Sunday Summaries: Whoops, some books fell on my pile!

Well, here we are at the end of the month and the end (or is it the beginning?) of another week. And what a week it's been: all the jobs squeezed into one day, planned out and then disrupted when The Powers That Be launched a whole load of extra promotions on the very same day. On the last week of the school holidays. Great.

Perhaps because I'm so tired, but I've been not feeling so great about the world this week. Perhaps reading Joe Hill's Horns didn't help my mood. It was an interesting read, and perhaps one that could be used for in-depth philosophical and theological debate if you read it really closely, but I can't in all honesty say that I enjoyed it. When every character we met confesses to terrible, terrible secrets it left a very grim view of the human race, compounded by all the ugliness in the news and on the internet of late.

But enough of the grumbles: I have books! Many books. This week started with a traditionally rainy bank holiday (which seems like such a long time ago now) during which Judith and I made an excursion to the Ryde Bookshop. I'm sure I've talked about that shop before: a small section at the front full of new books, and then a door that leads to a three-story treasure trove of second-hand stock. I came away with three books: Cross Stitch (otherwise known as Outlander, a time-travel romance that has apparently just been turned into a TV series) Foundation,by Isaac Asimov, as I ought to read some more classic science fiction, and Poison Study, which I've been not-buying ever since possibly my first visit to Forbidden Planet in London a decade ago. (Ugh - was it really ten years since I started university? Apparently so.)

Bought new: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, the new novel by Haruki Murakami, whose short story collection The Elephant Vanishes I have just finished reading. And the long-awaited Sarah Waters: The Paying Guests. I cannot wait to get stuck into that one, but may leave it until next week, when I should have three days off together.

And from the library: the eighth volume of Sandman: Worlds' End, which was my favourite volume on my first read-through, This Is What Happy Looks Like (because a title like that's bound to cheer me up, no?) The Coldest Girl In Coldtown which Ellie reviewed quite recently and which I sent as a ninja book swap gift but haven't read myself yet, and a book I'd never heard of but which caught my eye: Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots. 9 books acquired in a week! Oh, well. In part thanks to last week's readathon, I've read a massive 14 books this month, even if three of them were comic books/graphic novels. I have a lot of reviews to write...

Readers Imbibing Peril IX

For the last few years I've been aware of Carl V. Anderson's RIP challenge, and have watched my fellow bloggers spook themselves with books through autumn, and this year I've decided to join in the fun. I'll be going straight in there with Peril the First: the challenge to read four books in the genres of mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror or other such spine-chilling stories in September and October. I've got several suitable books on my to-read pile, and have selected a shortlist of potential RIP reads (although these are subject to change.)

• Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
• The Ghost Hunters - Neil Spring
• Weirdo - Cathy Unsworth
• Dream London - Tony Ballantyne
• The Passage - Justin Cronin
• The Coldest Girl In Coldtown - Holly Black
• The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (a reread)
• The Silkworm - "Robert Galbraith" 

Hello 2014

Hello to you all and a happy new year! It's a grey, dreary, blustery day down here, with the promise of storms later. My sister has been packed off on a ferry and a train to London, hoping to beat the weather home and not wanting a repeat of the travel chaos of Christmas Eve. I'm not working today, for the first New Year in five years, which is probably for the best as I'm still feeling rather bleary-eyed from the late night. 

I'm quite pleased it's a new year. The end of the year seems to be all about leading up to Christmas, and once that's been and gone, the year feels tired, and you can't be bothered to do anything, start anything; it is the winding-down time of year. But now 2014 has started, and it's a good chance to think about doing new things and planning new adventures. One of my new year's resolutions is to do new things, gain new experiences and make memories, by doing twelve things I've never done before, whether that's visiting a new place, trying a new food, meet new people (perhaps a blogger meet-up and book shopping spree?) or maybe, just maybe, start getting those driving lessons I've been meaning to take for about ten years.

As far as the blog is concerned, I'm quite happy with how it's going at the moment. I recently introduced a "Sunday Summary" feature, so that I can keep you up to date with my reading and news, even when I don't write a full review. I'm also contemplating a semi-regular "Fangirl" feature in which I look at the stories I love and ponder what it is that makes them great. As well as, hopefully, being an interesting read and discussion point, I'm hoping it will help me get up the enthusiasm for my own writing, which has been so important to me for so long, but which has fallen by the wayside in the last few years.

Last year I didn't sign up for any reading or blogging challenges, deciding instead to focus on enjoying my reading rather than to aim for any targets and beating myself up when I inevitably failed to reach them. I took part in several readathons, which were a great excuse just to get lost in a good book (although often I ended up getting lost in the internet instead.) A new year gives us the chance to start as we mean to go on, and a readathon is a great way to make a head start on some more reading. Bout of Books has been one of the most popular and enduring readathons, and the next one starts on Monday for a week. The Christmas and New Year rush should be well and truly over in town, and the kids heading back to school, and I'm expecting to be back to working part-time, so it'll be a great chance to work down my to-read pile.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog 

. - From the Bout of Books team

Yes please!

