Poppy's Paperbacks 2010

[Kylie]

I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer which I thought was a fantastically good book, and I keep meaning to pick up Everything Is Illuminated, so thanks for the reminder, Poppy - another book to bump up the wishlist!

 

I have both of these on my TBR pile.

 

Great reviews of Jonathan Safran Foer and Bill Bryson.

[poppyshake]

Thanks Kylie, hope you enjoy them if they ever reach the top of your pile

[poppyshake]

 

Buddha Da - Anne Donovan

 

Amazon Synopsis: In her hugely acclaimed debut Anne Donovan tells an endearing, humorous yet unsentimental story of a working-class Glaswegian man who discovers Buddhism, rejects old habits and seeks a life more meaningful, only to alienate his immediate family in the process. Moving seamlessly between three family members, Donovan's clear-eyed, richly expressive prose sings off the page. Each character's voice has its own subtle rhythm and the conclusion is a poignant mixture of hope and lingering reservations. "Buddha Da" is a delight from one of Britain's best writers.

 

Review: Very readable in a Roddy Doyle sort of way. The book focuses on three members of a scottish family, Dad Jimmy, Mum Liz and daughter Anne Marie (who's 12) and they alternately narrate each chapter. To start with I was a little bit daunted by the broad glaswegian dialect, it took some getting used to and I thought I wouldn't be able to understand it enough to enable me to enjoy the read but after a few pages I began to get their voices in my head (or in ma heid to be precise). This is a taster of what you're in for ....

 

'Ah'm just gaun doon the Buddhist Centre for a couple hours Liz, ah'll no be lang.' 'Aw aye, is there free bevy there?' 'Naw hen, ah'm serious. Just thought ah'd go and have a wee meditate, try it oot, know?' Mammy turnt roond fae the washin up, and gied him wanny they looks, wanny they 'whit's he up tae noo?' looks ah'd seen a million times afore. 'Jimmy, d'you think ma heid buttons up the back? Yer a heathen. The last time ye set fit in a chapel wis when yer daddy died. the time afore that was when ah'd tae drag you tae Anne Marie's First Communion. And you're tellin me you're gaun tae a Buddhist centre on a Tuesday night, quiz night doon the Hielander? Tae meditate? Gie's a break.'

 

If you read that fine then you'll have no problems.

 

Dad Jimmy is in his thirties and works as a painter and decorator, he likes a bevy and a bit of a laugh in fact he once 'went doon the shops wi a perra knickers on his heid, tellt the wifie next door we'd won the lottery and were flittin tae Barbados' so when he suddenly starts taking an interest in Buddhism, his family are a little bit perplexed. They think it's probably a passing phase and so at first just humour him but they soon come to realise that Jimmy is serious. In a very short space of time he gives up eating meat and drinking alcohol, but it's when he misses Anne Marie's school play in order to visit the centre and then decides to become, for now at least, celibate, that his wife Liz finally loses patience with it all.

 

Even though it's a fairly serious subject there are lots of laughs, the characters are all warm and likeable, Jimmy especially. It's an interesting subject too, it's not only Jimmy's life that changes radically it's everyone around him too. The effects of some of his choices are far reaching, Liz is not ready to become celibate or to make the great lifestyle adjustments needed and Anne Marie, who has always been so close to her dad, is struggling to understand what exactly is going on. I didn't feel as if the Jimmy we were getting to know would turn his back on his family or cause the hurt that he did but then who knows what any of us would do in the same situation, also the ending seemed just a tad predictable but they are only small criticisms. It's a lovely, funny, warm and enjoyable read.

 

8/10

Edited July 28, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death - Gyles Brandreth (Unabridged) read by Bill Wallis

 

Waterstones Synopsis: 'I see murder in this unhappy hand...' When Mrs Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's palm she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of 'Murder' in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen 'victims' begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag...With growing horror, Wilde and his confidantes Robert Sherard and Arthur Conan Doyle, realise that one of their guests that evening must be the murderer. In a race against time, Wilde will need all his powers of deduction and knowledge of human behaviour before he himself -- the thirteenth name on the list -- becomes the killer's next victim.

 

Review: Despite loving Oscar Wilde and murder mysteries I had put off reading/listening to these books because I'm not particularly a fan of Gyles Brandreth (and that's putting it mildly). However, the library was pretty low on choice and the title was attracting me like a magnet, and also I remembered seeing these books recommended here on the forum so I made the choice to bring this one home.

