The Typically British challenge is hosted by Book Chick City.
I have now completed my first out of eight British authors I have committed to reading this year (although I think it will be more than that even).
1) Corrag by Susan Fletcher
2) Shakespeare’s Truth by Rex Richards (review to follow)
Six to go!
What Amazon says: “The place is St Oswald’s, an old and long-established boys’ grammar school in the north of England. A new year has just begun, and for the staff and boys of the school, a wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork and Information Technology rule the world and Roy Straitley, Latin master, eccentric, and veteran of St Oswald’s, is finally – reluctantly – contemplating retirement. But beneath the little rivalries, petty disputes and everyday crises of the school, a darker undercurrent stirs. And a bitter grudge, hidden and carefully nurtured for thirteen years, is about to erupt. Who is Mole, the mysterious insider, whose cruel practical jokes are gradually escalating towards violence – and perhaps, murder? And how can an old and half-forgotten scandal become the stone that brings down a giant?”
What I thought: What a great book; especially the end where I did NOT see any of those twists coming. It’s the sort of book that makes you want to turn to the beginning again to see where you might have picked up clues or see what you missed.
I am a HUGE Joanne Harris fan, my favourites of hers being the “foodie” books and I must admit to being a tad sceptical when I picked this up thinking that maybe she wouldn’t do thriller novels quite as well. I was wrong – this lady is no one-trick-pony. From the first page you know that there are a murder or two which sets the reader up for the unfolding story ahead. The story is set in a public boys school that is centuries old and has a mighty reputation to uphold and is narrated by two people in turn to keep us guessing. The old school teacher, Mr Straitley, adds some real comic moments too which add warmth to the book. However, whatever you think you know about this book, think again. By three quarters of the way through I guarantee that you will flick back wondering when you could possibly have missed the signs (not once but twice). Mwaaaaahahahahahaha!
I highly recommend this book; I had great fun reading it. If you have only read the “foodie” books, then this will be a really great surprise. This author can write!
What Amazon says: “Joanne Harris’ sensational novel Five Quarters of the Orange revolves around a recipe book, continuing the theme of culinary intrigue begun in Chocolat and Blackberry Wine. Framboise, the middle-aged narrator, begins her story in Les Laveuses, on the banks of the Loire:
When my mother died she left the farm to my brother, Cassis, the fortune in the wine cellar to my sister, Reine-Claude, and to me, the youngest, her album and a two-litre jar containing a single black Perigord truffle.
Framboise returns to the village where she grew up during wartime, and with the help of the recipes scribbled in her mother’s album, opens up a small restaurant. However, she is desperate to keep her identity a secret even amongst the aged villagers with whom she played on the banks of the Loire in the years of German occupation during the Second World War. Framboise immerses herself once again in the peaceful rhythms of village life, pungently evoked by Harris’s evocative prose. But slowly, reluctantly, Framboise begins to unravel the terrible wartime secret that drove her family away from the village. As she cuts between idyllic descriptions of the village and the increasingly dark memories of the war, Framboise admits:
I know, I know. You want me to get to the point. But this is at least as important as the rest, the method of telling, and the time taken to tell. It has taken me fifty-five to begin, at least let me do it in my own way.”
What I thought: I am head over heels in love with this book. Only a terrific author can write about something as appalling as war and occupation and uneccesary death but yet make you feel so alive and carefree whilste reading it. The prose was as mouthwatering, succulent and juicy as the food in the book and I wanted to be there! Yes, I wanted to run down to the Loire and swim and splash and yell and hang upsidedown from trees overhanging the river and race through sun-soaked fields and pick fruit in the orchards. I wanted to sneak off on the back of bike to the nearest village to watch a film in the cinema unbeknown to my mother, I wanted to set traps in the Loire and catch fish and I wanted to go to market on a Thursday morning and sell home-made pastries. And all this under German occupation. Only a talented author can make you feel like that while telling the story of something far more sinister.
This is a book about an old woman who comes back to the village of her childhood, but can’t allow the villagers to find out who she really is. Aged nine Framboise and her family has to make a hasty exit from Les Laveuses and now she can’t allow them to know the truth of who she really is and also what really happnened back in 1942. The book is as sumptuous as it is teasing with bits of information that allows the reader to peice all the fragments together over the course of the story and lead us to the final catastrophic moments.
I adored this book; it was ripe, tangy and a feast for the senses. I want to read it all over again. But if not, it has made me hungry and now I need to go and raid the fridge………
This book is in my Top 10 ever!
If you enjoy Five Quarters of the Orange then you should also enjoy Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris.
Unfortunately I never got round to reviwing this one as I read it on holiday last year and now I’m not sure I could do it justice by trying to remember the details. However, if you liked Chocolat or Five Quarters of the Orand then there is a huge chance that you will love this one. It’s one of her three “foodie” themed books and is totally magical. The book is actually narrated by a bottle of wine (sounds strange, but honestly it really works!). Again, it is set in rural France and has the same effervescence of the other two. Enjoy!
