The Sunday Salon: Reading is beating me

Very quickly, today is the last day to enter my draw for a copy of The Blind Assassin over here.

I'm really struggling with my reading at the moment, I'm either in a grump so just not enjoying great books, its either that or I'm not picking great books off my tbr pile.
I started mid week reading Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I was hoping that I'd enjoy this as everyone raves about him (although I didn't really enjoy The Great Gatsby which everyone else seems to love).
The book is meant to be partly autobiographical and charts his relationship with his wife - which bizarrely started off with her having a breakdown and he was a pyschologist used to flirt with her through letters to bring her out of herself. He moves on to detail the affair he had and his struggle with this affair.
I didn't get on with the narration of this book, or his clear lack of love for the women he had an affair with. The whole thing felt like he was trying to explain his behaviour.


After this I moved onto Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas, another 1001 read which has been on the TBR pile for many years. The 4 star rating on amazon, the synopsis and the gorgeous cover all had my hopes up high. But this was another book which floundered for me - it was a 'true tale' which the author spent a large percentage of the book describing how he discovered the story and the events after publishing this story.

Both these books I believed would be novels and both turned out to be based on true stories and had fairly dry narration. I've read a few pages of my next read, thankfully it looks like a real novel this time.

This afternoon I'm off to Colchester, one of the oldest towns in England. I'm taking my camera to get a few snaps of the cobbled streets and then meeting some local bookcrossers to chat and swap books. The pub we are meeting in is an OBCZ (official bookcrossing zone), so hopefully will have a set of shelves with free books that I can browse and leave some of my own books on.

The Sunday Salon: If I wasn't being a good girl...

I'd have brought the following books this week.

The Idiot by Dostoevsky. I'm reading two Russian books at the moment, and quite fancy a Russian theme running through the year but only have one on the tbr stacks. This one caught my eye not just as its one of those that if you're doing the Russians (sorry for the bad English, I've been watching and reading Educating Rita at school), you should have tackled; but also because it's translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky whose translation of W&P I'm loving.


The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. As above, because I'm loving W&P and want to read the Russians. But also because of the Oh-so-pretty cover. The Penguin Great Loves series all have lush covers.

And finally,

Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, because I want a good YA to take with me for the flight to New York (4 weeks today I'll be there!!!), I have many on my shelves already so I should read those, and rely on the Alexie audiobook that I have on my trusty old iPod.

The Sunday Salon: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I've avoided Sherlock Holmes my whole life, the books seemed like something I wouldn't enjoy. Then during my teacher training a rather boring teacher who I had to shadow (he wouldn't let me teach his classes like I was supposed to) read to the kids some of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and boy did he kill them! Earlier in the year I went and saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie and loved it, so braved picking up one of the books.

The Hound of the Baskervilles starts with a mysterious 'death' on Dartmoor; a gorgeously barren piece of wilderness, with wild ponies, sheeps and fog that can descend and leave you lost in a matter of hours. With a heavy inheritance up for grab and a mythical hound in the families history Shelock Holmes picks up the scent of foul play and sends Watson off to investigate.

I enjoyed the story, it was an easy comfort read, and I'll be checking out some of the other novels in the near future.

The Sunday Salon: Carry a poem

Way up in Edinburgh, Scotland they have been given the title 'City of Literature', a recognition of the literature which is created from this base. They hold many events over the year to celebrate, spread and encourage the love of literature.
Carry a poem is a campaign to get people reading poetry. They have given away a free booklet packed with people's stories about the poems that they carry around with them and their reasons for it. Some of these poems are memorised, some tucked away on a piece of paper in their wallet, some tatooed onto them and some listened to on an ipod.
I recieved this book as a bookring (it will travel from reader to reader), and it was a great little read. I didn't like all the poems - to much Robert Burns for me! But there were several which were touching and a few that I will jot down before this leaves me. Each member of the bookring also sends along a few lines of their favourite poem with the book so the little collection grows. I chose to copy out one of my favourite poems 'In a Station of the Metro' by Ezra Pound.

What poem would you chose to include?

Recieving this book in the post reminds me that I'm supposed to be reading poetry for the Clover, Bee and Reverie challenge, I'm not sure why I find poetry so difficult to make into a reading habit. Both poetry and non-fiction I enjoy as I'm reading but a novel will always get picked up before a poem. I'm going to dig out a few poetry books and try and get back into the swing of things again - one day it may become a natural impulse.

Do you read poetry? If not why not?

