Poppy's Paperbacks 2011

[poppyshake]

I learned that I agreed with Kurt Vonnegut! He thought his book didn't work as well.

Lol .. great minds think alike

[frankie]

Yes, all new members welcome .. tea and sympathy provided

 

Tea, sympathy, therapy, alternate books suggestions, love and understanding!

 

Well, that's comforting to know for sure and usually if a books is on my shelf I will get around to reading it even if it doesn't come highly recommended and those two I'm pretty sure are on the 1001. And you're right, we do learn something when we dislike a book. When I read The Ambassadors I learnt that cleaning the kitchen floor is more entertaining than the words of Henry James

 

Cleaning the kitchen floor? That isn't much, is it. Try volunteering as a diaper for a senior citizen!

 

I'm definitely going to read Running with Scissors, it fits in with one of my January goals so fingers crossed that I can stick to the plan

 

Excellent! Could you please try and coax Kylie into reading the book with you as well? I've certainly tried, but she's never given it. Maybe you would have better luck with it

 

I learned that I agreed with Kurt Vonnegut! He thought his book didn't work as well.

 

Well I agree that it is a bit difficult to get into. And not even a bit. But I loved it all the same once I got into the rhythm

[poppyshake]

Cleaning the kitchen floor? That isn't much, is it. Try volunteering as a diaper for a senior citizen!

On reflection, I think I would rather read Henry James

Excellent! Could you please try and coax Kylie into reading the book with you as well? I've certainly tried, but she's never given it. Maybe you would have better luck with it

If she's not listening to you, she's definitely not listening to me What Kylie needs is more hours in a day/days in a week .. exclusively for reading purposes

Well I agree that it is a bit difficult to get into. And not even a bit. But I loved it all the same once I got into the rhythm.

ahhh .. so you might enjoy Henry James then

[lauraloves]

I'm quite a fan of Mckenzie Crook, so his book is going straight on the wishlist!

[poppyshake]

 

Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson

 

Waterstones Synopsis: In 1985 Jeanette Winterson's first novel, "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", was published. It tells the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents. The girl is supposed to grow up and be a missionary. Instead she falls in love with a woman. Disaster. Written when Jeanette was only twenty-five, her novel went on to win the Whitbread First Novel award, become an international bestseller and inspire an award-winning BBC television adaptation. "Oranges" was semi-autobiographical. Mrs Winterson, a thwarted giantess, loomed over that novel and its author's life. When Jeanette finally left her home, at sixteen, because she was in love with a woman, Mrs Winterson asked her: why be happy when you could be normal? This book is the story of a life's work to find happiness. It is a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a tyrant in place of a mother, who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the duster drawer, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an northern industrial town now changed beyond recognition, part of a community now vanished; and, about the Universe as a Cosmic Dustbin. It is the story of how the painful past Jeanette Winterson thought she had written over and repainted returned to haunt her later life, and sent her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her real mother. It is also a book about other people's stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life-raft which supports us when we are sinking. Funny, acute, fierce and celebratory, this is a tough-minded search for belonging, for love, an identity, a home, and a mother.

 

Review: There's so much that I loved about this book that I'm not going to be able to convey it all here, though I will have a jolly good try The shortened version is, if you are at all interested in her and her background or even just interested in reading about someone who loves literature just as much, if not more, than you do, then read it. You won't be disappointed.

 

This biography doesn't deal with all of Jeanette's life, there's a 25 year chunk missing which she doesn't want to elaborate on. What we have here is a pretty thorough account of her childhood and a more up to date account of her latter years (but not following a strict timeline .. the two are frequently mixed together.) Jeanette was adopted when she was six months old, whenever her mother got cross with her she would always say that 'the Devil led us to the wrong crib'. Mrs Winterson (as Jeanette invariably calls her mother) was a religious zealot. It wasn't always so but at some point she found Jesus (though she didn't really believe in the redemptive message of the New Testament preferring a more angry, vengeful, smitey God .. an exception was made for the Book of Revelations ) Her favourite hymn was 'God has blotted them out' and she pasted tracts to the toilet wall. Jeanette was a bit of a loner at school ... 'I was not a popular or a likeable child, too spiky, too angry, too intense, too odd. The churchgoing didn't encourage school friends and school situations always pick out the misfits. THE SUMMER IS ENDED AND WE ARE STILL NOT SAVED on my gym bag made me easy to spot'. Even mundane things like a shopping trip gave Mrs W a chance to air her .. let's say rather bigoted views ... 'We went past Woolworths - 'a Den of Vice.' Past Marks and Spencer's - 'The Jews Killed Christ.' Past the funeral parlour and the pie shop - 'They share an oven.' Past the biscuit stall and it's moon faced owners - 'Incest.' Past the pet parlour - 'Bestiality.' Past the bank 'Usury.' Past the Citizens Advice Bureau - 'Communists.' Past the day nursery 'Unmarried Mothers.'

