9th June 2013
The Dinner. Few words for this other than the cover title calls it ‘gripping’ and ‘engrossing’ and A N Wilson calls it ‘funny’. It is none of those things. Set around a family secret the entire book is set through the three courses of a dinner attended by two brothers and their wives. It’s self-indulgent – it feels like an attempt at grown-up writing that doesn’t work somehow – too wordy, too minute in detail and pretty hard going. I haven’t finished it and I’m not going to either, and I NEVER give up! It’s HERE.
9th June 2013
I’m so not a fan of David Walliams but nonetheless I quite enjoyed his writing.. it’s really easy to read. In fact, I like him better for having read the book. There’s nothing much to tell unless I give the whole lot away but it charts his life from boyhood to manhood really – I expect there will be another one. The one thing that really struck me is how emotional he is – he made a rubbish boyfriend (as he is the first to confess) because he never did quite figure out how not to be needy. He seems to set out to ‘save’ the women he goes out with and of course, can’t stay the course and ends up feeling a failure. The book doesn’t take us up to present day and his now a new father and married, so if he wrote another charting how he ended up settled, I’d read it. His relationship with Matt Lucas is complex; despite saying how much he supports Matt he is quite quick to throw a back handed compliment whenever possible. It’s HERE.
9th June 2013
Long time cycle race competitor Tyler Hamilton dishes the dirt on what goes on behind the scenes. Actually, as a fan of the Tour de France which I watch religiously every year, I will never see it in the same light again. While The Secret Race is Tyler’s story (he readily admits to doping), a lot of it focusses around Lance Armstrong. You don’t really need to be a cycling or sports fan to find this riveting; it’s pretty much about what it takes to be a high level competitor and from Tyler’s story, it seems almost impossible to even be a contender without some chemical assistance. In turn, you have to look at the race as it is now – any race in fact – and wonder. Incredibly thought provoking and an eye-opener. It’s HERE.
9th June 2013
This is a joy of a book and a winner at the Costa 2011 Book Awards. It’s set in Lagos, Nigeria and tells the story of Blessing, a young girl whose fortunes change when her father abandons her mother. Not only does it reflect just how vulnerable women are in other cultures, but their move (without their father) back to the Nigerian countryside from the relative affluence of Lagos, but also touches on female genital mutilation. While that sounds on the heavy side, it’s dealt with as part of culture reformation and in a very gentle way. Blessing’s brother Ezikiel becomes involved in political conflict, her grandfather takes a new wife – some of this is very funny (especially Celestine, the new wife), some very serious and a lot of it is about the complexities of growing up, no matter where you are in the world. I enjoyed it from start to finish. It’s HERE.
27.03.2013
Okay, so The Sultan’s Wife by Jane Johnson is set in 1677 Morocco. Historically, it’s beautifully researched, but I can’t say I loved the story of a slave, Nus Nus and a captured English woman who turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of Charles II. You definitely get a sense of the atmosphere of living inside the walled confines of a Sultan’s court in those times; and the dreadful casualness with which life can end and begin. But, while Nus Nus is endearing and Sultan Ismail is a horrifying tyrant that you can really believe existed, the story is so far fetched that I ended up questioning everything and therefore not really enjoying it. Apparently the characters are based on historical fact, in as far as it is possible to ascertain, and since Ismail had one of the bloodiest reigns of any Moroccan sultan prepare yourself for gore galore. One for the beach I think and then straight back to the Oxfam shop giving blessings for not having been born in 1677 anywhere near Morocco.
I nearly hated myself for even getting half way through this book. In fact, I didn’t even get to the very end – it was so predictable and I’d stopped even caring what happened to the two sisters Eva and Patty. I don’t even know why I didn’t give it up sooner. Basically the story is of sisters who have a complicated relationship based on the early death of their mother. One sister runs off with the other’s husband, there’s an adoption theme and ultimately a very, very mundane story of finding independence. Eva runs a dress shop and designs clothes that somewhat unbelievably become a sensation.. she never has a moment’s worry for finances (a past career as a successful model means she has endless money it seems).. she’s one of the most dull characters I’ve ever come across in a book and if I met her in real life, I’d run for the hills. I’d also run from Patty, the ultimate martyr sister. They’re both so over-wrought and everything is over-thought. If my sister and I behaved like them, I’d absolutely understand if we had not a friend in the world. One to avoid.
