A New Book Group Frontier

I’ve just been asked if I’d like to join my book group at work. I said yes partly because I think that it would be a great way to get to know people better (and they all seem really nice), and also because the choice this month is Neville Shute’s A Town Like Alice which I keep on hearing good things about. In fact it is on the reader’s choice of The 100 Best Novels List I blogged about earlier. I’m already a member of 2 other book groups, but as I read lots I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult to keep up. Well I guess I’ll get a feel for it and see how it goes. I’ll be popping into Copperfields at lunch to see if I can get a nice well thumbed copy of A Town Like Alice if not, I’ve seen one on eBay with a fabulous cover (left)!

Has anyone read A Town Like Alice or anything else by Neville Shute? How many book groups are you a member of? Are you oversubscribed or do you like the challenge and variety that being a member of a book group brings?

Booking Through Thursday – Recent Fluff

I don’t tend to read ‘fluff’ fiction very often although I do like to intersperse my heavier reads with page-turning crime fiction like that of Linwood Barclay or my favourite thriller lady-writer Sophie Hannah. But although I find it a light read I guess those are a bit dark to be ‘fluff’!

If we’re talking uber-fluff, then I have to think back 2005 when friend bought me Star by Pamela Andersonto cheer up the chilly winter months. It was in my pre-blogging days but I did write a review of it on Ciao here if you’re interested!

Oh yes and I also picked up a Nora Roberts novel called The Reef purely because it looked fluffy and I loved the cover. I found it highly entertaining and completely escapist and blogged about it here. I did a bit of irreverent chat about what makes a Romantic Thriller, even though at the time I didn’t realise simply how successful this author was. Probably why I enjoyed it so much!

What kind of ‘light’ fiction do you read for fun?

The Time Traveller’s Wife Movie – Flop or Fantastic Fantasy?

A little belated blog about The Time Traveller’s Wife movie which I saw last Wednesday. Some thoughts for anyone who’s also read the book and wants to know whether it’s worth a trip to the cinema.

Having read very mixed reviews of the film on movies.com and in various newspapers I was pretty dubious about going to see it. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is one of my all time favourite books, and after being invited to go see the film I was worried that worried that I might be thoroughly p***** off by it being an awful rendition. I have to say that the trailer didn’t make me feel any more confident as it pitches it as just another slushy rom-com albeit with a quirky storyline. I agreed to go on condition that it was a 2 for 1 deal on Orange Wednesday and gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Going in with such low expectations, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The actors were like-able and convincing (although I didn’t like the child version of Henry for some reason, thankfully he’s only in it momentarily!) so they went a long way to conveying the emotional journey that you take in the book. Also you get to see Eric Bana naked quite a lot which is a huge bonus for any female watchers! I read the novel a couple of years ago so I can’t remember the precise storyline, although I could tell that the film does diverge from the plot a little bit. However, I don’t think it did so enough to make any TTW readers really mad. And as us bookish types know, movies rarely live up to the standards of the book they are derived from.

I do think that the film will appeal mainly to female watches whereas I believe that the novel has wider appeal, and also I think that it might actually be of benefit to have read the book as you’ve already been convinced by the unlikely idea of time-travelling being a genetic anomaly.

I’m not going to go into lots of details as I don’t want to spoil it for anyone (especially if they haven’t read it) but suffice to say the key elements were there and it was very moving. I had a bit of a cry and heard lots of sniffles in the cinema!

And if you haven’t read the book yet, why not?! The fact that it has a 4.5* rating on Amazon from more than 900 reviews  should convince you to push it up your TBR list.

Dolce Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge 3

Belatedly I’ve decided to join Dolce Bellezza‘s Japanese Literature Challenge as I have read quite a few Japanese novels and enjoyed them. The ones that I have read have been a bit off-beat, or even downright strange. This is something I understand a little more in the context of Japanese culture having visited the country on my travels a few months ago. Of course I mean strange in a good way – unique, stretching, often a little surreal and fascinating!

The novel that springs to mind that I’d like to read is Out by Natsuo Kirino as i found Grotesque, by the same author really interesting. However I thought I’d put it out there to see if other people have any different suggestions. I’ve read quite a bit of Haruki Murakami (A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore) and Natsuo Kirino’s Out as mentioned.