And I'll just leave you with a reading by Simon Armitage one of the poets who I have only a year left of teaching. His poems always resonate with the kids as their often (in our selection) about the struggle between the parent child relationship, and they sit fantastically next to Carol Ann Duffy.
Kid


At the back of this book are some links poetry lovers might like to discover, The Scottish Poetry Library, and The Reading Rooms it has poems, podcasts and much more to discover. Also the Poetry Foundation website looks fab and jam packed.

The Sunday Salon: Le Dossier: How to Survive the English by Sarah Long

A lazy Easter weekend, I've recamped to my Mum's for this first week of half term, so so far I've watched more TV in the last 24 hours than I've seen in the 2 weeks previously, I've scoffed biscuits, pizza and chocolate. That doesn't even mention that Sunday lunch which I had at the pub my sister manages (which was gorgeous).
The rest of the day will be spent lazing around the house, with Alias Grace and The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolks. As of tomorrow I'm on a 5 hour a day marking schedule until the mountain of coursework is marked.

I finished yesterday Le Dossier: How to Survive the English. This book was a small independently published book at first, but soon was translated to English with comic effect. Hortense de Monplaisir is a Parisian housewife brought over to live in London by her husbands career. She criticises and views every aspect of the English life, from our eating habits, body shapes to our manners. The book revealed some truths - we love cheap clothes shops so we can look like the celebrities and still afford to change our looks as often as them, we spend far more money and time on our homes than anything else, and treat children and pets with equal priviledge. But the book also shows up a sharp contrast with our European neighbours - she can't understand that we queue politely and uncomplainingly, that stop at traffic lights and follow speed limits and that we say sorry if someone bumps into us. This was a funny read, something light and comic. If your Englsih and don't mind being criticised this is worth a read.

The Sunday Salon: Dewey's Read-a-Thon sign-up post

I'm hoping to get some reading in today, I really want to finish Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter, I'm half way through and absolutely love it! Although I have a copy with a teeny font. Stopping me completing it will be stacks of housework, marking and bits and bobs to do in town. I'm also supposed to be off to the cinema later, which will no doubt include food.

I'm also officially signing up for Dewey's Read-a-Thon. I took part in both of last years and really enjoyed it both times. I've never managed the full 24 hours, maybe I'll manage this year as it is half-term so I will have plenty of time to recover.
Worryingly, I've been eying up the books on my stacks for the last few weeks making mental booklists of what I should be reading. At the moment I'm veering towards some novellas, The Hunger Games and some of my Once Upon a Time choices. I'll also make sure I have some graphic novels and an audiobook on hand for those tired moments.
I'm still debating whether to be a cheerleader or not. Last year I had problems with pages not loading properly, and a few sites made my computer open them hundreds of times and then crash my computer. I'm considering searching through the signups before hand and adding 10 participants to my google reader and just cheerleading those few. That way I can pick readers with similar book tastes to me and I will have checked out their pages before hand.

See what everyone else is doing on a Sunday at The Sunday Salon

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

The Sunday Salon

Today I'm supposed to be marking, coursework deadlines are very close so I have teenagers (some nervous some indifferent) shoving pieces of coursework at me from every angle, expecting it to be marked in no time at all so they can edit it. Its sunny and gorgeous outside, and every inch of me wants to wander, but I'm forcing myself to stay in. And after this post is written I'll be forcing myself to mark :C

So just a quick note on my readings.
Earlier in the week I finished Magpie by Jill Dawson and somehow forgot to talk about it. After finishing the momouth A Suitable Boy I decided something quick and easy was needed and a friend wanted to borrow this so I rushed through it, and it was better than I expected.
The novel centres around a young single mother and her son, they are trying to start new life after a fire at their old house and the 'loss' of the father. Moving to a rough estate in London, miles from the quaint Yorkshire of their past, they have a lot to get used to. Money struggles, hearing their neighbors getting up to all sorts, being one of the few white families around and the sons sudden bad behaviour.
The novel was a quick and easy read, although I guessed the revelation at the end of the book very early on. If you're tempted to try this author, this book is worth a read, but I would recommend her novel Wild Boy first.