I am a massive Joanne Harris fan – she is one of my all-time favourite authors. I met her about 5 years ago at a book signing for Jigs and Reels (her short story collection) where they were showing the film Chocolat too at the Photgraphic Museum in Bradford, Yorkshire. I had already read the book Chocolat and loved it, especially as I have heard that what inspired her vision of the chocolate shop in the book was a little sweet shop in a tudor building in Wakefield, Yorkshire (where I grew up and now live again) as Joanne went to the Girls High School down the road and walked past it every day. I remember that sweet shop – the building was gorgeous. It is now a restaurant called The Cow Shed and I love it in there too; the food is amazing and the staff are great (am drooling thinking about it!). I think there is always a sense of pride when an author comes from the same town as you so loving her books is a bonus.
The first book I read was Chocolat and I have gone on to read six more of hers since and I can’t wait for the release of her new book (see this weeks Waiting on Wednesday for more details). So, here is my review for Chocolat and its follow up, The Lollipop Shoes (titled The Girl with No Shadow in the US).
What Amazon says: “Lansquenet-sous-Tannes–”a blip on the fast road between Toulouse and Bourdeaux”–and new home to Vianne Rocher, her six-year-old daughter Anouk, and Anouk’s “imaginary” rabbit, Pantoufle. They arrive “on the wind of the carnival”, and, a couple of days later, Vianne opens a luxuriant chocolate shop. “La Céleste Praline” bubbles over with the most tempting of confections, topped with an irresistible selection of rich, smooth chocolate drinks. It’s Lent, the shop is opposite the church (which Vianne and Anouk don’t attend) it’s open on Sundays and Francis Reynaud, the austere parish priest with the “measuring, feline look” is not exactly happy. As one by one the villagers sidle into the shop to sample Vianne’s concoctions, we learn of their characters and secrets, their loves and desires, their troubles and hopes. Sad, polite Guillame and his dying dog. Shoplifting, beaten Joséphine Muscat. And Armande Voizin, still vigorous and perceptive in her 80s, who can see Pantoufle, and recognises Vianne for who she really is. But Reynaud has his power base. And when Vianne advertises a Grand Festival of Chocolate to start on Easter Sunday, it’s all-out war. War between church and chocolate.”
What I thought: Set in a peaceful little French village, where the most notable event is the sermons by the local priest, the people’s tranquillity is abruptly disturbed by the arrival of Vianne, a woman set to challenge every convention the villagers know. She begins by opening a chocolate shop right in the middle of lent, and so a battle of wills ensues. There is no room for a priest and a witch in one village. One of them must go and the priest is determined that it won’t be him, growing increasingly frustrated as Vianne and her 6 year old daughters, Anouk, gently win over the locals.
Packed with colourful characters, snappy dialogue and a wonderfully detailed depiction of village life, Chocolat lures the reader in from the opening page. Add to this the sub plots of a woman’s liberation from her abusive husband, the prejudice encountered by a group of river gypsies, and an old woman determined to enjoy what is left of her life, whatever the cost. You can taste the chocolate as you read and I longed to be in that shop!!
A really magical read and one that I can highly recommend.
What Goodreads says: “Since she was a little girl, the wind has dictated every move Vianne Rocher has made, buffeting her from place to place, from the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes to the crowded streets of Paris. Cloaked in a new identity, that of widow Yanne Charbonneau, she opens a chocolaterie on a small Montmartre street, determined to still the wind at last and keep her daughters, Anouk and the baby, Rosette, safe. Her new home above the chocolate shop offers calm and quiet: no red sachets hang by the door; no sparks of magic fill the air; no Indian skirts with bells hang in her closet. Conformity brings with it anonymity and peace. There is even Thierry, the stolid businessman who wants to take care of Yanne and the children. On the cusp of adolescence, an increasingly rebellious and restless Anouk does not understand. But soon the weathervane turns . . . and into their lives blows the charming and enigmatic Zozie de l’Alba. And everything begins to change.
Zozie offers the brightness Yanne’s life needs. Anouk, too, is dazzled by this vivacious woman with the lollipop-red shoes who seems to understand her better than anyone—especially her mother. Yet this friendship is not what it seems. Ruthless, devious, and seductive, Zozie has plans that will shake their world to pieces. And with everything she loves at stake, Yanne must face a difficult choice: Run, as she has done so many times before, or stand and confront this most dangerous enemy. . . .”
What I thought: I was so disappointed with this book; when it first came out I even bought it in hardback as I had absolutley loved Chocolat. I had practically been counting down the days to the release of this book and was left feeling incredibly underwhelmed by the whole thing.
The Lollipop Shoes is the story of Vianne and Anouk and Vianne’s new daugher who have moved to Paris and set up a chocolate shop there too but there is none of the magic of that first shop, it’s very dull and lacks sparkle. Also, the characters in Lollipop Shoes don’t even seem to be the same people they were in Chocolat; Vianne was carefree and happy in Chocolat and in this she is dull and conventional (I know she is supposed to be hiding from her past but I just didn’t buy it). And I found the storyline of Red coming back to find her almost ludicrous as their relationship in Chocolat never developed into what we are lead to belive it did in this book. For me it had none of the magic I had expected. Infact, it left me feeling flat as a pancake.
I would always invite someone to make up their own mind about a book but this really didn’t cut it for me.