 

I'm glad I did, I loved everything about it. Gyles obviously knows his stuff and I had no problem whatsoever believing that I was reading about true events in the life and times of Oscar Wilde. I loved the way in which he used a cast of both real characters (Oscar, Bosie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Walter Sickert, Bram Stoker & Robert Sherard etc) and fictional and the way in which he fleshed out the lesser known characters. Also loved the way in which Gyles's Oscar was a kind of mixture of Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes, deducing everything long before anyone else, being incredibly witty and insightful and making almost everyone else around him seem quite dim and slow on the uptake.

 

The plotline is a delicious one, Oscar proposes a game of 'murder' in which all of his fourteen dinner guests are asked to write down, on a slip of paper, the name of the person they would most like to murder. These names are then drawn from a hat and read out one by one. Of course, it's not long (barely a few hours) before the person first out of the hat is murdered, and this murder is followed by several others all in sequence. Oscar has a particular interest in solving the crime quickly for as well as feeling a bit guilty about proposing the game in the first place, he himself has been named as the thirteenth proposed victim and his wife Constance is fourteenth.

 

I loved the dénouement, I had made some half guesses and was correct in a couple of instances but on the whole I was as in the dark and blinkered as most of Oscar's companions. I believe I felt as much wonder as they did as the truth was revealed. Yes there is a big nod to both Conan Doyle's and Agatha Christie's stories and probably any murder mystery fan worth their salt will be able to work out whodunnit long before the end but I'm always incredibly obtuse when it comes to unravelling clues and I'm thankful for it because I can usually read detective novels in complete ignorant bliss.

 

Oscar is portrayed as incredibly intelligent and witty and also neglectful, selfish and self absorbed which is probably a fairly accurate portrayal. You get the feeling that he could be both delightful to be with and dispiriting, depending on his mood or the affection in which he held you. I loved spending time with him and his companions at Tite Street, The Socrates Club and London in general, so much so that I must read, or listen to, the others in the series asap.

 

10/10

Edited July 28, 2010 by poppyshake

[chesilbeach]

Hoorah, another convert to The Oscar Wilde Mysteries! I'm so glad you liked it, Poppy. I can't tell you how many people I've recommended them to who've said they can't stand Gyles Brandreth and have ended up loving this series I've read the first two, and think I will get the next one when I go on holiday later in the year.

[poppyshake]

Yes, it just goes to show that you can't judge a book by it's author

 

I was so disappointed when I took it back to the library this morning and found that they didn't have either of the other two .. I will have to seek them out.

 

They're absolute perfect holiday reading. For the first part of it I was listening out in my lovely sunny garden. Alas the weather turned nasty but I had a lot of cross stitching to do and the story kept me well entertained whilst I stitched away. One of those books that you're sad to finish .. it's almost too good.

[Kylie]

I have Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders on my TBR pile but I didn't realise it was part of a series! Do you know how many there are? Are they continuous or can they be read as standalones?

[chesilbeach]

There are three out so far, with a new one due in October this year. I read the second book first, then read the first one and the order didn't make any difference at all. I've yet to read the third one though, so not sure if that needs to be read after the first two.

[Kylie]

Thanks for the info Chesil. I'm relieved I've got the first one in the series, even if it doesn't matter which order you read them in.

[poppyshake]

I think the only thing you have to be wary of is that the books 'Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death' and 'Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder' are one and the same.

 

Hope you enjoy reading 'Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders' Kylie

[BookJumper]

I've been uhming and ahming whether to get these for a while now (as I love Wilde but loathe crime fiction), you'll be happy to know you've made my mind up for me, and in the positive too!

[poppyshake]

I hope you enjoy them Giulia. If they should end up on a bus I shall be mortified that it was my review that tipped you over the purchasing edge

[BookJumper]

I shall endeavour not to have to abandon them on public transport then, I should hate to mortify you !

