The Magicians (Lev Grossman)

Well it has certainly been a long time since I last reviewed.  Alcott had a little flurry of reviews around the time she moved away, which promptly stopped when her Masters started. What could my excuse possibly be? I’m down to one job, I’m not studying at the moment and since the inter-state move of my closest friend I’ve become even more of a hermit. If you really must know I’ve been cooking a lot. Also watching lots and lots of Downton Abbey. It could be that this newfound passion for the blog stems from the fact that Downton Abbey has no more episodes until September. (It’s not). (It is.)

I’ve also decided to make my life a little easier. If you’ve got a brilliant memory, you might remember that I’m a children’s book specialist, which means every week I’ll be reading a number of children’s and YA novels. I read adult books too, obviously, but sometimes a week will have gone past and all I have new to review is YA stuff and so I just review nothing. So you can expect to see a few more reviews of YA stuff popping up – not a lot but some. There are some truly fantastic books being published for the YA market because publishers know that young adults will read almost anything.  They’re not set in their ways about being a literary fiction reader, or a sci-fi reader, so some really cool, genre bending stuff gets published.  Some really brainless stuff also gets published as publishers jump on the craze of the moment – dystopian futures - publishing anything that has a hint of dystopia about it.  But I won’t be reviewing that stuff.

After this ramble of an introduction where I go on and on about YA, I might as well go ahead and review an adult book – just making sure you’re still concentrating! The Magicians by Lev Grossman is everything I wanted Max Frei’s The Stranger to be. The impression I got from reading reviews of this one was that it was for readers who had grown up with Harry Potter and were now a bit jaded and cynical.  Or perhaps Harry Potter, grew up as himself and became jaded and cynical. Either way I had been in the mood for a bit of light fantasy, and this fit the bill perfectly.

Quentin (Q) turns up on the day of his Princeton entrance interview to find the man who was supposed to be interviewing him is dead. Lying on the desk are two envelopes addressed to Quentin and his friend James. James declines to take his envelope, while Quentin does not. This turns out to be a defining moment for the two - Quentin goes on to sit the entrance exams for Brakebills College where he will eventually study magic. James does not. It is particularly satisfying that Quentin gets to study magic as he is someone who has never outgrown the idea of the world of Fillory. Everyone read the Fillory books growing up – a series about a magical land not unlike Narnia – and most people (including most magicians) reach a certain age and leave all that kids stuff behind them. Except Quentin. Maybe I can sympathise with Quentin here given that I still read a huge amount of kids books. (Side bar: does this mean that one day I'll get to study magic because I still read books about magic? Probably).

Anyway, Quentin gets into Brakebills and is obviously really good at magic. After a while. Actually he kind of sucks at first but then becomes really good. He also becomes one of a clique of students which reminded me a little of the group in The Secret History. A very insular crowd with a well developed sense of their own superiority. The book follows Q's four years at Brakebills and his first year out of school - most of this first year is spent in a drunken haze - before finding a button which changes EVERYTHING. 

This is a REALLY well written fantasy with great world building as well as a really tightly plotted story. I don't think I'll ever be too jaded and cynical to be a Harry Potter fan but if I'm in a jaded and cynical sort of mood The Magicians (and it's sequel The Magician King) is where I'll head.

YA Ramblings / Tamora Pierce Makes a Long Awaited Appearance on the Blog

In thinking about my reading of late, nothing REALLY stands out as being review worthy. I mean, I read the latest Jasper Fforde, Shades of Grey, which was amazing, brilliant, dyslit-y, witty, literary... but seriously, that is all I really need to say. Its Jasper Fforde. Go read it okay?

I have however, read a LOT of mediocre stuff. You want to know which YA sensation of the moment NOT to pick up, then I am your girl. For example, take Need by Carrie Jones. Touted as "better than Twilight" and the next big thing in paranormal teen romance. Aside from the fact that I've been told that about every single teen book published since Twilight began, it is just not true. Twilight is essentially a Mills and Boon for teenagers, but at least Meyer throws herself into the story completely. This latest one felt like it was just going through the motions. New girl in town, finds herself oddly drawn to the tall, dark, sexy guy who keeps showing up to save her in the nick of time, finds out she is being followed by a pixie, and that tall, dark, sexy man is actually (SPOILER) a werewolf. Token amount of surprise at revelation that supernatural stuff is all out there, scepticism quickly overcome for the sake of progressing the plot, some kind of supernatural (but also emotional!) conflict followed by triumph of good guys and movie perfect kiss. Yawn.

And you know what? I just know there are people out there who are saying "Well of course you yawn! Look at what you picked up! What were you expecting?!!!" I say the same thing to myself, but continue to wade through this rubbish for two reasons. Number one, it is my job. Making sure none of the YA readers out there get any books with "issues" their parents wouldn't want them reading about. (For those who don't speak book-seller, "issues" is code for sex, drinking, drugs, swearing, violence... in the rather conservative area in which my bookshop is situated, none of the parents want their innocent darlings reading anything controversial. Customer picks up a book "What content is in this book? My daughter is ten but has reading age of a sixteen year old, but I don't want anything inappropriate." You get the idea. It is farcical at times.) (That was the longest bracket ever). So that is one reason. (In case you are wondering, Need has a bit of kissing, but not much else).

Reason two is a bit closer to my heart. It involves an author who had a profound effect on me during my formative years. Tamora Pierce. Just thinking about her (millions) of books makes me smile. Between the ages of eleven and fourteen I pretty much read Tamora Pierce. Over and over. And over. You get the idea. I think I could probably recite my favourite passages. My constant re-reading of her books is due in quite a large part to her heroines. They were always described as head strong and stubborn, they were witty, smart, and you can bet they didn't let any man tell them what to do! Admittedly, they had it a bit tougher going against men since they were stuck back in the middle ages, and I was in the 21st Century. Whatever, I identified with these girls! These books made me (a bookish, indoorsy, nature disliking, pacifist with animal allergies) long to be a knight (wilderness survival and fighting skills a must). They were real, 3D characters who made you want to be their friend. Can you imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to be friends with Bella Swan? You would get to hear her complain a lot, and watch as she lives through what has got to be the most unhealthy relationship in the world. Sweetie, if he is pulling bits out of your car engine because he doesn't want you going to see a friend he doesn't like, maybe he is just a tad controlling.

