Booksploring

Save Me the Waltz

2011-03-27T22:37:00.001+08:00

Today I'm reviewing Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald as part of the America's Lost Generation Tour over at The Classics Circuit.

Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

One of the great literary curios of the 20th century, Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when her husband was working on Tender is the Night—which many critics consider his masterpiece—Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story. The novel strangely parallels evens from her husband’s life, throwing a fascinating light on Scott Fitzgerald and his work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story—centered upon the confessional of a famous glamour girl of the affluent 1920s and an aspiring ballerina—that captures the spirit of an era. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

Alabama Beggs is a wild Southern girl, the youngest of Judge and Millie Beggs' three daughters. She marries aspiring artist David Knight and the pair move to the Riviera where they enjoy a life of wild parties and excess. As her marriage shows signs of strain, Alabama dreams of dancing La Chatte and throws herself into ballet lessons.

I have read reviews of this book claiming it to be overwritten, messy, etc. It was not as I was expecting based on these other reviews. Sure the plot is a little sparce, the dialogue is excessive, and some sections are a little tedious, but overall I thought this was a sad contemplation on the beauty and tragedy of success.

I enjoyed the last section of the novel the best, especially the descriptions of the studio and Alabama's dancing lessons. Having danced myself, I fully understand and sympathise with the hard work and pain involved.

"The air grew damp with autumn maze. They dined here and there amongst the jewelled women glittering like bright scaled fish in an aquarium. They went for walks and taxi rides. A growing feeling of alarm in Alabama for their relationship had tightened itself to a set determination to get on with her work. Pulling the skeleton of herself over a loom of attitude and arabesque she tried to weave the strength of her father and the young beauty of her first love with David, the happy oblivion of her teens and her warm protected childhood into a magic cloak. She was much alone.

David was a gregarious person; he went out a great deal. Their life moved along with a hypnotic pound and nothing seemed to matter short of murder. She presumed they wouldn't kill anybody - that would bring the authorities; all the rest was bunk, like Jacques and Gabrielle had been. She didn't care - she honestly didn't care a damn about the loneliness. Years later, she was suprised to remember that a person could have been so tired as she was then." (p. 129)

I think it's good to read this book with at least some understanding of Zelda Fitzgerald's life and marriage. This novel (Zelda's only) was written in just 6 weeks whilst she was at a mental institution and came under close scrutiny from her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald as his Tender is the Night covered very similar material. It is said he forced her to make many revisions to her work as he felt it revealed too much about their marriage.

Many people read this novel to get a sneak peek into the marriage of this famous Jazz Age couple (I know, it's hard not to think about it), but I think it's important to consider Zelda's work for its own merits. It's quite an interesting novel to read - Zelda's writing style has a kind of madness to it and the novel is filled with excess, from the wild parties it describes to the abundance of figurative language.

I'm off to read Tender is the Night as a companion piece ;-)

My Rating: 3.5/5

In My Mailbox 42

2011-03-27T09:54:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

From the library this week:

Annabel

by Kathleen Winter

In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador in the far north-east of Canada, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people share the secret - the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to go through surgery and raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows up within the hyper-male hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self - a girl he thinks of as 'Annabel' - is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life. As Wayne approaches adulthood, and its emotional and physical demands, the woman inside him begins to cry out. The changes that follow are momentous not just for him, but for the three adults that have guarded his secret. (description from The Book Depository)

Sing You Home

by Jodi Picoult

Zoe Baxter has spent ten years trying to get pregnant, and just when she's about to get her heart's desire, tragedy destroys her world. In the aftermath of loss and divorce, she throws herself into her career as a music therapist. Working with Vanessa, she finds their relationship moving from business, to friendship, and then - to Zoe's surprise - blossoming into love. When Zoe allows herself to start thinking of children again, she remembers that there are still frozen embryos that she and her husband never used. But Max, having sought peace at the bottom of a bottle, has found redemption in an evangelical church, and Zoe needs his permission to take his unborn child. (description from The Book Depository)

The Piano Cemetery

by Jose Luis Peixoto

The Lazaro family are carpenters who would rather be piano-makers. In the dusty back room of their carpentry shop in Lisbon is the 'piano cemetery', filled with broken-down pianos that provide the spare parts needed for repairing and rebuilding instruments all over the city. It is a mysterious and magical place, a place of solace, a dreaming place and, above all, a trysting place for lovers. Peixoto weaves the tragic true story of the marathon-runner, Francisco Lazaro, into a rich narrative of love, betrayal, domestic happiness and dashed hopes. (description from The Book Depository)

And ebook received for review:

The Final Alice

by Alycia Ripley

The Lightkeeper's Wife

2011-03-26T17:19:00.001+08:00

****

Sorry about the long absence! I've had laptop problems and only just got it back this past week (unfortunately minus everything that was on it!)

****

The Lightkeeper's Wife by Karen Viggers

“A woman at the end of her life. A man unable to restart his. A history of guilty secrets and things left unsaid. A powerful, moving novel that will steal your heart.

Elderly and in poor health, Mary has lived in Hobart a long time. But when a letter is delivered to her house by someone she hoped never to see again, she decides to return to Bruny Island so she can live out her last days with only her regrets and memories for company. Years before, her husband was the lighthouse keeper on Bruny, and she raised her family on the windswept island, until terrible circumstances forced them back to civilisation. Now, the secret that has haunted her for decades threatens to break free and she is hoping to banish it before her time is up. But secrets have a life of their own, and as Mary relives the events of her life, she realises her power over the future may be limited.

Back in Hobart, Mary's adult children are respectively outraged, non-committal and sympathetic about her escape from their care. But no amount of coaxing will shake her resolve. Her youngest son Tom loves Bruny, and can understand her connection to that wild island, a place of solitude, healing and redemption for them both.

As Mary's secret threatens to tear her apart, both she and Tom must face their pasts in ways they couldn't even begin to imagine. Mary finds that the script she's written to the end of her life has taken a few twists of its own.

My Review

Mary Mason is the lightkeeper's wife from the title and brought up her young family on isolated Bruny Island whilst her husband was lighthouse keeper. But this novel is set 25 years after the Masons left Bruny Island and the lighthouse to live in Hobart. Her husband, Jack is now dead and her children have all grown up, and Mary herself is very frail with declining health. Mary pressures her family to let her return to Bruny Island and live out the rest of her days in a cabin at Cloudy Bay. Mary thought she'd have complete solitude to reflect on family secrets she's been keeping all these years, but soon realises she needs the help of ranger Leon who seems gruff but is simply dealing with his own issues.

This is quite a sad, lonely book but it is ultimately quite uplifting. The solitude of Bruny and the isolation of Antarctica are explored through some beautiful prose:

'There's something about Antarctica that locks you in for life. Maybe it's the landscape; so wild and bare and sparse. Or maybe it's seeing so much white. Or the relationships, all so intense. Whatever it is, somehow, in all that vast space and luminous light, you become transformed. You discover a new self. An ability to melt into distance. An uplifting sense of freedom. At the same time, eternal yearning is born. You want to return. To reunite with the self you uncovered down there, a self unchecked by normal boundaries. When you go back to your old world, along with the other injuries Antarctica has inflicted, raw longing rules you. Your soul is in bondage. The healing takes years." p. 59

Although I didn't really connect with Mary's plotline, I thought Tom's story was fantastic. I loved the whole Antarctica storyline. Tom's struggle to fit in back in Hobart after overwintering in Antarctica was fascinating and moving. I guess I didn't really know a lot about trips to Antarctica and what it's really like for the biologists and mechanics who spend months on end there away from their loved ones.

The day after reading this book I watched the fantastic Aussie film South Solitary. This really did bring the isolation of lighthouse to life for me. I would recommend it - but only if you like your movies slow ;-)

My Rating: 4/5

In My Mailbox 41

2011-02-27T10:39:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

I've just realised that this is my first IMM for 2011 and it's almost March! Seriously, where is this year going?!

So, I'm not going to list every book I've received this year so far...but here are a few recent acquisitions that I'm particularly excited about:

All of these books are by Aussie authors!

Queen of the Flowers

by Kerry Greenwood

What better place for the maven of fashion and elegance than the flower festival of St. Kildaas? All Phryne Fisher needs to do is buy dresses, drink cocktails, and dine lavishly. Or so she thinks....When one of Phryneas flower maidens vanishes, Phryne must put aside her flower crown to investigate. However, the case doesnat become serious until Phryneas darling adopted daughter Ruth goes missing. Phryne must confront elephants, brothel-life, and an old lover in an effort to save Ruth and her flower maiden before it is too late. (description from The Nile Online Bookshop)

This is #14 in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series and will be my first! I've heard really good things about this series. Although series are always slightly dangerous for me because once I've read one in the series I can't stop until I've read them all!!

Thanks to Jo from Booklover Book Reviews for this one ;-)

The Lightkeeper's Wife

by Karen Viggers

Elderly and in poor health, Mary fulfils her wish to herself to live out her last days on Bruny Island with only her regrets and memories for company. A long time ago, her late husband was the lighthousekeeper on Bruny, and she'd raised a family on the wild windswept island, until terrible circumstances forced them back to civilisation. The long-buried secret that has haunted her for decades now threatens to break free and she is hoping to banish it once and for all before her time is up. But secrets have a life of their own, and as Mary relives the events that led up to the shattering revelation, she realises she needs to trust a later generation to put things right. As she steadily weakens, she imposes herself on the island's ranger, Leon, who is reluctant to become nursemaid to Mary and resentful that he appears to have little choice in the matter. He has problems of his own and the last thing he needs is another drain on his time. Mary's adult children are respectively outraged, non-committal and sympathetic, but no amount of coaxing, pleading or threats will shake her resolve.

Her youngest son Tom loves Bruny as much as his mother does, and can understand her primal connection to that wild island, a place of solitude, healing and redemption for them both. Years before Tom had spent a winter working on a base in Antarctica and had returned from that empty loneliness to find his marriage over and his life destroyed. Not for nothing do Antarctic regulars call that gruelling experience The Division of Broken Marriages and Shattered Lives. Still wounded, Tom lives a simple life in Hobart, unable and unwilling to make real connections with people in case he gets hurt again. But then he meets Emma, newly returned from Antarctica and as open and welcoming as Tom is not. Will Tom be healed by Emma's interest, or come to terms with his first trip there? As Mary's time winds down, both she and Tom must face their pasts in ways they cannot even begin to imagine. And Mary finds that the script she's written to the end of her life has taken on a few twists of its own. The Lightkeeper's Wife is a moving and redemptive story of love, loss and family, and what we have to do to live the best kind of life. (description from The Nile Online Bookshop)

The Indigo Sky

by Alison Booth

In 1957, when piano teacher Ilona Talivaldis arrived in the sleepy little town of Jingera, she was mocked as the 'reffo from Latvia'. Now, just four years on, she and her fourteen-year-old daughter Zidra are at the heart of the community. But when Ilona becomes involved in the plights of two very different children she puts this peaceful life in jeopardy. For Ilona's sensitive young protege , Philip, is slowly being crushed by relentless bullying at Sydney's exclusive Stambroke College. With his wealthy parents turning a blind eye, only Ilona can see the disturbing warning signs. At the same time, Zidra receives a cryptic message from her long-lost friend Lorna, who years earlier was snatched by the government from the Wallaga Lake Reserve. Now the gutsy Lorna has a daring plan - but she needs Zidra and Ilona's help. Ilona will do all she can to help these two vulnerable children on their difficult journeys. But will she be in time to avert a tragedy? (description from The Nile Online Bookshop)

Equator

by Wayne Ashton

The year is 1947. Carlos slips over the orphanage wall in search of the village girl who has captured his heart. From that moment, his is a life at sea, a life that moves across the globe and across generations, lived on the turning tides of love affairs, friendships and enmities. Equator is a glorious and intricate love story in the magic realist tradition. (description from The Nile Online Bookshop)

The Empress of Ice Cream

2011-02-13T11:20:00.000+08:00

The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella

FRANCE 1670. Carlo Demirco's mastery of the extraordinary new art of creating ice creams has brought him wealth, women, and a position at the court of Louis XIV. Then Carlo is sent to London, along with Louise de Keroualle, an impoverished lady-in-waiting. The most powerful ministers of two countries have decided that Louise is to be Charles II's new mistress, and will stop at nothing to make sure she submits. But Carlo too is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchwoman.With the king's every pleasure the subject of plots and betrayals, and Carlo's only weapons his exquisite ice creams, soon he must decide ...Where do his loyalties lie? (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

I read this book last weekend when the temperature was up near 40 degrees C. In hindsight it was the perfect read! This book has a wintery-feel to it and had me salivating over the delicious and sensual history of ice cream.

This delicious historical fiction tells the story of Carlo Demirco a young Italian who becomes Louis XIV's royal confectioner and one of the only people in the world privy to the secret of making ices, a secret he closely guards. Carlo notices Louise de Kérouaille, a lady-in-waiting to the real-life French mistress of Charles II. When both Louise and Carlo are both sent to London and the court of Charles II, it becomes clear that they are pawns in Louis XIV's political plans...

Capella has taken historical characters and events and reworked them in this fascinating story of politics, passion and power. Louise de Kérouaille and Nell Gwynn were both real-life mistresses of Charles II in England and are characters in the book.

Carlo's recipes and experiments with his ices quickly become an integral part of the story. I was enthralled by the recipes and concoctions described and couldn't wait to see how he stumbles across the ice with the creamy texture. I don't think I've ever craved ice cream as badly as when I finished reading this book ;-)

***

"As I became more accomplished, so I became even more inventive, both in the ices I made for the king and those I produced for my lovers. I still produced the single-fruit sorbets of which the king was so fond, of course. But once I had plucked every fruit that existed in nature, I proceeded to create new, imaginary orchards and pottagers of my own, wherein grew such extravagances as a tree that was half lemon and half lime, or a bush that fruited with rye-bread, or a plant whose pollen was the eggs of the Aquitaine sturgeon-fish. Even the flowerbeds gave up their blossoms for sorbets of scented geranium leaf or lavender, or lent their aromas to perfumed granites of lemon balm, violet or rose. That these tastes could exist at all, let alone locked within the frozen crystals of my eaux glacées, never ceased to amaze the king’s guests: my star rose ever higher, and my name became known even beyond the confines of the court."

***

This was my first Capella novel. and I loved it! Friends have recommended Capella's The Wedding Officer and The Various Flavours of Coffee but I'm yet to read them. They sound just as delicious as this one...I love books with food themes ;-)

My Rating: 4/5

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

2011-02-09T06:00:00.000+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

by Jenny Colgan

(14th April 2011)

Ever dreamed of starting over? Issy Randall can bake. No, more than that - Issy can create stunning, mouth-wateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe's bakery she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. So when she's made redundant from her safe but dull City job, Issy decides to seize the moment and open up her own cafe. It should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. As her friends point out, she has trouble remembering where she left her house keys, let alone trying to run her own business. But Issy is determined. Armed with recipes posted to her from Grampa, and with her local bank manager fighting her corner, Issy attempts to prove everyone wrong. Following your dreams is never easy and this is no exception. Can Issy do it? (description from The Book Depository)

A Tiny Bit Marvellous

2011-01-30T20:40:00.000+08:00

A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

Everyone hates the perfect family. So you'll love the Battles. Mo is about to hit the big 50, and some uncomfortable truths are becoming quite apparent: She doesn't understand either of her teenage kids, which as a child psychologist, is fairly embarrassing. She has become entirely grey. Inside, and out. Her face has surrendered and is frightening children. Dora is about to hit the big 18 ...and about to hit anyone who annoys her, especially her precocious younger brother Peter who has a chronic Oscar Wilde fixation. Then there's Dad ...who's just, well, dad. "A Tiny Bit Marvellous" is the story of a modern family all living in their own separate bubbles lurching towards meltdown. It is for anyone who has ever shared a home with that weird group of strangers we call relations. Oh and there's a dog. Called Poo. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

I love Dawn French's character in The Vicar of Dibley and I've seen her in the odd TV show or movie. She's a funny funny lady. So, I was looking forward to reading her first novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous.

The Battles are your typical dysfunctional family. A Tiny Bit Marvellous is told from the point of view of mother Mo, daughter Dora and son 'Oscar'. Of course, there's Husband/Dad but he doesn't even get a say ;-) The book begins as Mo is about to turn 50, Dora is about to finish high school and 'Oscar' is about to find his first love.

I didn't really think the chapters from Dora's point of view were that realistic. The Battles' eighteen year-old daughter is angry and angsty and 'like' is a huge part of her vocabulary. I've included an excerpt below. Maybe I'm out of touch...is that how eighteen year-olds talk?

***

"Well thanks Mum, for ruining my life. I'm glad you've got flu, you utterly deserve it and I hope you die in a horrendous choking in your own snot incident. I bloody bought you crisps and stuff! You are so beyond selfish! How dare you give them this kind of stress? As if I'm not like stressed out enough at the moment for fuck's sake. I've got coursework stress, uni stress, X Factor audition stress, Sam stress, money stress, phone credit stress, Facebook picture stress and now she only goes and adds to it with bloody major hair stress!

I'm bloody fed up of explaining it over and over again. Listen up, sucker - I HAVE TO HAVE THIS HAIR!! If you have brown curly hair at my motherarseing school, NOBODY like bloody talks to you. End of. You are a leper. You are a mong. You are a brown curly-haired leper mong. And you might as well die of loneliness and pain right now, coz that's what's going to happen in the end anyway. Make the choice Mum - blonde hair or death?!" (p. 39)

***

On the other hand, I thought sixteen year-old Peter 'Oscar' Battle was the best part of the whole book. Peter channels Oscar Wilde, insists everyone call him 'Oscar' and wears smoking jackets and cravats. He's just brilliant - I looked forward to his chapters. I saw another reviewer compare him to Kurt Hummel from Glee and I would have to agree!

I have to admit that I struggled with the first half of this book. I couldn't connect with the characters nor understand their actions. But I'm glad I kept reading as it really picked up in the second half. Although quite predictable, this book was a heartwarming and humourous exploration of family, the people we love to hate.

My Rating: 3/5

"Waiting On" Wednesday: January edition

2011-01-26T07:00:00.000+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Sing You Home

by Jodi Picoult

(1st March, 2011)

Heads You Lose

by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

(5th April, 2011)

Meet Paul and Lacey Hansen: orphaned, pot-growing, twentysomething siblings eking out a living in rural northern California. When a headless corpse appears on their property, they can’t exactly dial 911, so they move the body and wait for the police to find it. Instead, the corpse reappears, a few days riper . . . and an amateur sleuth is born. Make that two.

When collaborators Lutz and Hayward (former romantic partners) start to disagree about how the story should unfold, the body count rises, victims and suspects alike develop wildly inconsistent characteristics (meet Brandy Chester, the stripper with the Mensa IQ), and our defective detectives wind up putting both their lives at risk. Will the authors solve the mystery without killing each other first? (description from headsyoulose.com)

I have the Spellman books sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Someone recommended them to me after hearing I love the Stephanie Plume books. I just haven't got around to them yet! But this one sounds like a lot of fun...I like the sound of the authors becoming characters ;-)

The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead

by Paul Elwork

(31st March, 2011)

Emily Stewart has a secret. So does her brother, Michael. Thirteen years old, precocious and privileged, the Stewart twins are just beginning to learn the power of secrets.