You know when you open a book and you are hooked from the first paragraph? Well, this is what happens here! Lisa See writes almost as you imagine she might speak so you really feel she is telling you the story of Pearl and May who first appear in See’s Shanghai Girls. It’s a continuation of the Shanghai Girls story and I wish I’d known that before I started it because I would have read Shanghai Girls first. But, the bottom line is that two sisters, exiles from China, share a daughter (I won’t give away the plot), Joy. She runs off to China, imagining it to be the place where she belongs. However, it’s 1957 – Chairman Mao is implementing crazy regimes, particularly in rural China. It’s a matter of factual history that these plans – such as close grain planting – failed spectacularly and millions starved.. often to death. Dreams of Joy follows the path of Pearl’s attempt to rescue Joy and bring her back to America. There are two love stories intertwined, plus a baby, so this beautifully written book has something for everyone. It’s not mawkish, it’s historically accurate and intricately researched. I couldn’t put it down.
02.03.2013
I’ve followed Fleet Street Fox on Twitter for a couple of years now – she’s the sort of straight talking person that you really wouldn’t mess with I think! She’s always got an angle and a viewpoint and puts the news into perspective – she makes you think about things and I’d pretty much rather read what she has to say than read any newspaper. Once you start to like and understand a person’s tone, everything she reports on seems more relevant – she’s 100% a bullshit free zone (check out her website HERE) with a real clarity of voice. So, I was very excited for her book – I’ve never worked in a newsroom, tabliod or otherwise and wanted to find out the bottom line. So, I was a bit surprised when it turned out that the book is more about her divorce than any newsroom antics. Initally, I felt it wasn’t what I signed up for when I bought the book.. but I didn’t read the back or any reviews, so I guess, buyer beware! It was my assumption. So, Diary of A Fleet Street Fox turned out to be quite an emotional book, written in such a way that you’re half laughing and half feeling desperately sorry for her. She calls her husband Twatface and his new girlfriend Fatty the entire way through, so much that Twatface also ends up calling his own new girlfriend Fatty. Tabloid journos get a bad rap but one of the most touching things about the book is how they pretty much all supported FSF in their own (bullish) way. Weirdly, she lives really near me so many of the locations are very familiar. It’s the story of a very shitty divorce, a very shitty thing happening to someone who didn’t really deserve it but it’s also a written record of someone who has to take apart the relationship they thought they had and get to grips with what they really had. I won’t spoil the ending, but you do have to wonder what she ever saw in Twatface in the first place – it’s proof that while FSF might be bullshit free she certainly didn’t spot a great deal of Twatface’s bullshittery.
24.02.2013
As you can see, I’ve taken a break from book reviews for a while, not least because when I moved my blog to WordPress half the reviews got lost and all the pictures went. The other reason is that I’ve been working my way through the entire Inspector Montalbano books and have been happily lost in Sicily for many weeks! However, I have read a few other books in-between, so here goes!
Most recently finished (last night, in fact) is Elizabeth J Haynes Human Remains. It’s somewhat different to her previous two books, Revenge of the Tide and Into The Darkest Corner and focusses on a police analyst’s work in discovering the cause of many unexplained deaths. Without giving away the plot, it’s an investigation in desperation and captures a feeling of hopelessness that some people feel – too weary and defeated to carry on living, they find a way to die that is neither frightening or painful and it does leave you with a lot of questions about choices in death. Of course, there is someone at the core of these deaths who is so complex and disturbing that it is actually scary – although he masturbates FAR too much! I’m not coy, and I can see why his habits are integral to the book, but I felt that bit was an over-share. It is definitely worth a read if you like a psychological drama; I haven’t read anything like it before so can’t knock it for originality. My final point is, and not just for this book, is that if you do a bit of skim-reading, which I do, it’s a bit misleading when the end of the book is bulked up by author interviews – you think you still have a way to go to the end (hence the skim) and then suddenly it’s over and you haven’t concentrated in the same way you would if you know its the final pages. It’s just annoying. You can find it HERE
I absolutely loved this memoir from Grace Coddington, Creative Director of US Vogue. She’s every inch as wonderful as you might hope and the book charts her childhood in Wales through her career as a model in 1960′s London and her journey to her current position. It’s very clearly written, so you could, if you had an afternoon by the fire to spare, finish it in one go. It’s not taxing, just delightful, funny and entertaining. You can find it HERE.
19.08.2012
The Tent, The Bucket and Me is written by comedienne, Emma Kennedy. In short, it’s the true story of her disasterous family holidays in the seventies with ever optimistic parents determined to go camping *abroad* come what may. It’s quite simply one of the funniest books I’ve ever read and I was laughing out loud many times. If ever there was a family who should stay at home, it is the Kennedys, but despite one catastrophe after another, they keep on trying. It’s warm, funny and will resonate with anyone who has ever been on a family camping holiday. Brilliant.