Then this morning I finished the short story Amok by Stefsn Zweig. Zweig is the year long author over at a librarything group which I belong to, I hadn't really heard of him before and was reluctant to start so I grabbed Amok and Other Stories as my first foray into the author.
Amok is one of those stories where the narrator recalls a conversation with another person as a means of telling the story. In this case the narrator meets a man at midnight on the voyage home from India to Germany. The man, a doctor, is a mystery as he is never to be seen during the day and he has asked the narrator not to reveal that he is on the ship. His story centres around his guilt and obssession over a female patient. I can't reveal more than that without giving away to much.
The confession is fast paced and the man's distress and need to confess spill out across the page at a pace which matches his sense of urgency. I'd recommend lovers of short stories to give this a read. I can't wait to read the other stories in the collection now.

The Sunday Salon: February's Reading

Photo Credit



Another month is nearly complete so I'm updating on my reading status. I only managed 5 books which is really poor as 4 of them were novellas, I've been in one of those strange moods most of the month were books aren't holding my attention. I've watched stacks of TV instead, which is something I rarely do. On a positive I read 3 books from the Caribbean and they seemed to pull my out of my slump for a while, so I've got a few Caribbean books lined up to hopefully grab my attention.

Last night I went to see Sherlock Holmes, I was surprised how good it was, and how busy the cinema was as this film was out before Christmas. Oh, and I also had a mediocre pizza which I managed to have a mini allergic reaction to, the whole way through the evening my face, particularly around my mouth itched and was puffy - luckiy the cinema is dark!
Today I woke to the sound of heaby rain again, thankfully I've done most of the jobs I need to do outside the house so I can be a bit of a hermit today. I have the joys of marking to get done but then I plan to read away. I have the penultimate chapter of A Suitable Boy to read for a readalong, and then I'm going to takle the last 100 pages of The Fellowship of the Ring, and the last 130 pages of The White Tiger. Plus read a few Caribbean short stories and some more poems from my current anthology.

EDITED as I've just finished A Suitable Boy, but I won't call it 6 books for the month as I've been reading this a book a week for the last 18 weeks, and what a great journey it was :)

How's your reading been this month?
FEBRUARY:
Summertime, J.M Coetzee
The Fire Gospels, Michel Faber
Ruins by Achy Obejas
Whole of a Morning Sky by Grace Nichols
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth


My Around the World Reading map is starting to look a little healthier.

visited 11 states (4.88%)
Create your own visited map of The World
Africa:
South Africa
Summertime, JM Coetzee

Americas:
Antigua
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
Cuba
Ruins by Achy Obejas
Guyana
Whole of a Morning Sky by Grace Nichols
Haiti
After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
USA
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Asia:
India
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Russia
Dr Zhivargo by Boris Pasternik
Tibet
Sorrow Mountain by Ani Prachen

Europe:
The Netherlands
The Fire Gospels, Michel Faber
UK
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Alice in Wonderland by C.S Lewis

The Sunday Salon: New Challenges.

Here I was just mindlessly going through my Googlereader and I came across 2 of Eva's posts and now I'm signed up to two new challenges!
Clover, Bee and Reverie: A Poetry Challenge, how could I resist with a brilliant name like this! I may have a degree in English Literature but I always avoided poetry as much as possible at university and I've read very little since I finished university. But, I do enjoy reading poetry and teaching it. I love the selection which I teach for the GCSE pupils, a mix of multicultural poems, a selection by Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage and a handful of pre 19th century poems added in to boot. I think the reason I struggle to read poetry at home is because I feel I can't really get a feel for the individual poems if I read a collection in one sitting, but if I try dipping in and out I soon forget that the book is sitting there.
There are 4 levels of participation, and I'm going for the hardest one the 'Sonnet' in which you have to read 14 collections of poems, which includes completing two badges (2 collections which are connected in some way), and one at expert level (4 books which are connected in some way).
I'm thinking that my two badges will be Modernist (Ezra Pound, T.S Elliot or H.D - an area I'm comfortable in as I've studied some of the key poems and wrote my dissertation about the wonderful 'The Wasteland'), and something by The Beat Poets who I've always meant to read but never got around to.
For the expert level I'm looking at reading poets from around the world, hopefully at least one from 4 different continents (this would probably be completed using anthologies so I get a real feel for a place).
I'm hoping to revisit a few favourite writers such as T.S Eliot, Ezra Pound, Carol Ann Duffy, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Les Murray and Thom Gunn.
And I also want to try a few of these who I've always meant to get to: ee cummings, WH Auden, Philip Larkin, Dylan Thomas and Emily Dickenson.
Poetry Read:
1. Robert Herrick
2. Polish Fables
3. The Virago Book of Wicked Verse, ed. Jill Dawson