What Goodreads say: “He looked up wistfully in my face, and gravely asked – “Mamma, why are you so wicked?”‘ The mysterious new tenant of Wildfell Hall has a dark secret. But as the captivated Gilbert Markham will discover, it is not the story circulating among local gossips. Living under an assumed name, ‘Helen Graham’ is the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence. Her diary entries reveal the shocking world of debauchery and cruelty from which she has fled. Combining a sensational story of a man’s physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Bronte’s optimistic belief in universal redemption. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Bronte’s novel scandalized contemporary readers. It still retains its power to shock.”
What I thought: I am reviewing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as it is the group read for my Victorians Group in Goodreads for Feb and March. It was chosen by the group. I read this book last year and here is what I thought:
The Bronte’s have a way of pulling you in, making the characters jump off the page. For the first 200 pages of The Tennant I was in love with this book. I loved Gilbert, the narrator, and I was intrigued with the mysterious Mrs Gilbert, the tennant of Wildfell Hall. Who was she? What was she doing there? At this point I fully intended to give this wonderful book full marks. From the point that Helen Graham’s diary starts, I confess I wasn’t as eager to pick the book up at every available opportunity, as I had been. The characters from Helen’s earlier life were almost all vile and I was unable to like (or care) about any of them. I know that this is the point and that we were meant to see them for what they were but I sort of know where Charlotte was coming from when she declared that she didn’t like her sisters book. Back in the 19th century this book would have been pretty shocking.
While I agree that this book is way ahead of its time in terms of writing about domestic abuse and Helen was clearly a woman who stood up for herself in times when it was unheard of, I actually found myself not liking even her as much as I had done in the first half. The ending did redeem itself for me though and while, for me, her books (I have also read Agnes Grey) will never match the brilliant Charlotte’s, I still found this a really worthwhile read.
If anyone would like to join in with reading this book, we will open the discussions here on Feb 1st.
The Typically British challenge is hosted by Book Chick City.
I have now completed my first out of eight British authors I have committed to reading this year (although I think it will be more than that even).
1) Corrag by Susan Fletcher
What an amazing book that was! Great start for the British!
”The Massacre of Glencoe happened at 5am on 13th February 1692 when thirty-eight members of the Macdonald clan were killed by soldiers who had enjoyed the clan’s hospitality for the previous ten days. Many more died from exposure in the mountains. Fifty miles to the south Corrag is condemned for her involvement in the Massacre. She is imprisoned, accused of witchcraft and murder, and awaits her death. The era of witch-hunts is coming to an end – but Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist and Jacobite, hears of the Massacre and, keen to publicise it, comes to the tollbooth to question her on the events of that night, and the weeks preceding it. Leslie seeks any information that will condemn the Protestant King William, rumoured to be involved in the massacre, and reinstate the Catholic James. Corrag agrees to talk to him so that the truth may be known about her involvement, and so that she may be less alone, in her final days. As she tells her story, Leslie questions his own beliefs and purpose – and a friendship develops between them that alters both their lives. In Corrag, Susan Fletcher tells us the story of an epic historic event, of the difference a single heart can make – and how deep and lasting relationships that can come from the most unlikely places.”
(source: Amazon.com)
Rarely does a book bewitch (pardon the pun) and mesmorise me quite so much as this one. It is truly one of the most beautiful and lyrical books I have ever read.
The story is narrated by Corrag, a 16 year old girl who is awaiting being burned at the stake for being a witch in 17th century Scotland. Corrag is visited in jail by Charles Leslie, an Irish Jacobite who wants to prove that the recent massacre in Glencoe was the work of the soldiers under William of Orange. Corrag is English and has run away “north and west” at the command of her mother who is about to be hung for also being a witch. Corrag takes the old and beaten horse of a cruel neighbour, a grey mare who becomes her best and only friend, and spends the next year living off the land and making her way north-west where she arrives in Glencoe. At first the clan is wary of her, but over time they welcome her into the fold although she still lives in her self-made little hut on the moor.
What is magical about this book is Corrage’s voice. She lives, breathes and dreams nature and the land around her. Every tiny thing is spoken of with such love and passion and she notices everything – a dew drop on a leaf, the changing colours of the rocks through the day, the silver sand as the grey mare gallops over beaches in the moonlight. The way she narrates is lyrical and equistite and the world she inhabits makes you feel like you can breathe again. Despite her life so far and her hardships, she has such a capacity for love and kindness for eveyone she meets.
Through her visits from Charles Leslie, Corrag tells her life story from her birth through to the night her friends were slain in a Scottish valley during a blizzard. Each person is wary of the other at the beginning – Leslie returns daily as he is waiting for details on who was behind the massacre (believing it to be the new King) and Corrag is determined that her life will not be forgotten. After several weeks they find a strange comfort in each other and a friendship is born. Corrag has found companionship in her final days and Leslie learns to see whe world through fresh eyes.
I honestly just loved this book. It has now become a firm favourite and I am sorry it has ended. I have never read any of Susan Fletchers other two books but I will now be seeking them out.
Highly, highly recommended!
You can also read my interview with the author, Susan Fletcher, here.
