Blood River by Tim Butcher

I'm not a huge non-fiction fan, but I've been trying to read 50 pages of non fiction a day for the last two weeks, and managed to read 2 great books, I'm hoping that I can make this a habit and get lots more non-fiction read.

Blood River is Tim Butcher, a British journalist who specialises in reporting from war torn countries, account of his attempt to follow H.M Stanley's journey through the Congo.
Butcher researched and spent years trying to find the right time to enter the Congo, to pass through all the red tape and the problems involved in taking such a journey. Once there he faces yet more red tape and problems. He starts off his journey trying to bike up through a region and ends up having to rely on people from various charities and organisations as there simply is no form of public transport or transport for sale. Transport he finds is the biggest problem, with petrol being scarce and his luggage tied to the bikes with old inner tubes. As Butcher moves on we watch him continously tackle this traffic problem which only seems to get worse when he wants to travel down the river.
Butcher also introduces us to a range of characters, some the shifty locals we hear horror stories of when we go on holiday - trying all the tricks of the trade to rip off the closest foreigner. But others are more honest and hard working, from locals to old expats who moved to the Congo when Belgium ruled the land, charity workers to priests come to deliver their message; all of whom played a vital role in keeping his journey going.
Butcher intersperses his journey with the history of the area, focussing on Stanley and Livingstone and the Belgium rule, as well as local moments of civil war and politics. At the start I found that the history far out-weighed his journey but as the book went on a reversal happened.
I enjoyed this read and it certainly gave me something to think about, as the Congo is somewhere which isn't really reported on that widely, or the centre of charity and awareness campaigns like some of its near neighbours.

Youth by J.M Coetzee

Only my second 1001 book of the year (with an aim of 40 I should be aiming for one every second or third read not leaving 5 books in between).
Coetzee is one of those authors I have a mixed relationship with, I hated Disgrace and disliked Amsterdamn but then really enjoyed Waiting for the Barbarians, and Elizabeth Costello I think I've read but I'm not 100% sure, so I went into Youth with some trepidation.
Youth is actually the second in a semi-autobiographical trilogy, but I didn't know that till I was half way through. However, I didn't feel like I was missing out too much as a rough sketch of his childhood was provided as I read through.

Youth follows John, a mathmatics student with more interest in poetry and saving up enough money to escape South Africa. When he finally escapes to England life is not what he imagines, the long hours, cold people and cold weather lead him to a life of seclusion. As well as his life in England and his love of poetry, we learn much about his desire for a woman. He seems to pick up along the way a number of unsuitable women (who all drop their pants immediately), he barely gets them back to his room before he and they have decided that it's all a bad idea, but it continues.

The novel had a really mellow feel to it, despite dramas, upsets and loneliness he accepts the world and the tension never builds. And, this creates a nice easy read, but one that is likely to leave me not remembering much, if any of the novel in a months time.

July's People by Nadine Gordimer

My last 1001 book for the year! I was aiming for 30 this year and I just managed it.

July's People is set in South Africa at the time of the black uprising, white families houses were being destroyed, parts of the cities were bombed and many were killed. This novel tells the tale of the servant July's plight to save the white family he has worked for. He transports them to his home village were they take up residence in one of the mud huts. The focus of the story is on how this family, both parents and young children cope living in a traditional village, living without the conveiniences of a fridge, television and society life.

I enjoyed looking at this glimpse of a white family in a different setting - often novels focus on the servants reaction to the big city. However, I would have prefered to see more of the African's ways of life, they form a background rather than a character, even July of the title only comes and goes. My biggest gripe, and something many books annoy me with, is the writing of the children. Their speach and actions were way too old for the ages they were meant to be. A baby asking eloquently whether he can go to the ciniema, a three year old who communicates in full sentences and can be suspected of having stolen a car!

Three Reviews

I have a new laptop and internet connection! Yay! I can now keep up with blogging, bloggers and all the other stuff that we rely on on the web.
Now a quick confession - I won't be able to finish the November Novella challenge on time, I have a couple more books to read, but won't have time to finish them this week as I have a bookgroup read that I have to finish as its the first book we're reading in a new group. However I hope to be finished the novellas by next week.

Now, I've finished three books in the last week so I'm going to do a quick round up of all three here then I'll be up-to-date with my blogging.