I'm also joining The World Religion Challenge 2010, as my knowledge of religion is minimal and this is going to be a steep learning curve. This challenge also has different 'paths' and I'm going for a toughy, The Universalist Path which requires reading about the 5 main religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and more books about any or all of the following: Shintoism, Animism, Taoism, Confucianism, Wicca, Mythology, Atheism, Occult, Tribal Religions, Voodoo, Unitarianism, Baha'i, Cults, Scientology, Mysticism, Rastafarianism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zorastrianism, Agnosticism, Gnosticism, Satanism, Manichaeism, Deism, Comparative Religion, Religious Philosophy, Jungiansim, Symbolism, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc., etc. etc. (you may also read about another aspect of one of the 5 Biggies)
Any type of book is valid whether it is fiction, non-fiction, poerty or a religious text (I may even read the Bible, something I've always meant to do). You are also encourage to find out more through movies, attending a service, taking part in a celebration etc.
I'm not really sure where to start with this in terms of books to choose, I think it'll be a case of looking at other people's choices and recommendations and sitting in the library and flicking through some books to get a feel for the way the texts are written - I don't want anything to academic. I'm really interested in reading about religions such as Wicca, Scientology and Mysticism as well as learning more about the main religions.

The Sunday Salon: The Fire Gospels by Michel Faber

This is my 4th Michel Faber book; perviously I've read the glorious The Crimson Petal and the White, and its follow up, The Apple a collection of short stories set in this Victorian world, and then I read the very different bizzare but fantastic dystopian novel Under the Skin. The Fire Gospels was sent free from the publishers Cannongate over a year ago and I kept meaning to get to it but for some reason puttine it off. As soon as I picked it up and was 20pages in I was shocked that yet again Faber had created a completely different style of novel.

The Fire Gospel's is a Dan Brown style novel. A young historian travels to Iraq to help them salvage museum articles after the museum had been raided. Whilst their a bimb hits the museum unearthing the discovery of 9 scrolls which had previously been sealed inside a statue. Rather than reporting his discovery he sneaks them out of the country and translates them back at home. He then decides to punbish the scrolls, which turn out to be an account by an unknown disciple of Jesus.

The scrolls reveal Jesus as a more ordinary figure, they also dispel some of the images created of his crucifixtion. The public have mixed reaction to the publication of the book, some desperate to kill the author. And so continues his plight.

This was a easily readable book, and very short and compact. However it didn't amaze me, I would probably only give it 3 stars out of 5. It isn't my usual taste in fiction and unlike Dan Brown didn't manage to have that gripping nature.

The Sunday Salon: January's Reads

A freezing but super bright day today. I'll be at the gym, marking, baking and getting a stack of reading in.
January hasn't been the best reading month to start the year although it may be ending on a high point as I'm hopefully going to finish Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai later this afternoon. My reading list of the month is below, only 6 books finished :( My favourite was The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters closely followed by The Forset of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.
What is your faourite read of this month?

2010 Reads:
JANUARY
1. Doctor Zhivargo
2. The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
3. Alice in Wonderland by CS Lewis
4. Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
5. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat (Non Fict)
6. Sorrow Mountain by Ani Prachen (Non Fict)


visited 5 states (2.22%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Americas:
Haiti
After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
USA
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Asia:
Russia
Dr Zhivargo by Boris Pasternik
Tibet
Sorrow Mountain by Ani Prachen
Europe:
UK
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Alice in Wonderland by C.S Lewis

Salon Sunday: Finally found my book mojo and Reading in Colour

It's been a strange old beginning to the year. Snow. Ofsted. Disappointment (I'm not going to China, and the boy I like didn't ask me on a date, grrrr!). And I've also lost my reading and studying mojo.
So far this year I've finished just three books (1 was YA and one children's fction) and we are 24 days into the year, (I normall average 2 books a week). I'm wasting time on the net, watching dvd's and tv and generally feeling under the weather.
But, last night I finally found a book I could curl up with. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters had me hooked. I'm 200 pages in and could quite happily have picked it up as soon as I got up and spent all day reading it. As it is I had marking to do, all complete, and the next section of A Suitable Boy to read for my read-a-long, which is what I'm off to do next. I'm then off to the cinema and out for Indian food. But, I'm looking forward to curling back up with my book before I go to sleep.

