence, to carry out her grandmother's long-planned vengeance on the clan - and on the Old Ones, who are the source of Ireland's mystic power. Fianne is reluctant to harm her new-found family but if she lets them live, the Lady Oonagh will kill both her father and Darragh, the handsome young horse tamer who is the only friend she has ever known.

In this final volume several of the threads from the first two books are pulled together and the true meaning of the prophecy is finally resolved. Whilst, of course, there is a touch of romance, this book is much more about struggling with torn loyalty and the pain of making difficult decisions that impact several of the characters we've already met in the previous books.

I thought that with the ending of Child of the Prophecy I'd now finished this series but I see that There Is Another... It's currently on loan at the library so fingers crossed that the nice person who has it returns it soon!

Here's a link to Juliet Marillier's website which includes and some photos that she took that were the inspiration of the Sevenwaters area. I was really sorry to read on a recent update that she has embarked upon a lengthy course of chemotherapy/radiology and my thoughts go out to her.

A was meant to be for Art!

2009-05-10T17:16:00.006+01:00

...but was actually for Armchair.

Our first Alphabet Weekend didn't go entirely to plan but I don't think that really matters! Mr B had planned that A is for Art and we went to see the Levity III luminarium which is a 10000sq ft inflatable, walk-through sculpture and is currently inflated in Norwich. There was an enormous queue so we decided to visit it after work during the week and go for a brunch instead and then head up to the Castle Museum to see their current art gallery exhibitions.

Except the Museum was closed. :(

So we had a stroll around the city instead and walked home via Elm Hill (see above). Where we passed an antique shop with a chair outside it. A pinkish chair that looked very similar in shape to the "dream" chair I've been looking for for about two years. I want(ed) the perfect old fashioned chair for reading in - comfy, big wings for napping against and room for me and the dogs. We stopped. We asked how much? We winced a bit. The chap said he had another larger one inside that might be just what I wanted. It certainly was. We asked how much is that one? We winced a bit more. I looked at Mr B. I said "What if we don't go away in June for a few days and buy these instead?". Mr B knew we were buying at least one chair. We asked how much for the pair? He did a deal. We bought both.

Then the nice chap popped them in his van and dropped the chairs, and us, home. They are now installed in what will be my snug once we've worked out what to do with the dining room table! They do need re-covering at some point but at least Oscar seems to like them! The picture is of the smaller of the two...

The Adamantine Palace - Stephen Deas

2009-05-06T07:14:00.005+01:00

The Adamantine Palace is the Stephen Deas’s debut novel and also the first book in a trilogy - the next book is due for publication in 2010. This means that I accidentally broke my own rule to not read books in a series until all the books are published as I hate cliffhangers when I can't immediately open the next book!

From the blurb: "The Adamantine Palace lies at the centre of an empire that grew out of ashes. Once dragons ruled the world and man was little more than prey. The Empire has grown fat. And now one man wants it for himself. A man prepared to poison the king just as he has poisoned his own father. A man prepared to murder his lover and bed her daughter. But unknown to him there are flames on the way. A single dragon has gone missing. And even one dragon on the loose could spell disaster for the Empire."

I blatantly bought this book just because it has dragons in it. Oh and I liked the cover. The plot itself revolves around the scheming members of several royal families who are jostling for the position of Speaker - which puts the holder in a powerful position over the other kings and queens for the next ten years. The point of view changes with each chapter and this did mean that I struggled slightly to keep track of what on earth is going on and with who. There are several family trees provided at the front of the book which helped in later stages as the politics became more complex.

The dragons in this book are domesticated however it becomes clear that this is only because their racial memories are being suppressed by the use of strong chemicals rather than because of a bond with the humans characters. I found this an interesting premise and a nice slant on the usual dragon-human bond. Refreshingly, no character is safe in this fast-paced read and that made for some unexpected plot twists. Whilst I enjoyed the speed that the book romped on at, this does mean that some of the world-building was light and the family trees I mentioned earlier might not have been necessary if more time had been spent on "growing" the characters and how they fitted together. But then the pace would not have been as snappy so what do I know?

In summary though this is an entertaining and enjoyable book that definitely left me wanting to know what happens next to the dragons...

An introduction to "Alphabet Weekends"

2009-05-04T18:17:00.012+01:00

We went on a trip today to the Fairhaven Water Garden with the dogs. It's a lovely place to stroll around and was going so well until Safi fell into a stagnant river just before we got into the car. Attempts to hose her down at the plant shop did produce some improvement but not totally successful so my fleece was sacrificed in a good cause. Here's a picture of her looking most disgruntled - she wouldn't even look me in the eye!

Aaanyway - during our walk, Mr B and I decided to start up "Alphabet Weekends". This is inspired by the book Alphabet Weekends by Elizabeth Noble which he read on holiday. His excuse was that he'd run out of books to read so had to choose one from the bookshelf in our room. A likely story. In the book, a couple learn "love lessons from A – Z" by using the alphabet to plan weekends activities in turn.

We felt that we really don't take advantage of the attractions and experiences that are on our doorstep and that it would be nice to try to do so this year. Somehow this idle conversation led onto the agreement that we'll start doing our own Alphabet weekends. Starting next week!

The rules are:

Using letters of the alphabet in turn, we have to arrange an outing or activity over the weekend starting with that letter.
We have responsibility for alternate weekends so he will do A, I will do B, etc.
Most activities should be based near home so that we can also explore more of Norfolk.
It's OK to do an activity that we know we'll really love but the other one might not.
If it's a hard letter we can cheat a bit with what it might stand for. e.g. X is for Xtreme Sport. As I have the letter X this is very unlikely to be what it ends up standing for...

I'm really looking forward to the next 26 weekends - I've done a bit of research on "my" letters and am astounded by how much there is to see and do around here if you just look for it.

To close this post, here's a picture of Mr B reading this guilty pleasure book on "our" veranda in Kenya. Looks like he's enjoying it a bit too much, I think....