I’ve also read I Left My Tent In San Francisco by Emma Kennedy: she and a friend set off for an American adventure with a frighteningly unrealistic amount of spending money. They’re about at hopeless as it is possible to be and it was in the 80′s when few people had mobile phones so they are pretty well left to fend for themselves. They get crappy jobs with crappy pay, can barely feed themselves and end up in so many inappropriate situations I barely know where to begin… a porn mogul’s car, for a start! Even though Emma and her friend are teenagers, it’s more like two nine year olds trying to scrabble through a road trip because they’re just so innocent. Really funny and eye-brow raising, and a very good commentary on how teen life differed so much then to teen life today. It isn’t as laugh-out-loud as The Tent, so my advice is to read it first and then Tent second. Fab holiday reading.
19.08.2012
It’s not often that I drop everything and spend an entire day reading a book, but that’s pretty much what I did yesterday with Elizabeth Haynes’ Into The Darkest Corner. Could not put it down. To begin, my sister gave me Elizabeth Haynes’ Revenge Of The Tides; the story of Genevieve, an ex-lap dancer now living her dream of buying and renovating a barge boat. During her time dancing (she also had a respectable day job) she comes across some really nasty characters in a seedy, drug infested world. By the time she leaves, she’s seen too much and her past catches up on her. The way that Elizabeth Haynes writes is so engaging that you’re in it before you know it and it is the kind of book that keeps you awake til the small hours because you can’t close the pages. There’s a love story weaving in and out which gives it an extra twist but above all, the author creates a sense of normality that jars tautly when interupted. So, as soon as I’d finished Revenge of the Tides, EH’s second book, I bought Into The Darkest Corner.
It’s a familiar story; a twisted, violent and super controlling man finds beautiful, gregarious and intelligent woman and turns her into a physical and mental wreck. Of course he’s good-looking, of course he tells her he loves her and of course he wants to marry her.. but Lee has such a perverse relationship with love that it’s all about abuse to him. He’s clever, seamless and worse, a working undercover policeman. Cathy has a breakdown, becomes emotionally crippled with severe OCD, but again there is a love story woven into the book and somehow she manages to begin a healing process. Until Lee gets out of prison and starts again. I’ll leave it there but I’d strongly suggest you buy both books because once you’ve read one, you won’t be able to stop! Despite the love aspect, they’re genuinly smartly written, gripping and gritty. Annoyingly, Elizabeth Haynes has only written two books. Whatever you are doing Ms Haynes, could you stop it immediately and go write some more.
13.07.2012
Juliane Keopcke’s extraordinary true story of being the only survivor of plane crash in Peru at the age of 17 is told in the most un-dramatic way in When I Fell From The Sky, given the super-dramatic events. This probably isn’t the book to start on the plane if you’re going on holiday, but it might be reassuring for potential readers that she and her mother took a plane out of desperation that they did not know was the last surviving plane from a fleet of three (the other two had already crashed at other times), and had been cobbled together from parts, more or less. So, very ususual circumstances, and Juliane literally fell from the air to the ground – and survived. She has very little memory of the actual fall.. but it is thought she survived because she was still in her seat and that trees slowed her fall. However, her journey to find help is even more strange; if not for the fact that her parents had brought her up on an environmental research station in the Peruvian jungle, she would never have had the skills to survive. But, survive she did, and now as an adult (this happened in the 1970′s) she tells her story for the very first time. It’s definitely worth a read, and rather than being a terrifying tale, because of Juliane’s very understated tone, it reads as a factual telling with no embellishments. I really enjoyed it.. and given that it is such a hard subject to tackle, have come out without thinking I’m going down with the next plane!
22.06.2012
When I started reading Mr Rosenblum’s List by Natasha Solomon, I had the image of David Suchet as Hercule Poirot in my head. It’s a bitter-sweet tale, more bitter than sweet as it turns out, about a newly arrived Jewish German refugee and his wife arriving in England. As much as his wife, Sadie, wants to remember her culture and traditions, Jack wants to forget and become the perfect English gentleman. After becoming a sucessful carpet manufacturer in the East End of London, Jack turns his attentions to creating a golf course (because none of the golf courses want Jewish members). While it is a salutory reminder of just how dreadfully racist Britain was (and still is to a large degree), the story of building the course becomes a little bit tedious. While Jack and Sadie both find an acceptance of sorts in the little village they move to it’s still a sad story of ambition crushed and the sorry, sordid way that humankind can still ostracise others for the slightest point of difference. It’s kind of a heart-breaker because despite the light and beautifully flowing writing, and the cop-out ending where Jack is ‘happy’, the main thing I take is just how cruel others can be. The ‘list’ from the title is taken from a genuine advice leaflet given to German refugees on arrival in England. Initially, Jack follows the leaflet to the letter, adding in his observations and further guidance should he ever compile his own (better) list, but this compilation of clever observation about the English peters out half way through the book, and I’d like to have seen more.
22.06.2012
I’m not sure how it happened but I managed to be reading two books with a jungle theme at once.