The Return of the Water Spirit by Pepetela

This teeny book (100 pages) from the African Writers series is rich in political, social and spiritual comment.Carmina and Jaoa live a spiritless life, shunned by his parents for their lack of religion she strives for power and money in the world of politics and trading. While he stays home playing Civilization on his computer. Around them the world is falling down, buildings collapse one-by-one, despite housing so many people the buildings drift to the ground, the people in them unharmed. A local girl, living close to a lagoon which has formed in the area, hears a deep music which gains in happiness and momentum as more buildings fall.
A good little read, although the symbols and infered meaning are very obvious and not skillfully placed.


A Man Without a Country - Kurt Vonnegut
For the 11 in 11 challenge over at library thing one of my sections to select books from is about reading more of authors that you have enjoyed previously and need to rediscover. I saw this memoir in the library and grabbed it as my first read from this section, I will probably read another Vonnegut fiction in the next year, but it was good to read something from the author.
Written in 2004 Vonnegut gives us his views on the world around him in a series of short commentaries. He writes about eveything from the First and Second World Wars to modern technology to George W Bush. He mangagrs to make many good, serious points whilst still keeping a light and readable tone.
My favourite part was when he explained why life should be enjoyed by 'farting about', taking long trips to buy a single envelope and then a single stamp for the pleasure of the trip and the conversations around you.


The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud
Inspired by Vivienne's post I grabbed this from the library, and then wallowed in it all of last Sunday, when I curled up with it and a blanket.
Charlie at 15 caused the death of his brother Sam, in his final moments he promised his brother that he wouldn't leave him and never has. Meeting every evening, the pair play catch and live in the moment before their lives were taken away.
Everything changes when one day the beautiful Tess arrives in the graveyard and Charlie has to decide between living in the past or moving on.
Yes, it's corny. Yes, you've read books like it before. And, yes you can guess the ending just from what I've written above. But it's like a blanket, something to snuggle up with on a lazy, grey Sunday afternoon.
This also counts as an 11 in 11 challenge book as one of my categories is reads inspied by others.

Short Story Sunday: Squeezing in some reading time

Its coursework deadline time at the moment at school: all final drafts to be in this Tuesday (then the countless phonecalls to parents of the kids who don't do this). So I've been marking first, second and third drafts to get them back to kids so they can keep working at them. I have a new class as there is a lot of staff sickness in our department and they are going to be my biggest nightmare coursework wise, they are lazy, talkative and many of them find English hard. I had one girl hand in an essay that was half a page long! My class of special need kids in the same year group would never have dared to do that, and would have been ashamed if they had so little to say! From this little mini rant you can see that this is a stressful time of the year.
As I've been so busy - I have a day of marking ahead - I've barely managed to squeeze in any reading time, or had time to get out in the glorious sunshine we suddenly have. One and a half more weeks of school and then its the holidays, I'll still be marking for hours everyday, but will be ensuring I'm out in the garden and whizzing through books too.

This morning I finished The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin. This 101 page story is set in Benin, about a family from Brazil who travel to Africa and make their fortune from slavery. The novella focuses on various members of the family and their fall, across several generations. I liked bits of this but found that I often had read a page or so and didn't know which family member they were now talking about.
Once the marking is done and I've been to the library I'll be starting Love and Summer by William Trevor, and I have a Neil Gaiman short story: 'Snow, Glass, Apples' to read, a retelling of the Snow White story, hopefully a great way to start off the Once Upon a Time IV Challenge :D

Sunday Salon: Travelling from the Sofa

Africa - Sudan
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

A young man returns to his village after many years and finds that a stranger has moved into town and managed to work his way into the tightly knit community who are normally wary of strangers. In this place where each persons heritage is known the stranger is a rarity, it isn't even known from which village he comes from.
When he finally meets the stranger he becomes obsessed, the stranger suddenly talks to him in well-spoken English,revealing at first a small part of his past.
The past is revealed in more detail when we discover that the stranger had been taken to court and held on the charge of murdering his own wife, and being the named cause of the suicide of many of English women. When the stranger suddenly disappears into the floods one night, feared dead, the obsession doesn't end it only becomes stronger.
Challenges:
999 (tbr + Arfican reads)
Orbis