During the summer of 1925, the twins discover a game of pretending to contact the dead. In the garden playhouse of their riverfront estate home, neighborhood children gather to be in the presence of the unknown and test their bravery. When adults become involved, the twins find themselves dabbling in the uncertain territory of human grief, and the game truly becomes a matter of life and death.

Inspired by and loosely based on the true story of the Fox sisters, this deeply compassionate debut novel delivers a suspenseful story that delves into the truths lying at the very heart of families. (description from paulelwork.com)

This one was actually published in a shorter form as The Tea House. I've actually just looked up the Wikipedia entry for the Fox sisters and now I'm intrigued!

The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady

by Elizabeth Stuckey-French

(8th February, 2011)

In this dark comedy wrapped inside a wacky family drama, a vengeful old lady is hell bent on murdering an even older man…who has lost his mind.

Seventy-seven year old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences.

Marylou has been plotting her revenge for fifty years when she accidentally discovers his whereabouts in Florida and her plans finally snap into action. She high-tails it to hot and humid Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where a now senile Spriggs lives with his daughter’s family, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into their lives. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she is stumbling into.

Before the novel is through, someone will be kidnapped, an unlikely couple will get engaged, someone will nearly die from eating a pineapple upside-down cake laced with anti-freeze, and that’s not all… (description from elizabethstuckeyfrench.com)

The Great Typo Hunt: Two friends changing the world, one correction at a time

2011-01-24T22:59:00.000+08:00

The Great Typo Hunt: Two friends changing the world, one correction at a time by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson

The signs of the times are missing apostrophes. The world needed a hero but how would an editor with no off-switch answer the call? For Jeff Deck the writing was literally on the wall: "NO TRESSPASSING." In that moment his greater purpose became clear. Dark hordes of typos had descended upon civilization& and only he could wield the marker to defeat them. Recruiting his friend Benjamin and other valiant companions he created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers chalk and correction fluid they circumnavigated America righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores museums malls restaurants mini-golf courses beaches and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror it"s into its and coconunut into coconut . But at the Grand Canyon they took one correction too far: fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court-with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated "criminal statues." Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into "grammar vigilantes " airing errors about their errant errand.. The radiant dream of TEAL would not fade though. Beneath all those misspelled words and mislaid apostrophes Jeff and Benjamin unearthed deeper dilemmas about education race history and how we communicate. Ultimately their typo-hunting journey tells a larger story not just of proper punctuation but of the power of language and literacy-and the importance of always taking a second look. (description from dust jacket)

My Review

Misplaced apostrophes and typos really irk me! I used to be really good at the weekly spelling tests at school and remember my seven-year-old self being absolutely gutted when I got a word wrong and broke my perfect record. I had seen it written incorrectly on a sign earlier in the week and assumed that was the correct spelling.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that someone was taking a stand against typos on signs and in public places. As soon as I heard about The Great Typo Hunt I knew I had to read it! Editor Jeff Deck and friend Benjamin Herson take to the road in Callie (Jeff's trusty car) on a crusade against typos. Armed with a black marker and white-out, their aim is to correct typos as they go. They form the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) and set off on their quest...

I was expecting a fun tale of their exploits. But this book is a lot more than that. I was surprised that this book actually raised some very interesting and deep questions about language change and use. I'll probably never look at a typo in the same way ever again! Although I'm not brave enough to pull out a marker and fix them ;-)

***

Then I came upon the biggest typo I'd seen to date, on a giant marquee outside the "Pacific Superstore."

Suddenly vigor crested over me. I had to show Benjamin that I could do this alone. I strode into the store. The place was a cavernous repository of beach gear and trinkets, perhaps imported wholly from the other coast, as the name of the store implied. I saw one shopper present. I hung around for a moment until a short lady approached me. "Can I help you?"

"Hi there," I said. I gave her the heartiest grin that I could manufacture. Which may not have been all that convincing. I admit; I've always been a more adept scowler. I knew I'd have to work on my salesmanship, though, in this and future typo-related endeavors. "I noticed that you sign out there in front has two ts in SWEATTS, and I was wondering if there was a reason for it."

She gave me a puzzled look and accompanied me outside, where she looked up at the sign. She was unmoved. "Oh yes, but I thought that sweatshirts did have two ts when shortened..."

"Well," I stammered, "no. I actually have a strange request for you - can you take one of the ts out? I'd really appreciate it. You see. I -"

"I'm sorry, you'll have to ask the manager," said the lady, indicating a long-haired guy perched on a ladder while talking on a cell phone and making adjustments to surfboards on display along the wall... (pp. 44-45)

***

I hadn't actually heard about Jeff Deck and his typo crusade before I picked up this book. I was actually a little annoyed that the blurb, assuming everyone knew about TEAL's troubles with the law, mentioned the Grand Canyon incident.

I would have loved to see more photos of the typos they came across in the book. The ones that were included were tiny and in black and white. I know you can follow their route and see all the photos at their webpage...but I think it would have been great to have more in the book as a feature.

I highly recommend this book to all the word nerds out there! The book also serves as a call to action - you can submit your own typo corrections on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/greattypohunt Check it out!

My Rating: 4.5/5

Enter a Murderer

2011-01-10T12:59:00.000+08:00

Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh

The crime scene was the stage of the Unicorn Theatre, when prop gun fired a very real bullet; the victim was an actor clawing his way to stardom using bribery instead of talent; and the suspects included two unwilling girlfriends and several relieved blackmail victims. The stage is set for one of Roderick Alleyn's most baffling cases! (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

When a murder occurs on stage in the middle of a performance, Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn is in the front row of an audience full of witnesses. The murdered man is actor Arthur Surbonadier and it soon becomes apparent that nearly everyone can be considered to have a motive. He was not well liked. And someone hated him enough to swap fake bullets for real ones leading up to a dramatic final act.

In this book Alleyn teams up with journalist Nigel Bathgate. An interesting combination - I had to laugh at Alleyn vetting Bathgate's copies before publication...he was certainly privy some amazing scoops through his involvement in the case as Alleyn runs his theories past him.

Alleyn is no Hercule Poirot. He seems quite normal in comparison. It seems that Marsh used Alleyn as the detective in all her novels...so perhaps he is developed over time. That being said - I did enjoy his attraction to the ladies and humourous interchanges.

***

Alleyn in a conversation with one of the actors:

'Do you know this play?' he said, turning to Alleyn.

'No,' said the inspector. 'Not a word of it. I have been trying to discover from your make-up whether you are a hero, a racketeer, one of us police, or all three. The pipe on your dressing-table suggests a hero, the revolver a racketeer, and the excellent taste of the coat you are about to put on, a member of my own profession. I deduce, my dear Bathgate, that Mr Gardener is a hero disguised as a gun-man, and a member of the CID.'

'There!' said Nigel triumphantly. He turned proudly to Gardener. For once Alleyn was behaving nicely as a detective.

'Marvellous!' said Gardener.

'You don't mean to tell me I'm right?' said Alleyn.

'Not far out. But I use the revolver as a policeman, the pipe as a gun-man, and don't wear that suit in this piece at all.'

'Which only goes to show,' said Alleyn, grinning, 'that intuition is as good as induction any day.' They lit cigarettes and Nigel and Gardener began a long reminiscent yarn about their Cambridge days. (pp217-218).

***

I've read nearly every Agatha Christie mystery there is, but this was my first Ngaio Marsh. This was only her second detective novel out of thirty two...so I'm looking forward to reading more and seeing how Alleyn develops as a character and Marsh as a writer.

Overall, an enjoyable read. A clever mystery - even if it was a tad unpolished.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Preincarnate

2011-01-06T11:35:00.000+08:00

Preincarnate by Shaun Micallef

The pre-eminent comic Renaissance man turns his genius to novel writing. Having conquered television, radio, theatre and film, Shaun Micallef smashes his mighty fist onto the keyboard of his soul and produces a novel of such breathtaking brilliance that if Patrick White were alive today he'd hurl his own typewriter into the sea and start a lawn-mowing business. Suppose you were murdered and woke up 300 years earlier in someone else's body. Wouldn't you put yourself in suspended animation and be re-awoken in time to prevent yourself being murdered in the first place? This is the extraordinary tale of an ordinary man in a race against and across time. Join Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells, Queen Victoria, Jack the Ripper and Tom Cruise as they unravel a Masonic plot to restore James II to the throne - and in the process, perhaps destroy the Universe itself. Soul transference, time travel, cloning, space ships, Hollywood and the Loch Ness Monster all come together for the first time in one action-packed and beautifully typeset novel. Preincarnate, Micallef's first - and very probably only - novel, shows not only that he is the rightful heir to the mantle of White but also the unruly bastard son of Barry Humphries, Clive James and Miles Franklin (obviously they'd all been very drunk that night). (description from Angus and Robertson)

My Review

Aussies will recognise the author of this novel as the comedian host of Talkin Bout Your Generation and The Micallef Pogram. I picked this one up because I was a little intrigued by the summary.

And wow...I'm not even sure where to begin explaining this novel. Or whether to even try... ;-) The summary above seems to give it a good shot. Essentially this is a novel about a man who is murdered and then tries to prevent this murder by being put in suspended animation and being re-awoken 300 years earlier. The result is mind-boggling and I found myself utterly confused a number of times whilst reading it. And let me just say that I find time travel hard to get my head around at the best of times...

This is an interesting read. I was able to follow the plot for probably the first third and then it seems to dissolve into humourous sketches and wordplays. I think Micallef was having so much fun that he just went with it. So a word of advice if you're reading this one - forget about plot and just enjoy the ride.

The footnote arguments between the author and the editor are quite entertaining. For example (p.84):

A Nubian slave dusted the throne with his own beard just as Cromwell's arse was laid daintily upon it (the chair, not the beard), and a flurry of servants and axolotls¹¹ buzzed about...

11. Don't you mean acolytes? Axolotls are Mexican walking fish. Ed.

No. I mean Mexican walking fish. Auth.

And I loved the line drawings by Bill Wood which are scattered throughout the novel. Such as this one of Tom Cruise kicking a flying saucer from p146:

***

Two months on from Leeuwenhoek's discovery, and Moray had managed to clone a Brazilian fire ant. He had just begun to experiment on the cellular material found in the late Richard Cromwell's leeches when he was arrested by the Witchfinder-General for his illicit bicycle rides. Someone had ratted him out. In exchange for his freedom, Moray agreed to name names. Thanks to his testimony, the Widow Makepeace was arrested and drowned. Moray also agreed to help the authorities with their ongoing investigation of Leeuwenhoek, who had long been suspected of occultist naughtiness.

Moray wore a parrot hidden under his vest during all his subsequent meetings with the Dutch emigre, and every conversation recorded by the parrot was later transcribed. It was an arduous process. The parrot had a learning difficulty and Moray would often have to trick Leeuwenhoek into repeating entire conversations, sometimes fifteen or twenty times. Eventually, enough evidence was amassed to establish a prima facie case.

Both the parrot and Doctor Moray gave evidence before the Witchfinder-General, Matthew Hopkins. The parrot later shot himself out of guilt. Moray's conscience was untroubled, and while Leeuwenhoek was taken in leg irons and chains to be tortured and tried, the Scot with friends in high places went on a cycling tour of Invisible Colleges throughout Britain. (pp. 63-65)

***

I'd be interested to hear from fans of Micallef who read this book. I haven't really seen any of his sketch shows...only the odd episode of Talkin Bout Your Generation. I found that the humour in this seemed a bit forced at times and I got pretty confused ;-) Maybe I'm just not used to his comic style?

My Rating: 3/5

Aussie Author Challenge 2011

2011-01-02T15:41:00.007+08:00

I had so much fun taking part in the Aussie Author Challenge 2010 hosted by Booklover Book Reviews that I've decided to join in again this year! Last year I completed the FAIR DINKUM level (8 books by Australian authors) on the 28th December just a few days short of the 31st December deadline.

And just quickly because I'm being lazy and combining my 2010 completion post with my 2011 sign-up...

For the 2010 Challenge, I read:

Avoiding Mr Right by Anita Heiss
Rhubarb by Craig Silvey
The Second-last Woman in England by Maggie Joel
True Spirit: The Aussie Girl who Took on the World by Jessica Watson
The Past and Other Lies by Maggie Joel
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn
The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland

2011 Aussie Author Challenge

This year I'm aiming for TRUE BLUE level. This means I need to read and review 12 books by Australian authors (at least 9 different authors) by 31 December 2011.

I'm yet to put together a complete list of books I'm wanting to read as part of this year's challenge...but I do know that my first book will be Preincarnate by Shaun Micallef as I just started it ;-)

Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

2010-12-31T11:36:00.001+08:00

I just wanted to share a few books I'm eagerly anticipating in 2011...

January

Pictured above:

Caroline by Cornelius Medvei (CCV)
The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards (Thorndike Press)
A Man in Uniform by Kate Taylor (Crown Publishing)

February

Pictured above:

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Knopf)
A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley (Flavia de Luce #3)
Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress (Little Brown)

March

Pictured above:

Five Bells by Gail Jones (CCV)

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen (Bantam)
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht (Random House)

April

Pictured above:

The Novel in the Viola by Natasha Solomons (Hodder)
Valdez by Andrew Nicoll (Quercus)

2010 in Review

2010-12-30T22:33:00.002+08:00

The Best of 2010 in Books survey was thought up by Jamie at the Perpetual Page Turner. I've had heaps of fun remembering all the books I read this year. And wow! I didn't realise quite how many books I read this year until now ;-)

Best Book of 2010?

Sooo hard to pick just one! I’m going to cheat and name my favourites (in no particular order):

Strange Nervous Laughter by Bridget McNulty (see my review here)
Perfect Peace by Daniel Black (see my review here)
Room by Emma Donoghue (not reviewed on my blog)
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (see my review here)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (not reviewed on my blog)
The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley (see my review here)
Bloodroot by Amy Greene (see my review here)
The Good Mayor by Andrew Nicoll (see my review here)
Rhubarb by Craig Silvey (see my review here)
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (see my review here)
Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart (see my review here)
Eleven by Mark Watson (see my review here)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (see my review here)

Worst Book of 2010?

The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder (see my review here)

I'm not sure if I would call this the "worst" book. It's my only "did not finish" because it just wasn't for me!

Most Disappointing Book of 2010?

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich (see my review here)

Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2010?

Eleven by Mark Watson

Best series you discovered in 2010?

Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

Favorite new authors you discovered in 2010?

Amy Greene, Julia Stuart, Bridget McNulty, Daniel Black, Andrew Nicoll

Most hilarious read of 2010?

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart

Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2010?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Book you most anticipated in 2010?

Room by Emma Donoghue

Favorite cover of a book you read in 2010?

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzeu (see my review here)

The Good Mayor by Andrew Nicoll

Most memorable character in 2010?

Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Flavia de Luce from The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

Jack Rosenblum from Mr Rosenblum's List

Most beautifully written book in 2010?

Rhubarb by Craig Silvey (see my review here)

Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2010?

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn (see my review here) I'm still recovering ;-)

Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2010 to finally read?

Botchan by Natsume Soseki (see my review here)

And now for the nerdy stuff...

In 2010, I read 91 books by 81 different authors. 72% of these authors were 'new to me'.

I posted 67 reviews.

And because everyone loves pie charts, here are a few pictorial breakdowns of 2010...

I really need to thank Joanne from Booklover Book Reviews for hosting the Aussie Author Challenge...or else I'm sure I wouldn't have read as many books by Aussie authors! Maybe next year I should aim for even more (note to self: sign up for the 2011 Challenge!).

And this one really shocked me! Look at the tiny slice of pie for non-fiction :-O I think my New Year's Resolution will have to be to read more non-fiction!! Any recommendations?

Judging by the next picture, I guess it's safe to say that I support my local library ;-) I should probably read more books from my shelves as they're bursting! I know there's a challenge with this purpose somewhere out there...

Only 8 books received 5/5. But I was much more generous with 4s and 4.5s. One book was a DNF so effectively 0/5.

An overwhelming 36% of all the books I read this year were new releases published in 2010. I would like to read more classics next year!

So that's my 2010! If I get time tomorrow I'd like to share with you some of the 2011 new releases I'm most looking forward to!

The Mary Smokes Boys

2010-12-28T11:09:00.000+08:00

The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland

Grey's mother dies giving birth to his sister Irene and the tragedy haunts his life in the small town of Mary Smokes. Grey prays that his mother will be returned to him in some form, so he might protect her from the world as his father did not. This prayer, Grey believes is answered in his sister Irene. He becomes obsessed with protecting her purity and innocence.Also with his mother gone and his father turned to drink, Grey begins running with the wild boys, horse-handlers and fox hunters and part-time timber workers - members of a small, vanishing tribe who find themselves caught between an old relationship with place and a new one that is exemplified by the highway that threatens their town. A rash gamble by Grey and Irene's broken father means he and the Mary Smokes boys must steal horses to ensure Irene's safety. The consequences seem set to fall on Greys' closest friend, 'Ook' Eccleston. As Grey's, Eccleston's and Irene's lives are put at stake his allegiances falter and the world of Mary Smokes slips into a heightened state of darkness and threat. (description from angusrobertson.com.au)

My Review

This haunting, sleepless little novel was such a surprise!

Grey North's mother dies giving birth to his sister, Irene when he is just 10 years old. After that the North children effectively lose their father to alcohol and apathy. They make do because they have each other. Grey cares for his younger sister in a doting, possessive manner and takes on an almost fatherly role. Grey also find family in a sleepless tribe of young "wild" boys who roam Mary Smokes at night setting fires, spooking and stealing horses and congregating around Mary Smokes Creek. When Grey's alcoholic father loses a bet and finds himself owing seven thousand dollars, there is a serious threat to Irene's safety. Grey has to employ his wild brothers to help him out. And as the suspense builds, it's apparent that this decision will have dire consequences for all involved.

All the characters in this novel are lost and a little defeated. Time seems to be standing still for the boys. They dream of leaving Mary Smokes and going to the city but know they will never leave. Mary Smokes seems like its own little world in which they are trapped and forgotten about by the outside world. You can't help but be drawn into this world, complete with their hopelessness and vulnerability.

Mary Smokes is a sleepy little town in the Brisbane Valley in which the "world was uninterested". Holland's description of the landscape is just amazing. The Mary Smokes Creek is portrayed so vividly that it's kind of like another character, a powerful presence in the lives of the wild Mary Smokes boys. So when the Mary Smokes Creek dries up, it is with a sense of foreboding that nothing can ever be the same again for Grey and the boys.

"Then one day late in May, a wind came and blew the long summer away for good. The wind came out of the nland and blew mares' tails across the sky and swept and yellowed the grass and banished the rains so the rivers and creeks became still and then dry, and then the lake receded and left flats of cracking clay. A mist rose up from the dry bed of Mary Smokes Creek like the ghost of water and drifted through the eucalypts of the gallery. The old men said the creek had dried earlier than ever this year. And as suddenly as these changes in the weather, a day came when Irene did not wait for him at the school gate." (p162)

This book has been described as Australian Gothic and I'd have to agree that it is dark, desperate and quite depressing. But Holland has written a novel that portrays life in a small, isolated town and the Australian landscape in a way this is beautiful, moving and very powerful. This is a novel that will haunt you for a long time after reading it.

***

With his mother gone Grey knew he did not belong to any family. So his thoughts turned to the wild boys of town, who could be found at any hour of the night, for they had no careful guardians.

He had watched them every night since his mother's death, walking through land that was not theirs by any title, yet they claimed it as the last ones awake when the dark enfeebled all man's claims.

