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Frankie Reads 2011


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I bought these books today:

 

Iain Banks: The Crow Road (to replace the Finnish copy I already had)

Jonathan Safran Foer: Eating Animals

Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1001)

Henry James: What Maisie Knew (1001)

James Joyce: Dubliners

Daphne du Maurier: The House on the Strand

Anaïs Nin: Delta of Venus (1001)

Sofi Oksanen: Baby Jane

Arto Paasilinna: Hurmaava joukkoitsemurha

 

All bought secondhand.

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I went to the library and found The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay there, for only 20 cnt. He's an author who now lives in Australia, he's a pretty popular author and his name came up in a discussion with Kylie and ever since then I've kept my eyes open for his novels. Luckily this is his first novel, too.

 

I also got two books from the Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge, Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield and Crippen by John Boyne. Me happy! :smile2:

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Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1001)

Hurrah! :doowapstart:

 

I also got two books from the Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge, Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield and Crippen by John Boyne. Me happy! :smile2:

I like the sound of both of these. :)

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I bought these books today:

 

Iain Banks: The Crow Road (to replace the Finnish copy I already had)

Jonathan Safran Foer: Eating Animals

Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1001)

Henry James: What Maisie Knew (1001)

James Joyce: Dubliners

Daphne du Maurier: The House on the Strand

Anaïs Nin: Delta of Venus (1001)

Sofi Oksanen: Baby Jane

Arto Paasilinna: Hurmaava joukkoitsemurha

 

All bought secondhand.

 

 

Wow, excellent haul! Good on you for wanting to try another Hardy. :) I'm especially jealous of the Foer and Nin books. biggrin.gif

 

I went to the library and found The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay there, for only 20 cnt. He's an author who now lives in Australia, he's a pretty popular author and his name came up in a discussion with Kylie and ever since then I've kept my eyes open for his novels. Luckily this is his first novel, too.

 

I also got two books from the Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge, Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield and Crippen by John Boyne. Me happy! :smile2:

 

Excellent news! I can't wait to hear what you think of Crippen and the Courtenay (I've never read anything by him).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hurrah! :doowapstart:

 

Hehe, I knew you'd be psyched about the Hardy book! :D I've seen it at a secondhand bookshop a couple of times, but it was 3e and didn't want to spend that much, not being sure if it's any good, but this was cheaper and a nicer copy!

 

Wow, excellent haul! Good on you for wanting to try another Hardy. I'm especially jealous of the Foer and Nin books.

 

Well, I did at one time bear a grudge against Hardy for having written Tess, but I've long since realised it's just one book by him, and TMoC was once nominated for RC and I wouldn't have minded reading it at that time :) And Janet's made me curious about it, so I'm definitely giving his book an unbiased try.

 

I knew you'd like the Foer book. I'm really keen on reading it, but am also dreading the consequenses. What if I can't eat another animal after that? Yikes!

 

The Nin book was a great find, brilliant! :) And you PMd me about a Nin diary you found and kind of bought for me, and I haven't replied yet, but please do keep the journal yourself, I'm expecting you to get drawn to her books yourself, and as my other books are in Finnish I don't mind buying the missing books in Finnish. And who knows, I might even own the one you bought already. But thank you anyway, you're precious :hug:

 

 

 

Excellent news! I can't wait to hear what you think of Crippen and the Courtenay (I've never read anything by him).

 

You haven't read Courtenay? :lol: It would be fun to read him before you've had a chance, you Aussie gal!!

 

I really loved Teacher, Teacher! hope you enjoy it as much as I did

 

It was good, but I would say it wasn't anything really spectacular :)

 

Hope you enjoy The House on the Strand, frankie, it's one of my all-time favourite books and I just bought a replacement copy of it last week

 

I was on the fence about buying this one. The blurb sounded really, really intriguing, but it was in Finnish and I'd already spent a lot of money on books that day. But I'm not regretting buying it, especially after having read your comment! :)

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My this week's purchases!