Has anyone read any novels by Japanese writers lately that they might recommend?

Booking Through Thursday – Recent Best

Q: What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

A: My recent best book was Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones which I described as ‘the one that snuck up on me‘ in my previous post. That description says it all. Until about the third quarter it was just a pleasant if very well written read, and then my impression really changed. I think an book that can surprise and change your perspective like that is pretty special.

Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip: The One that Snuck Up on Me

I picked up Mister Pip from my TBR list after looking for something a bit more deep than Too Close to Home, but a nice slim alternative to Sunnyside. Needless to say Mister Pip fitted the bill perfectly.

The Plot

Mister Pip is the story of Matilda, a young girl living on a tropical island called Bougainville plagued by civil war. Each day Matilda and her schoolmates go to hear Mr Watts, the only white man on the island, read from Charles Dickens Great Expectations and they all become absorbed in the adventures of the orphan and emigrant Mister Pip, an escape from the increasingly troubled world in which they live.

My Thoughts

Mister Pip, evokes an unlikely mix of the warm tropical landscape of Bougainville alongside the grey and busy streets of Victorian London imagined as best they can by the school children. The story is told almost lightheartedly throughout in a style which reminded me a little of Alexander McCall Smith, but this novel is no jolly adventure. Jones ensures that under all the witty exchanges between characters and descriptions of simple island life, there is an underlying sense of foreboding.

I have to say that although I enjoyed reading the Mister Pip from the beginning, and I certainly didn’t struggle to pick it up, I couldn’t see how it was going to form into the acclaimed novel I was expecting until I was near to finishing it. However this book really crept up on me – while I noticed the darkness bubbling underneath the gentle storytelling style I didn’t expect such a blow to stomach as I got from it. Just one stop from home on the underground, I neared the turning point in the novel and literally my jaw dropped. When I got to the station, instead of walking on I went and sat down with my nose in the pages until I finished it!

One thing I will say is that although you don’t need to understand the background of the situation described in Mister Pip, it might help to know what it refers to. I wasn’t really sure whether it was based on real events until I finished the book and did some googling. Whilst the story is fictional, the context is very real, which I found out by reading History of Bougainville, on trusty Wikipedia.

I felt that Jones was really excellent at painting the characters and describing their own private battles. Dolores for example (Matilda’s mother) who sees the athest Mr Watts as a bad influence on the kids, is frustrating, stubborn and proud but also brave and strong in equal measure. Mr Watts, ‘the last white man on the island’ goes from being seen as a rather odd character ‘Pop Eye’ to being almost revered by the children for the delight he brings to them from his teaching. But then later on you get a completely different perspective, so you see him as kind and weak, loyal to some and disloyal to others. Is he a wonderful person or simply a ‘fantasist’ who is a bit funny in the head? Matilda herself has a very strong voice and I really felt that I could get into her thoughts. At the beginning I felt that she had perhaps a voice that was too mature for her, but when I had read the whole book I didn’t feel this to be the case. In fact her voice grows up with her throughout the novel. One thing that made me smile is that there is almost a whole page where she almost complains about the differences in Mr Watt’s telling of Great Expectation compared to the original story, which I identified as being something that book lover’s do, say when a film comes out that doesn’t match up to their expectations of a book they enjoyed.

The trick of this novel is that it is incredibly readable and charmingly written whilst delivering a powerful punch which really brings home the events that are happening in Bougainville. A quick, original and fulfilling read.

For anyone thinking about doing this for a bookgroup, here are some questions from a handy Mister Pip reading guide that I found on litlovers.com.

Another Book List – Food for Thought

Going through my comments and subsequently snooping on other people’s blog I came across a reference to The Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels on Thomas’s My Porch Blog.

It’s not that I feel I need to read every recommended book ever but it is good to have a bit of inspiration sometimes and this one has got a bit of a different mix and includes lots of books I would never have considered. I’ll be keeping an eye out for some of those in my local second hand book shop, Copperfields which I discovered a few weeks ago  (Perk of the Job).

Also, top of the list is Ulysses which I’ll be reading for DoveGreyReader’s Team Ulysses challenge. I haven’t started it yet… whoops! And there are a few from my TBR list like I Claudius which I really should get round to.