Other books by Susan Fletcher are: Eve Green and Oystercatchers.
This week I am waiting on Alison Weir’s new fiction book The Captive Queen. I love her non-ficiton books also, but after reading Innocent Traitor (see my review here) I can’t wait for this book to come out.
Sysnopsys from Amazon:
“It is the year 1152 and a beautiful woman of thirty, attended by only a small armed escort, is riding like the wind southwards through what is now France, leaving behind her crown, her two young daughters and a shattered marriage to Louis of France, who had been more like a monk than a king, and certainly not much of a lover. This woman is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, and her sole purpose now is to return to her vast duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, a man destined for greatness as King of England. Theirs is a union founded on lust which will create a great empire stretching from the wilds of Scotland to the Pyrenees. It will also create the devil’s brood of Plantagenets – including Richard C ur de Lion and King John – and the most notoriously vicious marriage in history. “The Eagle and the Lion” is a novel on the grand scale, an epic subject for Alison Weir. It tells of the making of nations, and of passionate conflicts: between Henry II and Thomas Becket, his closest friend who is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on his orders; between Eleanor and Henry’s formidable mother Matilda; between father and sons, as Henry’s children take up arms against him; and finally between Henry and Eleanor herself.”
The book is released by Hutchinson (Random House) on 1st April 2010 in the UK and in July in the USA.
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This event spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating. Please visit Jill’s blog to find out what other book bloggers are waiting for
Where is reading taking you?
Leave a comment, write a post, spread the word. Hosted by Adventures in Reading.
I am a 16 year old girl, on the run in 17th century Scotland, accused of being a witch at the time of the Glencoe massacre.
(Corrag by Susan Fletcher)
Teaser Tueaday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share a “teaser” sentence from somwhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away, you don’t want to ruin the book for others)
Share the title and author, too, so that other participants can add the book to their TBR list if they like your teasers!
My teaser:
“How we galloped. How we went, that night – but on other nights too. How the mare was, with her ears back and her neck stretched far, far ahead of me, and her mane between my fingers, and her hooved striking rocks and mud, in the dark. I held on tight. When we galloped, I kept my head low. I put my cheek by her shoulder and looked down at her foreleg, flashing white, white, white. Or I watched the grasses rush by, felt the rivers splash up at us and the branches catch my hair. If there were stars, I might look up. But also, when she galloped over moors, when my mare was at her wild, midnight fastest and the air was cold, and the moon was full, I might close my eyes – and with her warmth against one cheek and the wind against the other, I felt a magic in me.”
From Corrag by Susan Fletcher. Page 102. Due out in the UK in March 2010. I will post a review when I am finished – I am LOVING this book so far.
I came across this article that says that 65% of us have lied about reading a book that we haven’t actually read! Top of the pile is George Orwell’s 1984 (clearly those people don’t know that Big Brother sees all…..mwahahahaha!)
The others in the list are:
1. 1984 by George Orwell (42%)
2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (31%)
3. Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)
4. The Bible (24%)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (16%)
6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (15%)
7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (14%)
8. In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (9%)
9. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (6%)
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (6%)
Have you ever lied about a book you haven’t actually read?
What Amazon says: “The story of an unwanted Chinese daughter growing up during the Communist Revolution, blamed for her mother’s death, ignored by her millionaire father and unwanted by her Eurasian step mother. A story of greed, hatred and jealousy; a domestic dramais played against the extraordinary political events in China and Hong Kong. Written with the emotional force of a novel but with a vividness drawn from a personal and political background. FALLING LEAVES has become a surprise bestseller all over the world.”
What I thought: I devour books about China as I am fascinated by the country and its people. I read this one about 5 years ago and I started reading it fully expecting to be told the story of an unwanted child from a poor, probably rural, family and the hardships they all suffered. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Adeline Yen Mah is brought up in a very wealthy, well respected family in both Shanghai and Taijin, further north. She lived in big houses with servants and a Father who was an extremely clever business man. Sounds ideal, but that couldnt be further from the reality. Adeline was the last born of 5 children and her Mother died 2 weeks after she was born. Adeline has still never seen a photo of her Mother to this day. Not long after her Mothers death, her Father remarried a half Chinese, half French young woman who was to become her step mother and this is where her nightmare stars. The 5 step children are kept in a different part of the house and treated like second class citizens in their own home. Adeline, who was blamed for the death of their mother, is also bullied and beaten by her own siblings who constanly gang up on her. Her Father and Niang, the step mother, make Adeline’s childhood a pure misery.
This story goes from Adeline’s childhood in China to her time as a student in England and then her move to America. All the while she puts up with the awful treatment dished up by her family as sne is so desperate for love and acceptance.
A very sad true story and one that needs to be told.
What Goodreads says: “Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.
That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.
For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey.
A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.”
What I thought: Have you ever wondered what happened to the little girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland? I must be honest – I’m not sure I even knew that the real Alice had existed until I read the blurb for this book. But, yes, real she was. The real Alice lived until the age of 81, had married and had three sons. But where did it all begin?