Oh, and so I don't double post today here is my Reading in Colour pledge. Eva, over at A Striped Armchair blogged a wonderful post about white priviledge and our reading habbits, checking it out is a must. I do read quite a few authors from other countries but I'm nowhere near as diverse in my reading habbits as I'd like to be. I've decided to try to make at least a third of my fiction reads by POC. And half of my non-fiction reads by POC.

The Sunday Salon: Reading a well known classic

I have managed very little reading this week, especially as I had a day and a half off of work due to the snow. I finished Doctor Zhivago, if you had seen my post during the week you will know that I wasn't very impressed with it. Now I have three bookrings which I need to get read, Serena by Ron Rash, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters and Summertime by J.M Coetzee. Normally I would be rushing to read these books but at the moment they hold little appeal, so they sit looking at me making me feel guilty and therefore making me want to read them even less :(

I decided mid-week that a distraction from these was necessary and I also needed that gratification of finishing a book. I decided to pick up Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by C.S Lewis. I have a beautiful boxset of Adventures and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There which my mum brought me for Christmas whilst I was at university, its been sitting around unread for 8 years plus.

I'm sure as a child I was probably read this, but all I can remember is the film. I settled down to this on Wednesday afternoon, the snow was falling heavily outside and I was already in my pjs after a couple of hours walk in the snow. Curling up with a blanket to get sucked into Alice's world was bliss. The story was very familiar, the childlike simplicity was a godsend after the politics of Russia, and I was easily pleased. This is one of those books which pull you back into your childhood in a rush. The Mervyn Peake illustrations are simple and stunning and added to the effect. I'll be reading Through the Looking Glass in the next week or so.

As well as knocking this off mount tbr this is also my first novel for the wonderful Our Mutural Reads Challenge. When reading this I did think about the childrens books that we have today. Alice is such a simple tale, she is stuck in an imaginary world with talking animals and characters, who generally accept her into their world unless she does something to distress them. Children's books now-a-days seem so much more 'clever', but it makes you wonder if this is needed, surely all kids regardless of the generation they belong to want a bit of silliness, somewhere they can imagine dreaming themselves into.
Have you read any well known classics which you feel you know like the back of your hand without having read them before?

Sunday Salon - Victorian Short Stories

The first Sunday of 2010 is typically going to be spent doing all the things which never got ticked off of my to do list, marking, homework, studying and ironing. Possibly some reading will get done if I'm lucky later on. Then tomorrow its back to work, I'm not looking forward to the early mornings but it will be nice to have a routine back in place.

I thought I would kick off the Our Mutual Reads with a few Victorian short stories to set the scene. I'm going to try and read a real mix of authors for the short story mini challenge, hopefully covering a wide range of authors from the period.

An Imaginative Woman by Thomas Hardy (from Life's Little Ironies).

I've read a far bit of Hardy, several novels and poems but this was my first short story. A young family travel on holiday. They stay at a guesthouse, the wife discovers that the room that she is staying in is the bedroom of a local poet. She immediately feels a link with the poet as she once had a poem of hers published alongside one of his. This interest quickly develops into a fascination with the man, she waits day in day out for him to return to the guesthouse, she is anxious to meet this man whi she has built up in her head as a wonderful person.
This was a good little story, I'm sure we have all at some point created a character inside our heads of a person we have never met, imagining that if met an instant friendship would form. I was surprised at how modern the text felt.

For my second Thomas Hardy story I read The Boy's Veto.

This tells the tale of a young wheelchair bound woman. We learn early of her marriage to an elder man, her boss, who has decided he should take her as his second wife after she ended up wheelchair bound after completing a task for him. The pair get along well enough, but it it more a marriage of conveneyance. The husband strives to improve his wifes cultural knowledge so that she fits as part of his sociaty.
After the husband dies she is courted by a man she knows from her past, a "mere gardener". She desperately wants to marry this man yet is banished from doing so by her son who claims it would destroy his chance of being a gentleman.
The son's behaviour angered me, but it is typical of the society of the time, when your birth, parents and education counted far more than the type of person you actually were.

Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad, read online for free here

This story has changed my mind on Conrad, whose Heart of Darkness I despised. Amy Forster is a young simple girl in the story she falls in love with a migrant who found himself ashore after a shipping accident. Arriving in England he was beaten, thrown stones at and locked up, everyone assumed he was simply a lunatic. Amy was the only person who showed him compassion when she feed him. From that moment on they are in love.
The story, although titled Amy Foster, is more about the man and his experiences of living in England. The language is beautiful, showing the sharp conrast between the man's ways and that of the English folks. Well worth a read.