Firstly Anne Patchett’s State of Wonder which is a must-read, and focuses on the research of one woman into a tribe whose women are able to carry on having children until they are old women. Naturally, a drug company has seen the potential for late-to-the-party women and fund the research. When they send someone to investigate why the research is taking such a long time, he dies in strange circumstances. So, scientist, Marina is sent to find out more. And, boy does she discover more. I’ll spoil the story if I say any more, other than this is such a clever story that weaves and twists in the heat of the Amazon with such a sad sting in the tail at the end that leaves you open-mouthed.. how could they? It is very well worth reading if only to force you to make up your own happy ending long after the book has finished.
The other jungle themed book is The Devil’s Garden by Edward Docx. While you can immediately get to know Anne Patchett’s characters, it’s far more difficult with the Docx characters. They’re not even very interesting so it’s hard to care what they do. He is good at creating atmosphere and tension, but without being able to empathise with the main character, Dr Forle, it was hard to care what happened. In the end, I didn’t and it still lies unfinished. Renegade soldiers, torture and murder.. it has it all but is still rather empty.
27.05.2012
This is a real page turner. To cut to the chase, the main character, Christine, has lost her memory… she remembers only a day at a time and once she wakes the following day, everything from the previous day is gone so she has to re-learn. Enter a psychiatrist, who rings her every day to remind her she has a diary (she doesn’t ever remember him, so he has to re-explain everything each time). By recording what she learns about herself and her life in any given day, she reads it each morning to build a picture of herself. Gradually, she starts to instinctively know she has a journal to keep. It’s a psychological drama and immaculately presented (except for how the psychiatrist contacts her on weekends without her husband finding out.. that is never really explained) and I wanted to just keep on reading and reading. The construction is so clever and finely detailed but the book never becomes boring, although given its ‘Groundhog Day’ nature you’d think it might. Exceptionally clever, but utterly readable, this is a very strong recommend from me.
27.05.2012
Well, it’s taken me a couple of weeks to wade through the Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.. I absolutely loved them, and for anyone who has struggled with those first deathly dull 100 pages of Girl With A Dragon Tattoo and wondered what the heck the fuss is about, see the film and then pick up the subsequent books. I am kind of gutted that there will never be any more (the author died shortly before their publication).
11.05.2102
Okay, it has finally happened.. I’ve got embroiled in the Millenium Trilogy. I just could not get started on the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and then I saw the film and loved it. So, I’m now at the beginning of the third book, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. There’s no point in reviewing them because they’re so well read and known. And I’m totally, totally hooked.
2.05.2012
I started off hating this book.. it just felt really patronizing and another stick to beat British women with.. i.e. why aren’t we more like French women? Well, I’ve been to lots of places in France and I’d have to say that it is only really in Paris that you see the sort of sophisticated and elegant women that this book would have us aspire to be. However, as I went on, I really started to like the author, Helena Frith Powell and she does some very rigourous research that in my view is above and beyond the call of duty. The French have a system post child-birth and that’s all I’m saying. Suddenly some of the things she was saying started to make sense. French women spend a fortune on lingerie and take as much pride in their undergarments as they do with their outer wear. We should do this. I live in fear of being run over and my gloomy grey bra exposed for all the ambulance crew to see. I also like the attitude to exercise; Helena says that French women don’t really go to the gym but use every opportunity to move about.. so walking instead of taking the bus, for example, but it is seamed into their daily psyche which might also account for the fact that they seem to stay slimmer for longer. In the end, I found myself saying, ‘yes, why don’t we do this?’ and it does seem that French women take more care of themselves – and crucially, allow more time to do it. I don’t think, judging from the book, you find many French women plastered on the street with blue legs in the middle of January..and that has to be good, right? However, I still maintain that in the parts of France I’ve been to, I can’t say I really noticed a higher level of womanity! There are sophisticated, intelligent and well groomed women all over the world and not just in France. The book is an entertaining read but you’ll probably only need an afternoon (and a glass of wine, maybe!).
22.04.2012
Jeez, if you want a miserable book, it’s right here. But, and it is a big but, Margaret Drabble has a genius for understanding human nature and picking away at the scabs we all have. The detail of emotion is stunning. The book covers three generations of women; the grandmother is old, frail and really at the end of her life, the mother is torn between not being like her own mother (but unable to help herself in many ways) but disappointed that she isn’t appreciated more, and the daughter is a typical selfish teenager who is absolutely disgusted to find frailty in her own mother and even more so in her grandmother who she can’t find any connections with. It’s the kind of thing that eventually will come to us all; difficult daughters, failing parents and the hideous guilt that hangs between. It’s a properly gloomy read but an absolutely phenomenal piece of writing.