I'm not going to overload my reading time with challenges, but this year I couldn't resist the Lucky No. 14 reading challenge, from Books to Share. Astrid has really been creative in coming up with different categories of books to read, and different ways of battling the to-read pile. The challenge is to read one book in each of the following categories:

1. Visit The Country: Read a book that has setting in a country that you really want to visit in real life. Make sure the setting has a big role in the book and it can make you know a little bit more about your dream destination.
2. Cover Lust: Pick a book from your shelf that you bought because you fell in love with the cover. Is the content as good as the cover?
3. Blame it on Bloggers: Read a book because you’ve read the sparkling reviews from other bloggers. Don’t forget to mention the blogger’s names too!
4. Bargain All The Way: Ever buying a book because it’s so cheap you don’t really care about the content? Now it’s time to open the book and find out whether it’s really worth your cents.
5. (Not So) Fresh From the Oven: Do you remember you bought/got a new released book last year but never had a chance to read it? Dig it from your pile and bring back the 2013.
6. First Letter’s Rule: Read a book which title begins with the same letter as your name.
7. Once Upon a Time: Choose a book that’s been published for the first time before you were born (not necessarily has to be a classic book, just something a little bit older than you is okay. You can read the most recent edition if you want to)
8. Chunky Brick: Take a deep breath, and read a book that has more than 500 pages. Yep, the one that you’ve always been afraid of!
9.  Favorite Author: You like their books, but there are too many titles. This is your chance, choose a book that’s been written by your fave author but you haven’t got time to read it before.
10. It’s Been There Forever: Pick up a book that has been there on your shelf for more than a year, clean up the dust and start to read it now :)
11. Movies vs Books: You’ve seen the movie adaptation (or planned to see it soon) but never had time to read the book. It’s time to read it now, so you can compare the book vs the movie.
12. Freebies Time: What’s the LAST free book you’ve got? Whether it’s from giveaway, a birthday gift or a surprise from someone special, don’t hold back any longer. Open the book and start reading it now :D
13. Not My Cup of Tea: Reach out to a genre that you’ve never tried (or probably just disliked) before. Whether it’s a romance, horror or non fiction, maybe you will find a hidden gem!
14. Walking Down The Memory Lane: Ever had a book that you loved so much as a kid? Or a book that you wish you could read when you were just a child? Grab it now and prepare for a wonderful journey to the past :) Comic books or graphic novels are allowed! 

2012: A Year in Books (and a bit of film and TV too.)

Looking back over the hundred-plus books I've read this year, I was surprised to see which books had stuck in my mind and how many I had forgotten ever reading - or at least, was surprised to discover I had read them only this year. I've paid flying visits through some story-worlds, and immersed myself in others, which were often but not necessarily the ones I enjoyed the most at the time.

It can be a wonderful but slightly frightening thing to be so engrossed in a story that it is more real than day-to-day life. The notable books and series for this in 2012 were:

The Sandman graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman. Can that really have been this year? It seems a lifetime ago.

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, prompted by the BBC's second series of Sherlock at New Year. (Towards the end of the year I once more immersed myself in the world of 221B Baker Street by watching the second Holmes movie from last year, and having another Sherlock marathon.

My reread of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, around the middle of the year, reignited a second time by receiving a lot of the Lego sets for my birthday, and a third by the release the first Hobbit film. Middle-Earth has had a strong pull on me since I was 16, and it doesn't like to let me go.

A Song of Ice and Fire. I took a long time to even be tempted to read this series of doorstopper novels, but eventually I was won around - although I have second thoughts about whether or not to watch the TV adaptation.

Shakespeare as a whole, although I've only actually read the one play in its entirety this year - Julius Caesar. The BBC's marvelous Hollow Crown was a magnificent introduction to Shakespeare's history plays - I love the tragedies, and some of the comedies, but apart from studying the famous bits of Henry V, the histories were entirely new to me. But the staging of Richard II, Henry  IV and Henry V utterly captured my mind and admiration in the way only the Bard can do.

Other books that have stuck in my brain:

The Fault in our Stars - John Green.
The Etymologicon - Mark Forsyth (look! A non-fiction!)
The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey
Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Little Brother - Cory Doctorow
The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind

But looking back over my reading, I realise how much I've already forgotten; how many books that I enjoyed while I read them but which didn't stick in my mind, and the books that I was fairly indifferent to, and how relatively few really engaged me as a reader. And there is a place for light reading, for enjoyable fluff, but I found myself wondering how many books were ones which I read because they were short or easy, and because I hadn't posted a review on my blog for ages. Surprise, surprise, the easy reads often didn't get reviewed either, because I hadn't much to say about them.

Ellie at Musings of a Bookshop Girl wrote an excellent series of posts about rediscovering the joy of reading which I recommend reading if you feel you've fallen into a bit of a reading or blogging slump. Quality, rather than quantity, is my aim for reading and reviewing in 2013. Of late I have not done much of either. And by "Quality" I don't mean reading only Serious Literature and shunning light reading - far from it! At heart I am a fantasy freak. A thriller-seeker. A comfort-reader. A girl with a literature degree and the intent to use it. A nostalgic inner child. All these things at once and more. My aim is to merely to read the books I love, not the page-numbers of those I don't.

I set myself two reading challenges in 2012 - to read 120 books in a year (at the time of writing I have just over 5 books left to read in under 29 hours - not going to happen!) and Ellie's Mixing It Up Challenge, which encouraged me to read outside my comfort zone. In the end I read books in 13 of 16 genres - you can see which ones here - so I missed target but hardly disgraced myself, and seem to have more non-fiction in my list than in most years. But for 2013 I have resolved to set myself no blogging/reading challenges at all - not even enabling a target on Goodreads for how many books to read. That in itself feels like a bit of a scary commitment as I've been setting myself challenges for several years now (and failing to meet any of my targets.) I'm going to be selfish, and I'm going to fall back in love with my books once more.

At the same time, one of Gandalf's lines in the new Hobbit film really struck a chord with me: The world is out there, not in your books and maps. Or as Dumbledore would put it, It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. So in 2013, I want to go on my own adventures. What form these may take is as yet a mystery, but I feel the need to redress the balance between book and life.

Happy new year everyone, and I wish you all lots of joy for 2013.