 

Around the world - Trivia quiz (it was part of a 3 books for 1e offer)

Anna-Leena Härkönen: Häräntappoase (Finnish novel, 3 for 1)

Mika Waltari: Tanssi yli hautojen (^)

Mika Waltari: Tähdet kertoo komisario Palmu (^)

Henry MIller: Tropic of Capricorn (3 for 1, but a true find! Have been wanting to read Miller ever since read Between the Sheets book)

Edvard Radzinski: Stalin (biography. 3 for 1)

Walter Moers: 13½ Lives of Captain Blue Bear (3 for 1, Kylie's been ranting about this one so could NOT not buy it :lol:)

Anne Rice: Interview with a Vampire (looks/feels like brand new, have read but want to own and re-read)

Ernesto Che Guevara: Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution - Writings and Speeches of Ernesto Che Guevara (I've been interested in reading about this guy so is hopefully fascinating)

 

And from Nurmes:

Nobel Laureates 1901-2000 by Alan Simmons (interesting, and a history lesson for me!)

Vladimir Nabokov: The Gift (must buy Nabokov)

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I got two books yesterday, Kjell Westö's Lang from the free book exchange trolley at the library, and Opus Pistorum by Henry Miller from the library's books-to-sell trolley.

 

On Monday a friend of mine, Sakari, had a dilemma: He was wondering whether he should go to his weekly dance class, or to go and see Michael Cunningham (!) at the Akateeminen bookstore in Helsinki (where he lives). I pretty much told him to stop being silly and go and see Cunningham, of course! He can go to his dance classes whenever but it's not like you have a chance to see Cunningham every week. Besides, Sakari is a huge fan of his, we both adored A Home at the End of the World and Sakari has read all the other books by him as well. I can't believe he even had to think about it.

 

So yesterday I got this multimedia text from Sakari, and there it was: a pic of Michael Cunningham :smile2:

 

Here's what Sakari had to say about the event: Michael Cunningham was really fascinating and funny. He writes in a one room apartment in Manhattan, in an old building on the sixth floor. The apartment is the same where he used to live and there are still some of the same people living in the building from the time when he was a tenant. Old women hang their gigantic bras and panties on clothes lines from their windows.

 

When he was younger he used to take notes about the things that happened around him, which he thought he would write about. Nowadays he thinks about his novels only in his work apartment where he works during office hours. He said that when he starts writing a novel he imagines it to be something completely different than what the novels turns out to be. He thinks that it will be much fancier, a massive epoch. When the book is finished he experiences a creative 'hangover' when the book is nothing like he imagined.

 

He was also asked some questions about words, in a true James Lipton way:

 

Häneltä kyseltiin James Lipton -tyyliin myös kysymyslista. Alla kysymyksiä, vastauksia:

 

Favorite word: Luminosity

Least favorite word: Plot

Favorite sound: Heals clicking on a street

Least favorite sound: Velcro tapes unattached (sound of world end in miniature).

 

The audience wasn't allowed to ask questions, and the interview lasted about 30 minutes. Cunningham has wanted to be a writer from an early age, but if he wasn't a writer, he would like to be a carpenter. He would make tables and chairs because nobody talks about the death of tables. This is a reference to the death of the book, a very topical notion.

 

My friend was only a few meters away from him. He didn't have any money to buy Cunningham's new book at the moment, but he works for the store of which Akateeminen is a part of and he talked to the manager who promised to stash a copy of the novel for him, all signed :) I'm so happy for him! :smile2:

 

Olin muutaman metrin päässä katselemassa. Perjantaina menen katsomaan, onko mulle uusin kirja odottamassa. :)

 

Here's a news article about Cunningham's trip to Helsinki, and there's also a video clip from the Finnish news. It's in Finnish of course, but there's a part where someone's interviewing Cunningham. If anyone's interested :) And the picture below is taken by my friend.

post-4458-0-41784800-1321431818_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

 

From Amazon:

 

"Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:"). But on to the true story. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)

 

The book is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X way, naturally). In the early '90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park, and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A.H.W.O.S.G. already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting.

 

All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Currently the editor of the footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation."

 

 

Thoughts: Oh I will hold his 'cleverness' against him if I want. Self-absorbed, self-assertive, self-important, self-indulgent, boring drivel.

 

1/5

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Thoughts: Oh I will hold his 'cleverness' against him if I want. Self-absorbed, self-assertive, self-important, self-indulgent, boring drivel.

 

1/5

 

Yay to that, frankie! To myself, I thought of the book as "A Mildly Interesting Work of Self-Indulgence":lol:

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Yay to that, frankie! To myself, I thought of the book as "A Mildly Interesting Work of Self-Indulgence":lol:

 

Yes, I remember you voicing your opinion on the book in the Rory thread, and me being very relieved that I wasn't the only one who wasn't completely compelled by the book :lol::friends3: I much prefer your title version than the original one :cool: Very well put!