01.04.2012
It’s the best possible start to discovering a new author when mid-way through the book you realise you actually can’t wait to read the next thing they’ve written. Karen Wheeler is an ex-fashion and beauty editor (but still currently a journalist as well as an author) who upped sticks from London a few years ago to live in rural France. The books document her (true) journey from YSL to DIY as she renovates her tiny house, acquires a dog, makes friends and finds love. The tone of writing is instantly engaging; from page one you are already on-side and racing through the chapters. However, while her journey is chaotic and funny, it does carry deep messages about how life rarely goes to plan and finding joy in unusual places is no accident; you really have to open your own eyes to how you are blessed.
It’s rare to find writing that you don’t feel you have to acclimatise to but can settle to from the get-go and for this reason, I suggest you buy the lot because once you’ve read one, you will want to read them all. They’re the perfect holiday read to while away the hours under a sun-umbrella. I might also add that I left a comment on Karen’s blog about how much I was enjoying the third book, Tout Soul, and she emailed me to say thank you, which proves she is as endearing in real life as she is in her books. There is a Tout 4 in the making as I write this due for publication next year which is about a year too far away, in my view.
Find the books here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toute-Allure-Falling-Rural-France/dp/1849530661/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333284266&sr=1-1 and Karen’s blog here: http://www.toutsweet.net/
18.03.2012
As a regular walker in a local park, I hate walking there at weekends. Why? Runners. They’re all about them and their run. So, no chance they’ll move off the line they’re running; it’s down to everyone else to leap out of the way and that, quite frankly, is extremely annoying. I have two small dogs, and it would quite literally just take one runner stomping on their back to break it.
It’s worse if you encounter a group; they’re quite happy to take up the entire pathway leaving any other people trying to enjoy walking having to move onto grass or just out of the way altogether. And, if, god forbid, one of my dogs doesn’t move (because you can’t always hear runners creeping up behind you) they’re all curses because they’ve had to swerve. Why runners can’t run on a track and avoid all these hurdles, I’m not really sure, because they get annoyed as hell if, in a public space, other people get in their way.. which seems incredibly unreasonable.
But being continually annoyed by runners isn’t something that can carry on. They’re not going anywhere, and neither am I. So I bought this book in the hopes of getting into the running head space and trying to understand more about the sport. Funnily enough, it has made me far more interested in running – I don’t want to do it, I’ll quickly add – but I can now look at the way people run, their running styles, their shoes and kit, and kind of understand what they’re trying to achieve.
This book is quite an eye opener: it explains why humans were born to run (hunting prey), why barefoot running is preferable (very few running injuries occurred before Nike and similar were born) and more excitingly, explores the sport of ultra-running.. or extreme running. Focussing on a tribe from North America, the Tarahumara, known for their ability to run incredible distances remarkably easily. Living alongside them is a man known as Caballo Blanco, formerly a bare knuckle fighter, who adopts their traditions and learns to run. Cutting a very long story short, he starts pitting the Tarahumara against runners from other countries in endurance testing ultra-runs of 50k plus. (the Tarahumara are well up for this in case you’re wondering!) through deserts, mountains and non-traditional running terrains. Oh, and in extreme heat with no easy access to water.
Without reading this book, I’d never have had any clue about the hotly debated topic of ultra-running, and barefoot versus trainer running. Or that before Nike, there were runners managing times that simply aren’t achievable any more, and they did it with no special shoes, no special training and no warm ups, meaning that when it was all simple and free of so called science, achievements were greater. I’d also never have known that humans are greatly helped to run by a particular ligament in the neck that helps to keep their balance.. pigs for example, don’t have it. It’s also made me a little bit scornful of the runners in the park hammering their feet down; running, according to Born To Run, should be light and feel weightless and done with a straight back and long strides. Same too for those runners who ‘shuffle’ their feet in short strides; basically they might as well be walking quickly rather than running. It’s definitely worth a read if you are remotely interested in running, or you’ve ever wondered what the draw is to participate in the sport.
I can’t say it’s made me happier about runners rampaging through the park hell bent on not moving off their line, no matter how inconvenient it is to anyone else. But, at least I’m a little closer to accepting why they’re so single minded. See, I didn’t say selfish.. that’s definitely progress.
11.02.2012
This is one of the sweetest books I have read in a long time. It deals, unbelievably, with the Rwandan atrocities by weaving experiences into a story about a woman who bakes party cakes. It is the gentlest of books that doesn’t depart from its intent to ensure that what happened in Rwanda is never forgotten and that we are in no doubt that the legacy from that war is scarring and long-lasting, but the tale is told so cleverly and beautifully that it becomes less about the tearing apart of a country and more about coming together. A truly lovely read.