In which I embark on a new adventure: A Game of Thrones

For the last year, since Sky Atlantic started showing HBO's adaptation of the epic fantasy series, I've been unable to escape reading and hearing about A Game of Thrones. A lot. All the time. From every direction. I've lost count of how many of my friends have told me I should read this series, or have been surprised that I haven't, or threatened to disown me and/or hit me over the head with the Dance With Dragons hardback if I didn't at least give the series a try. But I wasn't sure this was for me. I like my fantasy epics, although I've read less high fantasy in the last few years, but all I knew about A Song of Ice and Fire was that it was about fantasy world politics. And swording. Lots of swording. Lots of death.
But people are dropping references to this series everywhere, and I'm seeing people reading it on public transport, or people are buying it, and I'm starting to think this is a thing I want to be part of. I want to join  see it at work and can't help taking a peek - and read a page or two. This series is calling to me and now I am answering the call. My colleague Maria has lent me the first book, A Game of Thrones, which I will start reading and reviewing shortly. (As it's such a whopper of a book, I may review it a bit at a time, if I have enough to say about it. But not a chapter at a time as I gather there are many, many, short chapters, and that would just be silly.)

I still don't know a lot about this series, am not sure whether I will love it or not. I'm giving it a few days after Lord of the Rings because how can it compare? And I'm well aware that, apart from being epic fantasy doorstops, killing off Sean Bean in the adaptation and being written by slightly curmudgeonly old chaps with two Rs for middle names, these are completely different stories. It's like when people try to lump together Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, or Harry Potter and Twilight, or Twilight and The Hunger Games - all completely different genres within the wider genre of fantasy. Do not show your ignorance in such matters! Just don't do it. 


All I know, or think I know about A Game of Thrones is:

• there are swording and politics
• Pages and pages of family trees at the back of the books.
• Sean Bean is in it, and therefore dies. (I think I know how he dies, because I may have seen a spoiler clip in one of those The Many Deaths of Sean Bean videos on Youtube, but I don't know who he plays.)
• George R. R. Martin has no problem with killing off anyone - never mind if you think their survival is necessary for the story, or common decency, or because you like them. Don't trust him with anyone you like.
• A few character names: Ned Stark, Daenerys, Jon Snow, Joffrey.
• Everybody hates Joffrey.
• Someone gives birth to dragons. Is this right? Is this literal or metaphorical, and does it make any more sense in context or have I got completely the wrong end of the stick? Please don't actually answer this. 
• That is about it.

Right now I'm only committing to reading the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, because there are a lot of pages to get through, in one book alone, if I don't like it. Two of the books have been split in half for the paperback publication, presumably so that there is a hope of getting to the end of a volume without the book falling to bits. My challenge to George R. R. Martin is this: Make me care. 

Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery




Anne of the Island is the third book in L. M. Montgomery's classic series about the imaginative redhead, and in many ways the end of "part one" of Anne's story. This is the book about Anne Shirley's college years, the last book about Anne the girl and the beginning of Anne the woman. It is also the last part of the story in which the community of Avonlea features prominently, and even now, despite the book's title, a good half of the the book's events don't even take place on Prince Edward Island, but in Kingsport, which is based upon Halifax, Nova Scotia. Even when the story is in Avonlea, I found it wasn't quite the Avonlea I knew.

 As a child, the only Anne books I owned were the first two: Green Gables and Avonlea, which I read over and over again. My mother had an old copy of Anne of the Island, so I was quite familiar with it, but less so. It comes as a shock that the community that seems more vivid than my own hometown in my memories, should be as I imagine it for such a brief time in the series - only two books out of the eight. Some characters have moved away, such as Reverend Allan and his wife - did they really appear so briefly? I knew them so well! Rachel Lynde, the town gossip, is still around but now living at Green Gables itself! Although this was due to happen at the end of Avonlea, it seems strange for her not to be down the road, but in the house itself, helping to bring up the twins. Anne's "bosom friend" Diana is engaged to be married, and for the first time, Anne has to face the death of her own school friend, Ruby Gillis, the bright, flirtatious girl who was always a little shallow and tiresome, but who made up a four with Anne, Diana and Jane Andrews on many an occasion. "Everything is changing - or going to change," said Diana sadly. "I have a feeling that things will never be the same again."

Not that there is much time to be melancholy, with Anne's whirlwind life at Redmond College, full of fun and friendships. She is reunited with two girls from Queen's Academy, Priscilla and Stella (who, alas, I can't really tell apart) and befriends the outrageous but adorable, frivolous and fun-loving Philippa Gordon. After a year living in boarding-houses, the girls rent a cottage of their own, a cute little house called Patty's Place, in a road full of grand mansions. Many pleasures of this book come from the simple domesticity of four girls and Phil's young-at-heart aunt Jamesina "Jimsie" making their house a home, and there is a lovely chapter in which Anne gets to visit the little yellow house where she was born.



And as well as her female friends, Anne - no longer the skinny ginger kid, - receives proposal after proposal, each less romantic than the last, before she is swept off her feet by the story-book hero Royal Gardner, who seems to be the man of her dreams. Personally, I can't stand the man. He is too suave, too smooth, and knows all the right things to say to an idealistic soul which has been nurtured on romantic literature, but he has no personality. All his grand gestures come across as studied and fake, and it comes as a great relief when Anne comes to her senses. But it's not until it appears to be too late that Anne realises what everyone else has known for years, to whom her heart really belongs.

South Riding, Winifred Holtby

I wouldn’t have heard of Winifred Holtby’s South Riding if it hadn’t been for the new 3-part BBC adaptation masterminded by Andrew Davies of Pride and Prejudice and Bleak House fame and due to start airing in the UK tonight. A largely forgotten work, it has been compared with George Eliot’s Middlemarch, being a portrait of an entire community at a difficult time – in this case, the 1930s, between two world wars and an era of depression. South Riding has been hailed by novelist Sarah Waters as “a twentieth century classic,” so I have chosen it for Sarah’s Back to  the Classics challenge.

Although there is a large cast of central, viewpoint characters, the main protagonist is Miss Sarah Burton, who is newly appointed as headmistress of a girls’ high school in the South Riding, Yorkshire. At thirty nine, Sarah was much younger than her competition for the job, and a very modern woman. She is full of idealism and a love for life, and full of ambition to encourage her girls to realise their potential, not to be held back by their sex or poverty.