Grey imagined the nights of the wild boys charged with secret meaning. Such was their deliberateness in walking to the water, away from the world. So when all the lights in the house were out and his sister had stopped crying, Grey stepped quietly out of his room and buttoned his duffel coat and left by the back door. (p31)

***

Patrick Holland is definitely an Aussie author I'll be watching. For anyone who's interested - theres's an interview in which Patrick Holland talks about The Mary Smokes Boys over at readings.com.au.

My Rating: 4/5

Merry Christmas + Giveaway Winner

2010-12-24T22:00:00.005+08:00

photo by errrrrrrrrika

Merry Christmas everyone!

I know I've been extremely slack lately about posting my reviews...but I've been caught up in the end-of-year rush. The pile of books to reviewed is soooo huge that I don't know whether I'll ever catch up ;-) But I promise to get back into the swing of things after Christmas...so you can expect some more reviews then!

And now without further ado...onto the winner of my holiday giveaway. Thanks to random.org, the winner of the $45 CSN Stores voucher is:

Domestic Diva

Congrats! And thanks to everyone who entered and tweeted this giveaway. Domestic Diva, I'll arrange for your prize to be sent through to you!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: A Red Herring Without Mustard, The Lake of Dreams and Bleakly House

2010-12-15T06:00:00.001+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I have 3 "waiting on" picks this week!

A Red Herring without Mustard

by Alan Bradley

(3rd March 2011)

'You frighten me,' the Gypsy said. 'Never have I seen my crystal ball so filled with darkness.' So begins eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce's third adventure through the charming but deceptively dark byways of the village of Bishop's Lacey. What the fortune teller in fact claimed to see was a vision of Flavia's mother, Harriet, who died on a mountainside in Tibet when Flavia was less than a year old. 'She's trying to come home,' the old woman intones. 'And she needs your help.' For Flavia, the old gypsy's words open up old wounds and new possibilities - not all of them nice ones. Is she a faker, motivated by the fact that the rom used to camp in the grounds of Buckshaw until Flavia's father turned them off, with tragic results? Or is there some truth to her powers, and the message she brings back from the other side? And when the village is rocked by another ghastly murder, how will a growing fascination with gypsy lore help Flavia to solve it? (description from The Book Depository)

If you've been following my blog for some time you'll know that I'm a huge fan of the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley! This is the third in the series, coming after The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (see my review here) and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (see my review here). If you haven't read these books you really should...now! I can't wait for this one!!!

The Lake of Dreams

by Kim Edwards

(4th January 2011)

At a crossroads in her life, Lucy Jarrett returns home from Japan, only to find herself haunted by her father's unresolved death a decade ago. Old longings stirred up by Keegan Fall, a local glass artist who was once her passionate first love, lead her into the unexpected. Late one night, as she paces the hallways of her family's rambling lakeside house, she discovers, locked in a window seat, a collection of objects that first appear to be useless curiosities, but soon reveal a deeper and more complex family past. As Lucy discovers and explores the traces of her lineage00from an heirloom tapestry and dusty political tracts to a web of allusions depicted in stained-glass windows throughout upstate New York-the family story she has always known is shattered, Lucy's quest for the truth reconfigures her family's history, links her to a unique slice of the suffragette movement, and yields dramatic insights that embolden her to live freely. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

Bleakly Hall

by Elaine di Rollo

(10th February 2011)

Monty and Ada are old friends. They worked together on the frontline in Belgium, where Monty was a nurse and Ada drove ambulances - like the devil. And now, Bleakly Hall hydropathic has brought them together again. Monty has just arrived to look after the gouty residents - there to take the Hall's curative waters via nozzle, douche and jet - and Ada is the maid and driver. For all those at Bleakly, the end of the Great War has brought changes. Not all of them good. Monty has a score to settle with the elusive Captain Foxley; Ada misses her wartime sense of purpose; the Blackwood brothers must reinvigorate Bleakly for a new era; Foxley has his own particular ways of keeping his ghosts at bay. But with the crumbling, rumbling hydropathic threatening to blow its top, what will become of the folk thrown together in its bilious embrace? This wonderfully original novel brings together an irresistible cast of characters - including Bleakly Hall itself - in the wake of one of history's great tragedies. To powerful effect, it combines fizzing comedy with a deeply moving look at the aftermath of war. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

I recently read A Proper Education for Girls (see my review here) by Elaine di Rollo and quite enjoyed it. This one sounds really interesting and a bit different...just like A Proper Education for Girls.

In My Mailbox 40

2010-12-12T10:00:00.000+08:00

Have you entered my giveaway?

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Books received this week:

The Mary Smokes Boys

by Patrick Holland

Grey's mother dies giving birth to his sister Irene and the tragedy haunts his life in the small town of Mary Smokes. Grey prays that his mother will be returned to him in some form, so he might protect her from the world as his father did not. This prayer, Grey believes is answered in his sister Irene. He becomes obsessed with protecting her purity and innocence.Also with his mother gone and his father turned to drink, Grey begins running with the wild boys, horse-handlers and fox hunters and part-time timber workers - members of a small, vanishing tribe who find themselves caught between an old relationship with place and a new one that is exemplified by the highway that threatens their town. A rash gamble by Grey and Irene's broken father means he and the Mary Smokes boys must steal horses to ensure Irene's safety. The consequences seem set to fall on Greys' closest friend, ?Ook' Eccleston. As Grey's, Eccleston's and Irene's lives are put at stake his allegiances falter and the world of Mary Smokes slips into a heightened state of darkness and threat. (description from angusrobertson.com.au)

The Empress of Ice Cream

by Anthony Capella

FRANCE 1670. Carlo Demirco's mastery of the extraordinary new art of creating ice creams has brought him wealth, women, and a position at the court of Louis XIV. Then Carlo is sent to London, along with Louise de Keroualle, an impoverished lady-in-waiting. The most powerful ministers of two countries have decided that Louise is to be Charles II's new mistress, and will stop at nothing to make sure she submits. But Carlo too is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchwoman.With the king's every pleasure the subject of plots and betrayals, and Carlo's only weapons his exquisite ice creams, soon he must decide ...Where do his loyalties lie? (description from The Book Depository)

The Lessons

by Naomi Alderman

Hidden away in an Oxford back street is a crumbling Georgian mansion, unknown to any but the few who possess a key to its unassuming front gate. Its owner is the mercurial, charismatic Mark Winters, whose rackety trust-fund upbringing has left him as troubled and unpredictable as he is wildly promiscuous. Mark gathers around him an impressionable group of students: glamorous Emmanuella, who always has a new boyfriend in tow; Franny and Simon, best friends and occasional lovers; and, musician Jess, whose calm exterior hides passionate depths. And James, already damaged by Oxford and looking for a group to belong to. For a time they live in a charmed world of learning and parties and love affairs. But university is no grounding for adult life, and when, years later, tragedy strikes they are entirely unprepared. Universal in its themes of ambition, desire and betrayal, this spellbinding novel reflects the truth that the lessons life teaches often come too late. (description from The Book Depository)

Holiday Giveaway: WIN a $45 gift certificate!

2010-12-12T09:03:00.000+08:00

The folks at CSN Stores have kindly offered another $45 voucher for one of my readers to spend at any of the 200+ online CSN stores where you can find everything from tv tables to fantastic fitness equipment to cookware!

So, have a look at their stores and get thinking about what you would spend $45 on. Check out their great Christmas catalogue. I love the way it's arranged by the type of person you're buying for such as "pet parent" and "globetrotter"...makes finding presents easy!

You might like to check out their bookshelves and cute bookends at their Allbookshelves.com store:

Or, get your pet into the Christmas spirit with a xmas cat scratcher , yuletide sweater or red and white rawhide candy canes!

Or, you could put it towards something a little bit more expensive. Such as a set of classic book boxes or this fantastic kids reading rug:

To enter: Simply leave a comment before 5pm (EDT, Australia), Thursday 23rd December and let me know what YOU would buy at the CSN stores if you were the winner of the $45 voucher. I'll be announcing the winner on my blog the next day...Christmas Eve! So someone will be in for an early Christmas present :-)

Please note: this is only open to the US and Canada. Don't forget to leave some way for me to contact you if you're the winner!

I'd love help in promoting this giveaway so please feel free to blog/tweet about it! I'll even give you an additional entry if you let me know in the comments that you've promoted this giveaway in some way.

I received no monetary compensation, products or services for this post. CSN Stores contacted me to host this giveaway.

Sweet Misfortune

2010-12-11T22:45:00.000+08:00

Sweet Misfortune by Kevin Alan Milne

Sophie Jones has had more than her share of misfortune. Orphaned young by a fatal car accident, her life has been the definition of tragedy and every time she tries to move forward, her past drags her back. Her one consolation is discovering she's not alone when she whips up a batch of Misfortune Cookies that become a surprise hit with customers at her chocolate shop. She's not depressed, just realistic and her luck seems true to form when Garrett Black walks into her shop as a birthday surprise. It's been almost a year since he broke off their engagement with no explanation and disappeared. Now he wants to explain but she proposes something else - Garrett is to take out a want add in the local paper seeking sustainable happiness. When he gets 100 acceptable responses, she'll go out on one last date and hear him out. Sophie knows he has no chance of winning but she doesn't count on his determination, or that the media picks up on the ad, causing it to go viral. Soon her PO box is flooded and in the midst of the overwhelming response and the impact it has on those around her, Sophie might have to concede that happiness isn't always fleeting. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

Sophia Maria Jones (Sophie) lost her parents and grandmother in a horrific car accident when she was 9 years old. Twenty years later, Sophie still blames herself for the accident and thinks she'll never find true and lasting happiness...until she meets Garrett Black and falls in love. But when Garrett dumps her before their wedding with no explanation, Sophie accepts that there is to be no happy ending in her life. Then Garret appears again asking for the chance to go on a date and explain his actions. Sophie agrees to a date...on one condition...he must place an ad in the paper asking for people to send in suggestions on what constitutes true happiness. When there are 100 valid responses (and Sophie is a VERY tough judge) she will go on the date.

When Garrett dumps Sophie she starts making Misfortune Cookies at her chocolate shop in his honour. The fortune cookies dipped in bitter chocolate become a surprise hit. Inside each cookie is a "misfortune" with pessimistic messages dreamed up by Sophie such as "the one you love is closer than you think...if you were smart, you'd start running" and "the world may be your oyster, but your oyster lacks the pearl". Each chapter starts with a misfortune that cleverly links in with the story. It was actually the misfortune cookie on the front cover that had me intrigued and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to read this book ;-)

Sophie is a very negative and cynical character. She's given up on happiness and believes her life is one big misfortune. I know she had a tragic childhood, but at times I struggled to understand the way in which she treated her friends and family. I guess I didn't really connect with her.

This book is about happiness and unhappiness, fortune and misfortune, tragedies and happy endings, and bitter and sweet. Milne weaves some unexpected twists into this cute tale of redemption (with a side serving of peanut-butter truffles).

This was quite a quick read...Not too deep, but a bit of fun even if it was a little sappy sweet.

*****

Sophie grunted when she saw the ad halfway down the second column, just below a notice that someone was giving away kittens. She tried hard to force a frown, but found resistance in the form of a smile that kept playing at the corner of her mouth as she read, and then reread, the want ad.

Wanted: Happiness
Please help me find
what I've lost. Send
suggestions to PO Box
3297, TACOMA, WA
98402 (Lasting hap-
piness only, please.
Nothing that fleets.)

"Garrett Black," she said aloud, shaking her head while her lips still fluxed between grimace and grin. "Don't get your hopes up. Everything fleets." (p. 52)

*****

At the end of the novel there's a cute little note asking readers to e-mail in their views on lasting happiness for the author to share on his blog: http://kevinamilne.blogspot.com/

My Rating: 3.5/5

Blossoms and Shadows

2010-12-07T23:06:00.000+08:00

Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn

This is the story of the birth of modern Japan, told by Tsuru, a young woman who breaks every stereotype of the Japanese lady. We meet her on the day of her sister's wedding, and soon realise that she will not accept the same domestic role that her sister is about to take on. Instead, Tsuru is ready to embrace the new world, defend her beliefs, look for love, and follow her career as a doctor working alongside her husband on the battlefields. In the mid 1860s Japan was in the grip of a revolution almost as tumultuous as the French Revolution 100 years earlier, yet we in the West know very little about it. This book lets readers feel they are there among the revolutionaries, guided by the engaging character of Tsuru. By the end of the first chapter readers will feel they know her, and want to fight with her as she battles against the conventions of the day and falls into a forbidden love. (description from borders.com.au)

My Review

As a fan of the Tales of the Otori series, I was excited to hear that Lian Hearn (actually Aussie author Gillian Rubinstein using a pseudonym) was writing another Japanese novel. Blossoms and Shadows stands alone from the Otori books and is set much later in the years leading up to the Meiji Restoration in 1868. See my Waiting On post for more information about the Otori series.

This novel has a mixture of both fictional and historical characters such as Yoshida Shoin and Takasugi Shinsaku. The story is told from the point of view of fictional main character Tsuru, a young woman who dreams of one day practising medicine equally alongside her father and husband. Tsuru struggles with her identity and role as she faces civil war, love and the "shadow of an unknown future".

The story is set in the final years (1857-67) of the Tokugawa regime in Japan and documents a time of great political and social change in the lead up to the birth of modern Japan as we now know it. Feudal society in Japan was under pressure from both internal and external sources (Western nations and the forced opening of Japan's ports). Tsuru finds herself mixing with anti-Tokugawa ronin, nobility and merchants when she follows her doctor husband to the battlefields. This story focuses on the clan of Choshu, a major player in the eventual downfall of the Shogunate.

This literary historical fiction is VERY detailed and this makes it quite a commitment to get through. At time it's quite heavy and this is sometimes at the expense of the characters. My study of Japanese history is mainly of the Meiji era and to tell the truth, I did not know very much about the lead-up and I found myself a little lost at times.

But this is such an interesting story which is made even more interesting due to the fact that it is based on the real events. I had no idea just how complex the Meiji Restoration actually was and I think Lian Hearn has done an impressive job blending history and fiction into an enjoyable read. I would recommend this book to Japanese history aficionados and those dedicated to "sticking it out".

***

Father had presented Makino with new formal robes for the occasion: hakama, kimono and haori. I was still too shy to look at my bridegroom directly, but in my quick sidelong glances I thought he was really quite handsome.

I was wearing a white kimono for daughters are dressed like the dead, to symbolise their departure from their birth family.

'But I'm not leaving you,' I said to Mother as she dressed me. 'I should not have to wear white.'

Yet we all know that marriage is a kind of death: the end of girlhood.

Most of the guests were crammed into our main room and had already started drinking toasts and talking loudly when we heard the sound of horses outside. Everyone fell silent as my father rushed to welcome the headman, Yoshitomi Tobei, and his companion, obviously a man of some importance, whom I did not immediately recognise.

'It is Lord Sufu,' O-Kiyo whispered in my ear. 'What an honour to you and your husband. But fancy him riding on a day like today!'

I glanced at Makino and saw he had gone even paler with excitement. Both he and I lowered our heads to the floor as Lord Sufu Masanosuke was shown to the place of honour before the alcove. Here Father had hung his most prized painting, a work by Tanomura Chikuden called Fragrant Plum Blossoms, Unknown Shadow, which he had been given years before when he was working in Kyushu.

Lord Sufu gave the painting his full attention for a few moments, and then nodded in approval. After accepting a bowl of sake and drinking deeply he said, 'A most beautiful painting, and very appropriate, for your plum blossom is indeed in the shadown of an unknown future.' He held out his bowl for O-Kiyo to fill (she of course knew him well from the Hanamatsutei), and drank again, then said as if to himself, 'As are we all.' (pp. 108-109)

***

Check out this interview with Lian Hearn over at The Australian Literature Review. It sounds like she's now planning a book set in Japan in the 1880s...one to look out for!

My Rating: 3.5/5

Literary Blog Hop

2010-12-02T20:40:00.000+08:00

The Literary Blog Hop is hosted at The Blue Bookcase.

This week's topic is: What is your favourite poem and why?

Well, I had a good long think about this one and there are so many poems I love that it was so hard to choose just one. But I had to choose The Highwayman!

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

...it's quite long! You can read the entire poem at Wikisource. Or listen to a reading by Macleish Day below:

This poem was originally published in 1906.

I LOVE the rhythm and repetition - it's so cleverly done that you can actually hear the highwayman come riding - riding -riding!

Noyes' narrative poem tells such a sad story filled with love and betrayal. I remember the very first time I heard this poem was when a teacher read it to the class and I was enthralled by it!

I always remember the beautiful line "the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas". There's some fantastic imagery throughout this poem.

What's your favourite poem?

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Goodnight Tweetheart

2010-12-01T21:36:00.007+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Goodnight Tweetheart

by Teresa Medeiros

(14 December 2010)

Abigail Donovan has a lot of stuff she should be doing. Namely writing her next novel. A bestselling author who is still recovering from a near Pulitzer Prize win and the heady success that follows Oprah's stamp of approval, she is stuck at Chapter Five and losing confidence daily. But when her publicist signs her up for a Twitter account, she's intrigued. What's all the fuss?

Taken under the wing of one of her Twitter followers, 'MarkBaynard" - a quick witted, quick-typing professor on sabbatical - Abby finds it easy to put words out into the world 140 characters at a time. And once she gets a handle on tweets, retweets, direct messages, hashtags, and trends, she starts to feel unblocked in writing and in life. After all, why should she be spending hours in her apartment staring at her TweetDeck and fretting about her stalled career when Mark is out there traveling the world and living?

Or is he?

Told almost entirely in tweets and DMs, Goodnight Tweetheart is a truly modern take on a classic tale of love and loss - a Griffin and Sabine for the Twitter generation. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

I think this sounds really interesting. A love story told in 140 characters ;-)

I'm yet to jump on the Twitter bandwagon myself...I got as far as registering a Twitter account and then chickened out!

In My Mailbox 39

2010-11-28T11:45:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Books received this week:

Sweet Misfortune

by Kevin Alan Milne

Sophie Jones has had more than her share of misfortune since being orpahned young and every time she tries to move forward, her past drags her back. She bakes up a batch of Misfortune Cookies for her chocolate shop that become a surprise hit with customers who seem to identify with her mottos, even if they don't exactly lift the spirits. Her luck seems to be running true to form when Garret Black walks back into her shop, almost a year after he broke their engagement and disappeared with no explanation. When he reacts with surprise and dismay to her Misfortune Cookies, she sees an opportunity to dodge the conversation he seems to want and suggests he take out a want ad in the local paper seeking sustainable happiness. When he gets a hundred responses she deems acceptable she'll go out on one last date and hear him out. Sophie knows he has no chance of winning but she doesn't count on his determination or that the media will pick up on the ad, causing it to go viral. Soon her PO box is flooded and in the midst of the overwhelming response and the impact it has on those around her, Sophie might have to concede that happiness isn't always fleeting. (description from The Book Depository)

Hand Me Down World

by Lloyd Jones

This is a story about a woman. And the truck driver who mistook her for a prostitute. The old man she robbed and the hunters who smuggled her across the border. The woman whose name she stole, the wife who turned a blind eye. This is the story of a mother searching for her child. This is a novel you cannot stop thinking about. (description from The Book Depository)

The Dark Vineyard

by Martin Walker

Just before dawn one summer morning Bruno is summoned by the wail of the siren in the little town of St Denis in the Perigord. A fire is raging in a local barn and spreading to the surrounding fields. When Bruno arrives at the scene, the smell of petrol leaves no doubt - it was arson. Meanwhile, a Californian producer wants to set up a wine-making business in the valley. Despite the money and jobs this would bring, many fear it would destroy their town. When a violent death follows the crop burning, it looks as though someone is prepared to do anything to stop the scheme. Bruno will have to draw on all his local knowledge to reach the truth. (description from The Book Depository)

2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge

2010-11-28T10:43:00.000+08:00

I'm joining my first reading challenge for 2011!