I read mediocre YA book after mediocre YA book because of hope. (Hmm, that sounded less cheesy in my head). I am hoping that one day I will pick up a new book and I will have found a book that will become just as special to some twelve year old girl out there as Tamora Pierce was (IS, who am I kidding? I still get excited when a new one comes out. Write faster Tammy!) to me. And when I find it, I know the protagonist is not going to have the personality of a dish-cloth (I'm looking at you Bella!) and something tells me it probably won't involve vampires. Just a hunch.

Dance Dance Dance (Haruki Murakami)

I don't think I've ever actually reviewed a Murakami book here before, although I may have mentioned in passing that I love love love him. So great is this love that I may or may not be in a Facebook group called "Haruki Murakami is (almost) God". (I am). The thing about Dance Dance Dance is, even if I had never read a word of Murakami in my life the quote on the front would have made me pick it up immediately- "If Raymond Chandler had lived long enough to see Blade Runner, he might have written something like Dance Dance Dance." Could you imagine a better endorsement?

I think the reason I've never put a Murakami review to paper (or screen as it were) is that he is so incredibly hard to describe.

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle- There's this man, and he lost his cat, and kind of lives in a fantasy land, and follows a lady in a pink suit around and then sits at the bottom of a well.

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: There is a man who is on some kind of IT hit squad who goes underground to fight mysterious "things" and is given a unicorn skull. Half the story is set in a strange land where no-one can go outside the city walls and there are herds of unicorns running about.

Dance Dance Dance: Our hero feels he is being called to the Dolphin Hotel, a dodgy, run-down establishment he stayed at with a call-girl called Kiki some years previously. When he returns the dodgy hotel has been replaced by a high end luxury resort- L'Hotel Dauphin. He bonds with one of the girls on reception over a strange experience she had on one of the floors of the hotel. He meets a rather angry teenage girl whose mother has just abandoned her in the hotel. He goes back to Tokyo and reconnects with an old school mate who has become a super-star actor. You spend a large portion of the book vaguely confused about what is going on, which is actually a similar state of being to our narrator. He allows himself to be swept along by all the slightly mad people surrounding him - to interesting ends. A few dead bodies turn up along the way. There is a sheep-man who gives him strange messages. The whole book is an amazing experience.

I realise I've essentially not reviewed the book at all and really this should be an 'Author Love' segment because I love love love this author. He has got THE GOODS! (See tag below!)

Rating: 9/10

White is For Witching (Helen Oyeyemi)

You know those people in life who are unlike everyone else? They make you catch your breathe and then keep catching it, drawing in short little breaths as you remember something they did or said. You can't breathe normally again until the memory has played out. Afterwards you are light-headed, which exacerbates the intense happiness or sadness that inevitably crashes over you. The sadness occurs far more often but it doesn't matter, because those brief waves of joy are far heavier on the scale than anything else.

We don't meet these people very often. There is not one for every person. In all likelihood, they have this effect on many people, so you are only one in a crowd, virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the swooning masses. On the occasions when you are alone you find it hard to speak, to create a fascination around yourself. You want to voice everything you've ever thought to them but are crippled with the suspicion that nothing you say could ever be interesting or unique enough.

This feeling of wonderment can also happen with books and music. For me it is the books. When I was younger and my mother asked me to do something she would always have to touch me when asking, or write it down for me to read. Sounds by themselves don't seem to stick properly in my brain. But I understand for other people that music is by far the greater emotional stimulant.

Today I held a book in my hands that made me hyperventilate. The story- a spooky concoction that includes a dash of The God of Small Things and a pinch of The Secret History, had ensnared me with the first line. I was shamefully derelict in my duties. Lunch was boiled milk and mushrooms which was received with much derision from a duo that had been promised 'Tagliatelle with a Delicate Creamy Mushroom Sauce'. I couldn't help it. Like the magical hold the house in Dover has over the Silver women, this book had the same numbing effect on me. Nothing else seemed as real in the room as the book I was holding in my hands. The book cast more shadows in the room than the sun and I felt the characters' hearts beating out from between the lines.

I fear this is all babbling pretension and not a proper review, but I have had a purely emotional response to this novel. Oyeyemi's style is unlike anything I have ever read. She plays with the words on the page to create illusions of safety before jolting the reader into uncertain and unearthly territory. Her complete control over the authenticity of the characters is so superb it is invisible. This is the first book I have read in awhile that effectively uses authorial interjection and even then Oyeyemi plays with this concept, taunting the reader with her omnipotence that she would have us believe is just hopeless devotion to a story that had already been told before she thought of it.

I feel as though I have met someone amazing, this book as a new character in my life. This is not a book to be forgotten. It is to be read again and again. Perhaps with sizeable gaps in between or I could end up fainting. Even now, sitting at my desk, I am being hit with images from the story that clamour to be relived, making me hold my breath as the scenes spell themselves out again and again. I feel extremely rattled sitting in my usual spot so I have rearranged the furniture to the position it is normally in for when I watch Lost. Back to the wall, eyes on the door, doona pulled up securely to cover everything except my face- waiting to be attacked.

Like those awe-inspiring people that one occasionally meets, I was overly reluctant to share White is for Witching with you. I feel like some of its power or magic may diminish the more popular it becomes. However, considering it is part of Waterstones's hideous 3 for 2 offer (which I regularly take advantage of, hating myself the entire time), I feel this is probably a redundant worry.