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Thoughts: Oh I will hold his 'cleverness' against him if I want. Self-absorbed, self-assertive, self-important, self-indulgent, boring drivel.

 

 

This has so much potential as a flash card :) good job Frankie :)

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This has so much potential as a flash card :) good job Frankie :)

 

I'm afraid my English fails me on this point, what do you mean by a flash card? I can only think of those cards that TV hosts have where they can quickly peek what they are suppose to be saying.

 

I guess I should add that I do know some people who've enjoyed the book, so no one should give it a miss on account of my review only!

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I'm afraid my English fails me on this point, what do you mean by a flash card? I can only think of those cards that TV hosts have where they can quickly peek what they are suppose to be saying.

 

I guess I should add that I do know some people who've enjoyed the book, so no one should give it a miss on account of my review only!

 

Yes, that's what I meant hen :) Sorry for the confusion. :)

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Ah, alright :D It's pretty easy to remember what I think of the book, one can just list all the negative words that start with 'self-' and go from there :giggle2:

 

:)

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  • 4 weeks later...

A little update on my recent book purchases:

 

24.11.2011

- Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad (poppyshake once sent me this book magazine called Books Quarterly which I've read from cover to cover a few times now, and this book was featured in it. The name stuck in my mind and I put the title on my unofficial wishlist. Since then it's been featured on First Tuesday Book Club, the best book show on TV, and I've noticed a couple of members here on BCF buying and reading the book. There was a day in November when I was rich, so I went in the local bookstore and bought it :))

- Daphne du Maurier: Frenchmen's Creek (I cannot resist buying anything by du Maurier these days. This was a cheap copy from a charityshop)

- Aphrodite Jones: All S/He Wanted (a true crime about the case of Brandon Teena. It's the case Boys Don't Cry the movie is based on. A truly horrid and sad case :()

- P. G. Wodehouse: The Old Reliable (a nice, old-fashioned hardback and in English. From a charityshop just like the last three books. Couldn't resist!)

 

2.12.2011

- Danny Wallace: Yes Man (I got this as a book swap book from Brian. Many thanks!)

 

12.12.2011

- Psykologia 1: Toimiva ihminen

- Filosofia Prima: Lyhyt johdatus filosofiaan

- Bernard Malamud: The Tenants (I got all these from the free book exchange trollet at the library)

 

14.12.2011

- Colleen McCullough: The Ladies of Missalonghi (Perhaps not the sort of book I'd usually go for, but I just had to get it because it's Australian, and was only 20 cnt)

- Robert A. Heinlein: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (I was sure this was on at least one of my lists, but it turns out it isn't. I don't mind, it was only 20 cnt, and it seems interesting enough)

 

18.12.2011

- Tuomas Kyrö: Mielensäpahoittaja (I got this from my parents as a Birthday present. They haven't been giving me books as presents for, like, 10 years so I had no idea what they'd gotten me when I got the package and knew it was a book. Mielensäpahoittaja is a novel that I read a couple of months ago, and really truly enjoyed, and I'd thought that someday I'd buy the book for keeps and re-read it many times. So I was really happy to see this was what they'd gotten me! :))

 

22.12.2011 (today) From a local charityshop:

- Psykiatria (a big ass hardback about psychiatry, very interesting!)

- W. Somerset Maugham: The Painted Veil (haven't ever read any Maugham but was cheap so...)

- Eeva Kilpi: Naisen päiväkirja (a journal turned to a book, by a Finnish writer)

- Michel Houllebecq: Atomised (I was 100% sure this was on some of my list, but it wasn't. Never mind though, sounds interesting enough :P)

 

These should be the last books for the year. I've gone over 300 bought books in 2011, holy heck...

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- Michel Houllebecq: Atomised (I was 100% sure this was on some of my list, but it wasn't. Never mind though, sounds interesting enough :P)

 

 

Hahaa! I'm going through all the new posts on the forum and was reading the 1001 Books You Must Read -thread when I noticed Houllebecq on the list, and the book listed was called The Elementary Particles. This started to sound a bit too coincidental to my liking and I googled it, and hahaa!! Apparently Atomised is The Elementary Particles. Oh how I hate it when books have various different titles!! This time however it was quite nice, as I now know that I did remember/think correctly and the book I bought is on the list. Yay!