I sat down on New Years Eve to watch the latest BBC adaptation of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. For some reason the BBC had decided to set the story in 1921 rather than in 1898 when the story was written so it cannot count for this challenge. That being said this reminded me what a great novella it was. It would be perfect for this challenge, especially for anyone new to the Victorian period. I'll have to try and dig it out and have a reread this year. The BBC version is well worth checking out, the setting is beautiful and it is well acted throughout. I'm sure the novella doesn't make everything as clear as this version did, but my memory is fairly hazy.
(Just why is it that scary children in films are nearly always blonde?)

The Sunday Salon

I haven't posted anything on my blog for ages, I have still been reading but only in short snatches and very slowly. In a funny old mood, Christmas and New Year always make me feel strange one minute I'm fine then next sad with no way to explain why even to myself! But, I have one week left at work and then two weeks and 4 days off! I'll be going home for a few days but generally I'll be spending a lot of time in doors chilling out with books, so I thought I'd create a Christmas reading list for myself.


I've got to finish Book 2 (should have done this by Thursday just gone) and Book 3 of Les Miserables. I'm loving this at the moment but need to sit down for a long old session of reading as at the moment I don't feel like I'm getting far.


I've got The Well of Lost Plots and Serena to read, both are bookrings. I don't know anything about Serena accept that it is from my favourite publishers, Cannongate. The Well of Lost Plots will be a great comfort read.

I have a gorgeous boxed edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (with introductions by Will Self and Zadie Smith) which my mum brought me years ago which I'm planning to read over Christmas week.

I've also got a stack of other books which I need to get to, hopefully I'll be able to knock off lots of books off the tbr pile to make space for those I will recieve for Christmas and my birthday

Sunday Salon: Booker Shortlist 2008

Today is a good old lazy Sunday (next week is hectice so this is much needed). I have to do a few boring jobs around the house then I'm free to read. I need to read the next book of A Suitable Boy for my bookcrossing readalong. Then continue with Survival in the Killing Fields and The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane both of which I'm really enjoying. I might also rewatch Twilight as I'm off to see New Moon later in the week, or possibly coninue making so homemade photoalbums for friends Christmas gifts.

I am a part of a group of bookcrossers who each purchase a book from the Booker list and then pass it around the circle. So far I have read 5 of the books on the shortlist and have only the winner left to go.
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole

Yesterday I finished reading The Secret Scripture which I was really looking forward to - mainly because of the gorgeous cover work.
This book is divided into two narratives that of a doctor running a mental institute and then his eldest patient. The doctor has to close the institute and in doing so has to assess the patients to decided who will need to be replaced and who will be sent back out into the world. The institute is full of elderly patients who have been secioned there for decades. He is fascinated by one patient Mrs McNutly, she is the oldest surviving, and longest patient to have lived at the institute, her notes are in tatters so he needs to work to find out just why she was placed there in the first place.
Mrs McNutly's section of the novel deals with her desire to write down the past, she knows that her time is growing nearer and feels the need to journal the events leading up to her sectioning. We hear of her family, the much loved father and distant mother. Her teenage years and the early days of her wedding and the events which led her to the institution.

It sounds a great read, but I just felt that it didn't work. The joint narrative meant that we were learning things of her past to quickly. It was her childhood which facinated me. I would have preferred a chronological tale, rather than one held in flashbacks as in this novel they weakened the story. The ending was far to obvious from early on in the novel. What this book really needed was a good editing.

I'm hoping to read The White Tiger before the year is out, I borrowed my brothers copy (he read it in a day) way back in February so really should return it soon. I have to say that I think many of the shortlist where just okay books, with the exception of A Fraction of the Whole I didn't feel any were good enough to be considered for the Booker Prize. The 2009 list however looks much more promising, I have read 2 of those so far and they are of a higher standard.

I'm hoping eventually to have read all of the Booker winners and a large number of the shortlist. Do you have any recommendations? Or do you have any award winning books whose entry ou thought was questionnable?

Sunday Salon: A book and a challenge.

England is back to windiness and rain - typical as I need to get out and buy some food! The Ask and The Answer arrived yesterday and so far I have left the package undone, it is going to be my reward this evening for spending this afternoon marking.