 

Mrs W didn't encourage reading saying 'the trouble with a book is that you never know what's in it until it's too late' and though she was a keen library borrower (oddly, for someone so religious, her preferred genre was murder/mysteries) there were only six books in the house (one of them was the Bible and two were Bible commentaries.) Jeanette wasn't allowed books of her own and that's enough to pique the curiosity of any child, she begins to acquire them in secret. She stashes them under her bed, propelling her mattress nearer and nearer to the ceiling à la The Princess and the Pea but one night Mrs W spies a corner of a book and pulls it out to reveal a copy of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love ... it could hardly have been worse. What happens next is pivotal in shaping Jeanette's future, it's horrible and crushing but perhaps it was the spur that drove Jeanette on to greater things .. in hindsight she sees it as so but at the time it's devastating. Of course, the worst (as far as Mrs was concerned) is yet to happen, Jeanette falls in love, which would in itself be enough to send Mrs W into a rage, but the object of Jeanette's fancy is another girl. All hell is literally let loose, and an exorcism is performed.

 

Jeanette leaves home at sixteen and eventually secures a place for herself at Oxford University but her first impressions are not favourable. Her male tutor is 'malevolently gay' and Jeanette realises that the five women in her year will receive no tuition and be pretty much left to shift for themselves ... 'I left St Catherine's and walked down Holywell Street to Blackwell's bookshop. I had never seen a shop with five floors of books. I felt dizzy, like too much oxygen all at once. And I thought about women. All these books, and how long had it taken for women to be able to write their share and why were there still so few women poets and novelists, and even fewer who were considered to be important.? I was so excited, so hopeful, and I was troubled too, by what had been said to me. As a woman would I be an onlooker and not a contributor? Could I study what I could never hope to achieve? Achieve it or not, I had to try. And later, when I was successful, but accused of arrogance, I wanted to drag every journalist who misunderstood to this place, and make them see that for a woman, a working-class woman, to want to be a writer, to want to be a good writer, and to believe that you were good enough, that was not arrogance, that was politics.'

 

Though you will often laugh, the latter parts of the book in particular are very emotional and painful to read. Jeanette's upbringing did indeed spur her on but it shaped her in other ways too not all of which were positive. She has anger and trust issues, she finds it hard to love and be loved and she's dogged by mental illness, imaginary voices and thoughts of suicide. Mrs W had always told Jeanette that her birth mother was dead but she had a suspicion that this may have been a lie (probably because most of what Mrs W said was total claptrap.) Now that both she and Jeanette's (adoptive) father are dead it seems like the perfect time to look for answers. The process is a long drawn out one with strangers seemingly having more rights to your private files than you. I'm not going to elaborate on what happens because it's so pivotal ... the will she/won't she find her birth mother .. but suffice it to say that Jeanette relays it all with absolute candour and openness. There are some surprises along the way and some revelations about Mrs Winterson too .. not least of which is Jeanette's reaction to other people criticising her .. she doesn't like it saying 'she may have been a monster, but she was my monster.'

 

My only complaint is that the book is not long enough .. I wanted to know more and I hope one day she'll write about those missing 25 years. Other than that it's one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

 

10/10

[poppyshake]

I'm quite a fan of Mckenzie Crook, so his book is going straight on the wishlist!

I like Mackenzie too .. there's something adorable about him (and who would have thought that watching him as Gareth in 'The Office' )

[lauraloves]

I like Mackenzie too .. there's something adorable about him (and who would have thought that watching him as Gareth in 'The Office' )

 

I love him in Pirates of the Caribbean, but U've never seen him in The Office, its something I've never watched at all.

 

*hangs head in shame!

[poppyshake]

I love him in Pirates of the Caribbean, but U've never seen him in The Office, its something I've never watched at all.

*hangs head in shame!

It's a great programme but Mackenzie's character is horrible.

If you can bear to see it .. watch this and then you'll know what you're in for ...

It's a deleted scene but sums Gareth up perfectly (I'm still cringing.)

[lauraloves]

It's a great programme but Mackenzie's character is horrible.

If you can bear to see it .. watch this and then you'll know what you're in for ...

It's a deleted scene but sums Gareth up perfectly (I'm still cringing.)

 

I see what you mean about cringing! Who new he could be so lovely in realy life and play such a horrible character. Just shows what a good actor he is IMO :D

[poppyshake]

I see what you mean about cringing! Who new he could be so lovely in realy life and play such a horrible character. Just shows what a good actor he is IMO :D

Absolutely, he is so incredibly opposite to Gareth that really it's a wonder they considered him for the part in the first place. In fact I believe Stephen Merchant did have to be persuaded but only to begin with because he plays it perfectly.

[poppyshake]

 

Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch

 

Waterstones Synopsis: Young Jaffy Brown never expects to escape the slums of Victorian London. Then, aged eight, a chance encounter with Mr Jamrach changes Jaffy's stars. And before he knows it, he finds himself at the docks waving goodbye to his beloved Ishbel and boarding a ship bound for the Indian Ocean. With his friend Tim at his side, Jaffy's journey will push faith, love and friendship to their utmost limits.

 

Review: This is all I seem to be saying lately but again, I really liked this one. It was one of a number of books I've read from the Man Booker 2011 shortlist and so far I've liked them all (though I have yet to read the winner.)