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Okay, I have some very useless reviews to post, I'd rather not post them at all but I promised myself at the beginning of the year that I'd write something, however little, about each book I read this year. So here goes:

 

 

Hide & Seek by Ian Rankin

 

Synopsis from Amazon: At night the summer sky stays light over Edinburgh. But in a shadowy, crumbling housing development, a junkie lies dead of an overdose, his bruised body surrounded by signs of Satanic worship. John Rebus could call the death and accident--but won't. Instead, he tracks down a violent-tempered young woman who knew the dead boy and heard him cry out his terrifyng last words: "Hide! Hide!" Now, with the help of a bright, conflicted young detective, Rebus is following the girl through a brutal world of bad deals, bad dope and bad company. From a beautiful city's darkest side to the private sanctums of the upper crust, Rebus is seeking the perfect hiding place for a killer.

 

Thoughts: It was ages ago when I read this one. The second Rebus book I've read. A decent crime novel is all I remember. I won't avoid reading Rankin's other novels in the future.

 

3/5

 

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Hullu luokka iskee jälleen by Kaisa Ikola (re-read)

 

A re-read of a favorite Finnish teen book from my teenage years. I'm a bit amazed how much I seemed to enjoy this series as a kid, I would give them a miss these days.

 

2/5

 

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The Mystery of the Strange Bundle by Enid Blyton (re-read)

 

Another re-read of a childhood favorite. The Mystery series was always my favorite Blyton series. And it felt just as good as ever to read the book. I just adore the friendship of the kids.

 

4/5

 

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Mimmi ja miljonääri Mårtensson by Viveca Sundvall

 

This is the fourth (?) book in a Swedish children's book series that I loved as a kid and still read. I've never read this book before, I never even knew there were more books to the series than the first three books I've read.

 

4/5

 

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Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

 

Synopsis:"I had the general symptoms, the chief among them being a disinclination to work of any kind."

 

So begin the hilarious misadventures of a merry, but scandalously lazy band of well-to-do young men-and a plucky and rather world-weary fox terrier named Montmorency-on an idyllic cruise along the River Thames. Feeling seedy, muses one of them dreamily, "What we want is rest." What they find instead is one hapless catastrophe after another. Soggy weather, humiliating dunkings, the irritating behavior of small boats and the "contrariness of teakettles" are just a few of the barbarisms our genteel heroes are forced to endure. But which a delighted reader can only sing, Hooray!

 

First published in 1889, Three Men in a Boat was an instant success, and Jerome has been compared to comic master P.G. Wodehouse.

 

Thoughts: I got this book because I've read a few rather favorable reviews of it here on the forum and it sounded like a delightly quirky little read. And that it was. Delightfully funny, and sometimes even unintentionally (?) philosophic :) I'm looking forward to reading the next installment.

 

4/5

 

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The Radleys by Matt Haig

 

Synopsis from Amazon: Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are a modern family, averagely content, averagely dysfunctional, living in a staid and quiet suburban English town. Peter is an overworked doctor whose wife, Helen, has become increasingly remote and uncommunicative. Rowan, their teenage son, is being bullied at school, and their anemic daughter, Clara, has recently become a vegan. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives.

 

Thoughts: This is the third book I've read by Haig, the first being The Possession of Mr Cave (didn't enjoy that much) and second The Last Family in England (loved it!). I liked the premise of the book and enjoyed reading it. Somewhere along the way, towards the end of the book, I think I ran out of steam, but the ending was something I never expected and I admit to crying in the end. Such a beautiful twist! And for that 4/5.

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Kuutamolla by Katja Kallio (re-read)

 

A favorite Finnish re-read.

 

4/5

 

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Mielensäpahoittaja by Tuomas Kyrö

 

My first book by Finnish Kyrö. This was superb! Kyrö was able to capture the voice of an elderly man who's become a complaining cynic. Such dry, incredible humour! One of my favorite reads this year.

 

5/5

 

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The Millstone by Margaret Drabble (re-read)

 

This was a re-read for my thesis, so will not say anything about it, because it was not read by choice!

 

4/5

 

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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (1001, RC)

 

The umpteenth Agatha Christie I've read. At one moment I did suspect correctly who the who-dunnit was in this novel, but then I thought it's ridiculous, when did s/he have the chance. But I suppose that only comes with reading a lot of Christie: you have to suspect everyone, literally everyone, to have a chance at getting it right :P

 

3/5

 

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Kettusen Kootut by Markus Kajo (re-read)

 

Another Finnish re-read. Short ponderings and wondering about life, people and surroundings. Superb, quirky, dry!

