My Thoughts: Orchard on Fire - Sheena Mackay

This is one of those books I would never have even picked up in a bookshop as the cover just doesn't look like my type of read but when I saw the title on Bookcrossing I thought I'd give it a go. And I'm really glad I did.
The novel is set in a quaint English countryside in the 1950/60's I'd guess, against this background is set the story of two young girls with not so quaint lives. April's parent's own a little tea shop which doesn't do much business, she attracts the unwanted attentions of an elderly old man. And Ruby lives in a pub with parents who pay her very little attention except with their fists. The girls become good friends but try and deal separately with their problems.
The narration is told by April and the author manages to pull of a child's voice and point of view well, without the novel seeming like a child's book. This really reminded me of Tatty which I read last year and loved.
Definitely a book I'd recommend to others. If you have read this book feel free to comment or leave a link to your own review.

Book 6/6 for the Novella Challenge (my first ever completed challenge!)
Book 3/6 for the 2008 Booker Challenge
Book 31/52 for my A-Z Challenge

My Thoughts: Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively

I would never have picked this book up but it was on the Booker winners list, of which I am trying to read all the winners, and it fitted in with a few other challenges. It got pulled towards the top of mount tbr because the name 'Moon Tiger' sounded exciting, adventurous and romantic - which is what this book wishes to be, but some how doesn't quite get there.

The book's narrator is Claudia, an old lady who is nearing the end of her life, with her death looming she decides to write a history of the world. Her life history gets mixed in with a sparse amount of world history. We here of her lovers her incestuous relations with her brother, her poor attempt at motherhood as well as her jaunts in Egypt as a journalist during the war and her fairly selfish life as a popular historian.

She is created as a woman who keeps everyone distant from her, self sufficient and self involved - which she is - which is why I think I couldn't really care with the story. She seemed so distant that we couldn't believe in this gaping short lived love affair, we couldn't believe that she felt the horror of war or the horror of her upcoming death. It was an ok read, certainly not gripping and one I'm sure to have pretty much forgotten by next week.

If you have read this book feel free to comment or leave a link to your own review.

Book 2/6 for The 2008 Booker Challenge
Book 1/6 for The What's in a Name? Challenge
Book 5/6 for The Novella Challenge
Book 5/6 for Orbis Terravm

May 2008 - Wrap Up

This month has been a poor month for reading, only 6 books read! I normally get through 8 to 10 and thats in a month without a school break in it. The Echo Maker took up a good 10 days of reading and all that exam marking I had to do really didn't help.
My favorite book of the month was A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson which surprised me, but he was really able to draw me into his hike.
Challenge Updates:
I signed up for a couple (!) of new challenges:
The Southern Reading Challenge
What's in a Name?
The Classics Challenge
Book Awards 2
The 2nd Canadian Challenge
As well as the Pulitzer and Nobel Projects

I think next month the challenge should be not to sign up for any challenges and get a few completed!
Orbis, Novella and I Heard It Through the Grapevine are all close to being completed so hopefully they will be done by the end of June, although with all three I'll still continue reading books which would fit in their categories for a long time to come.

The Orbis Terrarum Challenge meme:

1.) What country do you always go back to in your travels (not just while reading for OT)?
I seem to end up in Asia a lot, predominantly ancient China, enjoying all the dynasty's and the life of the women in them - although looking at my reading list this year I seem to be lacking in that area.
2.) If you could visit 4 of the countries you have read about in your life (that you haven't been to yet), which would they be and why? (you can include the book that makes you want to visit if you remember)
Wow I haven't really travelled much in real life so picking just four will be hard.
Tailand (The Beach), I want to go and see it but I'm also put off by the idea that it might be overly touristy.
China (from many different novels including Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Binding Chair - two of my favs), I'd love to experience the culture - and next year I may just be going on a paid for trip there with school (fingers crossed!)
India, for the different cultures and ways of living.
Africa (I read a book called Comfort Herself when I was about 13 at school and since then I've always wanted to go), again this is somewhere there is a chance I may go with school - to visit one poor school and community in Malawi then a much richer school and area in South Africa.
3.) Have you ever dreamed about a country you have read about, that you have never actually traveled to- except in your dreams?
Not that I recall, I can't remember all that many dreams unless they are just bizarre.
4.) In what ways has reading about different countries opened up your perspective about global issues?
Like Raidergirl I would say that the plight and treatment of women in other countries has always really struck me - in particular women in Iraq, China and India - it makes me realise how lucky women are in this country. Just travelling to other countries like Tunisia and Vietnam also sinks this message in, you always imagine that its a thing of the past seeing it in real life and biographies highlights how much needs to change.
5.) What countries have you felt your judgment was off about-after reading about that nation?
I was shocked when I read about Afghanistan how much I had assumed about the country from what is portrayed in the news, the country sounds like it was a beautiful place where lots of advancement and changes had come about only to be lost again when the Taliban can in charge. I also found this when I was reading about Iran and Iraq - it must be devestating to have lived with such freedom and rights then to suddenly have then all stripped away in such a short period of time.
6.) Which is your favourite book that you would recommend for this challenge (you don't have to have read it during the challenge)?
Roots - The gorgous views of Africa then the sharp realisation of all that was lost.
Under the Persimmon Tree - An American and refugees life in Afghanistan under the Taliban
7.) I am thinking about hosting again, for a full year next time starting in January, do you have any constructive criticism, is one book a month about right...more? less? Give me some thoughts.
I think one book a month is fine, this challenge is fairly easy as there are lots of books about different countries. It would be nice to see people's choices for some of those countries which are less popular for people to write about. I'd definately sign up as I am trying a personal challenge to read one book from each country around the world.
8.) Anything else that you have been wanting to tell us all about? let us have it!
I like the way Mr Linky works and I think it is a great way to see at a glance what people have read, but I also really like those challenges where people post their full reviews as I tend to read full reviews of books I haven't read/ considered rather than clicking on a link.