Here’s that 100 Best Novels List  for anyone else that’s interested.

Booking Through Thursday – Recent Worst

Q: What’s the worst book you’ve read recently?

A: My most recent ‘worst’ book is Sunnyside, by Glen David Gold which to be fair I’m still reading. Please note it’s not a ‘bad’ book at all. It’s very well written and original, it’s just that it’s a bit surreal for me and hefty enough in combination with that to make me not feel like picking it up very often. I guess I’m feeling as if it’s not going to be worth the time investment.

Linwood Barclay – Too Close to Home

After reading Linwood Barclay’s first novel No Time For Goodbye
I was in eager anticipation of another offering from this author. I didn’t actually realise it was out in paperback though until the lovely Savidge Reads handed me a copy that he’d picked up specially for me. Book friends are the best.

So what’s the plot?

The Cutter family’s world is turned upside-down when their next door neighbours are gunned down. While shaken by the horrible news, they console themselves that surely it won’t happen again, after all lighting doesn’t strike twice, right? But what happens if the killers went to the wrong house? Once the investigation starts, we start to realise that the members of the Cutter family are in fact harbouring their own secrets. Secrets that could mean the difference between life and death.

My thoughts

Like his previous novel, Too Close to Home is a definite page turner. Event’s are mostly told through the eyes of Jim Cutter, the father of the family and so you experience the fears and drama right along with him. I was gripped right from the start, and with the exception of a slightly slow bit in the middle the novel held my attention all the way through. One issue for me was that I figured out the killer say about 3/4 of the way through. I couldn’t be sure, but the author drops pretty big hints throughout the novel. However to an extent I like to be able to figure it out a bit… makes me feel quite proud of myself!

The voice of the main character Jim, is sort of uber masculine. He’s a hard-working labourer who cuts grass for a living after his dreams of being an artist and a job ferrying the mayor around didn’t quite work out. His impulsive behaviour is often the driving force behind action in the novel so he is key. I found that I didn’t quite empathise so much with Jim as I did with the main male character in No Time for Goodbye because he’s perhaps more of the straightforward american cowboy type (that was my interpretation anyway). Also I found it a bit odd as the first chapter of the book is from his son’s point of view and then the voice changes to Jim’s for the rest of the book. A good technique if it was to be used to switch between characters consistently but perhaps odd that you don’t get Ellen’s (the mother) perspective.

One thing that I really enjoyed was the suspense behind the character’s secrets. You’re tempted with these all the way through and left to wonder why certain characters are behaving so oddly until these are revealed. Also although I can’t say I really related to any of them, but I did like the fact that they were depicted as fallible and therefore very human.

The only critical points really come from comparing this novel to No Time For Goodbye. If you haven’t read Linwood Barclay I would say that should be your first port of call as it is really a superb thriller that keeps you guessing right until the end (Plus it’s only £4.99 on Amazon right now so it’s a good one to get if you’ve got a summer holiday coming up!). Overall though, Too Close to Home was gripping, with plenty of drama and was brilliantly entertaining for my commute home!!

A Crime against Books? Books as Decoration in Pubs

Visiting my friends house the other day I noticed something that at first I thought was rather an original use of books and then immediately after got a bit enraged.

The pub near to her house The Swan and Edgar has by means of decoration a shelf of books displayed above the window as you can see in the picture below:

On doing a bit of google searching I also found out that they have decorated the interior with books also, with a bar built on second hand books.

So what got me totally enraged was the thought of all those lovely classic books open to the British rain and general grotty weather. And inside, people spilling their pints all down them.

Yes yes, so this is recycling of a sort, but it seems a bit crass to use books in such a superficial way when what’s supposed to be important about them is their content! Perhaps I’m a bit of a hypocrite, after all I do love a good book cover and according to some blurb on a website the pub is actually literary themed with planned book signings and quizzes to be held there. I should probably go and actually have a pint there before being totally ‘anti’.

But to continue on the theme I have noticed alot of pubs using books as decoration, either on shelves or stacked up on the side. This can be kind of nice and add a friendly feel, but sometimes it just seems an empty gesture.

What do people think – am I being too harsh? Is it simply an original idea / recycling of unused books? Or is it a crime against humanity…er…I mean books!?