My Thoughts: Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

I'm going to start this with an apology, this post will be a shambles as I have no idea how to review this book!
Morvern Callar is a 21 year old, stuck in a dead end job, in a dead end town, with a dead boyfriend on her hands. After discovering the suicide of her boyfriend rather than reporting the incident to the police Morvern parties the nights away. Eventually hiding her boyfriends body in the attic she sneaks into his bank account using his cash for a 18-30s holiday for her and a friend and then also gets his novel published in her name.
It doesn't sound great and certainly didn't sound like my type of book but I loved it. Morvern was a strange creature, but alluring all the same. You somehow seep into her world, while wanting to be as distant from its bleakness as you possibly can be.

All I can say is read it! Thats my 10th 1001 book so far this year - probably about the only reading challenge I'm managing to keep up with!

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.

My Thoughts: Inner Circle by T.C Boyle

Inner Circle was a strange read, with a strange subject. John Milk, a 'sex researcher' sits down on the day of Professor Kinsley's, the founder of the Sex Institute, funeral and starts writing about the time that he knew him. Milk covers everything from the first lecture that he attended of the Professor, to their research, personal life and sex life, and it is all so finely intwinned its like a trap.
Milk was an typically innocent student on the day he first saw the professor lecture on the subjet of sex and offered himself up for an interview about his sex life (fairly minimal, as a student in the 1930s). Soon after the professor offers him a job and he soon finds himself living his life through the research he does. The researchers want to bring to the public knowlegde and statistics about sex in order to make it a less taboo subject. They interview, study and watch people and believe that sex in simply a chemical reaction. They believe this so strongly that Milk is soon sleeping with both the professor and his wife, and when he gets married his wife is quickly expected to accept and participate in an open relationship.
This novel was a strange one, at times I wanted to scream at John Milk as he was manipulated by the professor he adored, as was everyone else around him. The story was good, the scenarios strange and in one or two places not to my liking.

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.

My Thoughts: Flight by Sherman Alexie

Sorry for the doouble post today, I won't be around tomorrow and already know what I want to write about Saturday and Sunday.

Last year I listened to The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian and loved it, I've seen lots of people on the blogosphere reading Alexie recently which reminded me that I had meant to check out more of his stuff. So off I went to the library catelogue and managed to grab an audiobook and a collection of short stories (hopefully I'll get to read those next week).
Flight was a great audiobook, as it was only 4 hours long so could be listened to easily in the space of a week. The story of Flight is so different from anything I've read before. Zits is an orphaned part-Indian-part-Irish teenager. Since his father aandoned him at birth and his mother died of breast cancer he has been in and out of foster homes and sheltered accomodation. Having been abused, neglected and ignored he gives up on life never giving any home he is placed in a chance. An alchoholic and drug taker at just 15 years old he is in constant trouble with the police.
It is at the point of an arrest that his life changes. Meeting Justice, a fellow teen, in a police cell Zits finally feels that he has a friend and belongs somewhere. Justice, clever with words and packed full of knowledge, convinces him to hold up a bank. As Zits walks into the bank and holds up the gun he suddenly spins out of this world, he time travels through various points in the past changing his view of himself and others.
This was a great YA read, a search for identity and a home, but it is filled with bad (and I mean bad) language which makes me wonder what age it would be aimed at. In one sense I could see my 13 year olds at school reading it, but then I'm not sure how many parents would approve of the language. Saying that many of them listen to rap and watch 18 movies so maybe I'm just showing y teacherly side :)

My Thoughts: Ash by Malinda Lo

My final review of my 24 hour read-a-thon. Ash was the final read of the read-a-thon and it was perfect for this, as it was fast paced, a light read and had a nice clear big text.

Ash is a retelling of the Cinderella story, with a fairy twist. The novel starts with Ash at the burial of her mother: a lover of fairy tales, a follower of mythical beings and rituals. Living here she is surrounded by people with mythical beliefs, rituals and spells, yet she is quickly moved away from this world when her sceptical father marries a new woman.
As with the fairytale, as soon as her father dies Ash becomes the servant of the family. She escapes one night finding a magical path which leads her to her mothers grave, she begs a magical man to take her to her mother, he refuses and takes her back home. Night after night she escapes into the coutryside around her meeting other mythical creatures but always returning home to a life of drudgery.
The twist in the fairytale comes when Ash meets the Kings hunter, a fiesty woman who steals her days to teach her how to ride and hunt. The story then follows the normal lines of the fairytale but with a deviation from the traditional ending.

I love the English cover shown above, but think the US cover is absolutely gorgeous (below).

My Thoughts: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

There is one thing you need to understand about this book early on, the title is a deception. Gertrude Stein used this book to write an autobioraphy of herself as seen through someone elses eye. Strange, huh?
This autobiography is principly based in France, where the American Stein spent most of her adult life. She mingles with artists, writers, poets and other people of importance and nearly every page has 3 or 4 name drops. For the most part she hangs around in Picasso's artelier where other artists visit in the evening, exchanging news, gossip and work. She also buys up a lot of art and talks about the books she has written.
I found this book a strange one to get into, it often seemed like a list of events and meetings, with very few feelings or descriptions thrown into the mix. Once we arrived at the war period in the book things had picked up and it was a it more exciting but in general I found I was indiffernt to much of what she had written.
Having wrote my dissertation on T.S Eliot's 'The Wasteland' and cubism/futurism and the way that they mirrored the collapsing society of the time (Industrialism, the death of God, Darwinism, the move away from the extended family, tinned food, the media, photography etc) I was familiar with the names of a lot of the lesser known artists and could picture some of the art that she brought or viewed. If this hadn't been the case I think I would have struggled more. I was put off her even more (I disliked her from the moment she declared that she and Picasso where two of the only geniuses/genui(sp?) of the period) when she slated T.S Eliot and the fell out with Ezra Pound, two of my favourite poets of that time.
I'm including this for the Women Unbound challenge, because although I disliked her her strength of character, her sense of equality and power as a woman in her circles makes her a feminist of her time.