Holtby also shows us the details of the local government trying to do their best at a time of financial crisis, covering themes and issues that are all too familiar to a modern reader, and it’s sad to see how little has changed. The slums of the South Riding may be gone, but there is much that resonates – the trap and stigma of unemployment and poverty – Mr Holly, for example, is described as being two shillings a week better off when on the dole than when working as most of his wages go towards his travel. His daughter, Lydia, is an excellent student and a scholarship girl at the high school, but she can’t afford to go to college and fulfil her potential, and her responsibility to her younger siblings keeps her out of school.

"A twentieth-century classic"
- Sarah Waters

South Riding, like Middlemarch, shows everyone’s point of view in turn, good and bad. My first impression of Councillor Huggins was the tired old stereotype of religious hypocrisy, preaching fire and brimstone from the pulpit and in his spare time ogling pretty ladies in their swimming costumes on the beach. But we get to know him as a compassionate man, with a good heart and an agonising awareness of his own weaknesses. It’s painful to watch him trying and trying to make amends and digging himself deeper into trouble. Then, there is sad, tormented farmer and landowner Robert Carne, who is as good as widowed with a mad wife who doesn’t recognise him. He is on the verge of financial ruin and fears that his teenage daughter Midge will go the same way as his wife. Midge, herself, is a bratty, spoilt kid, but underlying is loneliness and a desperate longing to be popular.

With such a large cast of viewpoint characters, it’s inevitable that some get only a little page space, but this does not mean that they’re not fleshed-out properly. Holtby brings her characters to life in a chapter or two, then they pop up a bit later in the background with an update on a situation you can quite believe has been carrying on away from the readers’ eyes.

The casting of the BBC adaptation features several familiar actors, faces who seem to pop up everywhere, such as Anna Maxwell Martin, (Bleak House) David Morrissey (Blackpool) and Penelope Wilton (Doctor Who’s Harriet Jones Former Prime Minister (Yes We Know Who You Are) and Downton Abbey.) All are actors I admire and enjoy watching, and this as much as anything else persuaded me that South Riding is a book and series that might be worth a look at.

There is of course a little bit of romance – name me a book without it! – or at least the hope of romance between Sarah and Carne. This came as no surprise: Sarah is the heroine after all, and Carne is a brooding, tortured soul – as well as being played by the rather handsome David Morrissey. Their relationship was clearly meant to be a Pride and Prejudice- style hatred which reveals itself to be a disguise for attraction. Yet in the book, Sarah’s first realisation of being in love seemed to come from the blue, prompted by a few grumpy encounters in which I, at least, noticed no signs of attraction. No doubt on the screen their scenes will be slow-paced to allow for many long, smouldering looks, supported by appropriate music. But we’ll see.

 

For UK viewers, the first episode of South Riding is on BBC1 at 9PM tonight.
In the USA, PBS have scheduled part 1 for May 1st this year.

If you enjoy this, you may like:
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
TV: Cranford (or the book by Elizabeth Gaskell)
TV: Lark Rise to Candleford (or the book by Flora Thompson)

Beloved, Toni Morrison

I chose to read Beloved as part of Sarah's Back to the Classics challenge, as it was a regular title to appear on lists of books banned from school libraries. Looking it up on Goodreads, opinions were polarized: reviewers either loved or hated Beloved and could not understand any other point of view. I decided to give the book a 50-page or 3-chapter trial, and decide at that point whether or not it was for me.

Beloved tells the story of Sethe, a former slave who chose to kill her small daughter rather than allow her to be taken back into slavery. After many years of mysterious activity in Sethe's home, a young woman appears at her door who calls herself Beloved - the name on the child's gravestone - and who knows things that only Sethe's children ever knew. Is this girl Sethe's daughter miraculously returned to her, or does Beloved have a more sinister purpose?

When reading Beloved I had no difficulty in understanding why it is a regular banned book. With themes of infanticide, cruelty, rape and torture, Beloved is a dark, disturbing novel, not suitable for young or sensitive readers. However, I found myself wondering if people call for its censorship out of discomfort, not wanting to look closely at a shameful era of history; one which, like Beloved, will not stay dead.

I have to say, I didn't really enjoy Beloved. Beside the obvious, that it covers subjects highly unpleasant to think about, I found the writing style very patchy. Though Morrison's writing can be beautiful and poetic, I found it somewhat dense and at times impenetrable. I tuned in and out of the writing and sometimes found myself reading a few pages without really taking in what was going on. She switches between characters, past and present and first and third person narration with little warning, and if I'd put the book down it took me a little while to be able to tune back in to what was going on at a particular point. At one point, the book took on a stream of consciousness style which, although full of fascinating language and imagery, I confess I couldn't get its meaning. I think my personal preference of storytelling is more traditional.

And yet, when I reached the end, I found myself unable to let Beloved go, feeling that it needs at least a second reading to get everything out of it. Perhaps more. I didn't always enjoy reading it - and yet, I felt the need to do so again. Love it or hate it, or if, like me, you don't quite know what to make of it, ultimately Beloved is an important work of literature which deserves its place as a classic.



My Best Friend's Girl, Dorothy Koomson

When Kamryn Matika wakes up on her thirty-second birthday, her only plans for the day are to dress up in a spangly gold dress and high heels. One birthday present she does not expect is the responsibility for 5-year-old Tegan, the daughter of her former best friend Adele - and Kamryn's ex-fiance Nate. But Adele is dying of leukemia, and begs Kamryn to adopt her daughter. Kamryn had never intended to have children and struggles to forgive Adele and Nate for their betrayal of her, but she can't abandon Tegan to live with Adele's cruel father and stepmother.