 

5/5

 

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The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin (BCF)

 

Synopsis from Amazon: He had walked the earth as Nostradamus, Uther Pendragon, Count Cagliostro and Rodrigo Borgia. He could open a tin of sardines with his teeth, strike a Swan Vesta on his chin, rope steers, drive a steam locomotive and hum all the works of Gilbert & Sullivan without becoming confused or breaking down in tears. He died, penniless, at a Hastings boarding house, in his ninetieth year.

 

His name was Hugo Artemis Solon Saturnicus Reginald Arthur Rune, and he was never bored. Hailed as the 'guru's guru', Rune penned more than eight million words of genius including his greatest work, The Book of Ultimate Truths. But vital chapters of The Book were suppressed, chapters which could have changed the whole course of human history. Now, seventeen-year-old Cornelius Murphy, together with his best friend Tuppe, sets out on an epic quest. Their mission - recover the missing chapters. Re-publish The Book of Ultimate Truths. And save the world.

 

Thoughts: This was surprisingly good. Here's an author I'd never even heard of before joining the BCF, eventhough Terry Pratchett himself has said that Rankin is one of the rare people who always make him chuckle. I found this copy in some secondhand bookshop or charityshop and decided to give him a try. It's been sitting on my shelf for some years now, and I admit I wouldn't have picked the book up unless I hadn't recently made an acquaintance whose bookcase includes three Rankins and who speaks highly of the author :)

 

What an endearing set of characters! Well, at least the main character, Cornelius and the Robin to his Batman, Tuppe. Cornelius is the stuff of epics, although how this is and how he knows about it, is never revealed in the beginning. He doesn't even know himself but it's there. He and Tuppe set out on an epic journey to discover a book that's been long missing. As in any other adventurous read, things don't always pan out like they are supposed to. And sometimes they magically do, which makes hilarious reading.

 

I particularly loved reading the excerpts from Hugo Rune's book that have been recovered. Such amazing theories (or should I say, truths) about the most common place things none of us stop to think about in our daily lives. For example the case of screws. Whenever an electrical appliance gets broken and one tears it apart to fix it and then puts it back together, there are a few screws left over. The gadget works fine without the few screws, but the minute you think the screws are vital and need to be inside, not outside, and tear the thing apart again, things go wrong. When you've reassembed the thing for the second time, it will not work, and now you may find yourself in the company of six left out screws! Conclusion? Screws multiply inside of electric gadgets!

 

Joyous read. More Rankin, please!

 

4/5

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Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield (TBGRC)

 

Blurb:

 

Miss Barrington-Huntley took off her steel-framed spectacles and polished them deliberately. 'Mr Sheffield,' she said, 'after careful consideration we have decided to offer you the very challenging post of headmaster of Ragley School'.

 

It's 1977 and Jack Sheffield arrives at a small village primary school in North Yorkshire. Little does he imagine what the first year will hold in store as he has to grapple with

 

Ruby, the 20 stone caretaker with an acute spelling problem

Vera, the school secretary who worships Margaret Thatcher

Ping, the little Vietnamese refugee who becomes the school's best reader and poet

Deke Ramsbottom, a singing cowboy, father of Wayne, Shane and Clint,

 

and many others, including a groundsman who grows giant carrots, a barmaid parent who requests sex lessons, and a five-year-old boy whose language is colourful in the extreme. And then there's beautiful, bright Beth Henderson, a deputy head, who is irresistibly attractive to the young headmaster..

 

 

Thoughts: This was part of my Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge. The blurb promised quite a deal of happenings, ordeals and an intriguing variety of characters. In a way all these were accomplished in the novel, but not to the degree I expected to. I think the blurb painted a more appealing picture of the novel than what the actual pages then delivered.

 

This is not to say I didn't enjoy reading the book. This year I've been reading a few books set in the small villages of the UK and I've found that kind of setting comfortable and cosy each time. There's something idyllic and idealistic about places where people know everyone and there is a sense of community. If someone is in trouble, the townspeople notice and offer help. This setting combined with the nostalgic 70s, which is a time I've always wanted to experience, made it a real comfort read. The times when children had more respect for their seniors, people weren't gadget-crazed, and courting was (at least in my romanticized sentiments) expected before going any further physically.

 

The characters and the events of the novel aren't really that memorable, but the atmosphere of the novel stays long with me. Not something I might re-read, but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the sequels.