[poppyshake]

Thanks Giulia

[poppyshake]

 

The Rapture - Liz Jensen

 

Waterstones Synopsis: In a merciless summer of biblical heat and destructive winds, Gabrielle Fox's main concern is a personal one: to rebuild her career as a psychologist after a shattering car accident. But when she is assigned Bethany Krall, one of the most dangerous teenagers in the country, she begins to fear she has made a terrible mistake. Raised on a diet of evangelistic hellfire, Bethany is violent, delusional, cruelly intuitive and insistent that she can foresee natural disasters - a claim which Gabrielle interprets as a symptom of doomsday delusion. But when catastrophes begin to occur on the very dates Bethany has predicted, and a brilliant, gentle physicist enters the equation, the apocalyptic puzzle intensifies and the stakes multiply. Is the self-proclaimed Nostradamus of the psych ward the ultimate manipulator, or could she be the harbinger of imminent global cataclysm on a scale never seen before? And what can love mean in 'interesting times'? A haunting story of human passion and burning faith set against an adventure of tectonic proportions, "The Rapture" is an electrifying psychological thriller that explores the dark extremes of mankind's self-destruction in a world on the brink.

 

Review: Oh dear, I thought it was too good to last. This is the first book this year that I really didn't like at all and thought about abandoning. It may not be entirely the book's fault, I don't really like psychological thrillers that much and so from the start I was regretting my choice. I loved 'Ark Baby' by the same author and had read excellent reviews for 'The Rapture' so I threw caution to the wind and bought this on a 3 for 2 at Waterstones. Ah folly, thy name is poppyshake.

 

The narrator, psychologist Gabrielle Fox, must be one of the most dreary lead characters I've ever come across. She has been confined to a wheelchair ever since she lost the use of her legs in a devastating car accident so you can understand her being vulnerable and insecure. She has no spark though, she is all resentment and negativity and this begins to wear you down after a while, I found her hard to warm to or care about. She also makes some shockingly appalling decisions regarding the care and treatment of Bethany, in fact nearly everyone surrounding Bethany makes appalling decisions, decisions that stretch credibility to breaking point.

 

Bethany's character was another problem, she is so relentlessly aggressive, crude, insulting and self centred that, coupled with the fact that she killed her mother with a screwdriver, you really can't like or have empathy with her. Again her behaviour became tedious and even after you find out what caused her to go so wildly off the rails (even I could suss this out after reading that her father was an evangelical hellfire and brimstone preacher) she never really changes in character at all. Bethany claims to have a gift for predicting natural disasters and though this is poo-pooed by most as the ramblings of a megalomaniacal attention seeker, the accuracy of her predictions begins to interest and alarm Gabrielle and her love interest, physicist Frazer Melville (and this was another annoyance, Gabrielle always refers to Frazer as Frazer Melville, throughout the whole book, despite sleeping with him and having chocolate based sex he is never just Frazer .. but always Frazer Melville .. it's not as if there are any other Frazer's to get him confused with, it was so irritating) and then there is Joy, Bethany's previous psychotherapist, who believes that Bethany is not only predicting these events but causing them.

 

The book is set some time in the future and global warming and natural disasters have been increasing rapidly (and to be fair to the author, the attention to detail concerning eco and geological matters is meticulously researched and well written) along with this there has been a 'Faith Wave', with a growing group of Christian fundamentalists believing that 'the rapture' is fast approaching. Bethany has predicted that a devastating tsunami will hit Europe and place most of it under water and it's up to those that believe in her predictions to try to alert as many people as they can.

 

The last third of the book just got increasingly sillier and sillier, and this was the part where I felt like giving up on it. If you took all of the disaster movies that you've watched or seen the trailers for and put them in a big melting pot you'd probably come up with a plotline very much like this one, complete with a countdown to catastrophe, corruption, a zealous and hostile religious mob, a disturbed and unpredictable teenager, unheeded scientific evidence, a helpless woman and a small band of flawed but incredibly plucky heroes. I can't believe she didn't have the president of the USA rescue them whilst piloting some sort of combat aircraft, ok so the story takes place in the UK but given every other implausible development, it wouldn't have seemed out of place. She did manage to place the climax in the 2012 London Olympic Stadium though so hats off for that.

 

It wasn't for me, it might be for you if you loved 'The Day After Tomorrow' and '2012' but even then I doubt there's anything new here. I knew what was going to happen at the end and that's a sure sign that it had been painted in three feet high letters long before the final chapter. It will probably be made into a movie or TV drama .. oh dear!

 

5/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

Mudbound - Hillary Jordan

 

Waterstones Synopsis: When Henry McAllan moves his city-bred wife, Laura, to a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta in 1946, she finds herself in a place both foreign and frightening. Henry's love of rural life is not shared by Laura, who struggles to raise their two young children in an isolated shotgun shack under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea of mud. As the Second World War shudders to an end, two young men return from Europe to help work the farm. Jamie McAllan is everything his older brother Henry is not and is sensitive to Laura's plight, but also haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the farm, comes home from war with the shine of a hero, only to face far more dangerous battles against the ingrained bigotry of his own countrymen. These two unlikely friends become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.