I've always had the idea that Dorothy Koomson was a chick-lit author, which is a genre I rarely indulge in, and tend to be disappointed with when I do. Judging by the covers in pastel pinks and yellows, her books are certainly marketed as such, but reading My Best Friend's Girl got me thinking about what Chick Lit really is. Light, popular fiction by and for women? Sweet, shallow, fluffy romance? Sex and shopping in London, New York or LA, or perhaps a holiday in Paris or Venice?

My Best Friend's Girl is certainly a women's book, with its emphasis on relationships between friends, family and romantic partners, but I think to class it as "chick-lit" is too simple. "Chick-lit" always has negative connotations to me, though at the same time I acknowlege this to be unfair. Books certainly shouldn't be considered inferior because they are about women's issues, while books about men's issues are just called "general fiction." Unfortunately, I've found many books in the "Chick-lit" genre to be somewhat shallow and unoriginal, though that ought to be put down to the individual writers and not a judgement on the entire genre. My Best Friend's Girl uses many of the conventions of "chick-lit," such as a pastel-coloured cover, a love triangle and an overuse of adjectives, especially describing clothes and hairstyles, but Koomson creates sympathetic, well-rounded characters and explores issues of trust, forgiveness, friendship and parenthood with tact and sensitivity. Adele is a bubbly, outgoing rich girl, genuinely kind and friendly, but whose seemingly perfect childhood was in fact one of neglect and abuse. Kamryn, on the other hand, appears to be a tough, independent woman, but is full of insecurites. After years of bullying, she refused to let people come close to her - and those who she did let in betrayed her, undoing all the hard work. Though Adele's story was more obviously tragic, I really felt for Kamryn, as I could identify first-hand with the damage caused by the more commonplace betrayal.

Read as part of the Support Your Local
Library challenge



I did, however, enjoy the first half of the book better than the second, wherein we were introduced to Kamryn's new boss, Luke. Kamryn denies that she hates him because she secretly wants to sleep with him - but from that moment on I had a good idea where the story was going. Koomson left enough twists and questions to not make the ending predictable, but the addition of romance didn't interest me as much as the story of Kamryn, Adele and Tegan.

If you enjoyed this, you might like:

Boys Don't Cry - Malorie Blackman

TV: Single Father

Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery

What better way to start a new year than to rediscover my favourite book of all time?

When old-fashioned, late-middle-aged brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert send for an orphan boy to help on their farm at Green Gables, the last person they expect to meet is the precocious, imaginative redhead Anne Shirley. At eleven Anne has never been loved or wanted, but makes up for lost time by winning the hearts of the rural community of Avonlea, winning friends - and a few enemies - with her impulsive ways.

I first read this book at the age of about seven, and immediately Anne was a true "kindred spirit." Like me, she lived more in a dream world than the real one, making up stories left, right and centre, and being remarkably scatterbrained when it came to real life. I spent hours reading and rereading about her exploits until, looking back, it feels difficult to separate the book from my own childhood. L. M. Montgomery brings Avonlea, Prince Edward Island to life by furnishing it with a cast of lovable and believable characters. As well as the irrepressible Anne, there is Mrs Rachel Lynde, who made it her business to know everyone else's, shy and softhearted Matthew who wraps his sister around his little finger without seeming to try, and Marilla who isn't half as stern as she'd have you believe. There are countless ladies who are known only as Mrs [Husband's-name Surname] - a thing that confused me no end when I was small. Then, among the younger generation who I know better than many of my own primary school classmates: pretty, jolly Diana Barry, spiteful Josie Pye and her sister Gertie, airhead Ruby Gillis, sensible Jane Andrews, pompous Charlie Sloan, the rather nerdy Moody Spurgeon McPherson and of course the rascally Gilbert Blythe, who makes his debut in the book's most infamous scene by having a slate cracked over his head after making fun of Anne's red hair.

Anne of Green Gables is a light, episodic novel, the majority of the book taking place during Anne's first couple of years at Green Gables, showing her falling from scrape to scrape, and also experiencing simple delights with such pleasure that you can't help but feel her wonder: eating ice cream for the first time at a Sunday School picnic, making friends, exploring the great outdoors and inventing histories for every place. Anne really is a story to make you appreciate the little things, and to a small girl such as Anne, everything is the most important thing in the world.

You don't really notice Anne changing much, but as the novel progresses, she grows up naturally, her excitable speeches don't sound quite so precocious and gradually she comes to keep her excitable ways under control. Almost before you know it, Anne is fifteen and heading off to Queen's Academy to work for her teacher's certificate. Although she is still very much Anne, I can't help agreeing with Marilla as she laments the loss of the funny, melodramatic little girl Anne was.

"I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You're grown up now, and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so - so - different altogether in that dress..."

As if to reassure the reader as much as Marilla, Anne quickly lets us know that:

"I'm not a bit changed - not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out."

Anne never gives up her vivid imagination, but channels it into her writing and English Literature studies, and she continues to fall in and out of trouble for several volumes to come.

2011: a look ahead

New Year's Resolutions

My first video message - thanks to my sister Jenny for being cameraperson. Sorry about the poor light quality, blame the energy-saving lightbulbs!

Reading Challenges:

After last year's big and complicated rereading extravaganza that I barely skimmed the surface of, this year I'm keeping things simple. I have signed up for the Back to the Classics challenge hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much

I have scheduled a re-read of the Anne of Green Gables series - which I managed to get through the entire 2010 without reading, a thing which must be quickly rectified! I'm calling this my Kindred Spirit challenge; at the moment it's just for me and is all very unofficial but if anyone else is interested do let me know!

I may join other challenges as they take my fancy, but basically this year's challenge to myself is this: read lots of new books and lots of old favourites. As many as I can. And that's it.

2010: a review in books.

I began the year determined that 2010 would be The Year of the Reread, (well, mainly rereads!) devoted to rediscovering all my old favourites in four different genres: Classics, Classic Kids', Gothic and Fantasy. It started well enough, but working in a bookshop it's impossible to ignore all the shiny new books that call to me up to eight hours a day, and excluding the book I'm currently reading, I got through exactly the same number of new (to me) books as last year: 82.