Rating: 10/10.

The Echoing Grove (Rosamond Lehmann)

I am going home soon, to my family, my friends, my bedroom, my books. I brought one book away with me two years ago when I left Australia. Which book did I deem most fitting to accompany me on my backpacking endeavours?

Since you ask- I brought On The Road, by Jack Kerouac. Oh yes, I can hear the universal groans even from Acton, one of the most acoustically imbalanced areas in London. This is due to the most unfortunate combination of the A40, the Heathrow flight path, three intersecting train lines and the neighbour's illegal parrot aviary.

I can still remember the reasoning behind bringing the Kerouac. My appearance, my expectations, dreams and aspirations all played a part in choosing to bring On The Road. It was a terrible, terrible decision. Yes, the book is brilliant. Hilarious and epic, it makes you want to clench your fists and run. THE FIRST TIME YOU READ IT. At last count I owned three different editions of this book. None of the subsequent readings were comparable to my first foray into Kerouac's world (not even the original scroll) so what the hell I was thinking I really don't know.

When you're travelling you want something that speaks to your soul, is comforting but not gushing, a book you recognise yourself in. It needs characters who are sympathetic but flawed, a plot that has momentum but doesn't gallop, a denouement that satisfies but doesn't pacify.

The novel I SHOULD have brought with me is The Echoing Grove, by Rosamond Lehmann. The story is about Rickie Masters, his marriage to Madeleine and his affair with her sister Dinah. The sisters reach an impasse when Rickie is killed unexpectedly and both must deal with the fallout of a situation both had already found hopeless.

In the interest of full disclosure, I saw the film before I read the book. The cast includes Paul Bettany, which is how I came across the story in the first place. Bettany makes me sympathise completely with Rickie and hope for his happiness- if I had read the book first I may have found Rickie hard to like. The film changes little of the script and plot so it is Bettany's brilliance which makes me see the frailty and beauty in Rickie when I later read the novel.

Lehmann's prose is often described as gentle, although I wouldn't agree with that. I'd say it's more akin to the old velvet glove/iron fist style of doing things. Writing like this reminds you of why male authors really shouldn't write from the female perspective in stories of great love. Madeleine and Dinah are entirely unique yet nothing they think or do would feel aberrant to my character were I to emulate them. The sinking feeling both of them experience with the knowledge that they cannot help but move into something that will cause them only heartbreak is devastating yet, as the reader, you agree that they have no choice.

This may seem to you a rather odd book to classify as 'comforting'. Well, this is my brand of comforting. I have always found more solace in the depressingly meaningful than the vacuously upbeat. Of course, I probably would have been most comforted and sustained on my travels if I had ignored Earhart's insistence that everybody would laugh at me and purchased the blanket with sleeves in duck-egg blue that I really wanted. I bowed to convention and coolness, but I still think about that blanket. I haven't been able to find one since.

Rating: 9/10.

Patrick Ness

So remember that ridiculously gushy not-even-a-proper-review I wrote of The Knife of Never Letting Go? Remember how I promised to review Book Two and then never did. Sorry about that - it was actually as gut-wrenchingly good as Book One and I am sure that when I read Book Three (VERY SOON if my rep does as promised and gets me the manuscript!) it will also keep me up until three in the morning.

Anyway, I met the author of this most amazing of series tonight. A bunch of the book-shop groupies and myself went along to hear him speak - the author of a YA series and there were perhaps two teenagers in the crowd. Booksellers, librarians, teachers and people from OTHER publishing houses were, however, in abundance. He spoke about writing, about where his books came from, about knife crime, terrorism and war and finished up with a few musings on joy. He read from Book Three (Oh lord, it is definitely going to be an astounding read) and then signed some copies.

In true me-meeting-authors-I-love fashion, I was suitably star struck. I like to think I conducted myself better than when I met Joanne Harris (when I said something along the lines of "This is what normal people feel when they meet a rock star!" Her response was something like 'okayyyyy... name please?') I told him I'd reviewed him on the blog. He wrote down the address (in case you actually took the scrap of paper home with you, Hi Patrick!) I spoke like a grown-up (ha! Fooled you!).

Anyway... aside from feeling the need to tell everyone I met him and he was lovely, the point of this post was actually to see if I am the only one out there who gets this star-struck with authors. Surely I am not. Surely there is someone else out there who has stammered out "Oh my god I love everything you have ever written" to an idol. Someone else who has blushed when they met a philosopher? (Hmm, maybe not. I think Stephen Law thinks I am a lunatic, but that is another story). I am sure if I met, say, Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood I wouldn't even be able to get out the most perfunctory of compliments like "Love your books". More likely I will blush bright red, stammer out my name and grin like a loon at the object of my reading affection.

So, tell me, anyone out there as nerdy as me?

The Pregnant Widow (Martin Amis)

There are some voices that you’re grateful to hear, no matter the context or your mood. For me they are the voices that speak always in the imperative. The voices that demand my attention. Cormac McCarthy, Kazuo Ishiguro… and of course, Martin Amis.

The Pregnant Widow has received some less-than favourable reviews, with many harping on about the fact that the writing is no longer enough- at some point a certain amount of plot needs to be injected in order to keep the reader’s attention. I don’t really care about all that. Case in point: I have an extremely short attention span, yet I raced through the book. All I need is a certain amount of attitude and Amis provides that in abundance. Yes, the story is king. But Amis makes his prose the story and anyone who feels the need for more plot should pick up a Matthew Reilly.