The 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block and runs from Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2011.

From the challenge page:

Introducing: The 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge. A challenge for all you mystery lovers out there who already love mysteries from the years prior to 1960 and also anyone who's ever thought, "I should give Agatha Christie (Dorothy L Sayers...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...etc) a try."

Here are the rules:

*All books must have been written before 1960 and be from the mystery category.

*Some suggested authors include: Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers, Earl Derr Biggers, Georgette Heyer, Edmund Crispin, Cyril Hare, Ellery Queen, Elizabeth Daly, Cyril Hare, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ngaio Marsh, S. S. Van Dine, Philip MacDonald, Rex Stout, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Josephine Bell, Josephine Tey, Frances & Richard Lockridge, Michael Innes and Stuart Palmer. (Please remember that some of these authors published after 1960 as well--so keep an eye on the original copyright date.)

I'm signing up for the In a Murderous Mood level: 4-6 Books.

I'm planning to read No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer (1939) and Envious Casca (1941) which have been sitting on my shelf unread for quite some time now! I've never read anything by Ngaio Marsh so the other 2 books I read might be by her - does anyone have any suggestions of which ones to start with?

Bruno, Chief of Police

2010-11-24T21:00:00.000+08:00

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

Captain Bruno Courreges goes by the grand title of Chief of Police, though in truth he's the only municipal policeman on staff in the small town of St Denis in the beautiful Perigord region of south west France. Bruno sees his job as protecting St Denis from its enemies, and these include the capital's bureaucrats and their EU counterparts in Brussels. Today is market day in the ancient town. Inspectors from Brussels have been swooping on France's markets, attempting to enforce EU hygiene rules. The locals call the Brussels' bureaucrats Gestapo' and Bruno supports their resistance. What's more, here in what was Vichy France, words like Gestapo' and resistance' still carry a profound resonance. When an old man, head of an immigrant North African family, is found murdered, suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, found in flagrante playing sex games surrounded by Nazi paraphernalia. But Bruno isn't convinced, and suspects this crime may have its roots in that most tortured period of recent French history - the Second World War, a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you'll probably have noticed by now that I'm a sucker for stories set in rural French villages with their eccentric, quirky characters. And this book combines this with my other love - a good murder mystery.

Benoit 'Bruno' Courreges is the Chief of Police in small village, St Denis. In fact, he's the only police officer! His daily tasks include protecting the locals from fines from the EU hygiene inspectors and teaching training the village's young boys in rugby. That is, until a gruesome murder quickly interrupts the idyllic village life in St Denis and Bruno finds himself working alongside the National Police and Gendarmes who have been sent in to investigate this serious crime expecting that the village doesn't have the resources to deal with it. But Bruno finds his local knowledge and relationships with the villagers useful as he tries to uncover the mystery...

I can't help but think that Bruno sounds a little too perfect ;-) He's loved by all the locals, an amazing cook, and he built his own house. I'm hoping we learn some more about him in the other books in the series. I love the description of him in the first few pages:

"He wore no heavy belt with its attachments of holster and pistol, handcuffs and flashlight, keys and notebook, and all the other burdens that generally weigh down every policeman in France. There would doubtless be a pair of ancient handcuffs somewhere in the jumble of his van, but Bruno had long forgotten where he had put the key...The van's glove compartment held a notebook and some pens, but the notebook was currently full of various recipes, the minutes of the last tennis club meeting (which he had yet to type up on the temperamental old office computer that he distrusted) and a list of the names and phone numbers of the minimes, the young boys who had signed up for his rugby training class". (p. 2)

But don't be fooled - this is not just a "cozy" mystery - The story picks up pace and racial tensions rise in St Denis leading to a dark conclusion with links back to the German occupation in WWII. Although the twists in the mystery were kind of obvious, I found I got an unexpected history lesson along the way.

Author Martin Walker has worked for an international news agency and covered the Paris riots in November 2005. He's written a number of non-fiction books: The Cold War, The President we Deserve and America Reborn: A Twentieth-Century Narrative in Twenty-Six Lives. But you really get the sense from reading this book that Walker loves the Perigord region and the French lifestyle.

***

'Any sign of them, Marie?' he asked. 'They hit the market at St Alvere yesterday so they are in the region.'

'Not last night, Bruno. Just the usual guys staying from the museum project and a Spanish truck driver,' replied Marie, who ran the small hotel by the station. 'But remember, after last time they were here and found nothing, I heard them talking about renting a car in Perigueux to put you off the scent. Bloody Gestapo!

Bruno, whose loyalty was to his local community and its mayor rathen than to the nominal laws of France, particularly when they were really laws of Brussels, played a constant cat-and-mouse game with the inspectors from the European Union who were charged with enforcing EU hygiene rules on the markets of France. Hygiene was all very well, but the locals of the Commune of St Denis had been making their cheeses and their pate de foie gras and their rillettes de porc for centuries before the EU was even heard of, and did not take kindly to foreign bureaucrats telling them what they could and could not sell. Along with other members of the Police Municipale in the region, Bruno had established a complex early warning scheme to alert the market vendors to their visits. (pp.5-6)

***

I was excited to hear that this is the first in a series. And I'm sure I'll be returning for more of the delightful Bruno!

The Dark Vineyard (Book #2)

Black Diamond (Book #3)

If you're interested in this book you should spend some time exploring the great Bruno webpage and blog.

My Rating: 4.5/5

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Caroline

2010-11-24T05:00:00.000+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Caroline

by Cornelius Medvei

(January 6, 2011)

Mr Shaw works for an insurance company, at a desk, in an office, in a city. One year, during his family summer holiday, his world is turned upside down when he meets Caroline. Caroline, whose eyes a man could drown in. Caroline, who likes a spring onion or two. Caroline, who is in fact a donkey. To the outrage of his neighbours and the quiet bemusement of his wife, he walks her back to the city, builds her a stable and spends the evenings encouraging her talent for playing chess. She accompanies him to his office, charms his colleagues, earns a very positive annual appraisal and is missed more than her master when he retires. Most importantly, Caroline has reawoken something in Mr Shaw that had seemed lost, some appetite for life and its possibilities, and a sense of the extraordinary that lives within the everyday. But can this idyll last? Are chess, radish tops and trips to the museum enough to nourish a relationship? Or despite the love lavished on her, does Caroline secretly yearn for broader horizons? (description from The Book Depository)

In My Mailbox 38

2010-11-14T06:00:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Books received this week:

Ilustrado

by Miguel Syjuco

It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River - taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Missing, too, is the only manuscript of his final book - meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the corrupt roots of power behind the Filipino ruling families. His student, Miguel, investigates, journeying home from a city still in shock from terrorist attacks to a country caught between reckless decay and desperate progress. To understand his mentor's death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvador's trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a generations-long saga of revolution, familial duty, political intrigue, and a people's enduring struggle against their own worst tendencies. (description from The Book Depository)

Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

Latin terrorists storm an international gathering hosted by an underprivileged country to promote foreign interest and trade, only to find that their intended target, the President, has stayed home to watch his favourite soap opera on TV. Among the hostages are a world class opera singer and her biggest fan, a Japanese tycoon who has been persuaded to attend the party on the understanding that she will perform half a dozen arias after dinner. The tycoon's engaging and sympathetic translator plays a vital role in the subsequent relationships between so many different nationalities closeted together, interpreting not only the terrorists' negotiations but also the language of love between lovers who cannot understand what the other is saying. Ultimately, it is the terrorist strike that does more to promote foreign relations than anyone could have hoped to achieve with the party. (description from The Book Depository)

The Magic Toyshop

by Angela Carter

'This crazy world whirled around her, men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets, where even the birds are mechanical and the few human figures went masked...She was in the night once again, and the doll was herself.' Melanie walks in the midnight garden, wearing her mother's wedding dress; naked she climbs the apple tree in the black of the moon. Omens of disaster, swiftly following, transport Melanie from rural comfort to London, to the Magic Toyshop. To the red-haired, dancing Finn, the gentle Francie, dumb Aunt Margaret and Uncle Phillip. Francie plays curious night music, Finn kisses fifteen-year-old Melanie in the mysterious ruins of the pleasure gardens. Brooding over all is Uncle Philip: Uncle Philip, with blank eyes the colour of wet newspaper, making puppets the size of men, and clockwork roses. He loves his magic puppets, but hates the love of man for woman, boy for girl, brother for sister... (description from The Book Depository)

Now I'm off to see what everyone else got!!

The Distant Hours

2010-11-13T15:01:00.000+08:00

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

From the international bestselling author of "The House at Riverton" and "The Forgotten Garden" comes a brand new tale of love, mystery, betrayal and dark secrets...Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Millderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret. Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl, Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Millderhurst Castle with the Blythe family: Juniper, her twin sisters and their father, Raymond. In the grand and glorious Millderhurst Castle, a new world opens up for Edie's mother. She discovers the joys of books and fantasy and writing, but also, ultimately, the dangers. Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother's riddle, she, too, is drawn to Millderhurst Castle and the eccentric Sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiance in 1941 plunged her into madness. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Millderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it... (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

It's a rare book that can keep me up until 1am...I love my sleep too much for that ;-) But last night I found myself totally engrossed in The Distant Hours! I've loved Morton's previous novels, The Shifting Fog (The House at Riverton) and The Forgotten Garden, so I sort of knew before picking this one up that I wouldn't be able to put it down!

The Distant Hours was everything that I had hope it would be...and more! It had all the elements that make a great mystery: a gothic castle, family secrets, a literary mystery, and tragic love. It kind of reminded me of another book that I absolutely love: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. But I really don't want to give anything away...the summary above is more than enough!

I've heard some people saying that the length (500 pages) was a bit off-putting...but I enjoyed every second of it because Kate Morton's prose is so descriptive and really brings her characters and Milderhurst Castle to life.

The "book within the book" in the form of Raymond Blythe's The True History of the Mud Man is done so well. Am I the only one who really wants to read The True History of the Mud Man now?! Morton should totally publish it ;-) But what I love about The Distant Hours is that it celebrates the written word. And as a librarian, a little part of me swelled with pride at this quote: "it's the librarian's sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader".

Highly recommended!

***

Her dress was incredible, the sort you expect to see in films about wealthy debutantes before the war, or hidden on the racks of up-market charity shops. It was organza, the palest of pink, or it had been once, before time and grime had got busy, laying their fingers all over it. Sheets of tulle supported the full skirt, pushing it out as it fell away from her tiny waist, wide enough for the netted hemline to rustle against the walls when she moved.

We stood facing one another across the dulled corridor for what felt like a very long time. Finally, she moved. Slightly. Her arms had been hanging by her sides, resting on her skirt, and she lifted one a little, leading from the palm, a graceful movement as if an unseen thread stitched to her inner wrist had been plucked from the ceiling behind me.

....

She stopped only when she was close enough that I could smell the napthalene on her dress, the stale cigarette smoke on her breath. Her eyes searched mine, her voice was a whisper. 'Can you keep a secret?'

I nodded, which made her smile, too; the gap between her two front teeth was impossibly girlish. She took my hands in hers as if we were friends in the schoolyard, her palms were smooth and cool. 'I have a secret but I'm not supposed to tell.'

'Okay.'

She cupped her hand like a child and leaned in close, pressing it against my ear. Her breath tickled. 'I have a lover.' And when she pulled away her old lips formed a youthful expression of lustful excitement that was grotesque and sad and beautiful all at once. 'His name is Tom. Thomas Cavill, and he's asked me to marry him.'

The sadness I felt for her came upon me in a rush, almost too great to bear, as I realised she was stuck in the moment of her great disappointment. I longed for Percy to return so that our conversation might be ended.

'Promise you won't breathe a word of it?'

'I promise.'

'I've told him yes but shhh -' a finger pressed against her smiling lips - 'my sisters don't know yet. He's coming soon to have dinner.' She grinned, old lady teeth in a powder-smooth face. 'We're going to announce our engagement.'

I saw then that she wore something around her finger. Not a ring, not a real one. This was a crude impostor, silver but dull, lumpy, like a piece of aluminium foil rolled and pressed into shape.

'And then we're going to dance, dance, dance..."

(pp. 71-74)

***

And can I just say how much I adore the Aussie cover! It's just gorgeous. I've seen a few different covers for The Distant Hours online and this is by far the nicest.

You can find out more about Kate Morton in this recent article: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/gothic-delight/story-e6frg8n6-1225943628385

My Rating: 5/5

Botchan

2010-11-04T06:00:00.000+08:00

I'm excited to be participating in my first circuit tour. Today I'm reviewing Botchan as part of the Land of the Rising Sun: Meiji-era Japanese Literature over at The Classics Circuit.

Botchan by Sōseki Natsume

translated by Alan Turney

"Botchan" is a hilarious tale about a young man's rebellion in a country school. It is a classic of its kind, and has enjoyed a timeless popularity, making it, according to Donald Keene, "probably the most widely read novel in modern Japan". The setting is Japan's deep south, where the author himself spent four years teaching English in a middle school. Into this conservative world, with its social proprieties and established pecking order, breezes teacher Botchan, down from the big city, with scant respect for either his elders or his noisy young charges resulting in a chain of collisions large and small. Most of the story seems to occur in summer, against the drone of cicadas and the bite of mosquitoes. And, in every way this is a summer book - light, sunny, and fun to read. Here, in a lively new translation much better suited to the modern reader than its forebears, "Botchan" should continue to entertain future generations. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

It has been claimed that Botchan is the most widely read novel in modern Japan. And I can see why...it's pretty much the Japanese equivalent of Huckleberry Finn!

"Botchan" is the main character. Born in Tokyo and spoiled rotten his his family's housekeeper Kiyo, he suddenly has to find a job after his brother inherits the house and property upon their father's death. "Botchan" takes a post as a mathematics teacher at a middle school down in Shikoku. Botchan is impulsive and a little arrogant. The story follows Botchan as he clashes with the system and gets himself in and out of trouble, learning a lot about life along the way but holding fast to his morals.

Botchan gives all of his colleagues nicknames. The other teachers are Redshirt, the Badger, the Porcupine, and the Clown. The nicknames all very cleverly suit the characters. "Botchan", meaning "little darling" or "master darling", is actually the nickname given to the main character by the devoted housekeeper, Kiyo.

Soseki wrote Botchan in 1906. This was after his return from England and it was based on his own experiences as a teacher in Matsuyama. Written at a time when feudal Japan was coming to an end, Botchan faces westernization head-on by sticking to his strong morals. Alan Turney's introduction describes this well:

"...part of this attraction lies in the cavalier attitude with which Botchan breezes from one catastrophe to another. He is no respecter of person or convention, and this endears him as much to modern Japanese as it did to readers sixty-odd years ago, because even today, a Japanese can feel himself hedged in by social niceties."

Botchan is quite a simple little story. But Botchan's exploits are quite entertaining and you get an excellent picture of Japanese society at this time of great change in Japan's history.

Illustration by Hosokibara Seiki

***

I've always dreamed a lot ever since I was a child. I was often laughed at for suddenly sitting up in bed and babbling something in my sleep. Once, I remember, when I was about sixteen or seventeen, I dreamed I found a diamond. Then, sitting bolt upright, I started vehemently asking my brother, who was sleeping beside me, what he'd done with it. I was the laughing-stock of our family for three days and felt very embarrassed about the whole thing. In view of all this, it was possible that I'd dreamed everything up till now. I was positive, however, that the pupils had been making a noise.

I was standing in the middle of the corridor, mulling these things over in my mind, when suddenly from the end which was bathed in moonlight there came, "One, two, three..." And then, "Yahoooo!" from about thirty or forty throats. This was immediately followed by the same drumming sound as before, as they all stamped in time on the floorboards. So I had been right. It hadn't been a dream. "Be quiet!" I shouted in a voice as loud as any of theirs. "It's the middle of the night!" And I started to dash down the corridor.

...

I was now determined that I wasn't going to leave until I had dragged them out of their hiding places and made them apologize. With this in mind, I tried to open one of the dormitory doors to look inside, but I couldn't. I don't know whether it was locked or whether they'd set a desk or something up against it, but, however much I pushed, it wouldn't budge. I tried the dormitory opposite, on the north side of the corridor, but with the same result. While I was fuming and trying to get the door open to haul the kids out, another war whoop and more stamping of feet started up at the eastern end of the passage. "Oh, so it's a conspiracy, is it?" I thought. "The kids at the eastern end and the western end have got together to make a fool of me." This much I realized, but I didn't know what to do about it. To tell the truth, I have more courage than wisdom. I never know what to do at times like that. (pp. 56-58)

***

On a complete side note, this was the first time I’ve come across double leaf pages. All the pages in this double leaf (folded at the fore edge). This made the book look thicker than it actually was and I found myself speeding through it! I just consulted my "library" dictionary and it actually refers to this as the Chinese or Japanese style of binding and pages are not separately cut but instead a roll of paper is accordion-pleated. Well, I learnt something new today...

My Rating: 4/5

The Brave

2010-11-02T22:05:00.000+08:00

The Brave by Nicholas Evans

The motto of the boarding school to which Tommy Bedford is dispatched is Fortune Favours the Brave. It's 1959 and the school bristles with bullies and sadistic staff. Tommy, a quirky loner, obsessed with cowboys and Indians, needs all the bravery he can summon. Salvation comes when his glamorous actress sister is swept off to Hollywood by one of his heroes, TV cowboy Ray Montane. But with the Cold War looming, the sinister side of Tinseltown seeps through and Tommy and Diane soon find themselves in jeopardy. Forty years on, Tommy has to confront his boyhood ghosts when his own son finds himself charged with murder. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

I've been looking forward to this book for what seems like ages! This novel was postponed for two years due to the author's ongoing illness after eating poison mushrooms in 2008. I'm glad to hear he's okay, but having read his update on his webpage it sounds like he's had a hard road.

The very first scene of this book is thirteen-year-old Tommy saying goodbye to his mother before she is sent to the gas chamber for having committed murder. The story then flicks between two different periods in the main character's life. 1959 when Tommy Bedford is eight years old and sent by his parents to a boarding school, and 2009 when grown up Tom Bedford struggles to relate to his son Danny who is facing a possible court martial after returning from Iraq. I didn't have any troubles with the switching between the two time periods, but I must say that I engaged with young Tommy's story more than with older Tommy's.

This story is about family secrets. I don't want to reveal too much - but a secret is revealed and young Tommy finds his world turned upside-down and living a whole new almost "fairy tale" life. But as we see from the storyline following older Tom and his relationship with his estranged son, Danny...sometimes it takes a lot of bravery to revist our past and the secrets we carry with us through life.

I always love Nicholas Evans' descriptions of the landscape in his books. He presents two complete opposites; the Montana ranch (which sounds absolutely beautiful!) and the ugliness of Hollywood.

