My Thoughts: Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Boy this book has taken me so long to read, a week and a half may not sound so long to some people but thats more than double the time I normally take.

An Indian housewife steps down to the Ganga to wash and sees a vision of a ship, she goes inside and immediately draws what she has seen. What is so shocking about the vision is that the woman has never seen even a drawing of a ship before, yet before long her life has dramatically changed and the ship, the Ibis has become an important element of her life.

This book is littered with characters from far reaching areas of life - a mixed race American, a young girl born and raised outside of the traditions of the British or Indian culture, a fallen raja, and an Indian widow on the run after marrying below her caste. Each has an individual story, a reason to end up onboard the Ibis.

These characters where all gripping and I will be looking out for the next instalment of the triology to see what becomes of them.

Having read and loved The Glass Palace I was disappointed with this book, I did find it was overly long, and although I loved all of the characters, the vast array of plot lines and the ranges of langauges, religious and cultural traditions and beliefs created a very challenging read.

Have you read this? Id be interested to hear other peoples opinions on this book.

My Thoughts: The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carrol

I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make this description of this book make sense, but here goes.

Frannie finds a sick dog, who promptly dies and he buries it, finding in the ground a bone and a multicoloured feather. The problem is the dog and the feather won't stay buried and they keep reappearing all over the place, as solid items, tatoos, pictures etc. Along with these items haunting his days Frannie is visited by, and visits hisself at various stages of his life. He needs all the Frannies he has even been and ever will be to help him save the world and those around him.

Sounds confusing right? But somehow when you read it, it is simple, clean and polished. I loved this book, and definately need to be reading more of his work in the future.

Challenges: Fall into Reading.

Have you read this? Leave a link to your review here and I'll pop in a link.

My Thoughts: The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (plus a mini challenge)

I brought this book ages ago, and to be honest I'm not sure if I ever read the blurb, the fantastic cover design (reminding me of the brilliant Glass Books of the Dream Eaters) and the black edged pages were screaming out for me to buy this. It finally found its way to the top as I thought it would fit into the RIP III challenge, and its darkness makes it a good choice although its subject matter may stop people from thinking it fits.
The End of Mr Y is about a cursed book of the same name, everyone who reads it dies. Well that's actually, surprisingly, fine as only one copy is known to exist and its locked inside a bank vault. Ariel is an overly intelligent (she knows about everything apart from religion and love) PHd student, studying Lumas, the author of The End of Mr Y, her lecturer disappears, her university sinks into the hill and she randomly comes across a copy of this book. Obviously this is a book in which you need to suspend your disbelief.
The book contains a recipe, which promises knowledge, and despite knowing all about the curse, Ariel seeks out the ingredients and takes the mixture. The recipe leads people into the troposphere a place where you exist within your own mind and can jump between other peoples minds. Now, some bad men also know about this recipe and want to stop anyone else discovering it, so they are after Ariel and any one else who's involved, and they are not so easy to escape as they can also travel through minds.
It all sounds very bubble-gum like from that description but in amongst this adventure there is a whole heap of philosophy, language theory and science. I could keep up with the Sartre and Baudrillard just about, but a lot of the science went over my head. Definitely a book that needs concentration.
Challenges:
Fall into Reading
R.I.P III

Reviews:
Barts
Bookling

Another Challenge!
I'm also going to participate in Dewey's Martel-Harper challenge. This challenge involves reading 3 books from the list of books that author Yann Martel has recommended for the Canadian Primeminister Stephen Harper. Dewey's sign up page is here . October - December 31st
Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes
Metamorphoses - Kafka
Anthem - Ayn Rand

My Thoughts: The Stolen Child by Keith Donoghue

The Stolen Child tells the story, in alternate chapters, of two 'boys'; one a changeling who has stolen the other boys life. A group of changelings live in a forest in North East America, they were all once children who were stolen, and now live amongst the forest, scrabbling for food and warmth, whilst waiting their turn in line to become children once again.

In the 1940s they steal Henry Day, a quiet child, who is easy prey as he is feeling left out after the birth of his twin sisters. The changelings study his life and personality until an opportunity arises to steal him away. Once stolen he is wrenched from his body, and the changeling takes his place.

The changeling replacing Henry, was in a previous life an excellent musician, and when he swaps into Henry's life he is unable to hide this great talent and quickly the new Henry's life becomes filled with music lessons and practice, pretty much cutting him off from his contemporaries. This love of music also creates tension in his relationship with his father, who can never quite accept that this boy, who went from being tone deaf to pitch perfect is really his son. As a changeling imitating a child he has to remember to change his body as he grows up, and try to forget the past, something which both he and the real Henry Day struggle to do.

Through the real Henry Day, now named Aniday we see the changelings fight to survive, for food, to avoid detection and the desire to return to their previous life. One of the female changelings takes Aniday into her care, and slips him into the library each night, snuggled up amongst the books they discover friendship as well as reading a vast array of books, reminding them of human life.

Challenges:

Fall into Reading Book 2/24

Other Reviews:

The Octogon

Eclectic Closet

On My Bookshelf

My Thoughts: Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

This book was a bookring from Bookcrossing, and this will be a very short book review as I really have very little to say about the book. This is a memoir about 3 aboriginal girls (aged 8-15). The girls are of mixed race, as a result the Austrailian Government decided that they should be taken from their homes and trained up for domestic labour. The girls soon realise what is happening and runaway, following the rabbit-proof fence hundreds of miles across Australia to get home. It should be good, right? This book is only 130 pages, it could have done with being longer so the whole thing didn't seem so rushed, just a few moments from the journey are picked out, and the author never manages to depict the girls suffering and determination.