11.03.2102
This is easily one of the most challenging books I have ever read. Non-fiction, it charts the tale of Aayan’s life as a Muslim who turns her back on her religion, and in fact, becomes anti-Muslim. It has to be said, her experiences as a Somali Muslim were not good; she eventually escaped to the Netherlands as a refugee, entirely alone, and after being educated and adapting to western life, she enters the political arena. From the Netherlands, she moves to America, where she still to this day needs 24 hour protection from extremists. It’s challenging because while in the UK we are taught tolerance, if we are really honest, Muslim extremism scares the crap out of us. According to Aayan we have every reason to feel afraid. However, I felt that it didn’t really deal with multi-culturalism terribly well; in London, I feel we can live side by side with other cultures with tolerance and acceptance quite well (obviously a sweeping generalisation but I don’t have enough experience to be any other) and in many ways this book is disruptive to what status quo we do have. However, the concept of global Muslimism is something I’ve never had to think about before and it is indeed very thought provoking. I can’t really come to any conclusions but will continue to take people of any race and creed as I find them. It seems pretty dangerous to do otherwise. Ultimately, what Aayan does is fight for the rights of Muslim women, not to be held hostage in their own homes, not to be circumcised, not to be sold to men three times their age and of course, in communities where this does happen, it is right that there is a voice to speak out. But you cannot tar all people with the same brush and I felt uncomfortable that this is what she was doing. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in other cultures but it isn’t an easy read for the conscience.
11.03.2012
This is a really quirky read about an unconventional family; the parents are ‘performance artists’ who include their young children in creating performance art. Generally this means creating mayhem in supermarkets, streets and a particular favourite, shopping malls. Given that it is fiction, the writing is really clever at making you feel that discomfort when something goes wrong; and that’s their aim, to put people in awkward situations and watch the reaction. Obviously as the children get older, they no longer want to take part in these organised incidents, and when their parents disappear, they just know that it’s all part of a performance. While the police and authorities take the Fangs’ disappearance seriously, the children don’t but still embark on finding them. They do find them, living the ultimate in performance art, but rather than clever and beguiling, it’s all rather sad. It’s a story of gradually seeing your parents as people, rather than just your mum and dad and how you aren’t ever responsible for what two adults do. I enjoyed this book a lot.
11.03.2012
If ever there was a book to convince me once and for all that I never want to climb a mountain, this is it. It’s a collection of 15 true tales of survival from mountaineers; from back in the 70′s and earlier to present day. What’s interesting is that nobody has to climb a mountain, and the mentality of those that do is something I really can’t relate to at all. There aren’t any health benefits whatsoever; in fact, quite the opposite. Given that it’s entirely possible that even if you make it down a mountain alive, you may well have lost your fingers, toes or even your nose just for the sake of going up to come down is madness. These tales are very chilling; I think many would say a testament to human endurance but in fact, I would say a testament to idiocy. I don’t think any benefit to science, nature or anything else has come of one person’s desire to reach a summit, and apart from giving work to Sherpas, it’s one of the most selfish things to do. My entire view across the book was, why? Why would anyone climb a mountain in the most hostile of weather conditions, carve themselves a tiny nook in a sheer face to sleep in and then try and pile three men barely alive into an excuse of a tent on it? This book left me entirely stumped and thinking the people that do it need to find something more productive to do.
01.02.2012
This book had good reviews on Amazon, but oh my god.. I found it so tedious. I’ve read plenty of other Joe Simpson books about mountain climbing.. he wrote Touching The Void which is one of my all time favourite reads, but this is just a long, long introspective, self indulgent non-story. He does however, raise the politics of Tibet and China and of course the plight of the Tibetans but somehow manages to make even that worthy subject all about him. I’d like to think that instead of just moaning about how guilty he feels about climbing in Tibet he might get off his backside and actively do something about it.
01.02.2012
I really enjoyed this book; my interest in North Korea is very much piqued but in fact, I was more interested in Tan Wee Chen’s accounts of other places such as the former Yugoslavia and the Sudan more. It’s really a series of travel essays which is great for the bed-time reader who needs a natural break in writing before being able to actually put their book down! Tan Wee Chen is very much a travel addict and likes to write up his travels; the more challenging the country the better. He spends a little bit too much time on the history of the countries as an intro and personally, I think the book would have been better focussing on the travel experiences, but if you don’t know the history of the Balkans for example, it’s a good summary. The other thing I liked is that he is quite an ‘innocent’ writer… he speaks as he finds without wondering if what he is saying is politically correct and actually forms an opinion of cultural differences that had me going, ooh he shouldn’t say that.. but on the plus, neither can he contain delight and joy at the people and places he goes to and that’s rather sweet. It’s slightly out of date at the present time, with leaders who are very much alive in the book now dead. Nonetheless, a good read if you don’t actually want to go to Iraq yourself but would like to know what it’s like there!