The novel brought all my anxieties as a writer to the forefront, channelling, I suppose, the insecurities Keith Nearing expresses. I struggle to name distinctive female characters whose fame comes from their voice rather than their actions. Go into a bookshop and you trip over women who act in amazing ways- sacrificing this, loving that, schlepping here, toiling there- but how many female voices carry the distinguished air of the truly original? Where is the female Ignatius J. Reilly, Charles Highway or Vernon Little? I’m not taking Amis to task for not giving his female characters more distinctive voices. He is a male, and he should write as one. But it follows then, that, as a GIRL, I should write as one. Keith, Amis’ highly autobiographical twenty-year old self, is not to be confused with previous Keiths in Amis’ past. He is more evolved than Keith Talent (London Fields) and not as hideously revolting as Keith Whitehead (Dead Babies). He is brilliantly written; instantly likeable without doing anything of merit. No author could write so honestly about the opposite sex.

Why then do I persist in scribbling out narratives from the male perspective? It’s not as though I actually know what I’m talking about. However, whenever I attempt to write as a girl I end up absolutely detesting the character. Every thought I pen seems vacuous, pathetic, calculated to impress, hiding an empty, cavernous, pink nothing. It’s not self-loathing. I adore myself. I just don’t know how to tap into the real of it all like Amis can.

I hadn’t worked out until just recently why it is I think I enjoy Amis’ novels so much. The brutal wit and carefully constructed style allow his characters to remain rather emotionally removed from the reader. I find this quite comforting. It is not COLD, it is a device to heighten the satire. On a personal level, it is calming, steadying, to not be able to feel Keith’s tears fall from the pages. With his manipulation of language and barbarous, throw-away dialogue Amis is like a young man lighting up with matches instead plastic, adopting an air of old-school peculiarity cultivated to ensure distanced attention. As an overly emotional creature myself I quite enjoy those people in my life who seem to remain impervious to all that, in the same way I enjoy books that hold me at arm’s length. I am able to think better when I am not sobbing into a pile of soggy tissues, shrieking at Earhart “The Russians got him! I’ll never be happy again.”

The Pregnant Widow didn’t educe any such melodrama. I merely picked it up in my favourite bookshop and hugged it- smiling- to myself, knowing that whatever was contained within the pages was going to be important in someway. Not always the most pleasant of narrators and hardly ever in agreement with my own sentiments, Amis’ is nevertheless a voice I will always make room for.

Rating: 9/10.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (David Wroblewski)

Earhart gave me the push towards this novel and it is probably the best recommendation she has ever given me. We enjoy the same books, but the novels that we absolutely LOVE are always quite different. Of course, the reason I loved this so much is probably because Earhart hasn't actually read it. She just sold it to a bunch of unsuspecting customers when it came out last year.

When I first started reading Edgar I thought to myself "Wow, this is similar in feel to The Outlander." I felt most chuffed when I reached the end of the novel and found an interview with David Wroblewski and Gil Adamson who WROTE The Outlander. I am brilliant.

Edgar tells the story of a young boy who lives on a dog farm with his parents. I'm not sure dog farm is the right term, but it is so much more than a kennel. Edgar's parents raise a special breed of dog- Sawtelle dogs. These dogs are a mix of dogs that Edgar's paternal great grandfather "liked the look of". Whenever he saw a dog that was particularly intelligent and aware he would buy it and breed it into his line of dogs, creating this super race. Combined with a special training technique the family have honed over the years, Sawtelle dogs are highly valued around the country.

Edgar, who was born mute, has a very strong bond with the dogs, probably due to his inability to speak. This bond proves his saving grace when his uncle Claude arrives, fresh out of prison, to live with them. This family reunion ends in tragedy and Edgar is forced to flee into the surrounding forest, several of the dogs following at his heels. What follows is weeks in a relative wilderness as he comes to terms with what he must face back home.

The book is startlingly beautiful. Nothing seems quite real. The characters are slightly heightened; the forest is awesomely majestic and lonely; Edgar's relationship with the dogs seems unearthly, supernatural even. The book clutched at all of my senses, clawing me in to the drama. Wroblewski structured the novel in five acts, like a play, and you can see what this has done to the feel of the story. Slow reading builds to a frenzied turning of the pages as Edgar and Claude are propelled towards a terrible yet magnificent denouement.

The novel has been compared to Macbeth but I see bits of King Lear and even Romeo and Juliet in there as well. Suffice to say Wroblewski most probably found himself inspired by the Bard, a worthy foundation for any novel!

No matter what accolades I give The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, I don't think I can sum it up better than Stephen King's review: "I flat-out loved this book." I did too Stephen.

Rating: 9/10.

Dyslit: The Year of the Flood

So yes yes yes- I've been gone about a million years. Apologies.

Aside from getting used to being back at work and not flitting around Wales clutching my first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (yeah... that's right. FIRST EDITION), I have been slowly slowly savouring the new Margaret Atwood.

A few months ago I reviewed the amazing Oryx and Crake as part of our dyslit section. Cut to August this year and my discovery that Margaret has written a follow on of sorts - you can imagine my nerdy excitement. Same plague stricken earth with a wiped out population, this time with added religious cult!

The God's Gardeners are a spiritual following devoted to the melding of science and religion. They believe in the preservation of all animal life and have a complete aversion to any written records. Their leader, Adam One, is an enigmatic preacher... with something kind of shifty going on. Since I am only three quarters of the way through the book I'm not sure what exactly he is hiding but I am suspicious all the same. The story is told by two different women, Toby and Ren, both from the Gardeners. Toby survived the plague by locking herself in a day spa filled with edible 'organic treatments'. Ren, an exotic dancer, was in quarantine when the plague struck, having been bitten, luckily enough, by one of her over excited clients. At first the characters seem completely unconnected to the original cast of Oryx and Crake, then halfway through the appearance of a young man named Glen (later re-named Crake) almost made me fall off my chair in excitement. The way Margaret has connected this story to her earlier one, weaving tiny details into the background is nothing short of amazing. Even though I'm not finished yet, I don't think I am remiss in saying it is just as good as Oryx and Crake.