I can actually see a lot of Nicholas Evans in Tommy Bedford. In his website FAQs, he describes his love affair with the American West and it sounds exactly like he's describing his western-obsessed main character:

"But I have always had a love affair with America, especially the American West. As a boy, all I really ever did was play Cowboys and Indians. I was always the Indian and various unfortunate friends and my dear sister Sue used to get chased and shot at and tied to trees (amazingly, Sue still speaks to me). I was an addict for Westerns, whether it was books, movies or those corny old TV shows, whose theme tunes I can still hum. It wasn’t until I was almost twenty that I finally got to visit the West and, of course, I discovered that most of those TV shows had been shot on the backlot of some Hollywood studio. The real thing, the real country was so much bigger and more beautiful." (from nicholasevans.com)

***

His first few letters from Ashlawn has revealed almost nothing about how he was getting along. Diane remembered from her own boarding school how the new girls' letters were carefully monitored, so that parents wouldn't panic. You weren't allowed to say how miserable you were, how foul the food was, how horribly the teachers and the older girls treated you. Tommy's early letters from Ashlawn had the whiff of exactly that sort of censorship:

Dear Diane,
I hope you are well. I am fine. Today we played rugger. It was good fun. The food is okay [this last word crossed out and replaced, no doubt by decree, with all right]. Please ask Mum to send me some more 'Wagon Wheels' and 'Smarties' with as many different coloured tops as possible because we are all collecting them. Blue ones are best. I hope your rehearsals are going well.
Love, Tommy

But the letter that had arrived two days ago was altogether different. The writing was scrawled, almost desperate, and the message chillingly brief.

Dear Diane,
Please, PLEASE get Mum and Dad to take me away from here. I carnt stand it any longer. They are bullying me. PLEASE.
Love, Tommy

She knew he must somehow have managed to smuggle it out. Diane remembered bribing one of the school gardeners with a kiss to do the same.

***

You may recognise Nicholas Evans' name as being the author of The Horse Whisperer which was turned into a film in 1998, starring a young Scarlett Johansson.

He's written 3 other novels, which have not enjoyed the same hype as The Horse Whisperer. But I think they're just as good, perhaps even better! I love Evans' novels - they're beautiful, heartwarming/heartbreaking stories of man versus nature, life, death and relationships.

My Rating: 4/5

In My Mailbox 37

2010-10-31T11:59:00.015+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

A last minute library run yesterday meant I received two books this week!

The Sacred Place

by Daniel Black

I've been wanting to read other books by Daniel Black since reading his fantastic latest novel, Perfect Peace (read my review here). This one looks really good - it's set in the 50s and explores black-white relations in the American South.

Blossoms and Shadows

by Lian Hearn

Read my Blossoms and Shadows "Waiting On" post for more details about Lian Hearn's Otori Trilogy which is set in feudal Japan. This book looks like it stands alone from the Otori series about a young woman living through a time of great change in Japan - the birth of modern Japan. I'm looking forward to reading it as part of the Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

2010-10-31T11:58:00.000+08:00

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber

It is 1917 in the South Dakota Badlands, and summer has been hard. Fourteen years have passed since Rachel and Isaac DuPree left Chicago to stake a claim in this unforgiving land. Isaac, a former Buffalo Soldier, is fiercely proud: black families are rare in the West, and black ranchers even rarer. But it hasn't rained in months, the cattle bellow with thirst, and supplies are dwindling. Pregnant, and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband will never leave his ranch: land means a measure of equality with the white man, and Isaac DuPree is not about to give it up just because times are hard. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to do what is right - for her children, for her husband, and for herself. Moving and majestic, "The Personal History of Rachel DuPree" is an unforgettable novel about love and loyalty, homeland and belonging. Above all, it is the story of one woman's courage in the face of the most punishing adversity. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

Rachel DuPree is proud to be married to an ambitious man. Her marriage to Isaac DuPree was the result of a bargain so that Isaac would be able to claim more land in the South Dakota Badlands. They are one of the only black families with land. But 1917 sees a bad drought that sees the family with hardly any water and dwindling livestock. Rachel, who is 9 months pregnant, is desperate to leave the ranch and create a better life for her children. Her husband Isaac is determined to keep his land. When Isaac decides to go to the mines for the Winter, he asks Rachel to stay behind and run the ranch. Rachel is faced with a difficult decision.

Weisgarber describes the drought and the suffering of the DuPree family and their livestock in incredible (sometimes quite distressing) detail. The land, despite being Isaac's pride and joy, is also depicted as something to be feared. The family's isolation seems so real. Rachel is such a strong female character, but you can see how the drought has weakened her resolve drastically so that she is amost able to stand up to her husband.

Although Isaac is at first presented as caring about his land over his family, it becomes apparent that is trying to provide for his family in a way that he considers to be very important. He wants his son to be a landowner and his daughters to be married to landowners and his pride seems to almost blind him to the reality of their situation.

Overall, an interesting and quite affecting story about a black family's strength, struggles and survival in the American West.

***

Yesterday the water pump by the house blew nothing but air. Later, Isaac tried the well at the barn. The bucket came up empty but the bottom was wet. When I saw Isaac knotting a plank to the well rope, my blood ran cold.

'Not that,' I told him. 'Not that.'

'Have to,' he said.

'But the White River's still running. Can't you -- '

'It's down to a trickle.'

I looked at him.

'Liz,' he said as if I had asked.

'Lord.'

'She'll be all right.'

'You could drop her.'

'I won't.'

'Don't do this thing.'

Muscles pulled around his mouth. 'I have to.'

'No,' I said, 'no', but there was nothing behind my words and Isaac knew it.

'At ease,' he said to Mary now, their hands still gripping the well handle. The rope was played out; Liz was at the bottom. (pp. 2-3)

***********

My Rating: 4/5

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Valdez

2010-10-27T06:30:00.000+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Valdez

by Andrew Nicoll

(28 April 2011)

Luciano Hernando Valdez is his Latin American nation's most celebrated novelist and he's suffering from writer's block. So far his latest great work comprises the words The scrawny yellow cat crossed the road'. He's tried all his usual tricks to get back on track - he's had a few debates with his trusty colleagues at the university, he's had an affair with the banker's wife, nothing will work. Until he meets Caterina. Beautiful, young and one of his biggest fans, she has idolised him since she was a child and he has inspired her to write. Convinced that falling in love with her, spending every minute he can alongside her, moulding her to his world, will unlock something and enable him to write, he pursues her and soon enough, he falls headlong into her arms. But it's only a matter of time before he murders her. (description from The Book Depository).

I read Andrew Nicoll's first book, The Good Mayor (see my review here) and loved it...it was a gorgeous read! This one sounds completely different and a lot darker but I'm still really looking forward to reading it!

Blogoversary and CSN giveaway winner!

2010-10-26T07:00:00.000+08:00

(photo by akadruid)

Wow! I can hardly believe it's already been one year since I started my blog!

Here's what I've achieved in one year:

73 book reviews

2 challenges (as a participant, not host!)

(1 complete, 1 in progress)

1 guest post

1 (failed) read-a-long (sorry Zen Leaf!)

1 giveaway(!)

I've just been scrolling through the list of titles I've reviewed. I'm surprised at how eclectic the mix is! I've discovered some fantastic books in my one year of blogging and some truly AMAZING authors. And of course, my TBR pile and wishlist have grown beyond all expectations after seeing the great books everyone else receives and reviews!!

I want to thank everyone for making me feel so welcome in the book blogger world. I'm having so much fun and have encountered so many fab people :-)

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...Thanks to random.org, I can now announce that the winner of my very first giveaway and the $45 CSN Stores voucher is:

Best Book I Have Not Read

Congrats! And thanks to everyone who entered and tweeted this giveaway. I hope to be able to host another giveaway soon! Best Book I Have Not Read, I'll arrange for your prize to be sent through to you.

In My Mailbox 36

2010-10-24T11:40:00.011+08:00

There's still time to enter my giveaway!

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Two books this week...both are ones I've been looking forward to!!

Room

by Emma Donoghue

Mini Shopaholic

by Sophie Kinsella

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

2010-10-24T11:37:00.000+08:00

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

The summer of 1899 is hot in Calpurnia Tate's sleepy Texas town, and there aren't a lot of good ways to stay cool. She spends a lot of time at the river with her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist. It turns out that every drop of river water is teeming with life - all you have to do is look through a microscope! As she explores the natural world around her, Callie grows close to her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and learns just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century. (description from the back cover)

My Review

Calpurnia Virginia Tate (Callie Vee) is eleven years old and the only girl out of seven children. One oppressively hot summer, Callie starts recording her scientific observations in a little red notebook. Can earthworms be trained? Why do dogs need eyebrows? Why are there two very different kinds of grasshoppers that summer? She soon discovers a kindred spirit in her naturalist grandfather and the two of them spend the summer observing and recording the natural world around them, much to the dismay of Callie's mother who would like to see her daughter more involved in domestic activities such as cooking and sewing.

He handed me a tiny measure, a thimbleful. I sniffed it cautiously. It smelled strongly of pecans, which reassured me, and faintly of something else rather like kerosene, which did not. I think he had forgotten that I was just a practically-twelve-year-old.

Granddaddy said, "It's easier if you hold your nose and down it in one go."

I pinched my nose and threw the stuff down my throat.

Now, let me tell you, there is a reason why they call it firewater. I exploded into the world's worst coughing fit as the stuff burned a hole in my gullet...

...

"Well," he said, "I have to note my observations in the log. And you, as my collaborator, may also make a note on this red-letter day."

He pulled a lamp close and wrote in the ruled accounts book, his steel nib skritching on the page. The book was filled with the minutiae of his many failed runs. Then he handed me the pen. "Here, note the date and time, your observations in this column, and then place your signature below."

In my penmanship class at school, we had recently graduated from pencil to ink. I worried about making a blot, but I wrote, not too badly, considering my recent trauma:

Run #437:21 July 1899. It was very good.
Calpurnia Virginia Tate.

"Calpurnia," he said, looking at me, "as a scientist, you must be truthful about your observations."

He handed me the pen again. I wrote on the next line:

Might cause some coffing.

(pp. 72-74)

Jacqueline Kelly really brings Calpurnia's world to life. It's the turn of the century and Fentress now has a Telephone Exchange AND a female Telephone Operator. And Callie's grandfather desperately wants to go for a ride in the new auto-mobile. Kelly expertly mixes nature, history and everyday life with 6 brothers together to make a charming and fascinating story.

Callie is such a delightful character. She reminds me a little of Flavia de Luce from Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (my review here) and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (my review here). They're both such spunky girl heroines.

Despite the fact that this book is meant for younger readers, I still really enjoyed it. I think this is one of those books that has a little something for everyone. Overall, a gorgeous read :-)

My Rating: 4/5

Eleven

2010-10-19T22:25:00.000+08:00

Eleven by Mark Watson

Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself very much to himself - until he is brought into the light by a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady and forced to confront his own biggest regret. This is a tale of love, loss, Scrabble and six degrees of separation, asking big questions about life and death, strangers and friends, heartache and comfort, and whether the choices we don't make affect us just as powerfully as those we do. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

This book was such a surprise! I'm not a big fan of comedy...so I'd never heard of comedian Mark Watson before I came across this book. What I found was a thoughtful and cleverly interwoven tale of life and the choices we make.

Radio DJ Xavier Ireland works the night shift with his co-presenter Murray. Night after night he receives calls and e-mails from a troubled, sleepless mass. Xavier tries not to get involved in their problems...he has a one-reply rule. One day Xavier fails to help young stranger Frankie Carstairs who is being beaten up by a group of bullies. Xavier continues on his way oblivious to the chain of events he has set into motion. Mark Watson cleverly takes this one small event and weaves 10 (at first glance seemingly unrelated) characters and plots together into an interconnected circle of circumstance and coincidence.

"Julius Brown has lost his part-time job because Andrew Ryan got drunk and lost his temper, because Jacqueline Carstairs wrote a vicious piece about his restaurant, because her son got beaten up on a snowy day a few weeks ago, because Xavier failed to step in and help. But as far as he or anyone knows, he's simply been sacked for dropping a plate on the floor". (pp. 87-88).

Mark Watson described this idea of interconnectedness on his blog:

"I've always been fascinated both by the massive range of human activity which continues while we're all meant to be asleep, and by the strange ways that our little lives all relate to each other - you hear someone on the radio, or overtake them on the motorway, and then 20 years later you're sitting next to them at a wedding..." (from Mark Watson's blog)

I loved Pippa the Geordie cleaner who Xavier meets at a speed dating event. He sets up an appointment for her to clean his filthy flat and she quickly becomes a regular on his Saturdays. She's such a fun character; the complete opposite to Xavier and exactly what he needs to overcome his past.

This book has a message a la "Pay it Forward" for the reader to take away with them. It's definitely a book that makes you stop and reconsider the difference your actions could make to the lives of the strangers around you. Highly recommended!

I've just been reading about some of Mark Watson's previous books and really like the sound of Bullet Points and A Light-hearted Look at Murder.

My Rating: 5/5

In My Mailbox 35

2010-10-17T09:42:00.013+08:00

Before I show you the books I received this week...have you entered my giveaway?

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

The Distant Hours

by Kate Morton

I've been looking forward to the next book by Kate Morton ever since I finished reading her last one, The Forgotten Garden. Can't wait to start reading this one...I've been hearing really good things from those lucky people who managed to snag advance copies!!

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

by Ann Weisgarber

This book caught my eye on The Book Depository as a recommended book based on what other people were buying. It's always dangerous when I go looking for a book on The Book Depository because I always end up with way more than I intended due to their recommendations!!

Scottsboro

by Ellen Feldman

I can't remember where I heard about this one! Probably another one I stumbled across ;-) Looks like a really powerful read based on the true case of the Scottsboro boys in 1931.

WIN a $45 gift certificate!

2010-10-17T09:37:00.004+08:00

I'm so excited to be able to offer my first giveaway to my followers!

The folks at CSN Stores have kindly offered a $45 voucher for one of my readers to spend at any of the 200+ online CSN stores where you can find everything from nesting tables to fantastic fitness equipment to cookware!

So, have a look at their stores and get thinking about what you would spend $45 on.

You might like to check out their bookshelves and cute bookends at their Allbookshelves.com store:

Or, you could deck your pet out for Halloween in one of these cute outfits:

Or, you could put it towards something a little bit more expensive. It's a shame they don't ship to Australia because I've fallen in love with these bookshelves:

To enter: Simply leave a comment before 5pm (EDT, Australia), Monday 25th October and let me know what YOU would buy at the CSN stores if you were the winner of the $45 voucher. I'll be announcing the winner on my blog the next day...which just so happens to be my 1 year blogiversary!!!

Please note: this is only open to the US and Canada.

I'd love help in promoting this giveaway so please feel free to blog about it! I'll even give you an additional entry if you let me know in the comments that you've promoted this giveaway in some way.

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo

2010-10-16T18:37:00.002+08:00

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo by Julia Stuart

A poignant, magical and completely original novel that you can't fail to love, for fans of Joanne Harris. Meet Balthazar Jones, Beefeater at the Tower of London. Married to Hebe, he lives and works in the Tower, as he struggles to cope with the tragic death of his son Milo, three years ago. The Tower of London is its own magical world; a maze of ancient buildings, it is home to a weird and wonderful cast of characters - the Jones's of course, as well as Reverend Septimus Drew, the Ravenmaster, and Ruby Dore, landlady of the Tower's very own tavern, the Rack & Ruin. And, after an announcement from Buckingham Palace that the Queen's exotic animals are to be moved from London Zoo to the Tower's grounds, things are about to become a whole lot more interesting! Komodo dragons, marmosets, and even zorillas ('a highly revered yet uniquely odorous skunk-like animal from Africa') fill the Tower's menagerie -- and it is Balthazar Jones's job to take care of them. Things run far from smoothly, though -- missing penguins and stolen giraffes are just two of his worries! A touching, magical and entirely original debut. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

I loved every minute of this book! I knew I would enjoy this one too after reading and absolutely loving Julia Stuart's previous novel The Matchmaker of Perigord (see my review here). I have a new name to add to my list of favourite authors!

When the Queen decides to move her menagerie of animals gifted to her by other foreign leaders from London Zoo to the Tower of London, Yeoman Warder Balthazar Jones is selected as their keeper. Balthazar and his wife Hebe have been struggling since the death of their son, Milo. As the animals arrive at the Tower and start wreaking havoc, the new arrivals shake life up at the Tower. Is this a new start for Balthazar and Hebe? Or have they drifted too far apart?

I loved all the little quirky subplots involving the other Beefeaters and inhabitants of the Tower of London. My favourite of these would have to be Hebe Jones (Balthazar's wife) and her colleague Valerie Jennings' exploits at the London Underground's Lost Property Office as they try to reunite glass eyes, inflatable dolls and magician boxes with their owners. But the Rev. Septimus Drew and his erotic fiction comes a very close second!

The anecdotes about some of the Tower's more colourful prisoners throughout it's history were fascinating. And I must admit to Googling "Do Beefeaters really live at the Tower of London?" after finishing this book. And I'm pleased to read that there's a real Ravenmaster at the Tower...it's not just something Stuart made up! I actually learnt a lot about the Tower and its history while reading this book ;-) As an Aussie I was proud to note in the Author's Note at the back that the most recent animals received by the Queen were 6 red kangaroos from Melbourne Zoo in 1977!

I would recommend both this book and Stuart's first novel, The Matchmaker of Perigord for their charmingly eccentric characters and fun yet quirky plots. Although there's a current of sadness running through this novel, Stuart skillfully (and often humourously) balances love, loneliness, grief, history and animal-generated havoc!

***

'What do you mean the penguins are missing?' Oswin Fielding asked, leaning across the table next to the framed signature of Rudolf Hess.

'They just never turned up,' Balthazar Jones replied, lowering his voice lest someone heard.

'So where are they?'

The Beefeater scratched at his white beard. 'I'm not quite certain at the moment,' he replied. 'The removal man says he stopped for petrol and when he came back from paying, both the back and the passenger doors were open and they'd vanished.'

'Who was in the passenger seat?'

The Beefeater looked away. 'One of the penguins,' he muttered....

....

'Everything else has gone according to plan,' he insisted.

'Apart from the wandering albatross, all the animals have settled in well,' he said. 'The giraffes are loving the moat.'

The courtier frowned. 'What giraffes?' he asked.

'The ones with the long necks.'

'Her Majesty doesn't possess any giraffes.'

Balthazar Jones looked confused. 'But there are four in the moat,' he said.

'But I gave you a list,' Oswin Fielding hissed. 'There were no giraffes on it.'

'Well, someone thought they belonged to the Queen. They'd been loaded into a lorry by the time I arrived. I just assumed you'd forgotten to write them down.'

There was a pause as both men glared at each other.

'So, to sum things up the, Yeoman Warder Jones,' the equerry said, 'the Queen's penguins are missing, and the Tower of London has kidnapped four giraffes that belong to London Zoo.' (pp. 146-148)

***

This book has also been published under the title "The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise":

The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise

My Rating: 5/5

The Past and Other Lies

2010-10-14T22:34:00.000+08:00

The Past and Other Lies by Maggie Joel

A captivating novel about sisters, faded memories and long-hidden secrets spanning three generations. At the height of Britain's General Strike in 1926 a red double-decker bus driven by a volunteer crashes into a low bridge in West London. Almost eighty years later Jennifer Denzel reveals on daytime television that as a teenager she'd found her sister Charlotte hanging by a school tie in their bedroom. But Charlotte can't believe her ears it was, she protests, Jennifer who tried to suicide all those years ago. Their grandmother Bertha dreams of a distant time: of a young man she met at a Socialist rally, an unexpected wedding and of a sister, long dead. Meanwhile her daughter, Deirdre, remembers a night during the War forty years earlier, when a V-2 rocket destroyed an entire street, and when she made a shocking discovery. Brimming with vivid detail of London past and present, The Past and Other Lies is full of warmth, atmosphere, subtle wit and exquisite surprises (description from BigW.com.au).