 

Review: Great storytelling and a great cast of characters. The story is told from the viewpoint of six characters - Jamie, Laura, Ronsel, Florence, Henry and Hap and they each have their own alternate chapters. It starts with a burial and then we go back to find out what happened to bring them to this point. Laura is city born and bred, at 31 she thought she was on the shelf forever, 'a spinster well on my way to petrifaction' but then she meets Henry McAllan. They marry and have two children but Henry's love of rural life soon leads him to buy a cotton farm in the Mississippi Delta and Laura is given two weeks to prepare for their new life. Unfortunately, it won't just be the four of them, Henry's Pappy is to join them there. Pappy is the most snide, sly, malicious, hate filled old man that you could ever be saddled with as a father in law. They christen the farm Mudbound.

 

Whilst Henry is nothing like as bad as his Pappy, he does share some of his unphilanthropic views. Henry's younger brother Jamie however is entirely different, he's charming, handsome and just that little bit wild and unpredictable. Despite the differences in their temperament Henry idolises his brother and Laura too finds herself attracted to him. Jamie's been away fighting in WW2 and has only lately joined Henry, Pappy and Laura at Mudbound. Hap and Florence are sharecroppers on Henry's farm, their son Ronsel has also been away fighting in WW2 but when he comes back home to Mississippi he finds nothing has changed. He finds black folk are still picking cotton, begging white folk's pardon and riding in the backs of buses. This is at odds with the relative freedom he has become used to in Europe, people were curious there because they were not used to seeing black people but once they became accustomed to him he was treated as an equal.

 

The racial tension builds and builds in a land where the Klan are still very much in operation. Because of their shared wartime experiences Jamie and Ronsel become friends but this ultimately put's them, Ronsel especially, in great danger.

 

The ending is shocking and unsettling but you really do feel it coming and so it's not entirely unexpected. The author really breathes life into her characters and places, I felt like I knew the people well (all of those that narrated anyway) and could envisage Mudbound in all it's mud soaked, storm battered, soul sucking glory. A difficult read because of the subject matter but a totally engrossing one.

8/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

Mr Golightly's Holiday - Salley Vickers

 

Amazon Synopsis: Fiction readers with a sweet tooth and a high tolerance of Anglican whimsy are offered much beguilement in Sally Vickers' new novel Mr Golightly's Holiday. Set in the Devon village of Great Calne, it records the events observed, and in part precipitated, by Mr Golightly, the author of a work once famous but now tending to be overlooked, who has elected to settle himself in this community for a while. Mr Golightly himself, a rumpled, elderly figure arriving in a half-timbered Traveller van, is a familiar enough version of "the male author"; Great Calne, an apparently idyllic village with a wide range of carefully differentiated characters, but underneath seething with unseen discontents and rivalries, is itself another easily summoned trope--the kind of community now perhaps most commonly encountered in fictional terms in TV shows. This is handy, for Mr Golightly decides that the best way of dragging his great work into the limelight of popularity and relevance is to recast it as a soap opera. In the event, he makes little headway with this project because, of course, the affairs of the village become all-absorbing and gradually draw him in. And so things unfold, as the characters carefully established by Sally Vickers work out their destinies in a mixture of social comedy (some of it very sharp), melodrama, nature mysticism and visionary redemption that delivers far more than the opening paragraphs can suggest. Moreover, the precise identity of Mr Golightly, while not exactly part of the plot, is disclosed gradually and may come as a surprise to some.

 

Review: Deliciously addictive. To begin with I thought it was just an ordinary tale about village life, the writing is so subtle that at first I entirely missed the subtext. Mr Golightly, a polite, affable and fairly ordinary middle aged man, is renting a cottage in Devon whilst trying to write a sequel to his bestselling book of many years ago. He has decided, as befits modern times, that he will attempt to write a soap opera using the same cast of characters, the only trouble being that he has hardly ever watched a soap opera. At the same time he is trying to get to grips with his new laptop and learn the incredibly complicated and convoluted art of sending and receiving e.mails.