Japan
Crossing Midnight by Mike Carey, Jim Fern and Mark Pennington
This fantastic graphic novel tells the story of twins Kai and Toshi. During the mothers pregnancy the father promised a sacrifice in payment for the birth of a healthy child. Unknown to him (and the doctors) his wife was expecting twins.
Boisterous children they quickly learn that Toshi is incapable of coming to harm through knifes and sharp objects. This knowledge leads her to be brave, disobedient and confident unlike her brother Kai.
One night Toshi wakes up to find a large man, surrounded by hovering knives leaning over her, he demands that she is his, the payment for the sacrifice her father made. When she refuses to go with him her dog is dismembered into tons of pieces. The creatures keep returning and the payments for refusal get higher, Kai ends up fighting to save the whole family from the instrusion of these mythical creatures.
This is my first violent graphic novel, I tend to stick to memoirs, and I really enjoyed it. At the back of the book the author writes about Japanese mythology and folklore which has made me want to discover more.
Challenges:
Graphic Novel
Japanese Literature Challenge
Orbis Terrarum


America (and the spiritual world)
A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

I picked up this book because the cover resembled the fantastic Siobhan Dowd novel
A Pure Swift Cry, I had no idea what the book was going to be about as the synopsis is written in a pale blue against a moss green background making it hard to read.
The ovel starts with Helen, a Light, a ghost trapped on earth. She is doomed to walk the earth following a host - a person she has chosen as a life line, if she moves away from this person she feels herself being pulled into hell.
Helen follows after Mr Brown, an English teacher and is always present in his life, unbeknown to him, until she realises that a pupil can see her. The pupil James, was also a light until he learnt how to inhabit the body of a dead soul.
The pair join up and quickly become tied to each other, they struggle with their own lives plus the lives of the host body they have come to inhabit.
I haven't done this justice at all, this is a great read - its intense, gripping and your pulled right into their world. (YA for older teens).
Challenges:
YA 2009
A-Z (Name)

My Thoughts: The Long Way Down by Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor

Having previously read The Long Way Round where this pair motorbiked from the UK overland to New York I was egar to get this book as soon as it came out, and so I did. A christmas present back in 2007 yet I've only just read it (I haven't read any of the other books I recieved that year or any of the ones I recieved this year - despite wanting to read them all!).
In the Long Way Down the pair motorbike from Scotland, through Europe and then through Africa right o Cape town. The book is told from both of the men's perspectives, each talking about their experiences and emotions of both riding and the sights, history and people that they meet.
Having read this I'm now itching to get out and find out more about Africa, its somewhere I'd love to go and teach for a month or so (China and Canada are on my list too). Its good to read a book that highlights the problems but also presents a positive picture from those haunting images I remember of Ethiopia from my childhood.

Challenges:
Non-fiction 5
999 (tbr pile)

Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

Pages read total: 751 (+ 66 pages of picture books)
Books read: Finished Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, read What I Was by Meg Rosoff, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, An Elgy for Easterly, Mrs Biddlebox (pic book) and The Viewer by Gary Crew
Total reading time: approx 12 hours


I woke up fairly tired this morning after 4 hours sleep but picking up this book soon had me awake and interested again.

An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of short stories all revolving around different people from Zimbabwe, people of all classes suffering from similar problems.
Presidents wifes left to suffer after the husband dies of AIDS, families cheated by neighbours who borrow money to eascpe to the Western World, women unable to have children who are judged by all, families seeing yet another young daughter marrying a man with AIDS who has already buried two wifes.
The themes are recurring: AIDS, deception, corruption, the black market and the ever increasing prices and political promises that can reck a nation.
I never read short stories one after another as I find that they merge into one another, but with this collection each character was held seperately in my mind, each life story complete in itself.
A collection I would definately recommend to others.

Challenges:
2009 Pub Challenege
100 Shots of Short
A-Z Title
Orbis Terrarum
999 (African Reads and short story collection)
Olympic Challenge

My Thoughts: The Famished Road by Ben Okri

This book about the life a a spirit-child, he struggles and fights for his chance to live, and at many times has to fight against the spirits who want him to return to the spirit world.

The book deals with many African political and social problems, including poverty, hunger, lack of stability and the dirty tricks and means used by politicians to capture as man votes as they can. The whole community is filled with spirits and their actions can affect the life of all, yet the boy is the person most affected. He moves between normal life, the spirit world and a time and space where they both converge.

I'll be honest and say that this book was a struggle, I'm sure that their were many references to folk tales, religion and cultural beliefs that I just didn't know enough about to recognise. However, this is a book that I wish I had had the opportunity to study when I was at university, it would have been great to learn about the influences, origins and context of the novel and to attend seminars and hear other peoples views about it.

Challenges:

2008 Booker Challenge: Book 5/6

Fall into Reading: Book 1

Olympic Challenge: Nigeria

Book Awards 2: Book 1/10

Other Reviews:

Jackie's

Trevor's Review