Having said all this, I'm glad I recieved this book as the envelope came stuffed with postcards from all the different places across the world that this book had travelled in the last 4 years.

Challenges:

YA Challenge Book 13/12

Olympic Challenge: Australia

Fall into Reading 1/24

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

Sunday Salon: A random variety, plus Short Story Sunday

This weeks Sunday Salon is going to include a random mixture of bits and pieces. Firstly, I have to say that reading this week has been slowly, some of that is down to the fact that I started a book I thought I would love and just didn't want to admit to myself that I couldn't be bothered by it, I wasted 3 evenings on A Carnivore's Inquiry, only reading 120 pages when I could had guessed after 30 pages that I would be giving up on this quickly. I also spent 2 evenings with that horrible foggy brain you get before a cold comes out, which has really affected my reading.

I'm now reading The Famished Road, which I'm loving, but wondering how I'm going to review. I'm quite tempted to do a WG style review, so if anyone has any questions about this book that they'd like to ask, ask away here as it will help me structure the review. I'm hoping to finish reading this by mid week.

Talking about Weekly Geeks, this week is catch-up week and while I don't have any outstanding reviews to write up or completed challenges, I have this mammoth reading list for Fall into Reading to tackle, as I really need to catch up with my reading or I won't be completing many challenges in time. So I'm going to try and finish The Famished Road this week, read Coraline and tackle at least one of my bookring reads. Outside of reading, I also need to catch up on my sign language lessons, I haven't been for 9 weeks, largely because of the school holidays (its run at school), but I haven't practised as I should so I've seemingly forgot nearly everything I spent a year learning, and I need to catch up on my A Level course this afternoon.

Less babble about me, now time for Short Story Sunday. This morning I read Keepsakes and Treasures by Neil Gaiman, from his Fragile Things collection. This story is definitely only for adults but is first rate.
This story is about a man who was born to a woman locked away for clinical nymphomania in the 50's, despite being in an asylum she still managed to fall pregnant, and his father can only be one of the men who are supposed to be protecting her. From a young age, the boy has used murder as revenge and punishment for those who harmed him and his mother. His actions are noticed by Mr Alice, one of the world's richest men, but a man who used his money to stop the public finding out who he is. The boy comes to work for Mr Alice for the rest of his life, he is the person who seeks out and fulfills Mr Alice's desires, whether they are business desires or personal ones. Mr Alice's main desire is for young men to have sexual encounters with. The main part of the story centres around Mr Alice's acquisition of the Treasure of Shahinai, a young exquisitely beautiful boy.
This is an excellent story, but avoid if you dislike sexual scenes or bad language.

I also read yesterday Gaiman's excellent story Bitter Grounds, in this story we follow a young man who is clearly bored of life and just looking for an escape. He decides to drive around America, and meets a professor on his way to a lecture. When the professor mysteriously disappears, the man steals his papers and goes to the conference himself, giving a speech about the zombie coffee girls.
These where read for Short Story September

Fall into Reading 2008

This challenge is being held over at Callapidder Days, it starts from the 22nd of September and runs through to December 20th. The idea is to motivate everyone in their reading, you set yourself a goal with a list of books you plan to read in this time frame, and then aim to meet (or beat) your target. I'm hoping this will help me focus in my reading, as I'm a bit slapdash at the moment, and it will set out all the books I need to read for the many challenges I'm falling behind on. I'm doing this a few days early as I'm stuck indoors with a fuzzy head, and a seeming inability to focus on either a film or a book.

My List:

finish The Famished Road, Okri (for 2008 Booker challenge/Unread Authors/Book Awards 2) ***

1. Two Caravans, Lewycka (2nds challenge, and bookring)****

2. The Stolen Child, Donohue (Bookring)****

3. Rabbit Proof Fence, Pilkington (Bookring, YA Challenge) **

4. East of Eden, Steinbeck (Bookcrossing Readalong, Classic Challenge)

5. Out, Kirino (RIP III & Japanese Challenge)

6. The End of Mr Y, Thomas (RIP III)

7. The Ghost Feeler, Wharton (RIP III, Short Story Challenge)

finish The Little Black Book of Stories, Byatt (RIP III, Short Stories Challenge)

8. Selected Tales, Poe (RIP III, Short Stories)

9. V for Vendetta, Moore (Graphic Novel)

10. The Complete Maus, Speigelman (Book Awards 2, The New Classics Challenge)

finish Eldest, Paolini (YA Challenge)

11. The Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver (The New Classics Challenge, )

12. Gilead, Robinson (The New Classics Challenge, Book Awards 2)

13. Girlfriend in a Coma, Coupland (2nds Challenge, 2nd Canadian Book Challenge)

14. New Moon, Meyer (Mini Challenge, YA Challenge)

15. Sugar and Other Stories, Byatt (Short Stories Challenge)

16. The Sailor Who Fell with Grace from the Sea, Mishma (Japanese Challenge, 2nds Challenge)

17. The Gathering, Enright (2008 Booker, Book Awards 2)

18. Fugitive Pieces, Micheals (Book Awards 2, The Canadian Book Challenge)

19. Coraline, Gaiman (RIP III, YA Challenge)

20. I Sweep the Sun off Roof Tops, Al-Shaykh (Olympic Challenge)

21. The Book of Chamelons, Agualasa (Olympic Challenge)

22. Allah Is Not Obliged, Kourouma (Olympic Challenge)

23. History: A Novel, Morante (Olympic Challenge)

24. Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton (Olympic Challenge)

Hmm... if I complete this list I will be really chuffed and a little surprised, I also know I have a couple of bookrings which are likely to turn up at some point.