 

The village of Great Calne is teeming with people who all seem to need Mr Golightly's help and assistance, they have a way of swallowing up his time (although he seems more than happy to oblige them) and he finds it hard to focus on his writing and seems to get no further forward with it. The villagers are a bit of a bunch of scheming, dishonest, immoral, self servers and at one point in his life Mr Golightly would have taken a pretty dim view of them, he is inclined to be more benevolent now though, age and experience has made him more charitable. He has at some point in his life known tragedy, his son died and it's something which is still very painful to him. He finds it hard to accept and understand it.

 

The writing is just sublime, it's very witty and gentle but also at times whimsical, dark and revelatory. I had listened to about three quarters of the book before I realised that Mr Golightly was really someone else altogether. When I finished listening I started listening all over again and felt embarrassed that I hadn't noticed the clues to his identity which had been there all along, but it is so subtly done and the author kind of drip feeds the info in at a time when you think you've got his character sussed out.

 

I loved it and thought that Michael Maloney did a fantastic job with the narration.

 

9/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

A Star Called Henry - Written and read by Roddy Doyle

 

Amazon Synopsis: Born in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike.

 

Review: This is an account of The Easter Rising and the subsequent War of Independence as told by Dubliner Henry Smart. The writing is brutal and shocking but also at times poetic and darkly humorous. It's not an easy read, although having Roddy narrate it brought a real authenticity to the story. It's totally unflinching and intense with, as you would expect given the subject matter, copious amounts of violence. The language is explicit and colourful and so is the graphic content but somehow Roddy threads the story with so much wit and absurdity that it doesn't feel as bleak and savage as it otherwise might and it is studded with absolute gems of characters like Miss O'Shea and Granny Nash. Also he writes so evocatively that you feel like you're there experiencing it first hand, which is fairly disturbing as, on the whole, they're not situations you'd like to find yourself in. Being one of the evil English it did have me wincing a bit and some of the depictions of violence were hard to swallow but all in all it's an incredibly accomplished piece of writing. It has the ability to shock you to your very core and make you laugh all in the same paragraph. I just loved the ongoing piece of business involving his fathers wooden leg .. genius.

 

I'd quite like to find out what happens to Henry Smart and so I probably will seek out the sequels at some point.

 

8/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

Gypsy Boy - Mikey Walsh

 

Amazon Synopsis: Mikey was born into a Romany Gypsy family. They live in a closeted community, and little is known about their way of life. After centuries of persecution Gypsies are wary of outsiders and if you choose to leave you can never come back.

This is something Mikey knows only too well.

Growing up, he rarely went to school, and seldom mixed with non-Gypsies. The caravan and camp were his world.But although Mikey inherited a vibrant and loyal culture his family’s legacy was bittersweet with a hidden history of grief and abuse.

Eventually Mikey was forced to make an agonising decision – to stay and keep secrets, or escape and find somewhere he could truly belong.

 

Review: An incredibly difficult story to read because it's so upsetting. Your heart just goes out to Mikey and even though you know he's only little and has only known Romany life, there are times that you just want him to make a break and run for it. You feel that any situation he may find himself in if he runs away would have to be better than the living hell he's encountering at home.

 

This is a true account of Mikey Walsh born into a Romany Gypsy family. Apparently his family are fairly notorious amongst the Gypsies, known, amongst other things, for their strength and prowess in bare knuckle fighting. The crown for the champion is looked upon as the Holy Grail amongst Gypsy men.

That bare-knuckle crown had been in the family since Mikey's great-grandfather had won it but Mikey's father had stood no chance against his more powerful brother and 'with his own hopes frustrated, he pinned them on his son'. Mikey was from a very early age (four years old) forced to undergo daily training sessions with his father, which basically consisted of his father punching him as hard as he could repeatedly. He was also made to fight boys much bigger and older than himself, if he failed to beat them, which was nearly always the case, he got a further beating from his father. His mother did her best and would regularly intervene but only earned herself a beating for it. As he grew up though and it became obvious that he wasn't going to grow into the prize winning champion his father was hoping for he was beaten for every slight perceived misdemeanour The abuse and violence shown towards him was so relentless and shocking that you wonder how his little body was able to withstand it. And when he thought he had found solace with a sympathetic Uncle, things turned even more ugly. Naturally he grew into an anxious, bedwetting child, terrified of his father and dreaming of escape.