Alice I Have Been is fiction based on fact. The story is narrated by Alice herself and where no evidence remains, Melanie Benjamin takes artistic licence to fill in the gaps. Alice was the daughter of the Dean of Oxford University where she was one of 10 siblings who lived a very priviledged upbrining within the grounds of the University. It was there that the family met and befriended Mr Charles Dodgson (or better known to the world as Lewis Carrol). It was on one particularly hot summers day, while out rowing with Alice and two of her sisters that Dodgson made up the tale of Alice in Wonderland to amuse the three girls and for years afterwards Alice begged him to write it down. Little did she know that her childhood was to be immortalised forever.
The relationship between Dodgson and the three girls made me hugely uncomfortable, however. There were echoes of Lolita which I found a really unsettling experience while reading a book set in Victorian times and with such a quaint backdrop. There’s something really unnerving about such little girls in their white muslin dresses with parasols being quite so obsessed with a man in his twenties. Charles Dodgson (a Mathematics professor at the Universtiy) was also a photographer in his spare time as well as writing stories. His rooms in the college were littered with toys and dressing up boxes for young girls to play with and his photograph collection contained hundreds of images if children in various, sometimes provocotave, positions. When she was eleven years old, Alice’s parents had a falling out with Dodgson and he was never allowed near the family again. Nobody knows what happened, nobody ever spoke of it and after his death, Dodgsons family tore out parts of his diary that related to that particular time. One can only wonder what really happened but in the absense of any facts, Benjamin weaves her own theory around what happened one summers day to end that relationship.
The rest of the book follows Alice as she grows up, watches her as she falls in love with Queen Victoria’s son Prince Leopold (there is evidence that this may have happened) and ultimately marries and has three children, only claiming fame and noteriey at the end of her life as the girl who fell down the rabbit hole and will be forever seven years old.
I really enjoyed this book. It made me feel uncomfortable at times (but then I suspect it was meant to) but ultimately the ride along with Alice was an enjoyable one. It has certainly made me want to read Lewis Carrol’s famous book again too. Recommended!
Thank you very much to Delacorte Press (part of Random House) for the review copy of this book.
If you liked that review and want to know more, why not enter the Giveaway I am hosting. There is still a week left to enter and there are 3 copies to giveaway (internationally). Please see here for more details.
What Goodread says: “Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah’s friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her.Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class and containing ironic visual aids (drawn by the author), Pessl’s debut novel is complex yet compelling, erudite yet accessible. It combines the suspense of Hitchcock, the self-parody of Dave Eggers, and the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt with a dazzling intelligence and wit entirely Pessl’s own.”
I read alot of books (as you know) but I can’t remember the last time something irritated me as much as this one. The blurb is misleading – in no way is this anywhere near as good as The Secret History. If you haven’t already read Donna Tartt’s TSH, then I implore you buy that instead. And if you get a taste for murder on an American campus then get Paulina Simon’s Red Leaves. Both are a thousand times better:
What Amazon says: “Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with one hell of a hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples. Once, Ig lived the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned American musician, and the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, Ig had security and wealth and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more – he had the love of Merrin Williams, a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. Then beautiful, vivacious Merrin was gone – raped and murdered, under inexplicable circumstances – with Ig the only suspect. He was never tried for the crime, but in the court of public opinion, Ig was and always would be guilty. Now Ig is possessed with a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look, and he means to use it to find the man who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It’s time for a little revenge; it’s time the devil had his due. HORNS: It’s moving, sad, often funny, redemptive, and filled with hope.”
What I thought: Imagine that: waking up one morning with the hangover from hell, having no recollection of what you did or where you went the night before and catching sight of yourself in the mirror (as you stumble into the bathroom) to the image of yourself staring back at you – complete with horns sprouting from the top of your head. Well that’s what happened to Ig Perrish. Not only that, but along with the horns came some pretty hellish powers in the form of being able to know all the bad things anyone has ever done just by touching them: The local preist having trists with the cleaning lady in the belfry, his own parents wishing he would disappear and that his mother used to be a whore. Nice. And people tell him things; things that they are really thinking or want to do but would never normally say out loud; they are actually asking his permission to sin. Iggy tries to get away and but finds himself reliving the whole nightmare of his girlfriend’s murder a year ago. Ig and Merrin had been childhood sweethearts from the age of 15 until she was raped and murdered in a brutal attack that Ig was arrested for (and still blamed for despite the lack of evidence).
Horns flits between the present and the past and takes us through Ig and Merrin’s relationship and growing up together and what lead to the night of the murder. The human emotions were powerful and real and you find yourself rooting for….the devil. But one thing is for sure in this book – expect the unexpected. Don’t get too comfortable because that rug will be whipped out from under you just when you think you’ve got it sussed. Also, watch out for snakes! Lots of them!
This book is many things. It’s quirky, it’s harsh, it’s strange but ultimately it is a love story and a story of human emotions in their rawest forms. It spotlights the difference (or perhaps nearness) of good and evil. Do you really know those closest to you? It seems we may not.
Highly recommended.
Horns is out in the USA in Febuary 2010 and in the UK on 16th March 2010.
This weeks Waiting on Wedensday has to be Changeless by Gail Carriger as I just finished the first in the series, Soulless, and loved it so I am now waiting impatiently for the second to come out.
“Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears – leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria. But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. Even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.”
I am seriously looking forward to this. It is out in March in the US and April in the UK.
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This event spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating. Please visit Jill’s blog to find out what other book bloggers are waiting for.
From an article in The Times on 3rd January:
“Wyndham is best remembered as the creator of what one critic called “cosy catastrophes”, stories in which worldwide disaster may strike but a few survivors offer hope that traditional British virtues of stiff-upper-lipped endurance and adaptability will build a new and better civilisation. So it seems curious that, in the late 1940s, at the very time he was writing The Day of the Triffids, this most English of science-fiction writers was also pinning his literary hopes on Plan for Chaos. This overwrought but enjoyable nonsense looks back to the pulp fiction of the US magazines to which Wyndham had contributed throughout the 1930s. The book opens in an unnamed American city in the 1970s where news photographer Johnny Farthing is investigating the deaths of several blonde women who all look strikingly alike. (He has a strong motive for doing so in that they also all look strikingly like his own fiancée.) Within a few chapters, his fiancée disappears, he is kidnapped, escapes, smuggles himself aboard a mysterious flying saucer and is transported to a jungle hideaway where a cloned Aryan super-race under the command of one of Hitler’s former favourites awaits its destiny. It’s all breathless and barking stuff, even if signs of the subtler writer Wyndham was to become are already in evidence.
Plan for Chaos never saw the light of day in Wyndham’s lifetime. He chose to bank on the saleability of The Day of the Triffids instead. This edition, prepared from manuscripts held at the University of Liverpool, was first published by the same university’s press last year, 40 years after his death, and now appears in a paperback by Penguin. Was he right to ditch Nazi clones in favour of peripatetic plants? Very definitely, although Plan for Chaos is worth reading by anyone who admires Wyndham’s later work. It is the novel, lost until now, in which he can be seen bidding a last farewell to his pulp past and edging towards the kind of fiction for which he is celebrated.”
Well, I will be checking that one out! Apparantly Penguin have published it so I will track down a copy and review it. I love John Wyndhams books. I have read The Midwich Cuckoos, Chocky and The Crysalids (although that was in school 20 years ago so it’s ready for a re-read). I have 3 others at home that I hope to read this year. The Midwich Cuckoos was actually in my top 10 from last year. The Midwich Cuckoos is about a little English village that suddenly freezes in time for a few hours and all the residents collapse. Nobody can get in and nobody can get out. When they wake up they have no idea what happened but in the following weeks all the women and girls over about 15 find themselves pregnant. When their children are born they all have the same white blonde hair and don’t communicate with anyone but themselves. It’s creepy and brilliant! Don’t miss it. And if you happen to venture into a quaint English village…..watch out for the children!
This is my first ever giveaway on my blog so I am excited to be able to giveaway 3 copies of Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin. And not only that but each winner will also recieve a postcard photo of the real Alice.
Here is a synopsis of the book:
“Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, ALICE I HAVE BEEN, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole—and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.
But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?
Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.”
A love story and a literary mystery, ALICE I HAVE BEEN brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.” (Info from Melaine Benjamins website).
Here are what people are saying about the book already (all quotes are taken from Melanie’s website):
“This is magic! Childhood, sensuality, love, sorrow and wonder, all bright and complex as the shifting patterns in a kaleidoscope.”
—Diana Gabaldon
“This richly imagined novel contains so much—a literary mystery, a royal romance, a vivid portrait of Victorian England and a poignant story of tragedy and endurance, all pieced together into a glittering whole.”
—Isabel Wolff
“Masterfully written, this “Victorian” novel will satisfy not only those who have been charmed by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland but any reader who enjoys history, mystery, and a journey through life’s vagaries with a heroine whose admonition, borrowed from Lewis Carroll, is “May we be happy.” Going back in time with the real Alice is like going down a new rabbit hole with experiences following one upon the other until the final page of the imaginative roller coaster ride. A very enjoyable and often poignant adventure story with a curious twist at the end ..”
—BookBrowse.com
There will also be an author interview with Melanie herself coming up shortly so watch out for that too.
Please fill in the form provided to enter. You do not need your own blog to enter. Each entry will automatically get 1 point. To earn extra points you can do the following:
That means that there are a total of 13 points for anyone who does all the above. That is 13 entries into the competition!
Good Luck everyone!
All entries will come directly to me so no info (e.g. email adresses are shared). Please still feel free to also comment below.
NB
Musing Mondays is courtesy of Rebecca at Just One More Page. This weeks question is:
“Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about tidy reading around people. When is it inappropriate to read in front of others? Is it ever appropriate?”
Hell yeah! I read infront of other people all the time; at Doctors surgeries, on the train, in cafe’s, the dentist – if I’m stood or sat for more than 2 minutes waiting for something or someone then my book is out! I am mostly the only one who is reading but I’m usually so engrossed in my book that I don’t notice anyway. Only very occasionally do I ever catch someone trying to take a sneaky peek at what I’m reading but that makes me think that they are readers also, as non-readers have absolutely zero interest in books (I know this from when non-reading friends come to our house and they have no interest whatsoever in looking at my bookshelves and I all I can think is “what’s wrong with you?”).
