Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi

The perils of amazon shopping (you can buy a book in under 20 seconds, which is never good for a booklover's purse and TBR stacks) meant that I bought this book completely by mistake. I was meant to buy another title, The Impressionist, but my brain got muddled and this arrived on the doorstop.

Than a strange occurance arrived, I read a book I had bought within 2 weeks of it arriving rather than the usual 2 years!

Having a father who left, left again and then left again I was dubious about reading a book about a man leaving his wife and kids. Written for the apparently 'lost generation of men' who refrain from growing up and taking their responsibilities seriously. I read this wanting to stick my two fingers up to it, expecting to be angry, looking forward to criticising it.

Instead, I was presented with beuatifully written prose, a smart quick pace, tender moments of day-to-day family life which appear differently under the lens if you know they will never be experienced again. At 155 pages this snapshot of one evening held many years in its grip. Yes, he was an idiot man-child, but he expressed it beautifully.

Dewey's Read-a-thon

My mini challenge can be found here http://katrinasreads.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/through-tea-leaves-mini-challenge.html

It's been years since I posted on this blog but I really wanted to participate in the read-a-thon next weekend so I decided to restart it. I miss blogging my thoughts on books, although I read far less nowdays as I am studying for my MA (strange that I am getting an MA in literature which leads me to read less!) and I have much more responsibility at work. I also miss all of the book blogs that I was still reading until google reader disappeared, I really need to find another reader facility and work out how to use my twitter account!

I haven't figured out which books I will read yet but I like to grab a selection of short books so that I feel I have achieved a lot in the time given - it will be a luxury for me to be able to read for one hour a book of my own choosing, let alone for a whole day.

EDITED: My stack of reads

John Steinbeck, Cannery Row - a book I've been meaning to read forever.
John Hersey, A Single Pebble - highly recommended by someone on my course.
Edna O'Brein, In the Forest - a 1001 book and a bookcrossing book which I've had for way too long.
Ted Hughes, Iron Man - its tiny and has large print for when I am getting tired.
Ben Aaronovitch, Rivers of London - a school friend has been raving about this series.
Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese - a graphic novel for the tired hours, another books which has sat on mount tbr too long.
Ari Folman and David Polonsky, Waltz with Bashir - a graphic novel borrowed from a friend for the tired hours.


Also, I'm now on twitter (I just posted my first tweet!) follow me @katrinasreads

If love was a disease, would you take the cure?

This was the question glaring up at me when Delirium by Lauren Oliver arrived from UK Book Tours. Would I? At first I thought...maybe.... yes, after all think of the problems - mental, physical, psychological, political and social caused by love. But then I read the book.

17 year old Lena is just a few months away from receiving the cure delivered to all 18 year olds on their birthday, she desparetly wants that cure - an escape from the fear of the disease, a disease that run wild in her mother, a disease which killed her mother and haunts her days. Then of course she meets and boy.

I won't go any further as we all know where this scenario will take us, and although I could make a vague guess at the ending before I even picked up this book it was a good read. The dystopian world is well created, the idea of love being a disease if presented in a negative light was plausible, and the argument for arranged marriages always has a strong point to make. The not being able to love your own children I hadn't forseen, then my views changed drastically.

I would give this book 4 stars as I loved the idea for the story, really liked Lena, Alex, Hana and little Gracie, the setting was vivid and certainly created a picture in my mind, and the ending wasn't actually as I imagined. My only fault was that I just didn't feel the intensity of their love, it was their at times but when I read Twilight, The Chaos Walking Trilogy (amongst others) I've been drawn back to that rememberance of that hungry, all consumming first love, here I think she just missed it.
A good read if you love dystopian YA, but there are better out there.

Fatherland by Robert Harris

Now its very rare that I write negative thoughts on a book, but this is one of those posts, if you don't like reading that type of post then please take warning.

Fatherland is our school bookgroups next read - we're not a successful bookgroup at the moment being on our third book and never having had a meeting to discuss a book as yet. As soon as this book was decided on I was wary, the novel is an imagining of what the world would be like if Hitler had won the war. I read a book on exactly the same topic a few years ago and loved it (The Children's War by J.N Stroyar, you should check it out if this type of story line interests you in anyway), so I was already wary knowing this had a high level to live up to; secondly this is a detective novel and I don't do to well at those (I recently read The Maltease Falcon and was full of scorn for the type of story and inherent sexism). Yet I have heard great things of Robert Harris, knowing several people who love his stuff and it was a bookgroup choice so I duly brought my copy (thankfully secondhand for less than £3).