This morning I quickly finished the last few pages of Pretties by Scott Westerfeld, the sequel to Uglies which I reviewed here. This book starts with Tally a Pretty living the Pretty life. Hangovers, parties and a wide choice of clothes. Her friends are part of a group called the Crims who get up to adventures and misdeeds. Tally is eventually made aware of her pledge to test out a drug counteracting the brain lesions which are secretly inserted into people at 16 to make them compliant. She then spends the rest of the novel trying to get herself and her friends out of Pretty Town and on the run to the Old Smoke.
I enjoyed the first book in the series, but didn't like this one anywhere near as much. When Tally was a Pretty the book became very teenish (I so made up that word). And I kept thinking this will disappear, but it kind of stuck with the novel. I didn't feel that this one explored ideas of our lives and our preconceptions anywhere near as much as the first. I will however go onto read the third book Specials just so I have completed the trilogy.

Read for Barts YA Dystopian Reading Challenge.


The Twenty Ten Challenge hosted by the great Bart. This is me signing up for my fourth challenge for 2010 (I'm limiting myself to no more than 6 challenges at a time), luckily this one shouldn't be too hard to complete. To make it a bit more of a challenge I'm going to say that each book has to be by a foreign writer - hopefully helping me work on my Olympic Challenge.
Bart wants us to read 2 books for each of the following categories:

Young Adult
Any book classified as young adult or featuring a teenage protagonist counts for this category.
T.B.R. **
Intended to help reduce the old T.B.R. pile. Books for this category must be already residents of your bookshelves as of 1/11/09.
Shiny & New
Bought a book NEW during 2010 from a bookstore, online, or a supermarket? Then it counts for this category. Second-hand books do not count for this one, but, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts or won in a giveaway also count!
Bad Blogger’s ***
Books in this category, should be ones you’ve picked up purely on the recommendation of another blogger count for this category (any reviews you post should also link to the post that convinced you give the book ago).
*** Bad Bloggers: Is hosted by Chris of Stuff as Dreams are Made on.
Charity
Support your local charity shops with this category, by picking up books from one of their shops. Again, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts also count, as long as they were bought from a charity shop.
New in 2010
This category is for those books newly published in 2010 (whether it be the first time it is has been released, or you had to wait for it to be published in your country, it counts for this one!)
Older Than You
Read two books that were published before you were born, whether that be the day before or 100 years prior!
Win! Win!
Have a couple of books you need to read for another challenge? Then this is the category to use, as long that is, you don’t break the rules of the other challenge by doing so!
Who Are You Again?
This one isn’t just for authors you’ve never read before, this is for those authors you have never even heard of before!
Up to You!
The requirements for this category are up to you! Want to challenge yourself to read some graphic novels? A genre outside your comfort zone? Something completely wild and wacky? Then this is the category to you. The only requirement is that you state it in your sign-up post.

Young Adult
T.B.R. ** Slumdog Millionaire & The White Tiger
Shiny & New
Bad Blogger’s *** After the Dance, Edwidge Danticat
Charity
New in 2010
Older Than You
Win! Win!
Who Are You Again? Funny Boy, Shyam Selvadurai
Up to You! (Anthropological Non-Fiction) Sorrow Mountain by Ani Prachen

Sunday Salon: A Japanese Pairing

I woke up this morning to sunshine :D although the weather forecast says we will be back to torrential rain and wind by late afternoon :(
I spent a good 10 hours reading yesterday, finishing 2 books and I'm halfway through The Knife of Never Letting Go. When I opened the first page and saw a lack of punctuation and misspelt words I thought I would be abadoning it quickly, but after a page I was gripped. Eye strain was all that made me give in and send myself to bed.
Today I'm being creative Peanut Butter Cookies to bake for work tomorrow, ATC's to be made and then snuggling back down with A Suitable Boy and then The Knife of Never Letting Go!!! Can't wait.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
I read this book really early in the week and for some reason didn't write anything about it - I always write about books as soon as I finish them.
Sumrie has given up college and work to become a writer, she almost lives in a parallel world to everyone else, she gets up in the afternoon and writes all night. Her only real point of contact in the world is her best friend, our narrator. He is secretly in love with her but knows that she has no feelings for him.
When Sumrie meets Miu at a wedding her life quickly changes. She falls in love with the older woman, who offers her work and thus transforms her life into that of a normal young woman. Things turn strange when Sumrie and Miu travel to Europe together on a business trip.
I read The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and a collection of Murakami's short stories, I was expecting this book to be stranger, more magic realsim. What I did love was the smoothness with which it could be read.