I read during commercial breaks, while I wait for the kettle to boil, anytime I can!
What Goodreads said: “As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.”
What I say: “This is a beautifully written, well researched, off-beat love story about a young man called Jacob who (having been suddenly orphaned at the age of 22 while at university and in the age of the depression in America) finds himself, quite unexpectidley, working for a circus. Here we are treated to a feast of colourful (many rather unsavoury) characters (with dwarfes, bearded ladies and a whole host of animals). This is a love story not only between Jacob and Marlena (a married woman whom he loves from afar) but also between Jacob and his animals, imparticular an elephant named Rosie whom I also fell in love with.
The story flits between Jacob as an old man in a nursing home (where a circus comes to town which brings back all his memories) and Jacob in the 1930′s during his circus years. This is a wonderfully written, engrosing, captivating novel and I felt lost when I had finished it; I truly had wothdrawal symptoms and still think about it years later. I highly recommend this book and I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
Sara Gruen has a new novel, Ape House, due out in hardback in September 2010. Once I have found out more details I will post them.
I’ve been eyeing up this book for ages now since I first heard about it. It sounds great and I can’t wait to get my hands on it! To celebrate the trailer now being available the author, Kimberley Derting, is having a giveaway of a couple of signed ARC’s. For more info see here.
Roll on March (unless I win a lovely shiny copy before that – all fingers and toes crossed!)
Here is the 2009 Epic Book Survey created by YA Highway:
THE (casual) RULES: Fill out the survey on your own blog, then post the link in our comments section. Only include books you’ve read in the past year. That doesn’t necessarily mean books written in 2009 – just books you read in 2009.
If you can’t figure out a book that fits, never fear — just skip that question. And if you can’t narrow an answer to one – no problem! We’re flexible. I’m a crazy cheater myself. Repeats are fine. Keep things positive; no book-bashing, please.
Here we go……out of the 99 books I read in 2009, these are my answers (this is much more difficult to do that you’d think when you’ve read so many great books).
BOOKS
SCENES
CHARACTERS
MISCELLANEOUS
LAST BUT NOT LEAST…
My first book in this challenge is completed.
I have read Soulless by Gail Carriger which falls into the Neo-Vic category as it is set in Victorian time. See my review of this book.
1) Soulless by Gail Carriger
11 to go!
This challenge is hosted by Amanda at The Blog Jar
Synopsis from Amazon: Here’s a photo of some of my latests beauties. They’re sitting on a shelf just waiting for me to dive into them.
Horns by Joe Hill – ARC copy from my friend Lori (Thank you!)
Country Driving by Peter Hessler – ARC from Canon Gate (Thank you!)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – Hardback copy sent by Virago Press (Thank you!)
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty – Secret Santa present from my fellow book-loving friend Jesse (Thank you!)
The Secret Garden by Frances Burnett – Swap on Readitswapit
Beastly by Alex Flinn – Swap on Readitswapit
Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfieffer – A treat for me from Amazon
I Can See You by Karen Rose – only £7.00 hardback in Asda so it would have been rude to walk away
In my mailbox is courtesy of Kristi The Story Siren
TBR Thursday is a meme hosted by Drea, if you want to join in this meme visit her blog and leave your TBR Thursday link there for others to see. TBR Thursday highlights all those books that you physically own but haven’t had the chance to read yet. Or maybe they’ve already been released and you’re dying to grab a copy from the library to read but already have too many books on your table. There can be some old books, some new books, and some that are in between, but they have to be books that you want to read and review!
I have chosen The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. I was lucky enough to be sent a lovely hardback copy by Virago Press and it is sitting patiently waiting for me to pick it up and read (which I will do soon).
“In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners – mother, son and daughter – are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own.
But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.
Prepare yourself. From this wonderful writer who continues to astonish us, now comes a chilling ghost story.”
For more information you can visit:
Looking forward to reading this one.
I’ve found a great new challenge (this one was made for me!). It’s called Our Mutual Read and here are the details:Then, determine if you are up to a mini-challenge:
Period Film Mini-Challenge — watch at least 6 films that take place between 1837 – 1901 (they don’t necessarily have to be based on a book) and post a review.
Short Story Mini-Challenge — read 12 short stories written or taking place between 1837 – 1901 and post a review.
This week’s “Waiting On” Wednesday pre-publication “can’t-wait-to-read” selection is Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran. Release date is 4th February 2010.