 

It reads like a really old fashioned adventure story. Jaffy starts the book off by telling us that he was born twice .... 'First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.' This tiger belongs to Mr Jamrach, explorer, entrepreneur and collector of the worlds strangest creatures and he's so impressed at Jaffy's bravery that he offers him a job working at his menagerie. Later he is chosen, along with his best friend Tim, to go along with Dan Rymer (the supplier to Jamrach,) on his quest to the South Pacific to capture and bring back a dragon (though as Jaffy points out later .. 'it's not a dragon if it hasn't got wings'.) What they are really seeking is a Komodo dragon. So they join the crew of the whaling ship 'The Lysander', though neither of them knows one end of a ship from another and Jaffy takes with him his unrequited love for Tim's twin sister Ishbel.

 

To begin with, though enjoyable, the story feels fairly run of the mill but as you get more and more into it it grows ever more complicated and darker and you realise what a good ploy it is to lull your readers into a false sense of calm. At one point I could hardly bear to read on because it was so tense and traumatic, it gave me knots in my stomach.

 

It's a little bit Dickens, with a touch of Melville and more than a dash of Stevenson thrown in for good measure. Like Dickens, Birch is excellent at conjuring up the sights and smells and tastes (most of which are revolting) of Victorian London. As soon as we hit the waterways we're in 'Moby Dick' territory and Birch uses the same story for inspiration as Melville did .. that of the doomed whale-ship Essex. I don't actually want to say too much (for a change ) about what happens because the element of unexpectedness is what shocks and appalls. And though, to an extent, there is a certain inevitability to events, what actually comes is above and beyond anything you're imagining (well it is if you're a delicate flower like me ) There's a mystical element to the tale too. Sailors of yore are always incredibly superstitious but even so, you can't help but agree with them, there's something about the dragon that is ill omened.

 

It has to be said that, in my view at least, the sea-faring part of the novel is by far the strongest but then that's where the majority of the excitement takes place. Before the days of cinema and TV and even radio plays, this is the sort of story that would've bought excitement to the masses. They'd have been queuing up on the New York quaysides to learn of Jaffy's fate. I'll be amazed if they don't make a film of it.

 

9/10

[poppyshake]

 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

 

Waterstones Synopsis: In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he'd completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a slew of critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and on his writing. Equal parts travelogue, training log, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and settings ranging from Tokyo's Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him.Through this marvellous lens of sport emerges a cornucopia of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" is rich and revealing, both for fans of this masterful yet private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in distance running.

 

Review: It has to be said that Haruki definitely didn't have me in mind as his potential reader when he wrote this book. I'm not a couch potato but, apart from walking, which I do a great deal of, I don't exercise at all. I wasn't even that good at sports at school .. I found running on the spot difficult The reason I picked this up at the library was curiosity, what would make a seemingly sane and successful person want to punish themselves in this way? Well the answer of course is fitness, the body is a temple and all that and Haruki takes it all extremely seriously. In order to live for as long and as healthily as possible he made the decision many moons ago to alter his lifestyle dramatically (and he makes an interesting point about bodies that put on weight easily .. he see's this as an advantage not a disadvantage because it's giving you an early warning sign that things need to change.) So as well as taking plenty of exercise, he gets up at 5am and goes to bed at 10pm, eats a mostly vegetarian diet with small amounts of fish for protein and keeps his alcohol intake low. As you would expect he takes a similarly disciplined approach to novel writing.

 

What he talks about makes a lot of sense and it would no doubt do me an enormous amount of good if I learnt a few lessons from it, but I don't think I did. For a start his fitness regime is not only strenuous but absolutely punishing, but on top of that it all seemed a bit joyless. More like an obsession than a hobby. Like if I was to read so many books in pursuit of the 1001 challenge that I read myself into sleeplessness, headaches and a depression (and ultimately didn't achieve what I'd set out to.) More often than not he seemed to be depressed about his lack of improvement and disappointed with his times .. the runners blues he calls it. His body is put through the mill too to the point of agony and he hardly seems to allow it time to recover before he's off again. What I did love and appreciate about it was when he talked about the joys of nature and solitude, of camaraderie with fellow runners and all the insights he gives into his novel writing. He's a genius obviously but very humble with it.

 

It's not just a book for runners (or exercise enthusiasts) there's a lot else here besides, but I think it would really strike a chord with those that share a similar ethos. I don't really and I didn't find myself encouraged, it wore me out.

 

7/10

Edited January 5, 2012 by poppyshake

[Kylie]

Excellent! Could you please try and coax Kylie into reading the book with you as well? I've certainly tried, but she's never given it. Maybe you would have better luck with it

 

If it helps, you convinced me long ago that it's a wonderful read and I really do want to read it soon. But you know how many books I have on my TBR pile...

 

If she's not listening to you, she's definitely not listening to me What Kylie needs is more hours in a day/days in a week .. exclusively for reading purposes

 

Oh now, that's not fair. I ignore listen to you both equally!

 

Yes, more time please, Father Time!

[poppyshake]

I've started it now Kylie, and it's funny, strange and addictive. You must read it ... when Father Time allows (I'm only urging you because I'm a lot older and so might be dead by the time you read it and won't find out your thoughts )