Piercing by Ryu Murakami
This book I polished off last night in about 90 minutes. Kawashima is overcome at night by a fierce sweat and the smell of burning, and then the intense desire to stab someone with an ice pick. At this point his desire is to stab his 4 month old baby daughter. Desperate to rid himself of this desire he creates a plan to stab a prostitute, believing that he will then be able to return to a normal life.
What Kawashima doesn't expect is to pick a prostitute who was also abused as a child and who is also suffering the everlasting effects of such abuse.
The tale is a very strange one, violence threatens to spill over on every page, and I often found found myself wincing not knowing if I really wanted to read the next line in case he finally managed to stab her. Despite this, this book was strangely engrossing and I found that I couldn't stop reading because I had a desire to discover what happened next.

Challenge:
Japanese literature reading challenge.

The Sunday Salon

The read-a-thon ended for me at lunchtime, I took a good long walk into town (a 3 mile all round trip) picked up some holds from the library, have lazed around a bit and have made 2 handmade bookmarks. Was thinkig I was going on a crafting binge, then got a phone call from my ex, saying he was back in the country after 6 months away. It was very unexpected as he's not due back for a month and I would have like to have been prepared, we're friends but in that uncertain way with exes. So now I'm in a funny ole mood.

Anyway, back to books. I'm going to do a very quick round up of the books I read during the read-a-thon.
Starting with my least favourite The 13 Clocks by James Thurber, I was expecting great things from this, mainly because I had heard that Neil Gaiman (one of my favs) had written the introduction for the new edition and he said it was one of his greatest reads. I was blocking out the fact that I hadn't liked The Wonderful O either. From what I can remember (i was reading it during my mega tired hour, and I was struggling with everything) this is a fairytale type story. The beautiful princess is promised to a man as a child, he sets a challenge for another man to win her hand. There was stuff about jewels and tears and some pictures which I hope were painted in the 1970s. Oh well its another one knocked off the 1001 list. One star.

Ok the rest of this post isn't going to be that whiney.
I also read The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachen. From the synopsis on the back of this I thought it was going to be the aventures of a girl who flies around the town as a detective. Wrong I was. Gwenni has a vivid imagination, she complains that she could fly as a small child but now can only fly in her sleep and she thinks the jugs on the shelf are watching her. She is also a very sensitive child, living in poverty she is fed cheep meat each night, her thoughts about the meat have put me off eatting mince for the rest of my life. She grows queasy at the sight of blood and feels sick if upset.
Her mother is scared the neighbours will think she is mad so she is constantly shouting at the child, and picking on her. Gwenni goes to visit a neighbour on the day of a disappearance, she becomes convinced that this man should be found and sent back to his wife. From this day on her mum becomes 'sensitive' and becomes more and more aggressive towards Gwenni.
It was an average book, clearly a first novel but a fairly easy read-a-thon read. 3 stars

The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat this was a fab read for the read-a-thon, the chapters were short, and it was a good story. Set in Haiti in the time of the problems between the Haitians and those from Dominica. We followed a young girl who had been orphaned as a child. She was rescued by a wealthy man and went to live in his household and trained up as a maid. Her boyfriend is underpaid and treated badly in his job as a cane worker.
When her boss kills one of his friends in a car accident the feelings of oppression which have always bubbles under the surface break and evryone is suddenly pulled into the middle of a civil war. She escapes across the border hoping her boyfriend and friends will manage to make it over and avoid the bullets.
The story was good, but has that feelig of familiarity to it. 4 stars.

My Children! My Friend! by Athol Fugard. I added this play to the pile at the last minute as it was so tiny and looked like something which would be good for those hard hours. I ended up reading this as my final book (I'd had a nap so I wasn't tired when I got to this). The South African play involves only 3 characters, an 18yr old black boy, an 18 white girl and his teacher. It quicks off in the middle of a debate over whether women should have an equal role in their society. The boys arguing along the tradition route while the girl is saying Africa needs to catch up with the rest of the world. Both very intelligent their comments are well formed and a friendship develops.
Despite living very different lifes, not just in terms of culture but also in terms of wealth they are brought together again by their teacher for a literature quiz in which he mentors them. The teachers role is vital to the play, he asks her if she would like to participate while he just tells the boy, he justifies this by saying a teacher in a black school in Africa must demand respect and obediance.
Under the surface we are aware that a rebellion is going on and just waiting for a moment to break out.
If you haven't read this go borrow it from the library and read it. Its only 68 pages and you'll be so glad that you did. 5 stars