My Review

I read and reviewed Maggie Joel's The Second-last Woman in England (see my review here) back in August. It was then that I decided I would have to read her previous novel, The Past and Other Lies and conveniently came across it the next week at a secondhand book sale.

The Past and Other Lies is about three generations of sisters from the same family; Jennifer and Charlotte (1981), Bertha and Jemima (1924) and Caroline and Deidre (1945). The story jumps from generation to generation and period to period as the sisters' secrets and stories weave in together. The story starts with Jennifer and Charlotte Denzel. Jennifer reveals on daytime television that she saved her sister's life when they were teenagers. What led Charlotte to try and take her own life? And how is Jennifer involved? In wartime England, Jennifer and Charlotte's mother Deidre discovers a secret about her sister Caroline that's as explosive as the V-2 rocket on its way towards their street. And Grandma Lake (Bertha), who sits mindlessly in front of the telly in Jennifer and Charlotte's story, also has a story concerning a tragedy during Britain's General Strike.

The truth is delicately concealed in this novel, left for the reader to discover and make up their own mind about the events. A strong theme coming through is of family relationships and the way in which "complicated" sometimes doesn't even begin to describe it ;-) And the past often has more impact on us than we would expect.

I enjoyed Bertha and Jemima's story the most out of the three. It just seemed like they were the most developed characters and I loved reading about Mr Lake's courting of Bertha and Jemima's feelings towards Baby and her Socialist husband.

Although I enjoyed this novel, my favourite by Maggie Joel so far would have to be The Second-last woman in England. Maggie Joel's novels remind me a little of Kate Morton's work...both authors are extremely talented at bringing the past vividly to life!

"It was the school tie, Henry Morton Secondary, with its distinctive diagonal grey and red stripes. School uniform colors. Their school. And one end was tied to the light fitting, the other was tied into a loop and the loop, a tiny loop, barely wide enough for a person's head, was around her neck.

It was around her neck.

Above the loop was Charlotte. Charlotte's head. Twisted to one side, her hands scrambling for a hold, her face the colour of a washed-out February sky, of sticky window putty, of dough made from wholemeal flour. It was not the colour of skin. Her mouth was taut, the lips peeled back and an offly bluish colour.

And the worst thing of all -

Jennifer knew why she was up there." (p. 28)

Maggie Joel talks about The Past and Other Lies in this video:

This is the 5th book I've read for the Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews. My goal is to read 8 books by Aussie authors by the end of the year so I'm over halfway now!

My Rating: 3.5/5

In My Mailbox 34

2010-10-10T08:00:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

All of these are from the public library...a bit of a mixture this week!

The Brave by Nicholas Evans

I've been waiting on a new book from Nicolas Evans or awhile now (see my The Brave "Waiting On" post). You may recognise his name as the author of The Horse Whisperer. I've read and loved all his books! Looking forward to seeing what his new one's like.

Wicked Appetite

by Janet Evanovich

I absolutely LOVE the Stephanie Plum books. So I couldn't go past this new series. I've seen some glowing reviews in the past week so I'm really looking forward to this one now!! Sounds like it's just as funny as the Stephanie Plum books ;-)

Bruno, Chief of Police

by Martin Walker

This is the first in a series of books about a policeman in a small rural French town. I don't know where I heard about this one - but the summary sounded like it would be fun!

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly

I've seen this book profiled on a number of other blogs and have been wanting to read it for awhile now. I think it's aimed at younger readers - but I have a feeling I'm going to love it!

The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam

2010-10-08T20:30:00.000+08:00

The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenberg

Nyree and Cia live on a remote farm in the east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical grandfather, theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far as the big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father is off fighting. The two girls know little beyond that until the arrival from the outside world of 'the bastard', their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their idyll for ever.(description from The Book Depository)

My Review

Well...first of all, this book is nothing like it's title! I'm not really sure what I was expecting when I picked it up (mainly due to the cute title) at a recent book sale.

The book starts with a historical note to set the scene. It's the late 1970s and civil war is in Rhodesia. This story takes place in the turbulent period in the lead-up to the election of Mugabe and the birth of Zimbabwe. It's told through the innocent eyes of 8-year-old Nyree O'Callohan. Nyree spends her days exploring her parents' farm and its surrounds and spying on the "Afs" (Rhodesian slang meaning black Africans) with her younger sister, Cia.

The girls live mainly in ignorance of the events taking place around them. They make up stories that there are fairies in the forest and that the "Terrs" (terrorists) their father is fighting are some kind of fantasy beast:

"I reckon a Terr is about eight feet tall, he slobbers and his toenails are long, ragged and filthy. He tears the limbs off live vervet monkeys to gnaw and if he gets his hands on a cane rat, he guts it with a snaggletooth..." (p26)

The girls are more concerned with the enemy within Modjadji, in the form of bullying inflicted on them by their cousin Ronin, than the one on the other side of the fence. The focus throughout the novel is on the family and events affecting the family unit, but you do get the sense that tension is building around them and their safety is threatened as the book progresses.

There are some beautiful descriptions in this novel. It's clear that Lauren Liebenberg, having grown up in what was then Rhodesia, has a deep affection for the land. This passage was one that jumped out to me as being particularly beautiful:

Oupa says drought is Africa's nemesis. Every few years, the nemesis descends, the rains fail, the skin of the earth is burned by the pitiless suntill it splits, and we are left gasping until it chooses to relent...

One evening as Cia and I are leaving our naked forest glade, the veil of ivy that once clothed it having long ago withered away, Cia pauses to grind a shrivelled fern frond to dust between her fingers. She watches the powder float downwards, then looks up at me and says, 'It's like some of the magic is gone, Nyree. Like it's dying softly'. (pp 143-144)

Through Nyree's narration, the schoolyard discussions and the racist remarks from the girls' colourful grandfather you get a view of the white African experience and the prejudices and attitudes existing. It's quite a powerful read about loss of innocence, tragedy and war - and I love the child's perspective of these events.

I've just found Lauren Liebenberg's second book on the Book Depository for AU$10.15 preorder!

The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club

by Lauren Liebenberg

Life on the Johannesburg mines is tough. Scorched by searing heat and choked by dust, it's a place of downtrodden women and hard-drinking men whose prejudices already seem out of date, even in 1958, at least to twelve-year-old Chris and Tommy. Kindled by the sounds of Elvis, Chuck Berry and the kwela kwela rhythms of the black ghettos, the young jive cats of the West Rand Cons Mine look to prove their grit on the township dance floors and in the sweat-soaked ring of the boxing club, which is run by the enigmatic and wise Jock McGinty. But when Tommy's beloved sister Cecilia disappears without trace one night, and their cold-blooded father falls under suspicion, the two friends find that they need the deepest loyalty and courage to face their future. Frank, witty and heartbreakingly poignant, this is a compelling story about the endurance of friendship, and about coming of age in South Africa at a time that was at once charmed and cruel. (description from The Book Depository)

My Rating: 4.5/5

Welcome Book Bloggers!

2010-10-08T19:12:00.004+08:00

This week's question: What's your favorite beverage while reading or blogging, if any? Is it tea, coffee, water, a glass of wine, or something else?

I don't usually drink while I read. I guess if I did I would probably go for something cosy like a hot chocolate ;-)

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Crazy-for-Books and is a weekly event designed to connect book bloggers and help you find other book blogs you never even knew existed. I'm an Aussie book blogger and my interests are mainly in contemporary and literary fiction, chick lit, mysteries and historical fiction. If you're visiting from the Hop...welcome to my blog! Please leave me a message so I know who you are :-)

"Waiting On" Wednesday: 1Q84

2010-10-06T07:02:00.008+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

1Q84

by Haruki Murakami

(English translation due in 2011)

This book is shrouded in mystery. Turns out Murakami avoided publicity due to past leaks of his work. I couldn't find a plot summary anywhere but on Wikipedia. Wikipedia claims it's a book that "tackles themes of murder, history, cult religion, violence, family ties and love" and is over 1000 pages long.

I was in Japan for the release of one of the books (released as 3 books in Japan) and this book was just everywhere! The pre-publication secrecy really built up a buzz! The excitement really got to me and now I can't wait for the English translation :-) I've read A Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood and know that this book will be one not be missed!

True spirit: the Aussie girl who took on the world

2010-10-04T20:45:00.000+08:00

True spirit: the Aussie girl who took on the world by Jessica Watson

"There is something different about adventurers; about the way their minds work. They look at the world as a place of challenges and though they know what fear is, they refuse to be hindered by it. True Spirit is Jessica's story and in it she will detail her preparation, her journey and her battle with sleep deprivation, gale-force winds, mountainous seas, natural hazards like whales and icebergs and holding firm against the solitude that most of us can only imagine dealing with alone on a vast sea with no land to be seen and no help close at hand. The name Jessica Watson will soon be part of sailing history. She will join Jesse Martin and Kay Cottee as someone all Australians can be inspired by. Jessica Watson is a dreamer who dares to do." (from hachette.com.au)

My Review

Originally posted 19th May, 2010

Last Saturday I sat glued to the television watching a little pink yacht slowly rocking its way to Sydney. In the little pink yacht was Jessica Watson, a 16 year old Aussie who has just sailed solo and unassisted around the world. It was such an amazing and emotional sight to watch all the boats surrounding her as she sailed towards dry land, her family and friends and a HUGE crowd. In response to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claiming her to be our "newest Australian hero", Jessica took the microphone and said:

"You don't have to be someone special or anything special to achieve something amazing, you've just got to have a dream, believe in it and work hard."

Check out Jessica's blog and the incredibly emotional homecoming:

Thoughts after reading Jessica's book:

This book documents 16-year-old Jessica's 210-day journey covering more than 24, 000 nautical miles as she sailed her little pink yacht Ella's Pink Lady around the world. A combination of blog posts, comments added afterwards and photos, Jessica's inspirational story details the great deal of preparation, support, adventurous spirit, courage and endless patience such a journey requires.

I had to keep reminding myself that this book was written by a 16-year-old! Jessica comes across as extremely mature and extremely level-headed. Some of the descriptions of the sea and conditions she comes across along the way are just beautiful. And I never got bored with all the sailing descriptions - thankfully she keeps the technical descriptions, etc to the absolute minimum!

"My quite sunny conditions ended with a bit of a bang. Ella's Pink Lady and I have been having a very interesting time out here. The wind had been expected to rise to a near gale, but none of the computers or forecasts picked that it would reach the 65 knots that I recorded before losing the wind instruments in a knockdown!

That much wind means some very big, very nasty waves. To give you an idea of the conditions, they were similar to and possibly worse than those of the terrible 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. We experience a total of four knockdowns, the third was the most severe with the mast being pushed 180 degrees in to the water. Actually, pushed isn't the right word, it would be more accurate to say that Ella's Pink Lady was picked up, thrown down a wave, then forced under a mountain of breaking water and violently turning upside down". (pp. 223-224)

Jessica takes everything in her stride including the four knockdowns detailed above which she refers to as "a bit of a bang". Wow oh wow does she make sailing around the world sound easy ;-)

Jessica is quite honest in the comments she adds to the book. She talks a lot about the low moments of the trip when the loneliness and solitude got her down. She left information like this off the blog so as not to alarm her supporters back home.

At the end of the book there's an extensive list of the equipment she took along with her. I must admit to skipping to the Entertainment section of this list to see what books she took along...is there any hope for me?

Well, you won't find me running out to find a yacht after reading this book! No way - I don't even make it out of the harbour before I feel sea-sick. But this was such an inspirational read...and I think we all need a bit of inspiration sometimes! I would recommend this book to young girls to show them that anything is possible.

Oh, and this is yet another book I've read for the Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.

My Rating: 4.5/5

In My Mailbox 33

2010-10-03T08:53:00.000+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Eleven

by Mark Watson

Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself very much to himself - until he is brought into the light by a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady and forced to confront his own biggest regret. This is a tale of love, loss, Scrabble and six degrees of separation, asking big questions about life and death, strangers and friends, heartache and comfort, and whether the choices we don't make affect us just as powerfully as those we do. (description from The Book Depository)

The Invisible Bridge

by Julie Orringer

In September 1937 Andras, a young Hungarian student, leaves his family and heads for Paris on a scholarship to study architecture. Before he sets off he is given a mysterious letter to post on arrival in Paris. It is addressed to an Hungarian woman and no reason is given why it cannot be posted from Budapest. When Andras arrives in Paris he becomes vitally aware of his poverty, particularly when he enters the home of a richer Hungarian emigre Klara Morgenstern. She is a young widowed woman, and he finds himself falling in love with her. As they begin to meet regularly it is clear that Klara is hiding a terrifying secret, related to the mysterious letter that Andras posted on arrival, which means she is trapped in Paris as war looms closer. And, as Andras and his fellow students' lives become ever more vulnerable in the shadow of war, the group must shatter in order to survive. Andras is forced home to a labour camp, his brother disappears and Klara risks everything to return to Hungary to be close to her lover. (description from The Book Depository)

A Proper Education for Girls (and I'm back hi!)

2010-10-02T00:36:00.000+08:00

I'm finally back from my unexpected hiatus and I feel nice and refreshed ;-) What was a week of brain-drain turned into a couple of weeks break from my blog. I’ve got a pile of books that are read and waiting to be reviewed and my Google Reader is overflowing! If you’ve read a fantastic book in the past few weeks…please share a link to your review…chances are that I missed it!

A Proper Education for Girls by Elaine di Rollo

"Set in 1857 between England and India, "A Proper Education for Girls" is a rollicking novel about feisty women, the devotion of sisters and the Victorian obsession with empire, experiments and photography. The peach growers of the title are 27 year-old twin sisters with a passion for botany. Lilian, in mysterious disgrace, has been married off to a dreary missionary. Alice is left at home, curator to her father's monstrous collection of artifacts under the watchful eye of the malevolent Dr Cattermole. "A Proper Education for Girls" is a dazzling debut. Tongue-in-cheek and inventive, comic and horrifying, it illuminates the dark heart of Victorian hypocrisy and selfishness, yet at the same time is engaging and highly enjoyable. Readers will become completely involved with Alice and Lilian - and their hair-raising escapades." (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

The year is 1857. Alice Talbot lives in the Great House with her father, three elderly relatives and her father's extensive Collection of "human achievement". The Talbots share the mansion with armour, fossilised sea creatures, Greek pottery, etc and Alice has been raised to act as curator for her father's Collection and discuss topics of progress over the evening meal. Alice's twin sister Lilian, having rebelled against her father's wishes and Victorian society's views of women, has been married off to a missionary and sent to India.

This book follows Alice and Lilian's adventures and challenges in their fight for freedom. While Lilian finds herself caught up in the Indian Mutiny, Alice is pretty much being held captive back home in the Great House in danger from the schemes and experiments planned by her father's Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge and Dr Cattermole. This book explores themes of freedom and sexuality in Victorian society. It's truly a tale of Victorian "girl power"!

This book was fun and at times, quite humourous, if not entirely realistic. The story certainly took flight and raced towards the...how should I put it?...suprising/shocking ending. Even though the story line was a little over the top and cliche at times, it was still a fun read.

"It was customary for the women of the Talbot household to retreat to the conservatory after dinner...It was a place free from the overbearing presence of Mr Talbot, as the conservatory - in particular the tropical conservatory - was the one room in the Great House where he was least likely to be found. Secretly, Alice suspected that her father felt uncomfortable with the soft, vulnerable greenness of botany, preferring instead the hard, virile facts elicited when man harnessed nature for his own ends. She also suspected that the heat in the hot house made him sweat uncomfortably and the humid atmosphere caused his beard to curl, which he hated. It was for this reason that she kept the heating turned up as high as the plants could tolerate. She also knew that the real reason her father had lost all interest in his botanical Collection was because of Lilian. Lilian had adored the Conservatory." (p. 11)

This book has also been published under the title, "The Peachgrower's Almanac".

My Rating: 4/5

In My Mailbox 32

2010-09-05T12:29:00.015+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo

by Julia Stuart

A poignant, magical and completely original novel that you can't fail to love, for fans of Joanne Harris. Meet Balthazar Jones, Beefeater at the Tower of London. Married to Hebe, he lives and works in the Tower, as he struggles to cope with the tragic death of his son Milo, three years ago. The Tower of London is its own magical world; a maze of ancient buildings, it is home to a weird and wonderful cast of characters - the Jones's of course, as well as Reverend Septimus Drew, the Ravenmaster, and Ruby Dore, landlady of the Tower's very own tavern, the Rack & Ruin. And, after an announcement from Buckingham Palace that the Queen's exotic animals are to be moved from London Zoo to the Tower's grounds, things are about to become a whole lot more interesting! Komodo dragons, marmosets, and even zorillas ('a highly revered yet uniquely odorous skunk-like animal from Africa') fill the Tower's menagerie -- and it is Balthazar Jones's job to take care of them. Things run far from smoothly, though -- missing penguins and stolen giraffes are just two of his worries! A touching, magical and entirely original debut. (description from The Book Depository)

Some of you will recall that I read and raved about Julia Stuart's previous novel, "The Matchmaker of Perigord" in July. Can't wait to read this one! :-)

The Last Letter from your Lover

by Jojo Moyes

When journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper's archives for a story, she doesn't think she'll find anything of interest. Instead she discovers a letter from 1960, written by a man asking his lover to leave her husband -- and Ellie is caught up in the intrigue of a past love affair. Despite, or perhaps because of her own romantic entanglements with a married man. In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident. She can't remember anything -- her husband, her friends, who she used to be. And then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, and begins to remember the lover she was willing to risk everything for. Ellie and Jennifer's stories of passion, adultery and loss are wound together in this richly emotive novel -- interspersed with real 'last letters'. (description from The Book Depository)

I picked up this one purely because of the fantastic cover :-)

The Summer we read Gatsby

by Danielle Ganek

Half-sisters Cassie and Peck could not be more different. Cassie is a newly divorced journalist with her feet firmly planted on the ground; Peck is a vintage-obsessed actress with her head in the clouds. In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common is their inheritance of Fool's House, a rundown cottage left to them by their beloved Aunt Lydia. But Cassie and Peck can't afford the house, and they can't agree on anything, much less what to do with the place. Plus, along with the house, they've inherited an artist-inresidence and self-proclaimed genius named Biggsy who seems to bring suspiciously bad luck wherever he goes. As these two likable sisters try to understand their aunt's puzzling instructions to "seek a thing of utmost value" from within the house, they're both distracted by romantic entanglements with men from their pasts. The Summer We Read Gatsby, set in the end-of-an-era summer of 2008, is filled with fabulous parties, eccentric characters, and insider society details that showcase Ganek's pitch-perfect sense of style and wit. (description from Penguin.com)

I heard about Ganek's previous novel "Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him" and thought it sounded interesting. My public library didn't have a copy of that one...so I thought I'd give her latest a try!

My first guest post!