 

The book is full of larger than life colourful characters, salt of the earth types, rogues and villains. It was disappointing to read that some of the stereotypical characteristics that some Gorgias (non-Gypsies) taint all Gypsies with are, by and large, true. Shoplifting and theft is rife and so is the extortion of money from (mostly) elderly people for odd jobs and badly laid tarmac drives (which were basically just the thinnest skim that would turn to sludge once the rain came.) Most disturbing though was the revelation that they pick up homeless people (or Dossa's as they call them) and get them to work for them, as slaves practically. Perhaps this is just Mikey's experience amongst the people he knew, I hope so anyway.

 

Throughout though, it's clear that Mikey is immensely proud of his Gypsy heritage and despite everything loves his family dearly. He's never self pitying or resentful and writes with great humour and understanding. The language is pretty ripe as you would expect and the content often harrowing. I would have liked to have read a bit more about the adult Mikey but knowing that he is now settled and happy is enough.

 

A truly compelling tale, I couldn't put it down until I had read him into a happier life.

 

8/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam - Lauren Liebenberg

 

Amazon Synopsis: Nyree and Cia live on a remote farm in the east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical gradfather, theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far as the big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father is off fighting. The two girls know little beyong that until the arrival from the outside world of 'the b*stard', their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their idyll for ever.

 

Review: This is one of my most favourite recent reads. Told from the viewpoint of nine year old Nyree. It's one of the most evocative, vivid, enchanting, tales of childhood that I've ever read.

 

Nyree and her sister Cia are inseparable. Great friends and playmates. Being older, Nyree is the natural leader and Cia is the more sweeter and shyer of the two. They don't look that much alike, Cia being the cuter and they have their own individual style even when it comes down to eating their beloved peanut butter and jam sandwiches, Cia peels hers apart and licks out the filling whereby Nyree prefers to squash the whole together into a doughy mass until the filling oozes out.

 

They live in a farmhouse built by their great grandfather. The name of the house is Modjaji which means rain goddess and it's slowly rotting away around them. The terraced gardens which are carved into the mountainside are unruly and lush, as they climb higher they merge and tangle into the virgin forest which is full of tree pythons, insects, slithering and creeping creatures, rotting tree trunks, fungus spores and dead Shangani warriors. Their grandfather Oupa calls it Paradise Lost and it's Nyree and Cia's favourite place to explore.

Mum is often busy with her farming accounts and Dad is off fighting the Terrs and so to a large extent Nyree and Cia are left to their own devices. Oupa is meant to supervise and help them with homework but more often than not he sit's on the stoep, swilling gin and tonic, sermonizing about duty and damnation, cursing his dead brother Seamus and bragging about his cast-iron constitution. They have a secret hideout and have plans to take a night flight to Fairyland, midnight explorations are a favourite thing and so is anything forbidden like riffling through Mum's dressing table drawers and snooping in the attic. Cia claims to have seen the Wombles climbing the house drainpipe one night, but they were Wombles-Gone-Bad and were coming to get her. Their dad once told them that when he was a child he awoke to find that his toys had come alive. Nyree wishes for this very much and prays to Jesus, she suspects that Cia has jinxed it though because she is terrified of her beloved toys being bewitched and has probably prayed accordingly. They spend summer days crocodiling through the waterhole built by their Dad and basking like hippo's. And all of this is played out amongst the backdrop of the political unrest in Rhodesia.

 

Life seems fairly idyllic to Nyree and Cia, They would prefer it if Oupa didn't sermonize so much and father wasn't off fighting the Terrs but on the whole everything is peachy ... until Ronin comes to stay. They are told that Ronin is their cousin and is boarding at school but will, from now on, stay with them in the holidays. Initially they are pleased ... 'There are few things as interesting as strangers on the farm, and none so interesting as the one's who look like Prince Charming, are sodden with scandal and disgrace and are real live descendants of Great Uncle Seamus.' ... but Ronin's behaviour soon unsettles them. He is aloof, resentful and impolite (except to their Mother who he seems intent on charming) and his Prince Charming looks fade until he resembles nothing more than a blonde Barbie doll, girlish and vacant. His behaviour worsens becoming spiteful and sadistic but although this is witnessed by Nyree and Cia they are threatened with violence into keeping quiet.