20.01.2012
I only picked this book up because I was desperate for something to read. I’d got it at the Amnesty International Book Sale locally and devoured the rest, but somehow this got put to the bottom of the pile. I thought it would be a schmaltzy book, but in fact, it is anything but, and it’s meaningful in many ways. Charting the marriages of both grandmother Bernadine (in 1930′s Ireland) and granddaughter Tressa (contemporary New York) it’s a beautifully observed book about how marriage isn’t always a bed of roses and that relationships struggle with the same issues regardless of moment in time or country. Both women eventually come to a resolution within their relationships but it isn’t the sugar-sweet homily I had (unreasonably) expected it would be. The book is interspersed with recipes.. most of which were pretty unappealing to me, but it is written in such an engaging style that you are instantly drawn in.
20.01.2012
This is such a sweet book with lots of anecdotes, some very sad and some very funny and all the more poignant to me because I’m in touch with Marc Abrahams, the author, on Twitter because of his work to banish puppy farms (see Puppy Farm tab on my home page). The dog who swallowed NINE golf balls.. the gerbil that needed a caeserean and a random donkey-nativity incident are all parceled up in an easily readable package.
20.01.2012
Dom Joly’s book really piqued my interest in North Korea, one of the most obscure regimes in the world so I picked up this book, This Is Paradise!, by former resident of North Korea, Hyok Kang. While I am aware, from Dom’s book, that any tourism to NK is heavily monitored and visitors are not allowed to tour the country without an official guide, what goes one behind the scenes that visitors are shown is shocking. It’s a country always hungry because they just can’t produce enough food to feed the entire country and many other countries won’t supply them with food so basically they starve. Famine is a part of life. It’s a largely hidden regime, ruled entirely by dictatorship where the people know little of the world outside. Hyok Kang escaped NK (or PRNK = people’s republic of North Korea) in 2007. The book was gripping from start to finish..it focusses on Hyok’s childhood mainly..and I highly recommend it.
14.01.2012
I really enjoyed this book by comedian Dom Joly where he heads off to holiday in non-tourist destinations such as North Korea, Cambodia and Iran. Although it has all the trademarks of Dom Joly’s humour, there are serious elements to it and it is in fact, an indepth look at the rise in ‘dark tourism’ where people want to travel to formerly unconsidered areas of the world. In fact, because of his experiences in North Korea, it made me buy other books about the country because I wanted to know more. The book is split into chapters by country visited, making it a great bedtime book because each country comes to a natural end before another ‘holiday’ starts.
14.01.2012
If you’ve read Three Cups of Tea then this is an eye-opener. Basically, a man called Greg Mortensen founded a highly successful charity building schools in Afghanistan, where due to the terrain partly, there simply weren’t enough schools. He then wrote a book about his experiences, called Three Cups of Tea, which has now been found to be littered with inaccuracies and the multi-million dollar charity not all it seems. One particular inaccuracy just made me laugh; a paragraph in Greg’s follow up book has his holding the hand of Mother Theresa’s body, to which he had been given special access to pay respects to.. it transpires that in fact, Mother Theresa actually died three years before! Three Cups of Deceit is a very slim book; more of a bound article I would say and there is no point at all in reading it unless you are aware of the charity and have read the Three Cups of Tea. My jaw dropped on several occasions at the sheer chutzpah of the lies told in the first book, so on that level it was pretty entertaining!
01.01.2012
Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James
If you love mind-games, you’ll probably whizz though this book about a fatally flawed friendship. As the book goes on, the dreadful incident that defines Katherine’s life is revealed, as is the true nature of her new friend, Alice. It’s not a brain stretcher but definitely a page turner.
Blue Eyed Boy by Joanne Harris
This is a horrible, tortured piece of writing that I totally gave up on. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t finish a book, but this story of an ‘odd’ man still living at home with his mother while living an alternative life on line did me in. When you’re reading a one-person narrative that chops and changes (he is nominally writing an on-line novel on his web-journal) and you can’t tell what is fantasy or fact, but can pick up the very obvious *brewing storm* the whole thing just becomes tedious and frankly, I stopped caring what happened.
Beautiful by Katie Piper
This is a very inspirational read, but didn’t answer a lot of the questions I think other people would naturally have about Katie. It charts her journey from the dreadful acid attack through to starting her charity to help others with facial injuries. While there are no holds barred on an emotional level, things seemed very hurried towards the end and there was no clear explanation about how she could afford to live the independent life she lives now. The book explains that she had a compensation pay-out that wasn’t enough to buy a property so I just had this niggling question throughout of how she managed financially. This of course, does not take away from the awfulness of what she struggled through and it’s all kinds of miracles that Katie has turned her life around despite everything. What I found fascinating is the description of the man who arranged for the acid to be thrown; such a desperately damaged person with no rational concept of normal human behaviour. The worry is that people like him exist at all, but they do and that is salutory. Katie has been and continues to be brave beyond belief, inspiring to others and resolute in her determination to embrace the life she hadn’t inspected. I wished for a bit more detail towards the end of the book, but otherwise, I found it a worthwhile read.