 

4/5

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Hi Frankie, I was at school in the 70s and what you said is true. We had a lot of respect for our teachers back then. Some we feared and some we loved and idolised. But it was starting to change.

Another book with the same atmosphere about growing up in the seventies is Anita and Me by Meera Syal. It was also made into a good film of the same name.

Another film set in the very early seventies is Cemetary Junction which has that same atmosphere I am sure you would like it.

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Crippen by John Boyne (TBGRC)

 

Blurb:

 

July 1910: The grisly remains of Cora Crippen, music hall singer and wife of Dr Hawley Crippen, are discovered in the cellar of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, Camden. But the Doctor and his mistress, Ethel Le Neve, have vanished, much to the frustration of Scotland Yard and the outrage of a horrified London.

 

Across the Channel in Antwerp, the SS Montrose sets sail on its two week voyage to Canada. Amongst its passengers are the overbearing Antonia Drake and her daughter Victoria, who is hell-bent on romance, the enigmatic Matthieu Zela and the modest Martha Hayes. Also on board are the unassuming Mr John Robinson and his seventeen-year-old son Edmund. But all is not as it seems...

 

 

Thoughts: I don't even know where to begin with this novel. It was pure magic. It had everything and lacked nothing, and I will probably fail to fully express how much I enjoyed reading the book.

 

This was my third Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge book. I chose this book because it sounded like a great detective novel and because I've read John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and knew Boyne is a skillful author. I had no idea the book was based on a true crime story, until I read some other people's reviews on it: I'd never heard of the case before, it must come down to the fact that I'm not from the UK, and this happened way before my time. At first I was a bit disappointed, having discovered that I was about to read a true crime story, because I'd expected to be given a great fictional account of a heinous crime, full of twists and turns that are characteristic and expected of the genre. I thought the real case could never match what Boyne could've come up with by himself, writing a fictional novel.

 

I was so wrong. I was simply hooked from the get-go. I loved Boyne's style of writing. He truly captured the feel of the time and I felt like I was there amongst the characters, shadowing them on their journey, all the way. I don't like sea-fairing tales or stories about ships, and yet with this novel, I couldn't wait to get onboard! There's something incredibly romantic about sea faring in the old times, women wearing skirts and gowns, their belongings packed in huge trunks, people being invited to eat dinner at the captain's table... I've been to cruises and they are so boring, common and vulgar compared to the cruises back in the day.

 

I usually prefer chronological order in novels, I'm easily confused otherwise. In this novel, there was a certain amount of chronology, but there were many different storylines to follow simultaneously: that of the escape of Crippen and Le Neve and them being on the cruise, Crippen's childhood turned into teenage turned into adulthood, the criminal investigation led by the Scotland Yard, and the story behind how it was discovered in the first place that something might have happened to Cora Crippen. I didn't have any problems following all these stories though, I was so gripped by every page I read that I couldn't wait to find out about all the storylines and how things developed in each of them. I was equally fascinated by Crippen's past as well as the his days on the ship with Ethel, and my mind was tickled by Inspector Walter Dew meeting Crippen, finding him a pleasant, likable sort of fellow, and how he discovered he'd been completely wrong about his character.

 

I was positively enraptured by how well Boyne has accomplished two tasks and kept it cohesive: he's written a book that can be read as pure fiction and it works and at the same time, it is a very well written true crime story. Some things on the book are obviously Boyne's own adding to the story, his own reasoning of things as we can never be fully sure to what extent both Le Neve and Crippen were involved in the crime for their own part. The whole time I was reading the book my fingers were itching to wiki the case but I gritted my teeth and made myself wait til I'd finished the book. That article made another interesting read!

 

An utterly compelling read! A well deserved 5/5, and this is easily the second best book I've read this year, if not the best, tied with Emma Donoghue's excellent Room.

 

5/5

Edited by frankie
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Hi Frankie, I was at school in the 70s and what you said is true. We had a lot of respect for our teachers back then. Some we feared and some we loved and idolised. But it was starting to change.

Another book with the same atmosphere about growing up in the seventies is Anita and Me by Meera Syal. It was also made into a good film of the same name.

Another film set in the very early seventies is Cemetary Junction which has that same atmosphere I am sure you would like it.

 

Are these books about the school scene, or just growing up in general? I guess I could've been more specific, that I was particularly happy to read the book because it was set in the school environment. :)

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