 

The only part of the book that I felt uncomfortable with, was the shocking poverty of the local black Africans, and the racist viewpoint of most of the white people including Nyree and Cia. But Nyree was only repeating things she had learnt or overheard and she obviously had great affection for the family's black servants. Plus I imagine that this is a fairly accurate portrayal of how most white people thought and felt back in 1970's Rhodesia and it would have been disingenuous to represent it in any other way. There is a glossary at the back to help translate some of the slang Rhodesian/Afrikaan words used.

A magical, enchanting story of childhood.

10/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides (Unabridged) read by Nick Landrum

 

Waterstones Synopsis: The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

 

Review: A very melancholy and haunting tale told from the viewpoint of the boys who are infatuated with the five Lisbon sisters who had all committed suicide. The boys are all grown men now, but they are still mulling over the facts of the case, still interviewing the people connected, still wondering and coming to terms and trying to find reasons why these idolised girls would take their own lives.

 

It all began when the youngest Lisbon girl, Cecilia, then only thirteen, plunged to her death, at a party given in her honour at the family home. The boys were attending the party and therefore bore witness to the tragedy. The girls were already objects of interest to the boys and to the neighbourhood at large but after Cecilia's suicide, the Lisbon house and family become the target of neighbourhood gossip and speculation. The boys especially are fascinated, they collect snippets of information and any pieces of Lisbon flotsam and jetsam they can find or acquire. It's such an accurate portrayal of teenage infatuation and the often ridiculous lengths that the lovestruck will go to to glean any small detail about the object/s of their desire.

 

The Lisbon house gradually falls into a state of complete disrepair and decay. The grief stricken parents who were never exactly liberal in their parenting endeavour to keep a tighter rein on the girls, supressing and suffocating them in their attempts to keep them safe. After Mr Lisbon loses his job as a local schoolteacher, they become reclusive and are rarely seen. A smell begins to emanate from the house as it and the family slowly deteriorates. The boys remain captivated, they study the girls, stalking them almost, spying on the house and fingering their Lisbon treasures. Although their fascination is both creepy and macabre, Jeffrey Eugenides wonderful prose prevents it from becoming too sinister and the boys hapless and hopeless adoration is often scattered with humour.

 

The boys realising that things are perhaps spiralling out of control try to reach out to the girls, they attempt to telephone the house and are successful in reaching them. They play each other records down the phone which they hope will provide comfort and inspiration (though to be honest the records which included Janis Ian's 'At Seventeen' and Carole Kings's 'So Far Away' would make anybody's list of top ten most melancholy songs ever) .. the most touching song of all beloved by the Lisbon girls is (another candidate for the list) Gilbert O' Sullivans 'Alone Again (Naturally)' and this touched me more than anything because it seemed to sum up perfectly their quiet, resigned despair.

 

One night, at the girls request, the boys creep into the Lisbon house to help them escape. They have obtained keys to a car and they intend to drive the girls to wherever they want to go whilst listening to their favourite soundtrack on cassette. The Lisbon girls have other plans though and the boys dreams come crashing down.

 

Quite a depressing read (or listen), I didn't love it as much as 'Middlesex' though it is exquisitely written and is a totally compelling and unforgettable read. I thought the narration by Nick Landrum was excellent.

 

8/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[Lucybird]

Hi Poppy. I'm only interested in this one because I loved Middlesex really but you do make it sound quite intriguing. Do you think I would be disappointed as you said you didn't like it as much as Middlesex?

[poppyshake]

I didn't think it was quite as good as Middlesex but then that would have been difficult because I thought Middlesex was fantastic.

 

Definitely worth a read though as long as you don't mind reading fairly gloomy books Lucy

Edited August 2, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

 

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

Waterstones Synopsis: Kafka on the Shore follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's novel is at once a classic quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.

 

Review: This is the first book that I've read of Haruki Murakami's and I'm not really sure what to make of it. There's a lot about it that I liked, the way the author mingles the ordinary with the mystical. It reminded me of Neil Gaiman's writing although I thought that the storyline was far more vague and there was less humour. It was very lyrical and poetic and had some great characters and strong imagery. On the downside I did feel like I was in the middle of a fog trying to find my way out to the exit.

 

Out of the two main storylines I was most drawn to the one about the elderly and simple minded Nakata. Nakata had been quite a clever child until a strange and bizarre incident caused him to lose all of his memory and most of his mental capacity. He has lost the ability to communicate easily with other people but has developed instead a unique talent for conversing with cats and it's a chance meeting with one particular lost cat that sets him off on a road trip of extraordinary adventure. I felt very emotionally attached to Nakata, he was like a very honest and disarming child who just says whatever it is they're thinking without feeling the need to complicate or be evasive.