Oryx and Crake was the first Margaret Atwood book I read, and I remember thinking to myself over and over 'This is SO weird and amazing'. After almost reading her entire backlist, she still dazzles me with this new offering. And take a look at the author photo from the book jacket- how could you think this woman would produce anything short of brilliant madness?

The Year of the Flood: 10/10

Jasper Jones (Craig Silvey)

Today is the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and mention of the wall always reminds me of a story my mother told me years ago. She was travelling through Europe and stopped at the border between West and East Berlin. The car was searched, as were her bags. Amongst her possessions was a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. The guard held it up and scrutinised it, flipped through the pages. It was banned in the East, for obvious reasons. I don't know whether my mother knew this and packed it anyway with her typical "They can't tell me what books to carry around for God's Sake" attitude or whether she really had no idea the book was banned. I am inclined to go with the former. At any rate, the guard decided the book was harmless and let my mother enter. Once there she decided to leave the book at the place where she was staying, her little rebellion against the regime.

To Kill A Mockingbird is my favourite book in the world. I am aware I hardly hold the monopoly on this thought but I don't care. I'm happy to be merely one in a group of millions. I'm not going to bother you with a review either, as I'm sure those who have read it need no convincing of its greatness and those who haven't just need to know they have a treat in store for them. But I am going to review Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey, which came out this year.

During the summer of 1965 in a small town called Corrigan, Charlie Bucktin is pulled into a murder mystery involving Jasper Jones, the town scapegoat. The Vietnam War hangs over the town, anxiety making the heatwave even worse. Cricket, sweets, girls and books act as diversions but ultimately Corrigan's corrupt, racist core begins to seep through. The disappearance of the Shire President's daughter turns out to be just one in a number of dark secrets the town is hiding.

I'm hesitant to say this is an Australian version of To Kill A Mockingbird, although that is obviously what it is. Charlie's father is compared often to Atticus Finch, Charlie's friendship and conversations with his best friend Jeffrey draw on the conversations Scout and Jem had, Mad Jack Lionel is Corrigan's Boo Radley. Jasper Jones, the innocent blamed for the death of a young girl, is half-Aboriginal and whilst the racism he encounters is far more underhand than that exhibited in the deep South in To Kill A Mockingbird, it is ever present nonetheless. I'm hesitant though, to make these comparisons, because I want this book to be judged on its own merits. Silvey captures the essence of the small Australian town beautifully and the character of Charlie is wonderfully written: honest, intelligent, witty, with all the erratic whims and prejudices of the young.

However, the most erudite point I want to make about this novel is that it made me think about those monstrous and momentous events in history that so often seem to happen elsewhere and not to us in Australia. Great novels are written about these events, these times, and then, decades later, an Australian author will write their own version of it. I have come to the conclusion this is not a bad thing, it is a truly positive thing. We could so easily remove ourselves from the rest of the world, snug in our knowledge that we are far away from the dangerous world. We could fail to care that it is 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, feeling, perhaps, that it had nothing to do with us. That is why it is glorious when we do care, when we do feel emotion, feel outrage on behalf of another culture, experience joy when something momentous occurs elsewhere. Just because we are geographically removed does not mean we have to be emotionally removed.

This is why I loved Jasper Jones. Not only did the characters resonate, the dialogue amuse, the plot intrigue, but Craig Silvey reached out to the American literary canon, referenced it and then made it a relevant piece of Australian fiction. It could have failed abysmally, but it didn't.

Rating: 9/10.

Fine Just The Way It Is (Annie Proulx)

Annie Proulx makes horrendous people, places and events FINE JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. This is her process, her tool, her particular brand of magic, and I never would have spotted it if she hadn't named her last collection of short stories just that.

Admittedly, I have a warped view of what is horrendous. To me, bad coffee is insufferable. Having lunch with someone and not getting the good seat (against the wall) is intolerable. Living without my hair straightener is INCONCEIVABLE. So naturally, I find these stories of poor and broken people in Wyoming cruel beyond all mortal comprehension, because I'm high maintenance and disgustingly entitled in my outlook on life.

Yet still, I rooted for them. I was happy for them, devastated for them. These, the people described as ugly, poor, unlovable, selfish, racist, stupid... utterly pedestrian. Proulx does not bother to take the easy route and write stories about the innocent, the intelligent, the fair and good. Any person would prove to be interesting under scrutiny. Worthy of our time, our eyes, our $22.95. How then, do writers differentiate between those who are passed over and those who deserve their own worded spotlight?

They choose the beautiful, the well-structured, the desirable people to write about. And I'm not talking about the desirability a husband sees in a wife who has a saggy stomach and discontented attitude radiating from beneath a hairstyle long out of fashion and powdered at the roots. Or the girl with average looks and average brains being charmed by the boy whose speech is clogged with the unfortunate spittle that plagues the over-salivating.

Those are the people whose stories are harder to write and still generate empathy with the reader and thus they are so often the people without a strong literary presence. Which is stupid, because when a writer does bother to create a character who is hard to like and rough around the edges it normally becomes as artful as Don Quixote, the book an ode to imperfection, beautiful through the simple fact of its existence.

That's what Annie Proulx does and then she goes one step further. She neglects to include any action whatsoever in her stories. Each event is constructed as a past occurrence, mentioned in passing by one character or another. At any one time, nothing is really happening. Snippets of family mystery, suspense, skeletons are hinted at, but the writing quickly moves on, choosing to focus instead on a wife musing about her dinner plans. It takes a serious talent to keep us engaged through all this, yet we find ourselves also weighing up the beef and pork options. Because she's just that damn good.

I must apologise for the wordiness and general pretension of this review. I have been embroiled in a big fight with a large pile of torn newspaper and glue for two days trying to make an acceptable model of a dolphin for a Year 4 Art Show. Because I have about a teaspoon of artistic ability in my entire genetic makeup... this has been a trying, exhausting time. I felt the need to prove I could still string a sentence together, having failed spectacularly as a sculptor.