So how did I do?

Classics

The goal: I plan to reread all of Jane Austen's novels. Also, something by Georgette Heyer. [...] something by each of the Brontes. A Tale of Two Cities, as one of my favourite novels of all time, plus a new Dickens that I've not yet read.

The reality: I got through two Austens: Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility, two Heyers (so at least I'm in credit there: Frederica and The Masqueraders) but failed completely with the Brontes. I didn't read A Tale of Two Cities, but reread Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol. My new Dickens was The Mystery of Edwin Drood, if that counts, being unfinished, and I also read Hamlet and three Sherlock Holmeses.

Children's Classics

The goal: I won't list them all here, but I planned to reread all the books that really summed up childhood for me, the books I lived more than merely read.

The reality: I didn't even get started on my L. M. Montgomery collection, except a new one for me: Pat of Silver Bush. Ditto my Katys or my Little House. I did manage to read a fair few school stories in the Chalet School and Trebizon series, and the complete set of a series I used to get only from the library: Penny by A. Stephen Tring. I reread Alice, A Little Princess, Heidi, The Railway Children and those Chronicles of Narnia I hadn't read in December 2009.

Gothic

The goal: basically my reading list for my university Gothic Fiction novel, and other books that I felt ought to be in the canon.

The reality: In fact I had grown so tired of vampires and the like that I only bothered with Carmilla and Dracula before putting that part of the challenge on hold. I read a few modern teen gothic novels later in the year, but nothing classic.

Fantasy

The goal: David Eddings' Elenium, Julia Gray's The Guardian Cycle, everything by Robin Hobb and Cecelia Dart-Thornton, a Lord of the Rings reread, and some Pratchetts.

The reality: I got quite a decent amount of fantasy read this year, but with the exception of Lord of the Rings, and a couple of others, they were all by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman. Or both.

Three Books I've Been Meaning To Read For Ages

These were the aforementioned Gaiman's Neverwhere - and once I read this one I had to see what else he had done. Definitely worth the wait! - Middlemarch by George Eliot and the Gormanghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. I am still plodding through Middlemarch in between lighter works, but have not yet touched Gormanghast.

Wider Reading


Non-fiction: Three biographies: one on Giacomo Casanova, a wartime memoir and Stephen Fry's autobiography Moab is my Washpot.
Genre Fiction: six crime novels and three romances.
Set abroad: Australia - Pink by Lili Wilkinson
New Zealand - The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
Canada - Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
Ireland - The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea. Part Ireland, part fairyland.
Europe - No and Me by Delphine De Vigan
Africa - two books from the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Historical USA - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

At the end of September, I fortuitously stumbled into Speak Loudly, a campaign amongst book bloggers to prevent censorship of books in schools. I stopped being a lonely person sat at a computer sending the occasion review into the ether to be possibly read, possibly not, by about five people, and became a Book Blogger. Because of the nature of the campaign, most of the reviewers whose blogs I found myself following focused on teen and young adult books, and I was reminded that there is some good stuff out there for that age group - it's not all trash, and even the trash can be enjoyable.

Favourite reads of 2010

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
I had been told to read this fantasy story of London Below about five years ago, and this year I finally discovered why. The London you might think you know is brought to life in a brand-new mythology in which there really is an Earl who holds court on an underground carriage, an Angel called Islington and Black Friars. A dark story packed full of imagination.
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
This is one I was just drawn to in Foyle's bookshop in London (London Above, that is!) and on the strength of the cover I was determined to read. An impulse-buy, but well worth it.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The tale of three women in the Deep South at the time of the Civil Rights movement. One of the few multi-narrator books where I care for all three characters equally, touching, tragic and infuriating, but with a great heart and sense of humour.

Least favourite reads of 2010

One Day At A Time by Danielle Steel.
I wasn't expecting quality literature with this book, but I wanted to throw it across the room on average about once per page! Steel's writing style goes against everything I've been told in every creative writing lesson I've had since schooldays. She never shows if she can tell, and what she tells goes against the evidence of what little showing she does. And she repeats this telling incessantly. I mildly cared about the characters and their situations, but I couldn't get past the atrocious writing style.
This Time For Keeps by Dee Williams.
Ditto. Perhaps it's the romance genre - but light and fluffy doesn't need to equal bad writing.
Fallen by Lauren Kate and Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick.
Two Fallen Angel romances with drippy heroines. Fallen had some very good writing in it, but I found the relationship, if it can be called such, to be insubstatial and unrealistic. Crescendo was a sequel to Hush, Hush, which I found to be average but enjoyable, but with book two I was just relieved when it was all over.

So in conclusion: I may have failed miserably in my challenge this year, but I think I can be pleased with myself. In new reads and rereads I've managed to get through 131 books, not including the two I'm still reading. I went from blogging a couple of times every couple of months to updating several times a week, and from 5 followers (most of whom I knew anyway) to 64. In my turn, I discovered dozens of like-minded bookworms from all over the world, and enjoy swopping recommendations and making new discoveries through the book blogging community.

Happy New Year, and may 2011 bring you lots of joy (and many great new books!)

Challenge: Back to the Classics

This week I have signed up for the Back To The Classics challenge, hosted by Sarah at Sarah Reads Too Much. The Challenge runs from January to June next year, during which time participants will aim to read a book in eight different categories of "Classic." These categories are as follows:

• A Banned Book
• A Book with a Wartime Setting (can be any war)
• A Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) Winner or Runner Up: a list can be found here
• A Children's/Young Adult Classic
• 19th Century Classic
• 20th Century Classic
• A Book you think should be considered a 21st Century Classic
• Re-Read a book from your High School/College Classes

 I have a few ideas kicking around about which books to choose, but these are subject to change, so I shan't list them here just at the moment.