 

The other storyline about fifteen year old runaway Kafka I was less keen on, I couldn't really warm to him and didn't ever feel I knew him at all. Kafka is running away from his past, in particular his father who has cursed him with some sort of Oedipal prophecy. He would like to find his mother and sister who he has never known. He has an alter ego -'the boy named Crow' - who more often than not provides Kafka with encouragement and words of wisdom.

 

The writing is very sensual although at times I thought it veered over into the gratuitous and the sex began to sound like the wishful thinking of every teenage boy - maybe it was. It's packed full of metaphor, weird time loops, people that may or may not be what or whom they seem, lots of magical realism with talking cats and skies full of raining mackerel and random philosophical quotations.

 

The book is full of gorgeous ingredients but when mixed together I'm not sure that they fulfilled their potential. I just didn't get it, that was all. I've had dreams similar to this and they're the type that you wake up sweating and bewildered about. I can still appreciate that it's an incredible piece of surreal writing. I was intrigued by it but ultimately confused. I realise that I probably need to have more ends tied up than this sort of writing is willing to provide which is a bit disappointing.

 

8/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake

[poppyshake]

Lots of packing boxes to do so short reviews needed

 

 

Snobs - Julian Fellowes (Unabridged Audio) read by Richard Morant

Synopsis: Edith Lavery is a woman on the make. The attractive only child of a middle-class accountant, she leaves behind her dull job in a Chelsea estate agents and manages to bag one of the most eligible bachelors of the day - Charles Broughton, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield. But is life amongst the upper echelons of 'good' society all that it seems? Edith soon discovers there's much more to the aristocracy than dancing in Anabel's, shooting small birds and understanding which fork to use at dinner. And then there is Charles's mother, the indomitable Lady Uckfield, or 'Googie' to her friends, who is none too pleased with her son's choice of breeding partner. With twists and turns aplenty, this is a comical tale worthy of a contemporary Jane Austen.

 

Review: This was enjoyable but not rivetting, I didn't have to concentrate that hard on listening. His writing style is compared to Austen, Mitford, Waugh and Wodehouse but I don't think (with this book anyway) he quite lives up to it. The story is fairly predictable and the characters are hard to warm to but it is witty and gossipy. I didn't like Richard Morant's rather stilted narration, a different narrator may have made all the difference.

 

6/10

 

 

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

 

Synopsis: The Asian literary phenomenon of the 90s. More magical than Mistry, more of a rollicking good read than Rushdie, more nerve-tinglingly imagined than Naipaul, here, perhaps, is the greatest Indian novel by a woman. Arundhati Roy has written an astonishingly rich, fertile novel, teeming with life, colour, heart-stopping language, wry comedy and a hint of magical realism. Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, Southern India, The God of Small Things tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory, they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family -- their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved Uncle Chacko (pickle baron, radical Marxist and bottom-pincher) and their avowed enemy Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grand-aunt).

 

Review: I really liked this one, it's full of incredibly dreamy, evocative prose and beautifully crafted. Told mostly from the viewpoint of the 'two egg' twins Esthappen (or Estha as he is mostly called) and Rahel, it tells the tale of the death of their cousin Sophie Mol who is visiting from England .. with her yellow bell bottoms and go-go bag. The narrative jumps back and forward in time a lot, one minute we are with the adult twins in the present and the next they are children again. There are a lot of characters to try and place and remember, it took me a couple of chapters to familiarise myself with them but I was hooked really from page one. Very descriptive and poetic, the author is brilliant at capturing the sights and smells of Kerala. Witty and funny in parts especially the bits about Mammachi's pickle factory and Kochu Maria, the family's 'vinegar-hearted, short-tempered, midget cook,' who is letting the housework go to blazes as she indulges in her addiction to TV. Lots of sadness too, overall the book does have a melancholy feel. Poor little Estha who, after what should have been a lovely trip out to the Abhilash talkies, is sent outside for singing too loudly during 'The Sound of Music' and falls foul of the 'Orangedrink Lemondrink' man, the fear of this man finding him again haunts Estha during his childhood and the incredibly moving tale of Velutha an 'Untouchable' who is suspected of killing Sophie Mol.

 

9/10

Edited August 13, 2010 by poppyshake