Hidden Lives by Margaret Forster
I really enjoyed this story from Margaret Forster, whose books can lean to the downright depressing. It’s the story of her childhood in Carlisle and an exploration of family myths, including the fact that her grandmother never accounted for 23 years of her life (and an illigitimate child) and took the secrets to her grave in 1936. Margaret’s family weren’t rich, but neither were they poverty stricken, but her mother always wanted a life with more trappings than they had. In face, Margaret’s mother had a good job before she got married but married women weren’t considered employable so the family lived on one wage, despite her mother having good earning potential that would have made an acute difference to their lives. Margaret Forster writes in a very honest way, and had it been a novel, her mother would have realised that family and health were more important etc, but as it was, she never did and went to her grave rather bitter. On the upside, Margaret was sure she didn’t want a similar life, and despite marrying young and having a child almost straight away, she only briefly gave up her independence. So, the book charts three women’s lives and the slow progression of opinion and womens’ place in the world.
I’ve done a lot of reading over Christmas; kicking off with Hospital Babylon by Imogen Edward-Jones. It’s an amalgamation of real-life experiences of doctors working within the NHS and put into a first-person story. Actually, it isn’t nearly as shocking as you’d think and certainly nothing that you wouldn’t already have read about if you have half an eye on the papers, so I read it with a bit of a weary eye. It’s much as you’d expect from a failing system, cynical doctors and patients too sick or elderly to make a stand.
17.12.2011
Twice a year in a local church, Amnesty International holds a book sale with thousands of books at silly prices. They’re mostly all donated by publishers so you quite often get proof books or unedited editions but that’s all part of the fun. Obviously, all the money raised goes to Amnesty. But, as well as donating to a great cause, it’s my opportunity to pick up books that I wouldn’t necessarily buy at full price because they’re not obvious choices. In fact, I like challenging my own pre-conceived ideas about what I should and shouldn’t be reading. I used to read what I thought I ‘ought’ to, rather than what I was drawn to, but now any book snobbery is well and truly out of the window. I just love reading and I will pretty well read anything (except Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.. I just couldn’t get to grips with it at all!).
So, last week I read The Lady’s Maid by Rosina Harrison. It’s a little bit more than an ‘upstairs, downstairs’ story but obviously these tales of two lives within one house are having their moment again thanks to Downton Abbey. Rosina Harrison was Lady’s Maid to Nancy Astor. Nancy was known to be eccentric, impulsive and incredibly difficult (interspersed with endearing qualities too, but not enough, in my view!). The book charts Rosina’s life at the beck and call of Nancy and how she learned to keep things running smoothly when Nancy was determined that they should not!
It’s very simply written, and doesn’t dish any real dirt, but more, gives an insight into daily life. Rosina remained loyal to Nancy until her death but she doesn’t betray confidences and is more of a raconteur. This book is a really quick and easy read; I really enjoyed it because it wasn’t a challenge but was hugely interesting. If anything, I thought Rosina a bit holier-than-thou and wished she’d share more of the juice, but in fact, the book is more about Rosina’s life with the Astors than the Astors themselves. I’d definitely recommend it as an easy, relaxing and rather lovely read.
13.12.2011
I cannot tell you how much I loved this book. To cut to the chase, it’s all about how there is almost no such thing as luxury any more because it’s really all about the money. A good example from the book is how you can go into Louis Vuitton or similar and get exactly the same consumer experience as you would in Gap.. i.e. you pick out your product, take it to the till, someone shoves it in a bag, you pay and leave. Yet the concept of luxury used to be so different back in the day with personal service, bespoke ordering, appointment based purchasing, hand deliveries and impeccibly produced goods. Basically, by paying more, you got more, both in terms of service and goods.
Dana Thomas, the author, is the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris, and her research is beyond the call of duty. She talks to major players in the fashion industry, such as Miuccia Prada and Bernard Arnault (LVMH) looking at the business aspects of luxury. Details such as 40% of Japanese people own a Louis Vuitton product, the biggest profit making store for Chanel in 2008 was Waikiki in Hawaii, and the shocking corner cutting to wring out yet more profit is just fascinating. Once upon a time, luxury goods, particularly leather goods, were made in Italy – nowadays, just about everything is outsourced to China where it can be made far more cheaply. The end result isn’t a cheaper product for the consumer, but a bigger profit for the brand.
It’s a brilliantly written book that I’ve been recommending to everyone who has ever lusted after a designer bag or fragrance.
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