The Other Alice, Julia Clarke

Ally is like a bad fairy who arrived at the party and cast an evil spell over the world. Everything in my life is fracturing and changing and going wrong, wrong, wrong.

Alice is fed up. It is the night of her elder twin brother and sister's birthday party, and she doesn't want to be there. Sister Nell is shouting, Mum is tired from a stressful week at work and Alice's two best friends have stood her up in favour of a double date. When a strange girl gatecrashes the party, all it takes is one small lie about knowing her. Like a vampire, that small invitation is enough for the other Alice, Ally, to creep into the family's affections. Only Alice (our Alice) feels uncomfortable and doesn't trust the newcomer.

The Other Alice is a simply-written story exploring the issues of family, identity and young romance, with a claustrophobic layer of mystery. Although I borrowed this book from the teenage section of the library, it seems to be aimed at the lower end of the age group, maybe for ten to thirteen-year-olds*, due to its straightforward narrative style which has Alice immediately state the thoughts that other novels might take chapters of hinting and suspicion. This is not a criticism, as I wasn't in the mood for a twisty narrative taking a long time to arrive at an inevitable conclusion. The uncomplicated narrative style, middle-of-nowhere Yorkshire setting and realistic characters made The Other Alice a cosy read that took me back to the books I used to check out of the library ten years ago.

I found it interesting that Julia Clarke decided to give two main characters the same name. There was no confusion as one Alice narrated the story and the other used the short form Ally, but it was interesting to think of the two girls as two sides of the same coin. Alice is a good girl, sensitive and rather idealistic with a vivid imagination, while Ally is unpredictable, wild and rather dangerous. Alice senses that Ally wants something from her family, and while Ally makes herself at home and invites herself into family occasions, Alice feels slowly squeezed out.

It was interesting to read The Other Alice immediately after writing my review of Fallen, as there is a similar love scenario to the former. Alice has a crush on her sister's boyfriend Spence, and her feelings for him, while rather vague and unlikely, cause her to turn down the more obvious candidate in her friend Sam who loves her. (Yes, another love interest called Sam! Good name. My first crush was on a Sam. But that is beside the point.) It was refreshing after all the star-crossed-lover, eternal romances that are out there, to read one that is based on liking, hormones and being flattered by someone paying attention. It may be small-scale, but I could relate so much better than in most teenage romances. My only slight criticism was that, lovely though Sam was - and he was! - he seemed a bit too good to be true among a cast of complex characters.

A quick, satisfying read and an enjoyable way to spend an evening.

*I realised after writing this review that The Other Alice contained a bit of language which would take it to a 12A/PG-13 rating if it were a film.

Fallen, Lauren Kate

As soon as Fallen arrived on the bookshelves of my workplace in all its gothic glory, it was inevitable that I would not be able to resist its call forever. Long I protested that I wasn't interested in teen romances with non-human love interests, but the book won out in the end.*

Fallen opens with a prologue set about 150 years before the main events of the story, well-written with a good sense of time and character, an artist and his mistress in 19th century England. A short scene, seemingly unrelated, but it hooked me immediately and kept me wondering how it was relevant.

Chapter one, and the scene changes to Luce arriving at her new boarding school. Great! (Have I mentioned that I am partial to boarding school stories?) Sword and Cross is no ordinary boarding school, but a reform school for juvenile delinquents and headcases, where Luce has been sent after an unfortunate incident where a boy died. Sword and Cross has a creepy, zombie atmosphere to it, everything described in shades of black and grey, mould and mildew. To add to the bleakness, although there is no school uniform, the dress code is black, black and more black. Black jeans or skirts, black sweatshirts or jackets, black Converse boots... you get the picture. The students are watched 24/7 by surveillance cameras (although they show great resourcefulness in disabling them!) one third are tagged by electronic wristbands, and detention involves clearing the neighbouring graveyard at the crack of dawn.

Somehow I found myself seeing superficial similarities between Sword and Cross and my university hall of residence: not only did the back buildings overlook Surbiton Cemetary, but it was rumoured to have formerly been a prison - although the truth of that rumour never was established. Being a reform school, the characters were not the same archetypes of the average high school story. Everybody had a Past. Still, Luce manages to make some friends, Arriane and Penn (short for Pennyweather! Probably the only sane person at Sword and Cross, who is only there because her late father was on the staff.) As this is young adult literature, she also meets two boys: the friendly and flirtatious Cam. And Daniel.

From here I felt the story go downhill. Daniel is gorgeous and expresses an instant dislike to Luce, but she "feels a connection" with him, a sense of deja vu and persuades herself that actually they were meant to be together. Daniel gives little to no encouragement to Luce, and all we have to go on are vague descriptions of "feelings," which was a problem as their "connection" proved to be central to the plot. I found Luce's obsession over someone who treated her badly unconvincing from the start, and their relationship to have as much substance as that of Bella and Edward in Twilight, if that.

Meanwhile, Luce seems to be getting on pretty well with Cam, who is instantly smitten. Unfortunately, he just doesn't compare to Daniel. It is as if Cam is the boy Luce would like, if she was simply what she appears to be. But there is something strange about Luce, something that she doesn't understand but that Daniel seems to - if he would only talk to her for two minutes at a time without vanishing on her. Aside from the deja vu, Luce is haunted by "shadows" that no one else can see, but from which she senses threat and hostility. Since arriving at Sword and Cross, these shadows have appeared to her more frequently and they are gaining substance, bringing disaster with them.

As the book comes to a close, and Luce agonises over her two romances, some truths are revealed about Daniel's true nature and his history - and hers. As a battle begins between good and evil manifest, friends, classmates and staff are forced to take sides and some of their true loyaties are surprising. The finale in the graveyard and around the school is a dramatic and terrifying affair, and I was left with the knowledge that this is just the beginning. Only some of the questions raised in the book were answered, and I wanted to know more. Why does the fate of the world revolve around Luce (and Daniel?) What really happened the night Luce's first crush died? And how on earth will they keep their world appearing to be the same as the one we know?