My Thoughts: Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo

I love Asian books and seeing the title and the author I expected this book to be set in China, however this book is about a Chinese family who have recently moved to 1960's London. The family - a young husband and wife, a baby and a sister all start of living in a small flat whilst the husband works in a Chinese restaurant. In the novel it is the women who are in charge, they pester the husband into setting up his own business and become much more integrated into the English culture than he does. However, Chinese customs and beliefs are still followed rigorously. The interpretations on British life and the misunderstandings are humourous and I could have quite happily have read another couple of hundred pages about the family life of the Chens.

The book alternated chapters between the Chen family and a group of Chinese gang members called the Hung Family. The chapters about the gang contained initiation ceremonies and lots of violence, they never really seemed to hang true and the link to the Chen family was very weak and appeared just there to provide the ending. Personally I just skim read these chapters as a means to get back to the Chan family drama.

This is my first read for the 2008 Booker Challenge, as this was short-listed for the Booker prize in 1982. Although it was an enjoyable read I can see why it wouldn't have won a Booker prize.

If you have read this book feel free to comment or leave a link to your own review.

Booking Through Thursday: What is reading, fundamentally?

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books,
audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only
some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be
“reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it
impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the
sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal
definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

I used to be a real reading snob, reading had to be proper books (non of the chick lit stuff) or broadsheet newspapers. Then I started teaching which got me into kids books and also made me think about what reading really is. Personally I now say to parents who are struggling to get their kids to read that it doesn't matter what it is so long as they are reading: it could be comics, non-fiction, celebrity biography's, magazines or web-pages. Not everyone enjoys novels and the world can't all be the same. I think that it is the pressure and force to read books that actually puts a lot of people off as kids, for some people reading a huge passage is torture but a graphic novel could be entertaining.

Poem of the Week: A Paper Bag - Atwood

I always both loved and struggled with poetry. Very rarely could I read an poem and just get it, which frustrated me considerably, but I loved reading or being taught about poems, its like being given a key to a maze, once the door is open I can go and discover many different things that I couldn't see at first glance.


I've been reading a lot of poetry with the older pupils at school, lots of Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy as well as a selection of poetry from all different cultures. What this has made me realsie is how little poetry I have read since leaving university, so I'm planning to start trying to read a selection of poetry each week and I aim to put my favorite on here so hopefully others can enjoy and maybe comment.


So this week I've been looking at Margaret Atwoods' poems and this one instantly caught my attention.

The Paper Bag.

I make my head, as I used to,

out of a paper bag,

pull it down to the collarbone,

draw eyes around my eyes

with purple and green

spikes to show surprise,

a thumb-shaped nose,

a mouth around my mouth,

penciled by touch, then coloured in

flat red.

With this new head, the body now

stretched like a stocking and exhausted could

dance again; if I made a

tongue I could sing.

An old sheet and it's Halloween ;

but why is it worse or more

frightening, this pinface

head of square hair and no chin?

Like an idiot, it has no past

and is always entering the future

through its slots of eyes, purblind

and groping with its thick smile,

a tentacle of perpetual joy.

Paper head, I prefer you

because of your emptiness;

from within you any

word could still be said.

With you I could have

more than one skin,

a blank interior, a repertoire

of untold stories,

a fresh beginning.

Margaret Atwood.

This poem grabbed me as I immediately had an image of a child, feeling unloved, unwanted, perhaps bulllied just desiring to be someone else. To wipe out who they where and be given a fresh chance or a new start.