Synopsys from Amazon: “Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother” is made up of the stories of Chinese mothers whose daughters have been wrenched from them, and also brings us the voices of some adoptive mothers from different parts of the world. These are stories which Xinran could not bring herself to tell previously – because they were too painful and close to home. In the footsteps of Xinran’s “Good Women of China”, this is personal, immediate, full of harrowing, tragic detail but also uplifting, tender moments. Ten chapters, ten women and many stories of heartbreak, including her own: Xinran once again takes us right into the lives of Chinese women – students, successful business women, midwives, peasants, all with memories which have stained their lives. Whether as a consequence of the single-child policy, destructive age-old traditions or hideous economic necessity…these women had to give up their daughters for adoption, others were forced to abandon them – on city streets, outside hospitals, orphanages or on station platforms – and others even had to watch their baby daughters being taken away at birth, and drowned. Here are the ‘extra-birth guerrillas’ who travel the roads and the railways, evading the system, trying to hold onto more than one baby; naive young student girls who have made life-wrecking mistakes; the ‘pebble mother’ on the banks of the Yangzte still looking into the depths for her stolen daughter; peasant women rejected by their families because they can’t produce a male heir; and finally there is Little Snow, the orphaned baby fostered by Xinran but ‘confiscated’ by the state. The book sends a heartrending message from their birth mothers to all those Chinese girls who have been adopted overseas (at the end of 2006 there were over 120,000 registered adoptive families for Chinese orphans, almost all girls, in 27 countries), to show them how things really were for their mothers, and to tell them they were loved and will never be forgotten.
I can’t wait for this book to come out. I am a huge fan of Xinran’s. Her books are both heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. I have been fascinated by China and its culture and people for so long and I was lucky enough to go there on holiday in 2004. I have read loads of books by Chinese authors or set in China (I will review these separately soon) but here are some others of Xinran’s that I really enjoyed:
The Good Women of China - “Xinran worked for eight years as a well-known presenter at a Chinese radio station. As a public figure, she received many letters. Most of them were from women. Moved by the stories she was hearing in the letters, she decided to go in search of more of the truths about Chinese women’s lives. What she found was terrible suffering; women who had endured lengthy sexual abuse during the Cultural Revolution, women whose wretched poverty was made more miserable by the dictates of a male-centred society, women who had had their children taken from them or who had lost them in earthquakes and other natural disasters. And, amid all the suffering, she found their capacity to endure and somehow survive.”
Seriously – get your hankies ready for this one. But ultimately feel glad that you read it. It’s an absolutely wonderful book. Xinrans encounters with these incredible women are etched in my heart forever. The girl who kept a fly for a pet and the mothers who endured an earthquake broke my heart. Xinran has brought to life the experiences of many very different women during the chinese cultural revolution with such vibrancy that I can still hear and see them now, years after reading the book. Unputdownable.
Sky Burial – “Sky Burial is the true story of a Chinese woman’s 30-year search through Tibet for news of her lost, presumed dead, husband. Xinran is working as a radio journalist on a women’s programme when a listener calls in to tell her about Shuwen. Xinran travels hundreds of miles across China to interview her and, over two days, Shuwen opens her heart and reveals her tragic, scarcely imaginable life story. Xinran returns to her life and spends the subsequent 10 years trying to find Shuwen again, researching her story and writing this book–a homage to an ordinary woman’s extraordinary life-long search for the truth. The story is a simple one: Shuwen meets her intelligent, idealistic husband-to-be while they are both training to be doctors. After less than 100 days of marriage, Kejun travels to Tibet as a Chinese army doctor and before long, Shuwen is notified that he has died in an “incident”. Shuwen decides to join the army herself, travel to Tibet and find out if he really is dead, and if so, how and why he died. And then, as if travelling to a closed country like Tibet as a young woman in the 1950s is not difficult enough, Shuwen quickly becomes separated from her unit and, close to death herself, is taken in by a family of Tibetan nomads. Her transformation from Chinese doctor to nomadic Buddhist is a long, painful and at many turns, deeply distressing one.”
This is a wonderful book and such an incredible story. I had to remind myself several times that it was true.
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This event spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating. Please visit Jill’s blog to find out what other book bloggers are waiting for.
I have just finhished The Cradle Will Fall which is now one of my favourites. In The Cradle Will Fall, County prosecutor Katie DeMaio lands in hospital after a minor car accident. During the night, she sleepily watches through the window as a man loads a woman’s body into the boot of a car. Is it just a medicated nightmare, or is the scene horrifyingly real? On the same night, a 7 month pregnant woman, who had waited 10 years for a baby, drinks cyonide and kills herself. When police start looking into the suicide and become suspicious and potential witnesses start turning up dead, it’s a race against time to find the culprit.
In Where are you Now? , a university student vanishes without a trace for no apparant reason and calls home every mothers day for the next 10 years. His messages are brief and always end up with him telling her not to look for him. After his latest call home, his sister vowes to find him and opens a can of worms that someone wants to stay buried when long buried secrets are unearthed. Another massive thumbs up for this one!
Twenty-four years later, all Celia’s old memories are awakened by the house as it appears that someone is trying to scare her by painting messages on the lawn and leaving old newspaper clippings around of the Liza Barton case. Does somebody remember her and know who she is? Just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, people start turning up dead and all the evidence seems to be pointing at Celia.
As with all MHG’s books, there are suspects aplently and you soon learn that, true to form, it could be anyone of them. I love the fact that her books have no gratuitous gore in them, just an old- fashioned whodunnit.
Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Boof and I am a bookaholic. I have a very serious book-buying habit that I have yet to find a cure for (phew!). In this blog I read, review and discuss books - the good, bad and the downright ugly. I love all books and read from most genres. All reviews are my own thoughts and feelings about a book. I am not a literary critic so all a book needs to do to get a rave review is make me happy and glad that I've read it. Simples!
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