In Fatherland Detective March, a divorced, work obssessed rebel (who just happens to be against that Party line) is called one night - when he shouldn't be working - to the discovery of the body of a prominent figure in the Party's death. Rather than just accept the story that the man had drowned whilst swimming March digs away at a story that clearly isn't meant to be told. Through a series of chance encounters (a young, sexy American journalist who is also a rebel and sees Berlin through America's less clouded eyes) and secret meetings, favours cashed in and sly operations March is soon in the thick of it, despite several warnings to leave well alone. He is on a mission to find out what happened to the Jewish and who knows about what.

My problem with this book was the shambles of the place and the stereotypes: the absurd amount of clues just left laying around; the fact he was told to leave the case well alone yet managed to run around Berlin, board a plane to Switzerland, get in and out of government agency buildings all without being caught; the fact that Nazi Europe is never really described and created beyond a few uniformed SS Guards; him, March, he never seemed to overly care enough about much to give all this effort and finally the poor construction of Charlie, the sexy American (to be fair nearly all characters were like cardboard cutouts of your traditional stereotypes but she wound me up more because she was meant to be intellectual). Charlie, a wealthy American survives in Berlin working for a low budget, low selling newspaper after screwing up her university placement and a job at The Times by screwing the boss - clever girl! She seemingly survives on whisky, has gorgeous men in love with her, falls in love with the potato-faced 40 odd year old March (she has a thing for older men!) and is contacted with underground news through a public payphone outside of her apartment.
I think I could have handled all the coincidences, afterall it is fiction, if Germany and the characters had been better drawn. Afterall I'm happy to suspend my disbelief, in fact I love living in other worlds through books, but I need the author to create the bones and flesh of the world a bare outline just isn't enough.

I will say in its defence, of the four of us who have read this book for this group read and finished it so far its an even mix, two of us couldn't stand it whilst the other two loved it. I'm now off to read Proust, what a juxtaposition!

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.

Buddha Da by Anne Donovan

I'm in the middle of a non-fiction and Les Miserables, so thought my daytime read should be something a bit lighter, so I picked up this one which has been sat on my shelves since 2007!
Buddha Da, is set in Scotland and told through the voices of the three central characters in a broad Scottish brogue - which I know some people struggle with but I've read Scottish books before and found this just as easy as reading in Standard English.
The story starts out with the traditional Scottish father-type discovering meditation and then gradually Buddhism. The family all have to try and deal with this change in the man whom they have always known to be a bit of a joker. Anne Marie the daughter seems not to have any real issues with it, but feels that she cannot ask him any questions. Whereas his wife, Liz feels lost and angry; the man she has loved since she was 14 has disappeared and someone knew has taken his place.
We watch as the family change and also have to deal with other issues such as death, growing up and pregnancy.
I enjoyed reading this, it was a gentle book with lots of nice characters who each are exploring and changing their lives. This is a typical holiday read, where you can almost see the end from the start, something I probably will have forgotten in under a week, but enjoyed at the time.

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

This book is another one, like A Tree Grows in Broklyn, which I always wanted to read because of its name, and like A Tree Grows in Broklyn I had an old copy with an ugly cover, but I loved them both!

A Town Like Alice tells the tale of Jean, a young girl who grew up being able to speak Malayan as her father had worked there. Before the war starts she wanted an adventure so went to work as a typist in Malay. But the war changed everything. When the British families in the area were gathered up to be put into prisoner of war camps by the Japanese the men where separated from the women and led of to Singapore. The group of women and children were left behind in search of a camp to put them in. As no one wanted them they were led walking from place-to-place with just a few Japanese guards to protect them. Jean becomes a central figure in the group as she is able to communicate with the local people, and even translate for their Japanese guards. During this journey she learns to live in a different way, has to accept deaths and illness and find ways to keep the rest of this group alive. The group meet an Australian who helps them for just a few days with food and medicine.
When she returns to England after the war she simply wants to put the past behind her, yet when she comes into an inheritance life has a few drastic changes in store.

When I first started reading this book I thought of abandoning it as the opening pages were really slow, but then when Jean's story abouy Malay started I was hooked. The details, her fight for survival and the way that the women were treated are described in a cool distanced way as the tale is being retold by someone who has listened to the tale. When the love story kicks in and her trip to Australia the tale certainly has the feel of a romance novel, but one with class and more to it that soppiness. The setting of Malay and the Australian outback are created before your eyes and I had a lovely picture of each in my head as I was reading this.
Certainly a book which I would recommend others to read.