Rating: 9/10.

A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)

I arrive at beginning this review feeling conflicted. Not, it must be stressed, as to the quality of the novel, but rather at how one goes about reviewing a book so transcendentally... loud.

Mmm, that's right, LOUD is the word I have come up with to describe John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. I toyed with 'brilliant', contemplated 'glorious torrent of cynical social commentary', seriously considered 'rich in passion, laid on thickly with Toole's impressive voice, seasoned with insight and spiced with humour; the book is obese with ambition and serves up a literary dish fit for a king.'

However, I settled on 'loud'.

What other adjective should one use when talking about a book that shouts its revolted social commentary at such decibels? When our hero can be spotted from a satellite, not only because of his size but also because of the voluminous white hot dog vendor smock he wears, surely the best word for him is 'loud'? When the mention of Ignatius J. Reilly inspires giggles and nervous tension in the same breath; when each of the supporting cast beats me over the head with their incessant bleatings that serve to brand every one of them on my memory indelibly... that's BLOODY LOUD.

A Confederacy of Dunces is about nothing and because of that, it is about everything. You know those books that have a hook- making them easy to sell to the undiscerning buyer. "It's about a salmon fishing project in the Yemen. I know right? HAHAHAHAHAHA. That's $22.95." Alternatively: "It's not girly! I mean, I know the cover is hot pink, but it's a retelling of A Room with a View! Obviously you've read that, right? Would you call E.M Forster chick-lit? WOULD YOU? Exactly. That's $22.95".

If I tried to sell A Confederacy of Dunces, I would revert to one tactic and one tactic only: "New Orleans in the 1960s. An obese hot dog vendor with three University degrees and an inflated vocabulary. A crumbling pants factory whose employees are drunk/ancient or delusional. A seedy nightclub whose owner distributes pornography to orphans. TRUST ME."

The novel, in my opinion, is made even more compelling with the foreword written by Walker Percy. He explains that Toole's mother contacted him in 1976 with this manuscript. Her son had killed himself and left it behind and she was determined to get it published. Who was this young man who wrote such a masterpiece? I can't help feeling that many of Ignatius' thoughts on the human condition and the depravity of society are mirrors of what Toole himself may have been thinking, caught in a web of depression that would ultimately end his life. At times Ignatius exhibits an obstructed self-hatred; when denying a customer a hot dog he asks- "Are you unnatural enough to want a hot dog this early in the afternoon?" ignoring the fact he has just consumed three himself. (I know this is not an overly obvious example of self-hatred, there are others, but this was the only one I could find. It's a big book!) It saddens me to think of Toole, perhaps subsumed with self-hatred, churning out the pages of Dunces in an attempt to expurgate and externalise the self-scorn he contained within.

On a slightly removed yet still related note, it's great to meet a new friend who enjoys reading, even more so to discover said friend is not a moron and has seriously stellar taste in literature. I'm always a bit wary when people start recommending books to me. My default position is that I know more about books than most people and if you're recommending a book to me I've never read then it probably isn't any good and I've skipped it for a reason. This new friend, having talked up Toole's novel, has now been elevated to position of a Person Whose Recommendations I Can Trust. Which is always nice in these uncertain times.

Rating: 10/10.

Guilt + The Summer Book

So...I kind of thought since we were in Paris/I am in London that maybe posting would slow down. Ducked into an internet cafe to escape the downpour this afternoon, clicked on the blog and saw the seven million book reviews Alcott has done whilst I've been wandering around with my head in the French clouds. Oops. Feeling guilty now. So I bring you... The Summer Book.

Not heard of it? Shame on you. It is a classic in Sweden! Tove Jansson (who I love love love) is the author of the amazingly fantastic Moomintrolls series (both the books and the comic strip). If you haven't heard of the Moomintrolls, then shame on you AGAIN - basically they are small, round hippo-like creatures who have ridiculous adventures. The books are for children... the comics not so much.

The Summer Book, which is about real people (not Moomintrolls), is a book for grown-ups which enchanted me from the start. The book is made up of short encounters between Sophia and her Grandmother over various summertimes on the island where they live. One summer Grandmother carves animals out of bark and wood and leaves them in the magical forest. Another someone new moves onto the island (!) and Sophia and Grandmother break into the new house. Sounds odd, but it is truly magical.

Gently philosophical, almost in the same way as The Little Prince, this is a very calm book to read, and a real treasure.

I realise this review is super short, but fear not...I have just started Three Men on the Bummel (follow up to the hilarious Three Men in a Boat) and am laughing already. Stand by for review.

Chaos Walking 1: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

So I've just re-read this book in preparation for reading and reviewing book two which has just come out; I now remember how completely brilliantly amazing it is and so I thought I should spread the love a little. This is another one of those young adult / adult crossovers, except that this is perhaps the only one wherein the crossover is really justified. Twilight - adults could really just read a Mills and Boon to have the same experience (albeit vampire free ). The Forest of Hands and Teeth - probably too adult, too scary, too zombie-y - I have yet to sell this book to an actual young adult. The Knife of Never Letting Go, on the other hand, should be read by... well... everyone. Part sci-fi, part dystopian future (you see what hooked me!), reading this book is an experience worth having.

The novel is set on a completely different planet (we've messed Earth up so much that it is verging on becoming uninhabitable), where the first human settlers arrived about 25 years before the book starts. Todd Hewitt (our hero) grew up in Prentisstown, surrounded by a constant barrage of other men's 'Noise' - that is a stream of conscious thought constantly broadcasted to everyone around, unstoppable, unblockable, and quite uncomfortable. There are no women in Prentisstown and when Todd finds a girl (!) surrounded by a patch of silence (unheard of in a town full of Noise) his world is shaken... BUT the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Pastor.... (anyone in town with any kind of authority that may now be challenged by Todd's discovery) are unhappy. To put it mildly. To put it less mildly- they chase Todd out of Prentisstown with rifles and follow him halfway across the country determined to silence him.