2010-09-02T06:36:00.004+08:00

Head on over to Booklover Book Reviews to see my first guest post ever! I talk about how I'm going with the Aussie Author Challenge and my favourite Aussie Authors :-) Thanks to Jo for the kind words and for hosting me on her blog today!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: From Notting Hill with Love...Actually

2010-09-01T21:31:00.004+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

From Notting Hill with Love...Actually

by Ali McNamara

(25th November, 2010)

Scarlett O'Brien is in love ...with the movies. Utterly hooked on Hugh Grant, crazy about Richard Curtis, dying with lust for Johnny Depp, Scarlett spends her days with her head in the clouds and her nights with her hand in a huge tub of popcorn. Which is not exactly what her sensible, DIY-obsessed fiance David has in mind for their future. So when Scarlett has the chance to house-sit an impossibly grand mansion in Notting Hill ? the setting of one of her all-time favourite movies ? she jumps at the chance to live out her film fantasies one last time. It's just a shame that her new neighbour Sean is so irritating ? and so irritatingly handsome, too. As a chaotic comedy of her very own erupts around Scarlett, she begins to realise there's more to life than seating plans and putting up shelves. What sort of happy ending does she really want? Will it be a case of Runaway Bride or Happily Ever After? The big white wedding looms, and Scarlett is running out of time to decide ... (description from The Book Depository)

Doesn't this book sound like fun?! I'm such a sucker for romantic movies that this synopsis really appeals to me ;-) And what a cute cover...

Perfect Peace

2010-08-31T20:59:00.037+08:00

Perfect Peace by Daniel Black

When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, 'You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain't what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon' be a boy. It'll be a little strange at first, but you'll get used to it, and this'll be over after while.' From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

My Review

Perfect Peace is, dare I say it, just "perfect"! I loved this book and would highly recommend it!

Mother of six boys, Emma Jean Peace longs for a little girl. She knows her seventh pregnancy is the last chance her husband Gus will give her to try for a daughter. When her seventh son arrives, Emma Jean makes a decision that will strongly affect not only the baby's future, but one that will tear at the very fabric of their family unit. As she grows up, little Perfect Peace is spoilt by her parents and adored by her brothers. When she turns eight her mother makes a shocking revelation. Perfect is in fact a little boy and from now on is to be called "Paul"...

This book explores some heavy topics. The obvious one being poor Paul Peace's heartbreaking transformation and struggle to fit in. I can't even begin to imagine the damage being forced to strip (to prove your sexuality) in front of your father and brothers at that age might cause someone. I think Daniel Black did a fantastic job of exploring sexual stereotypes in the 1940s in America's Deep South.

Daniel Black's characters are so interesting. Sure they're flawed and make mistakes, but that's what makes them so human. Although it's hard to understand the motive behind Emma Jean's decision, Black's exploration of her backstory gives some suggestions and encourages a little bit (a very small bit!) of sympathy. I love the fact that the book is not only concerned with Paul's journey, but with that of the other brothers as well.

In the living room, Mister whispered in the dark, "Can Perfect swim wit' us in de pond when she get bigger?"

"No, fool!" Authorly said. "Girls don't swim naked wit' boys."

"Why not?"

"'Cause they girls! Boys ain't s'pose to be seein' no naked girls 'til they get married."

"Why not?"

"'Cause Momma say it ain't right. She say it's a sin to see a naked girl before she become yo' wife."

"But Perfect ain't neva be my wife! She my sister."

"Don't make no difference. She still a girl, and if you see her naked, you goin' to hell. Remember what Momma said: we can't even change her diapers." (pp. 44-45)

Mr Black, I'm now a huge fan and am off to track down They Tell Me of Home and The Sacred Place!

My Rating: 5/5

One Child

2010-08-30T22:09:00.031+08:00

One Child by Jeff Buick

Halima, a small girl in Kandahar, Afghanistan, dreams she changes the world.

U2, the most popular rock band in the world, prepares to take the stage in Moscow.

There is no apparent connection between the two, yet the threads of destiny are pulling them together. And when they collide, people across the globe watch in fascination.

One Child is a reflection of how our world is now, and how it could be. It digs beneath the surface of war-torn Afghanistan through Halima’s eyes. It exposes the cost of greed. It shares the anguish of a young American soldier and the tenacity of a Wall Street MBA who learns that the business world can be an ugly monster.

From the day you meet Halima, to the moment U2 walks onstage, One Child will rock your world. (description from http://jeffbuick.com/books/18-one-child)

My Review

Original post from 29/07 re-posted:

Thrillers aren't usually my thing. But when I was contacted by Enthrill to see if I was interested in reviewing Jeff Buick's new novel, I said yes because the concept sounds really interesting.

This is more than just a novel...it's kind of an interactive novel. The story in One Child is set over a 30-day period starting on July 27th and ending August 30th. Each day a few chapters are released in an e-reader complete with supporting online media. See the press release for a better explanation of this. For example, I'm two days into it and so far when characters are mentioned you can click on their name to see links to their Facebook profile, Linked in profile (for the businessmen), Twitter (updated daily), etc. There's also a daily news webpage where you can hear news bulletins that enhance what's happening in the story and a webpage for the company, Platinus Investments.

If you're interested in checking out One Child, the first eight days are free. Simply register here. There's also a Facebook page where you can discuss the chapters.

I'll be posting my thoughts about the novel and the online experience once the story ends on August 25th.

*****************************************

Well, the One Child experience finished last Wednesday....

This book really blends the line between fact and fiction. Jeff Buick's characters have Facebook and Twitter accounts and message you back and the content seems so real and relevant to current world events...it's as if the story just jumped out of the newspaper or off the television!

At first it seemed like we were being introduced to a multitude of characters and storylines that were completely unconnected:

* There's Kadir, an Afghan man with three young daughters. One of which is Halima who dreams of one day changing the world.

* There's Carson Grant, a recently-promoted Wall Street high-frequency trader

* There's Russell, an embedded journalist on assignment "behind the wire" in Afghanistan

* And there's a U2 concert on the 25th in Moscow...

But as the novel progresses and the U2 concert looms, Jeff Buick skillfully ties all the characters in a suspenseful and exciting race to the ending (that I didn't really see coming!).

"I had a dream last night," Halima said, her eyes locked on her youngest sister.

"Dreams are good," her father said. "Do you remember what you dreamt?"

"Yes, I do." She licked her cracked lips with a dry tongue. "I was someone important. I'm not sure why, but people were talking about me. Many, many people. They had pictures of me."

"You are important, Halima."

"No, father. Not just to you. To hundreds of people. Maybe even thousands."

"How are such things possible?" Kadir asked.

She shrugged, her shoulders pressing into his chest. "I don't know. But they were talking about me. Saying that I changed the world."

Kadir tilted his head so he could see her eyes. They were shining with excitement. "You changed my world, Halima. You made it so much better." (p. 3)

The daily release of a couple of chapters as well as interactive media supporting them was fantastic...however, I found that once I got caught up in the story I didn't want to stop and wait until the next day to continue! Luckily I had a print copy of the book so I could speed ahead ;-) So that is a huge compliment to Jeff Buick that his story gripped me from start to (unexpected and emotional) finish.

My Rating: Story + Online experience: 4/5

Note: I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to Jeff Buick and Enthrill Entertainment for thinking of me!

In My Mailbox 31

2010-08-29T09:03:00.013+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam

by Lauren Liebenberg

Grand Hotel

by Gregory Day

'A hotel as a work of art in little ol' Mangowak? It was about as unlikely as an indoor creek.'Robbed of his zest for life by the absurd innovations of his local council, including knocking down the only pub in his beloved home town and roofing over a section of the creek to protect swimmers from the rain, artist Noel Lea exiles himself in the hills above Mangowak, on the southwest Victorian coast. He returns to find an unexpected destiny awaits. At a turning point in the town's history it seems he has a crucial role to play, as the unlikely publican of an even unlikelier hotel.This is a novel about an Australian pub twenty-first-century style, where the toilets play automated Dadaist recordings, Happy Hour comes with a blessing from the Pope and the patrons' libidos are as voracious as their thirst for the local ale. As events in the hotel take a twist that not even its inventive publican could have imagined, a long-held local mystery begins finally to unravel. Noel and his friends find themselves in uncharted territory, and, to make matters worse, the local authorities are hell-bent on closing them down. (description from randomhouse.com.au)

Last Night at Chateau Marmont

by Lauren Weisberger

Heartbreak, headlines and Hermes -- welcome to Brooke's new world! Brooke and Julian live a happy life in New York -- she's the breadwinner working two jobs and he's the struggling musician husband. Then Julian is discovered by a Sony exec and becomes an overnight success -- and their life changes for ever. Soon they are moving in exclusive circles, dining at the glitziest restaurants, attending the most outrageous parties in town and jetting off to the trendiest hotspots in LA. But Julian's new-found fame means that Brooke must face the savage attentions of the ruthless paparazzi. And when a scandalous picture hits the front pages, Brooke's world is turned upside down. Can her marriage survive the events of that fateful night at Chateau Marmont? It's time for Brooke to decide if she's going to sink or swim! (description from The Book Depository)

I'd forgotten that I pre-ordered this one on The Book Depository until it arrived this week! I got it for around AU$8. It really does pay to pre-order on The Book Depository...you can usually get a bit of a discount.

Castle Dor

2010-08-28T22:40:00.039+08:00

Castle Dor by Arthur Quiller-Couch & Daphne Du Maurier

Both a spellbinding love story and a superb evocation of Cornwall's mythic past, Castle Dor is a book with unique and fascinating origins. It began life as the unfinished last novel of Sir Arthur Quiller- Couch, the celebrated 'Q', and was passed by his daughter to Daphne du Maurier whose storytelling skills were perfectly suited to the task of completing the old master's tale. The result is this magical, compelling recreation of the legend of Tristan and Iseult, transplanted in time to the Cornwall of the last century. A chance encounter between the Breton onion-seller, Amyot Trestane, and the newly-wed Linnet Lewarne launches their tragic story, taking them in the fateful footsteps of the doomed lovers of Cornish legend ...(description from The Book Depository)

My Review

This is a retelling of the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Iseult based in Cornwall in the 1840s. When young onion-seller, Amyot Trestane (Tristan) comes to the door of the Rose and Anchor, mistress of the house, Linnet Lewarne (Iseult) feels a strange sensation of the past connecting with the present. An ill-fated love affair develops between the two, behind the back of Linnet's husband Mark Lewarne (King Mark). Doctor Carfax soon realises the love affair is taking a familiar path to that of Tristan and Iseult and finds himself unable to do anything but observe as fate plays out.

If you are planning to read Castle Dor, I would recommend familiarising yourself with the story of Tristan and Iseult beforehand as you'll definitely appreciate this novel more if you do. I used Wikipedia to remind myself.

I nearly gave up on this book early on. It was slow, rambling and the characters weren't developed enough to be interesting or engaging. Although it picked up, it never really recovered from the slow start.

"...Amyot, leaving Pleasant's bridle, ran back to her. They had come to anchor, and she might descend.

Then, in a flurry of half a dozen seconds, the disaster happened and was over. Afterwards Linnet remembered only Amyot's looking up at her, his collar open, his naked throat all powdered with hayseed. A moment later, attempting the descent, she had caught her heel in her riding-skirt and clutched at the pitchfork handle to steady herself. It came away - Amyot caught it and with a twist of the hand flung it away as it was within an ace of piercing her side with its prongs. For the moment she had tumbled into Amyot's arms and was held. Then a pile of hay, dislodged by the pulling out of the fork, toppled over and fell, smothering them both.

'Neatly manoeuvered,' murmured Doctor Carfax.

'Sweet hay, if ever there was!' cried the farmer jocularly. 'But you did that nibby-jibby, lad.'

He pulled the covering smother from the shoulders of the pair.

Linnet's cheeks were hot and flushed; Amyot's white as a man's who has just seen a ghost. No wonder, either, so near a thing it had been. He stared around him blankly, towards the fork which, whirled from him, had bedded its deadly prongs into the midden-heap of the mowhay." (pp. 84-85)

In the Preface, Foy Felicia Quiller-Couch tells the story of how her father, Arthur Quiller-Couch started this novel in the early 1920s and then "grew weary" of it. After her father's death, Foy passed the unfinished manuscript over to her friend Daphne Du Maurier to complete. Foy claims that Du Maurier has "so cleverly has she woven her work into his, that I defy anyone to discover where the shuttle passed from his hand into hers". However, having now read a number of Du Maurier's novels, I think I noticed a shift towards her style about halfway through...perhaps as early on as Book 2. I'd be interested in hearing from others who have read this one about which bits they think Du Maurier was responsible for?

Definitely not the best Du Maurier I've read which is understandable considering it is not really Du Maurier...at least, it's not her original idea/story. A bit disappointing, but interesting nonetheless.

This is the 3rd book I've read as part of the Daphne Du Maurier Challenge being hosted by Chris at book-a-rama. I've now completed the challenge but I think I'll keep on reading...

My Rating: 2.5/5

Bleak House Chapters 1-7

2010-08-25T07:15:00.000+08:00

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (Chapters 1-7)

As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn; the determined sleuth Inspector Bucket; and even Jo, the destitute little crossing-sweeper. A savage, but often comic, indictment of a society that is rotten to the core, Bleak House is one of Dickens's most ambitious novels, with a range that extends from the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the poorest of London slums. (description from The Book Depository)

I'm taking part in the Bleak House Readalong over at The Zen Leaf. This week we're all reading and discussing Chapters 1-7.

My thoughts on Chapters 1-7

Well, first of all I'm quite proud of myself that I didn't chicken out of reading Bleak House the moment I turned past the title page and saw the epic Contents page (and equally long listing of characters!). Scary.

The first 2 chapters were pretty slow-going but I'm actually quite interested and engaged in Esther's narrative. I especially enjoyed Esther, Ada and Richards 's time spent at the Jellyby's:

"I made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened, and crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were endeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after pacifying him), that he was a little boy, with a naturally large head, I thought that, perhaps, where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and beadle, that he would immediately have been pushed into the area, if I had not held his pinafore, while Richard and Mr Guppy ran down through the kitchen, to catch him when he should be released. At last he was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner". (p. 36)

I've heard all kinds of Bleak House horror stories, but I can honestly say that I'm 7 chapters in now and I'm quite enjoying it! Hopefully I'm over the hump now...but I don't want to talk too soon!

By the way, does anyone else love the phrase "telescopic philanthropy" (Chapter 4)?

Brooklyn

2010-08-24T20:11:00.001+08:00

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and her home for the first time. Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home - and homesick. And just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland. There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma - a devastating choice between duty and one great love. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

I've read mixed reviews about this book. Some people say it's the best book they've read all year and others are a little disappointed. I guess I'm the latter....I liked it but didn't love it.

Encouraged and arranged by her older sister Rose, Eilis Lacey reluctantly emigrates to New York leaving behind the small Irish town of Enniscorthy and her family. Eilis slowly starts making New York her home. When a family tragedy brings her back to America, she is suddenly faced with a big decision. Should she stay or should she go back to the life she's committed herself to in New York?

Set in the 1950s, this novel explores the Irish experience in America, the importance of place and the idea that "home is where the heart is". But it also touches on some of the social issues of the time. For example, Eilis is set to work on a special counter selling Red Fox stocking to coloured women.

Eilis just didn't strike me as being an interesting main character and she never really seemed to think for herself. Many of her actions seemed very cold (ie, attending a wedding after a family tragedy) and I just couldn't relate to her. I like my main characters to have a bit of personality ;-)

Brooklyn has a very slow pace and is quite understated in its tone. I think it will probably resonate quite powerfully with emigres. In my opinion, it was good but lacked a certain sparkle to make it stand out.

I've never read anything by Toibin before. I've heard good things about some of his other books such as The Master and The Blackwater Lightship. I think I'll check them out because I'd like to experience the fantastic Toibin prose I've heard about!

She had already packed one case and hoped, as she went over its contents in her mind, that she would not have to open it again. It struck her on one of those nights, as she lay awake, that the next time she would open that suitcase it would be in a different room in a different country, and then the thought came unbidden into her mind that she would be happier if it was opened by another person who could keep her clothes and wear them every day. She would prefer to stay at home, sleep in this room, live in this house, do without the clothes and shoes. The arrangements being made, all the bustle and talk, would be better if they were for someone else, she thought, someone like her, someone the same age and size, who maybe even looked the same as she did, as long as she, the person who was thinking now, could wake in this bed every morning and move as the day went on in these familiar streets and come home the the kitchen, to her mother and Rose. (p. 29)

My Rating: 3.5

PopCo

2010-08-22T14:00:00.039+08:00

PopCo by Scarlett Thomas

Alice Butler has been receiving some odd messages - all anonymous, all written in code. Are they from someone at PopCo, the profit-hungry corporation she works for? Or from Alice's long lost father? Or has someone else been on her trail? The solution, she is sure, will involve the code-breaking skills she learned from her grandparents and the key she's been wearing round her neck since she was ten. "PopCo" is a grown-up adventure of family secrets, puzzles, big business and the power of numbers. (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

It was hard to walk past this book in the bookstore…with blue-tipped edges and bright blue cover it definitely caught my eye. Once again I chose a book based on its cover!

Alice Butler works for PopCo, the third-largest toy company in the world. When Alice arrives at the PopCo Open World event at the company's 'Thought Camp' in Devon, she is surprised to be selected to be part of an elite team given the mission to develop the next craze for teenage girls. When she begins receiving coded messages, she starts to question everyone and everything around her...

This is such a different book from anything I've read before. And it was definitely not what I was expecting based on the cover and the blurb. Alice's interests lie in mathematics and code-breaking and as such the book has an almost 'mathematical fiction' feel to it. Mathematical theories and code-breaking methods are incorporated into the story and explained in an interesting way. Mix in a few family secrets, buried treasure and consumer culture and you have the strange combination that makes up PopCo.

PopCo started off being a fun and intelligent read…but somewhere along the way Thomas got a bit too caught up with her message and social commentary at the expense of the plot. The result was that this was a bit exhausting to read. I felt the same way when I finished this book as I did when I finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics (see my review here)...mentally numb and without the energy to work out the crosswords, etc left by Thomas at the end!

My favourite bits were the flashbacks to teenage Alice and the story of Francis Stevenson and the buried treasure. I enjoyed the little lessons in cryptography…but after awhile the book became a bit too concerned with imparting knowledge and a message and took an unrealistic and (you'll understand what I'm referring to if you've read it!) unsatisfying turn towards the end.

"The words ‘toy company’ usually make people think of fluffy things and wooden block; elves, perhaps in an industrial-revolution version of Santa Grotto, hammering and carving and running around with dolls, farmyard animals and jigsaw puzzles, placing them in sacks for delivery to clean children who sit in front of fires. In fact, these days, toys are more likely to involve fast food promotions, film tie-ins, interactivity, ‘added-value’, super-branding and, of course, focus groups observed through one-way mirrors. Wooden blocks, at least the ones made by most toy companies, are apparently now designed according to a mathematical formula that tells you how many of each letter to include in which ratios on how many blocks so that children need to own more than one set in order to make proper words…

You may have heard of things like ‘Geek Cool’ and ‘Ugly Beauty’. Nothing is automatically uncool any more, which is another way of saying you can sell anything, if you know how." (pp. 5-6)

The End of Mr Y

by Scarlett Thomas

I really like the sound of Scarlett Thomas' previous novel, The End of Mr Y. From what I’ve heard, The End of Mr Y is the better of the two books but is also concerned with big topics such as quantum physics, Derrida, etc.

My Rating: 3/5

In My Mailbox 30: Book Sale Edition!