I found it difficult to rate this novel, because there was so much good about it, and yet so much that really annoyed me. In the end I settled on an average of three stars, although that feels stingy to the story as a whole and over-generous to Luce and Daniel, who are the largest part of it. I shall certainly be reading the sequel, Torment, although I haven't decided whether to wait for it to be released in the smaller-format paperback or take advantage of the excellent multi-buys that the bookshops are currently offering on children's books.



*Having looked at the cover for about a year before reading it, I was rather disconcerted to discover Luce does not look like the girl in the picture, having had her long hair cut short just before the book opens.

Book Blogger Hop and Coming Soon, 15/10/10

The Book Blogger Hop



It's that time of the week again when book reviewers hop around each other's blogs like crazy frogs. I have to confess to being very greedy when it comes to following book blogs, I just can't read enough reviews by kindred spirits across the world. Alas, this means that my to-read list just keeps getting longer than I can hope to get through, thanks to all the recommendations.

"When you read a book that you just can't get into, do you stick it out and keep reading or move to your next title?"

I don't like to give up on a book, and nine times out of ten I will see it through to the end. If the book that I'm reading isn't enticing me, I'm more likely to put it aside in favour of something lighter or an old favourite - or many - but I try to get at least three chapters read between one more enjoyable book and the next. I can think of two books in the last couple of years that found themselves in a charity shop without my having read to the end, and one that went back to the library unfinished.

Coming Soon

I haven't had as much reading time in the last week as I would have liked, due to various inconveniences such as work and making up for lost sleep, but I have three days off which I intend to make the most of. Alas, my to-read list just gets longer and longer. I still have two library books, (which have now been renewed until 2nd November) a handful of bought books and an ever-growing wish list.

Twenty Boy Summer and The Hunger Games arrived on the doorstep on Tuesday, two books I've heard a lot about in the last month or two.

Today I'm reading Twenty Boy Summer, and aside from any thoughts on the story, I observed with interest that some paperback books imported from the USA have a different texture to UK editions. The cover feels either slightly fuzzy or smoother than smooth, bringing to mind the surface of a chalkboard, compared with the UK's matt or cheap shiny paper covers. Also, the book is slightly floppier. Perhaps American printers use lighter paper?

I bought Fallen by Lauren Kate and Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, which appear to have similar subject matter, were published around the same time, (as were their sequels,) and which have gorgeous covers. I finally bought my own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the great classics and must-reads in the history of literature. Last on the list is my sister's copy of the latest Terry Pratchett book, I Shall Wear Midnight, about which she gave a couple of little hints that caused it to scream out, "READ ME!"

Linger, Maggie Stiefvater

Linger is part two of a trilogy about werewolves living in Minnesota. In book one, Shiver, Grace is an ordinary high school girl with a less ordinary obsession: the wolves who live in the woods around her town. As a child, she was attacked by a pack of wolves, but one saved her, a distinctive-looking wolf with golden eyes. At seventeen she met Sam, a boy working in a bookshop whose unusual eyes looked awfully familiar. It turned out that he was a werewolf: human in the summer and wolf in winter. Only, with each passing year, his time as a wolf grew longer and when winter approached he feared that this time he would stay a wolf forever. Shiver ended when, after a risky experiment, Grace and a classmate manage to find what seems to be a cure...

While Shiver was alternately narrated by Grace and Sam, Linger introduces two new voices. One is Isabel, Grace's classmate, whose brother went missing after being attacked by wolves. Through most of Shiver, Isabel and Grace do not get on, but by Linger, they have become friends, brought together by their shared knowledge of the existence of werewolves. Isabel is a spiky, irritable character, but being portrayed in the first person, a gentler side to her character is shown. All the same, I felt that her narration, at least in the beginning, was a little shaky, her voice not quite as authentic as the other three.

Also introduced is a new character, Cole, a former rock star and drug addict, and a new werewolf. Bitter, full of hatred for both himself and the world, I was surprised to find myself liking him. Cole is a well-realised character with the most distinctive voice of the four narrators, but I was surprised to discover that he is only about nineteen. He is full of the world-weariness of a much older character and until it was revealed that he was little older than Sam, I had pictured him in his late twenties or earlier thirties. With Cole, Stiefvater explores a different theme to those usually found in werewolf stories: the question of why someone would choose to become a werewolf. Instead of longing to hold onto his human self, Cole is frustrated that it is difficult to keep in his wolf form - harder for him than for those who would rather be human.

Sam is now 100% human, but still he feels that affinity with the wolves. He has been left in charge of the pack, and both he who used to be a werewolf, and Grace who was bitten but never changed, find themselves wondering where they belong. Both are, physically, human all the time, but feel as though they should be werewolves, and now, ten years after her attack, Grace is getting ill.

I didn't need to reread Shiver to be drawn back into the world of Grace and Sam. Although the characters are the same age as the protagonists of Twilight, I found myself more inclined to take their side than dismiss them as immature, and I felt Grace's anger and frustration at her parents. After leaving her from her early teens to bring herself up, when they find out how serious her relationship with Sam is, they ground her, forbid her from seeing him and tell her she's only a kid and it won't last, and when she turns eighteen she can do what she likes. I found this attitude somewhat baffling. (Do parents really ground their seventeen-year-olds? My parents never used this punishment but it seems ridiculous for someone who's nearly an adult.) Yet at the same time, it felt entirely realistic: After years of ignoring her, Mom and Dad suddenly find out that Grace isn't a little girl any more and try too late to make her what they want her to be by threats and force. I found myself getting angry at them and rather irritated that they blow ordinary teenage behaviour out of proportion while being completely oblivious to the more sinister forces at work under their very noses.

Linger certainly matches Shiver for quality, and I await part three with impatience.