I don't really want to give much away because this is the kind of book where the revelations about the history of the New World were so shocking, so unexpected and so well crafted into the story that I don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say, I love it.

I realise this review is written COMPLETELY like I am selling the book to someone, but I swear it's not copied and pasted from one of my newsletters. (If a review of book two shows up, I cannot make the same promise). I just feel like telling EVERYONE that this is a book you should read.

9/10

Author Love: Sadie Jones

This is just a quick post to point you in the direction of this Guardian article on Sadie Jones' new novel Small Wars. I have a special place in my heart for The Outcast, her first novel which was released early 2008. It was the first novel I managed to read through in its entirety without falling asleep following an unfortunate glandular fever episode. I know the covers look a little mass-markety but Jones is a splendid writer who deals with relatively disturbing issues. Below is a review I wrote for the bookshop... short and sweet and not in the slightest verbose... I must have still been sick.

"My initial apprehension before reading this novel came from the comparisons it has had to Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. I need not have worried, Jones has given us a beautiful yet sparingly written novel about a young boy's childhood after the death of his mother. The subsequent traumatic events are dealt with tastefully and honestly and the characters are incredibly constructed. Corseted to a distant father and immature stepmother, Lewis becomes increasingly alienated from the small Surrey neighbourhood in which they live and seeks stimulation and redemption in seedy London nightclubs. Jones has created a wonderful tale, polishing what is essentially a very basic plot line until it resonates off the pages and can be considered worthy of the comparisons which have been made."

A review of Small Wars will follow shortly.

Reading List for Potential BNP Voters

For those of you who have already voted BNP or are a member of the party, I wash my hands of you. I feel the only course of action would be to kidnap you, strap you down in a chair, force your eyes open with needles (a la Anthony Burgess) and inflict anti-racist and anti-fascist propaganda on you. Considering this breaks several laws and might get me in a spot of hot water in my adopted country, I am going to ignore you instead.

This reading list that I am beginning to compile is for those of you who may be THINKING about voting for the British National Party. The party that you have to be white to join. The party who are against immigration. The party who hold birthday parties for Hitler (allegedly).

This is not a good party to vote for. I felt sickened today when I heard that the BNP had won two seats in the European parliament. This does send a message to Labour though: "Yo... BLP! You're doing such a terrible job people are voting for the fascists instead. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Repeat. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Fix it. Now."

Anyway, those of you thinking about voting BNP, I think you need to read some novels. Some good novels. I'm not talking about the bestsellers in Tesco. I am talking about thoughtful, intelligent and political novels that will get you thinking about humanity and life and how we should look out for ALL others who share our world. Novels that will encourage you to stand united against fascism, racism and the blinkers and muzzles that the corrupted in power attempt to subdue us with.

I'm going to start you off nice and easy. Two books which will tug a little at your heart strings and work a little on your brain. Nothing too taxing, I promise.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee).

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain).

Read them and tune in next week for some more suggestions. In the meantime, don't be seduced by Nick Griffin.

The Women (T.C. Boyle)

Reading this book was kind of killing two birds with one stone. I wanted to read it (one bird) and I've always felt in a vague kind of way that I should read some T.C. Boyle (the other). The Women provided me with the perfect opportunity, seeing as it is about a topic which I am especially interested in: the amazing Frank Lloyd Wright. Specifically his women.

In case you are unaware: FLW is one of history's greatest and most influential architects. And boy did he know it. The book opens with the following quote from FLW: "Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility; I chose arrogance".

Just to give you an idea of the kind of guy we are dealing with (i.e. an awesome one!)

The book is a fictionalised account of his three marriages and one long term affair (the assumption is there were many shorter term affairs as well). Working in reverse chronological order, we are introduced to each new woman as the previous relationship falls apart. One of the main problems seems to be that Frank keeps on 'finding his soul mate' (despite the fact that he's found one/two/three already), each time falling in love completely.

What is great about this book is that you get a readable (admittedly fictionalised but based on fact) account of FLW's life. Previously I had really only known his buildings, reading Boyle I learned he was often a heartbeat away from bankruptcy, the scandal of his wife swapping making it hard to get commissions. Boyle's FLW is a tempestuous artist who knows he is a genius, an obsessive perfectionist, with an insane pull - you can understand why all these women fell under his spell. In fact, someone I work with at the bookshop pointed me out to a customer: "See her, well I think she'd like to be one of 'The Women'."

(Only slightly true...)

8/10 for fascination factor.

Dyslit: Never Let Me Go

I made a new friend the other night in Soho. We were having a chat about this and that and then she suggested (with a slightly manic glint in her eyes) that she grab us a 'bottle' to share.

"Of course." I said eagerly, because I'm that kind of girl.

My new best friend does not, as I expect, bring a bottle of wine back to the table. No no. It was a bottle of rum.

Not even good rum.

BUNDY.

"Ummm, I'm not sure I can drink half of that..." I hedged, but she waved off my protestations and began pouring.

A quarter of the way down the bottle she announced "I've only ever been in love once."

Half-way down the bottle she decided the table was wobbling, took her chicken fillet out of her bra and shoved it under one of the legs.

Three quarters of the way down the bottle I was having trouble concentrating when she said seriously, leaning in close like it was a state secret.

"I'm not at all sure Keira Knightley will be good in Never Let Me Go."

I don't remember much else from the night. My new friend quite happily continued on clubbing whilst I stumbled to my accomodation for the evening, forgetting for a moment I lived in London and giving the cab driver my address in Sydney.

As you can see... rough night. HOWEVER (and this post IS about books, I just needed a lead-up!) I am completely on board the concerned boat when it comes to the casting of Keira Knightley in the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I can't remember the ensuing conversation we had about this but I am certain I agreed with her and empathised with her concerns.