2010-08-22T10:51:00.027+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

One of my favourite days of the year came around this week. Once a year there's a massive (we're talking 100, 000 books on sale) secondhand booksale that I drop everything to get to. I queued 1.5 hours in the cold and mosquitoes this week to get in and here's my haul:

The 19th Wife

by David Ebershoff

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

The River Wife

by Heather Rose

We Need to Talk about Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

Jigs and Reels

by Joanne Harris

A Spot of Bother

by Mark Haddon

Villette

by Charlotte Bronte

The Past and Other Lies

by Maggie Joel

Borges and the Eternal Orangutans

by Luis Fernando Verissimo

The Spellman Files

by Lisa Lutz

The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce

by Paul Torday

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

Election Day

2010-08-21T09:58:00.004+08:00

Just a quick message to remind fellow Aussies to recycle their how-to-vote cards, etc today and pass them on to the National Library of Australia for their collection of political memorabilia.

Wanted: 2010 federal election material

It looks like most State Libraries are collecting as well...

The Garden of Knowledge

2010-08-18T21:58:00.008+08:00

A "living library" consisting of 40, 000 books (complete with mushrooms) is part of the 11th International Garden Festival in Métis, Quebec:

(photos are from the Inhabit Photo Gallery)

Check out the article "Living Garden of Knowledge Made From 40,000 Books" by Bridgette Meinhold for heaps more photos and details about this amazing garden.

I'm no gardener...but I think this is my kind of garden ;-) Although I do feel a bit sorry for all the books! I keep telling myself: they're only discards...they're only discards...

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Blossoms and Shadows

2010-08-18T21:30:00.012+08:00

Blossoms and Shadows

by Lian Hearn

(1st October 2010)

This is the story of the birth of modern Japan, told by Tsuru, a young woman who breaks every stereotype of the Japanese lady. We meet her on the day of her sister's wedding, and soon realise that she will not accept the same domestic role that her sister is about to take on. Instead, Tsuru is ready to embrace the new world, defend her beliefs, look for love, and follow her career as a doctor working alongside her husband on the battlefields. In the mid 1860s Japan was in the grip of a revolution almost as tumultuous as the French Revolution 100 years earlier, yet we in the West know very little about it. This book lets readers feel they are there among the revolutionaries, guided by the engaging character of Tsuru. By the end of the first chapter readers will feel they know her, and want to fight with her as she battles against the conventions of the day and falls into a forbidden love. (description from borders.com.au)

It's clear that Lian Hearn (actually Aussie author Gillian Rubinstein using a pseudonym) has a fascination with Japan. A few years ago I read her Tales of the Otori trilogy which was set in feudal Japan. I was surprised to discover that there are now 5 books in the series...the three books I've already read plus a prequel and a sequel.

Across the Nightingale Floor (Book 1)

Grass for his Pillow (Book 2)

The Brilliance of the Moon (Book 3)

And more recently...

Heaven's Net is Wide (prequel)

The Harsh Cry of the Heron (sequel)

Blossoms and Shadows looks like it stands alone from the Otori series. Looking forward to reading it as part of the Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Booklover Book Reviews.

I'm reading Bleak House

2010-08-17T22:03:00.009+08:00

I've signed up for the Bleak House Readalong over at The Zen Leaf. I haven't read much Dickens before *hangs head in shame*...so I think it's time I changed that!

We'll be pacing ourselves (it is 900 pages after all!) and posting to the following schedule:

Aug 25 - Chapters 1-7

Sept 1 - Chapters 8-13

Sept 8 - Chapters 14-19

Sept 15 - Chapters 20-25

Sept 22 - Chapters 26-32

Sept 29 - Chapters 33-38

Oct 6 - Chapters 39-46

Oct 13 - Chapters 47-53

Oct 20 - Chapters 54-59

Oct 27 - Chapters 60-67

Wish me luck ;-)

The Earth Hums in B Flat

2010-08-17T20:12:00.062+08:00

The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan

"Young Gwenni Morgan has a gift. She can fly in her sleep. She's also fond of strawberry whip, detective stories and asking difficult questions. When a neighbor mysteriously vanishes, she resolves to uncover the secret of his disappearance and return him to his children. She truthfully records what she sees and hears: but are her deductions correct? What is the real truth? And what will be the consequences - for Gwenni, her family and her community - of finding it out? Gwenni Morgan is an unforgettable creation, and this portrait of life in a small Welsh town on the brink of change in the 1950s is enthralling, moving and utterly real. Mari Strachan's debut is a magical novel that will transport you to another time and place." (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

Twelve year old Gwenni Morgan goes regularly to help out Mrs Evans by looking after her two young girls while she runs errands. One day, Gwenni Morgan arrives at Brwyn Cochin to find Mrs Evans bleeding from the mouth after having "been to visit Mr Price the dentist". The next day Mr Ifan Evans and his "black dog" are both missing. When Mr Ifan Evans' body is found in the Reservoir, Gwenni decides to try and uncover the truth for the sake of Catrin and Angharad, the two little girls she babysits. In the process, Gwenni discovers that some truths are best hidden and uncovers some startling truths about her own family.

It's a strange feeling to know more than the main character in a mystery novel. It's obvious early on "who-dunnit", but this book isn't about the mystery...it's about Gwenni and her loss of childhood innocence. As Gwenni pieces together the mystery, her life and everything she knows unravels around her and nothing will every be the same again.

Gwenni Morgan reminded me a little bit of Flavia de Luce from Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag. Although a more innocent (and she's no chemistry super-genius either!) version of Flavia, Gwenni has the same fascination in the world and people around her and takes matters into her own hands when a mystery rattles her small village. Like Flavia, she takes full advantage of her age and manages to wrangle the truth out of the unsuspecting villagers.

...And now the room goes quiet again and I turn to the door and come eye to wide-open eye with Mrs Llywelyn Pugh's poor dead fox. I step back and Mrs Llywelyn Pugh walks past right to the front by the fire and Miss Owen Penllech and Nellie Davies move aside to make room for her. She sits there, nearest the fire, and her dead fox drapes itself sadly around her shoulders...

...I'm trying so hard not to look at Mama that I knock the dead fox onto the floor as I pass behind Mrs Llywelyn Pugh's bench. It's little dead paws cling to my legs. 'No,' I squeal and I kick at the fox. Mam glares at me again but everyone else laughs...

'Pick it up, Gwenni,' says Mam from behind her hand.

'I can't,' I say. 'You know I don't like touching dead things.'

'Don't be silly, Gwenni,' says Mam. 'That's not a dead thing. I told you, that's a fox-fur. Now pick it up for Mrs Llywelyn Pugh.'

I bend down and scoop up the dead fox with the empty cake plate. It slithers as if it's going to jump off but I throw it at Mrs Llywelyn Pugh and it droops over her shoulder and stares at me with its sad eyes. What it is trying to say to me? Is its spirit still there, imprisoned inside the glass eyes?

'What a quaint child you are, my dear,' says Mrs Llywelyn Pugh as she wraps the dead fox around her throat.

But I have an idea.I know what to do to give the dead fox a decent burial and save its spirit. I only have to wait for the Festival. Alwenna can help me. I look at Mam in excitement but she stares at me with that tight look on her face that means she's cross with me again about something. (pp. 101-102)

I think I'm in love with each and every variation of cover art I've seen for this book:

My Rating: 4/5

In My Mailbox 29

2010-08-15T10:13:00.015+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

A Long Long Time Ago and Essentially True

by Brigid Pasulka

On the eve of World War II in a place called Half-Village, a man nicknamed the Pigeon falls in love with a girl fabled for her angelic looks. Using his 'golden hands' he decides to turn her family's modest hut into a beautiful home, and build his way into her heart. But war arrives, cutting short their charming courtship and bringing with it terrible events. Fifty years on, young Baba Yaga leaves her village to make a new life in Krakow. What she finds is not the city of her grandmother's tales but a place struggling in the aftermath of communism's fall, where opportunity seems reserved for the lucky few. Then tragedy strikes and the past reaches out an unexpected hand to her. What Louis de Bernieres did for Kefalonia, Brigid Pasulka does for Poland, weaving together the two strands of her story with a deftly magical touch into a witty, wise and heartbreaking love story that will enchant you to the very end. (description from The Book Depository)

Thanks to Man of La Books for the recommendation!

PopCo

by Scarlett Thomas

Alice Butler has been receiving some odd messages - all anonymous, all written in code. Are they from someone at PopCo, the profit-hungry corporation she works for? Or from Alice's long lost father? Or has someone else been on her trail? The solution, she is sure, will involve the code-breaking skills she learned from her grandparents and the key she's been wearing round her neck since she was ten. "PopCo" is a grown-up adventure of family secrets, puzzles, big business and the power of numbers. (description from The Book Depository)

Isa & May

by Margaret Forster

Margaret Forster, in this engaging, intriguing novel, about a young woman and two grandmothers, uncovers the shocking truths that family history reveals. The curiously named Isamay, a would-be academic, is trying to write a coherent thesis about grandmothers in history - from Sarah Bernhardt and George Sand to the matriarchal Queen Victoria and other influential grannies - while constantly ambushed by the secrets her own family has been keeping. An only child, she is named after her grandmothers, Isa and May, who were there at her birth and who have formed and influenced her in very different ways. Jealous of each other, they both want to be first in their granddaughter's affections. Isa has an edge, in that young Isamay looks like her, but Isa's reserved and elegant exterior hides startling surprises that could undermine her granddaughter's certainties. May, on the other hand, is plump, indomitable and opinionated, and it's from her that Isamay inherits her stubborn determination. Isamay, almost thirty, has never wanted children, but suddenly considers changing her mind. Her live-in lover, Ian (always mysterious about his own family history) is sure that he does not want a child. Engrossing, set in the present but with hooks into the past, this is an unusual story about grandmothers and their potentially powerful role in family life, about nature vs nurture, bloodlines and bridges across generations. (description from The Book Depository)

Pictures of Lily

2010-08-13T20:11:00.012+08:00

Pictures of Lily by Paige Toon

"16-year-old Lily has just moved to Australia, dragged by her lovesick mum to the other side of the world. She's desperately homesick, away from her friends and life in London. Then she meets 26-year-old Ben. Despite the age difference, they have a lot in common. Ben is gorgeous, protective of her, teaching her to drive and encouraging her love of photography. But when Lily suddenly discovers that he is engaged to a woman back in England, she is heartbroken and Ben, despite having feelings for Lily, follows his head and not his heart back to England to marry. Fast-forward ten years and Lily is living in Sydney, working as a receptionist for a magazine publishing company, her dreams of being a photographer abandoned. When her boyfriend, the cool and confident Richard, proposes to her at the reception of their friends' wedding she says yes. Lily has never got over Ben, but thoughts of him consume her, turning him into an almost mythical figure - the one that got away - and now that she's going to get married, she feels like he's lost to her forever. Then one day she is amazed to bump into Ben. When he tells her that his marriage broke down five years ago, something stops her from telling him that she's engaged. But Lily will have to make a decision - will she go with her heart?" (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

You really have to see this book in person to truly appreciate it! It's gorgeous :-) The heart around the title on the cover is all sparkly and glittery...I love reading books with beautiful covers like this one! And I've been looking forward to this one ever since reading Johnny Be Good!

As an Aussie, I loved the fact that this book was set in Australia (Adelaide and Sydney in particular) and that I could recognise some of the locations: the Botanic Gardens and Rumble Mall in Adelaide. I especially liked the scenes at the conservation park where Lily gets up close and personal with some of our Aussie wildlife ;-)

Despite it's predictability, this book managed to keep me engrossed throughout. Paige Toon's characters are all so likeable and she really got the 16 year old voice right in Lily. Loved that her main concerns are the "freakishly huge" Australian spiders under her bed and *gasp* having to wear khaki shorts at the conservation park and reveal her pasty white legs. That is, until she meets Ben...and then her life becomes a lot more complicated. The story jumps forward 10 years and we see a grown-up Lily who still can't get Ben out of her mind and is now faced with a huge and emotional decision.

I love the way Paige Toon tries to connect her books in some way. For example, Lucy and Nathan (from Lucy in the Sky) make an appearance in this one...and I know I've noticed familiar characters in the other books I've read by her.

I'm very excited to hear that Paige Toon's next book will be a sequel to Johnny Be Good! That's my favourite of her books.

My Rating: 4/5

Make your own Library!

2010-08-13T19:55:00.005+08:00

Do you loan books out to friends only to never see them again?

Maybe you need the DIY Library Kits on sale at ThinkGeek ;-)

Guaranteed to give you the power to "shush anyone you want"!

I think it will be a sad sad day if I ever start cataloguing my books and checking them out to my friends ;-) It'll be a sign that my book obsession (and my work!) has finally beaten me...

...but don't you just love this kit?!

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

2010-08-12T22:00:00.000+08:00

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu (translated by Sarah Ardizzone)

"Edinburgh, 1874. On the coldest night the world has ever seen, Little Jack is born with a frozen heart and immediately undergoes a life-saving operation. But Dr Madeleine is no conventional medic and surgically implants a cuckoo-clock into his chest. Little Jack grows up different to other children: every day begins with a daily wind-up. At school he is bullied for his 'ticking', but Dr Madeleine reminds him he must resist strong emotion: anger is far too dangerous for his cuckoo-clock heart. So when the beautiful young street-singer, Miss Acacia, appears - pursued by Joe, the school bully - Jack is in danger of more than just falling in love...he is putting his life on the line." (description from The Book Depository)

My Review

The cover of this book is so gorgeous...even though I've finished reading the book I'm reluctant to return it to the public library because I means I won't be able to look at it anymore!! I pretty much had to read this book once I'd seen the cover and that the synopsis seemed interesting was just a bonus. At the time I remember thinking that it sounded a little Edward Scissorhands-esque.

I won't go into describing the plot - the Book Depository summary pretty much says enough, but I will say that this is not a book for children. It's very much an adult "fairytale". It explores the beauty of love as well as the pain of love, lost innocence and growing up. I found it to be actually quite dark and a bit of a quirky mix of romance and fantasy with the odd sexual extended metaphor and a bit of magic sprinkled on top. It's quite a different novel (and very difficult to review).

"Firstly: don't touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. Secondly: master your anger. Thirdly: never ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more".

The author of this novel, Mathias Malzieu is the lead singer of a French pop group called Dionysos. From what I can gather, Malzieu wrote this novel (originally titled La Mécanique Du Coeur) as a companion piece to an album of the same name...or vice versa. Click here to read an interview with Malzieu.

This book trailer is absolutely beautiful. The song used is called "Tais-toi mon coeur" and is by Dionysos (Malzieu's band). There's also a movie scheduled for 2011.

My Rating: 4/5

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Piano Cemetery

2010-08-11T22:49:00.007+08:00

"Waiting on" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Piano Cemetery

by José Luís Peixoto

(3 November 2010)

Set in the working-class district of Benfica in Lisbon, "The Piano Cemetery" tells the story of a family, and especially of the hopes and fears of the fathers who pass the baton of the generations on to their sons. The Lazaro family are cabinet-makers who would rather be piano-makers. They have a carpentry shop in the Benfica district of Lisbon and there at the back is the 'piano cemetery' piled high with broken-down pianos that provide the spare parts needed for repairing pianos all over the city. It is a mysterious and magical place, a place of solace, a dreaming place and, above all, a trysting place for lovers. "The Piano Cemetery" is a wonderfully accomplished novel in which the true story of the Portuguese marathon-runner, Francisco Lazaro, is woven into a rich narrative of love, betrayal, domestic happiness and dashed hopes. Narrated in part by the father of Francisco Lazaro on the day his grandson is born and the day he himself dies and in part by his son as he runs the Stockholm marathon of 1908, remembering his family and his loves as he struggles against the heat and strives to outrun death itself. It is a beautifully constructed tale, that is by turns, violent and tender, funny and moving, with flashes of true insight, startling imagery and an instinctive understanding of families and their ways. "The Piano Cemetery" establishes Jose Luis Peixoto not only as the leading Portuguese novelist of his generation, but as a major figure on the international literary scene. (description from The Book Depository)

In My Mailbox 28

2010-08-08T13:44:00.001+08:00

IMM is hosted by The Story Siren.

Perfect Peace

by Daniel Black

When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, 'You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain't what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon' be a boy. It'll be a little strange at first, but you'll get used to it, and this'll be over after while.' From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

This is Just Exactly Like You

by Drew Perry

When Jack Lang impulsively buys a second house directly across the street from his own, his wife Beth leaves him-and their six-year-old autistic son, Hendrick-to move in with Jack's best friend, Terry Canavan. Jack tells everyone in his life he's okay, but no one believes him. Not his employees at Patriot Mulch & Tree in suburban North Carolina, not Beth herself, and not Canavan's estranged girlfriend Rena, who arrives on Jack's doorstep to see how, and whether, he's bearing up. When Jack starts letting Rena further into his life, and when Hendrick suddenly starts speaking fluent Spanish-stunning everyone-it becomes apparent to Jack that the world is far more complicated than he believed. (description from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

The Book Club

by Marjolijn Februari

Thirty-year-old Theresa Pellikaan is typical of the wealthy middle classes - with her respectable background, successful husband and house in an apparently sleepy, yet powerful, rich village. She works in a gallery, also typical of her type. When her former schoolmate Ruth Ackermann, brought up in the same village, makes waves with an international bestseller, but none of the villagers ever mention her achievement, not even the literary circle of Theresa's father, famous civil rights scholar Randolf Pellikaan, Theresa begins to wonder why. It can't only be because it's not 'literature'. It emerges that there is a dark secret in the village. Every member of the book club has a reason to keep quiet and Ruth Ackerman's novel threatens to bring the past into the present, with devastating results. Unable to cope with the silence, Theresa investigates, no matter the consequences. (description from The Book Depository)

Booksploring

Save Me the Waltz

In My Mailbox 42

The Lightkeeper's Wife

In My Mailbox 41

The Empress of Ice Cream

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

A Tiny Bit Marvellous

"Waiting On" Wednesday: January edition

The Great Typo Hunt: Two friends changing the world, one correction at a time

Enter a Murderer

Preincarnate

Aussie Author Challenge 2011

Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2011

2010 in Review

The Mary Smokes Boys

Merry Christmas + Giveaway Winner

"Waiting On" Wednesday: A Red Herring Without Mustard, The Lake of Dreams and Bleakly House

In My Mailbox 40

Holiday Giveaway: WIN a $45 gift certificate!

Sweet Misfortune

Blossoms and Shadows

Literary Blog Hop

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Goodnight Tweetheart

In My Mailbox 39

2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge

Bruno, Chief of Police

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Caroline

In My Mailbox 38

The Distant Hours

Botchan

The Brave

In My Mailbox 37

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Valdez

Blogoversary and CSN giveaway winner!

In My Mailbox 36

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Eleven

In My Mailbox 35

WIN a $45 gift certificate!

Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo

The Past and Other Lies

In My Mailbox 34

The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam

Welcome Book Bloggers!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: 1Q84

True spirit: the Aussie girl who took on the world

In My Mailbox 33

A Proper Education for Girls (and I'm back *hi*!)

In My Mailbox 32

My first guest post!

"Waiting On" Wednesday: From Notting Hill with Love...Actually

Perfect Peace

One Child

In My Mailbox 31

Castle Dor

Bleak House Chapters 1-7

Brooklyn

PopCo

In My Mailbox 30: Book Sale Edition!

Election Day

The Garden of Knowledge

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Blossoms and Shadows

I'm reading Bleak House

The Earth Hums in B Flat

In My Mailbox 29

Pictures of Lily

Make your own Library!

The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Piano Cemetery

In My Mailbox 28

A Proper Education for Girls (and I'm back hi!)