For those of you who have not read Ishiguro's re-imagining of Britain in a time when human clones are created to act as organ donors for the rest of the population I seriously recommend it. This isn't "slap you in the face" dyslit of the kind Margaret Atwood normally produces. For the first part of the book the reader has no idea that the children's boarding school we are reading about is actually priming them for their lives as donors. Ishiguro has a masterful yet subtle touch to his writing that creates stories so imbued with emotional wallops I have to take breaks whilst reading them. Either that or I allow myself to get completely lost in the story and for days afterwards will feel shaky, disturbed and wary of people who smile too much in the street.

Never Let Me Go is narrated by Kathy, which is the part I thought would go to Knightley. However, my great friend IMDB actually informs me Knightley is playing Ruth, who is the annoying, controlling girl in the small group of friends. This makes more sense, as she has more personality than Kathy, who always seemed a bit distant even though it was she who was telling the story.

I just hope Knightley uglies up for the part a bit. Even when she's trudging around with Sienna Miller in wellies she always looks quite poised and elegant (ridiculously pursed lips aside) and all the girls in this story are just meant to be normal, plain, slightly eccentric schoolgirls. However, lately she's been putting in some solid acting efforts so you never know. I guess the best I can do is say this to Keira: "No pressure, but DON'T STUFF IT UP. This is a very, very important book. DO NOT LET THE READERS DOWN."

IMDB has also told me Knightley is set to play Zelda in a film adaptation of The Beautiful and the Damned. Ye gods, I don't know if I can stomach the stress of what butchery might occur.

Rating: 9/10.

American Pastoral (Philip Roth)

The long-awaited review! Huzzah huzzah it has arrived! 

Somewhere Philip Roth's eyes are glued to the computer screen, eagerly scanning through my excessive opening prose, yearning to reach the accolades I promised him days, nay WEEKS ago and never delivered. Never fear Philip, you will always be loved here!

American Pastoral is the tale of Seymour "Swede" Levov, a sports star at his local high school in Newark, NY who goes on to marry a former Miss New Jersey and take over his father's glove factory. An idyllic existence is ripped to shreds when his daughter Merry becomes a little too excited about protesting the Vietnam War and blows up the local store and post office. What follows is the Swede's desperate attempt to keep his family together in the wake of his daughter's disappearance.

The first part of American Pastoral is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, who, five years younger than his hero, has idolised the Swede since he first met him at school. This is a nifty bit of penning on Roth's part: he is able to set up the Swede as this mythic, strong, AMAZING sportsman who was also a great guy going after the American dream. If the whole story had been told by the Swede it would have sounded more than a little naff if the opening chapters had been all "I was so wonderful, I was revered as a Greek GOD, to have met me was to have walked in the shadow of greatness for the briefest of moments..." Yes, I am glad I didn't have to go through that, because it would have made me dislike the Swede and that is something I am NOT PREPARED TO DO.

The Swede is one of the most magnificent characters of modern literature. He is the ultimate martyr yet never insufferably so, he is tall and handsome (Roth SAYS SO, I'm not just imagining this), good at every sport, gentle and thoughtful. Loyal, kind, in control, traditional with a modern twist...*SWOON*. I could go on but will spare you.

Watching the Swede's heart get ripped out as he witnesses his daughter's growing radicalism and subsequent bomb-making expertise that results in four deaths was quite unbearable. I felt tremendously sorry for him, supporting his hysterical wife, consoling the widow of the man his daughter murdered... and all I'm thinking is "Swede! Who is looking after you???" The thought actually crossed my mind, if I was living in Newark, I would have taken him cookies. 

Roth doesn't exactly have an economy of words, like Marquez the anecdotes are packed in until the covers of the book are groaning, but it's all part of the richly textured story and, unlike Marquez, I lapped it all up. I think it's because of the faith I have in Roth. If he wants me to know that much about how to make a leather glove there's gotta be a good reason!

It was also satisfying to read a book about American culture and have it not be a parody or a vitriolic tirade of hatred written by a belligerent youngster. Instead, Roth has created an intelligent comment on America that ultimately, is no comment at all, but rather an offering of characters and events that play themselves out with little obvious manipulation from the author. 

Exceptional, glorious and, above all ELEGANT, Philip Roth I salute you. 

Rating: 9/10. 

Rant (Chuck Palahniuk)

Ah Chuck, where would I be without you? Who else can enthrall and repulse me with a single, perfectly crafted sentence?

If you only know Chuck as 'that guy who wrote Fight Club', then let me tell you my friend, you are missing out. If you've yet to delve into the messed up world that is Chuck Palahniuk's imagination, then Rant is an awesome place to start. A weird place, but an awesome one.

Meet Buster Casey, known as Rant, the worst Patient Zero in the history of disease. A 'superspreader'. A guy who is addicted to getting bitten by various animals, insects and spiders. A guy who infects hundreds of people with rabies. He turns a Halloween horror house into a real horror house. He single-handily manages to destroy the economy of his hometown. He is so cool.

Rant is written as an oral biography, and we learn about Rant reading anecdotes from various people who knew him - childhood friends, his parents, policemen, a used car sales man and various party crashers / nighttimers. (Just to clarify- a party crasher is someone who goes out driving and crashes into other party crashers for fun. Not an uninvited guest. A nighttimer is someone who is only allowed out at night. Nighttimers are the section of the population who are initially overcome by the rabies epidemic.)

Aside from his crazy crazy spectacular imagination, Chuck is amazing because of his super detailed, ridiculously graphic descriptions - no one else can describe a smell and actually make you feel queasy. Just like reading Fight Club is like getting punched in the face, reading Rant is like getting rabies in the back seat of a car that has just driven off an overpass. *Sigh*

Rating: 9/10