Previously: Common reading, confessions thereof,
January-init. April
April-June

Reading now:

The White Lioness - Henning Mankell
Generation X - Douglas Coupland
Book of Clouds - Chloe Aridjis
The Striped World - Emma Jones
Letters to a Fiction Writer - edited by Frederick Busch

This year's list (decided to dispense with the touchstones as correcting them again every time I added a book was getting old):

January
1. The Sewing Circles of Herat - Christina Lamb (326 pages)
2. Ghostwalk - Rebecca Stott (324 pages)
3. Not the End of the World - Kate Atkinson (332 pages)
4. The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill (145 pages)
5. Don't Panic - Neil Gaiman (240 pages, or 241 if you count the acknowledgements...)
6. Through the Dark Woods - Joanna Swinney (152 pages)
7. Dead Lovely - Helen FitzGerald (298 pages)
8. The Master Bedroom - Tessa Hadley (309 pages)
9. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (328 pages)
10. A Bit on the Side - William Trevor (245 pages)
11. The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews (274 pages)

February
12. 84, Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff (97 pages)
13. Sleepyhead - Mark Billingham (405 pages)
14. I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You - Ally Carter (284 pages)
15. In the Woods - Tana French (592 pages)
16. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman (289 pages)
17. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (185 pages)
18. American Gods - Neil Gaiman (588 pages)
19. Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn (203 pages)
20. The 13 Clocks and the Wonderful O - James Thurber (158 pages)
21. Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (338 pages)
22. Angels of the Flood - Joanna Hines (409 pages)
23. Cassandra at the Wedding - Dorothy Baker (225 pages)
24. No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay (437 pages)
25. Proust and the Squid - Maryanne Wolf (295 pages)
26. My Antonia - Willa Cather (372 pages)

March
27. Vicky Had One Eye Open - Darryl Samaraweera (211 pages)
28. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan (374 pages)
29. What Should I Do With My Life? - Po Bronson (400 pages - I'm counting the gushing acknowledgements and the saccharine reading group guide)
30. The Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick (289 pages)
31. Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom (192 pages)
32. Death of an Englishman - Magdalen Nabb (238 pages)
33. The Dark Lord of Derkholm - Diana Wynne Jones (328 pages)
34. The Idle Parent - Tom Hodgkinson (223 pages)
35. Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl, I Learnt From Judy Blume - ed. Jennifer O'Connell (275 pages)
36. I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley (230 pages)

April
37. Florence, A Delicate Case - David Leavitt (176 pages)
38. Imagined London - Anna Quindlen (162 pages)
39. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders - Daniyal Mueenuddin (237 pages)
40. Maps for Lost Lovers - Nadeem Aslam (369 pages)
41. I Like My Job - Sarah Herman (285 pages)
42. Kabul in Winter - Ann Jones (308 pages)
43. Designs for a Happy Home - Matthew Reynolds (240 pages)
44. Molly Fox's Birthday - Deirdre Madden (221 pages)
45. Earth and Ashes - Atiq Rahimi (54 pages)
46. Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín (252 pages)

May
47. Flood and Fang - Marcus Sedgwick (247 pages)
48. The Winter Vault - Anne Michaels (336 pages)
49. The Twisted Heart - Rebecca Gowers (280 pages)
50. Quite Ugly One Morning - Christopher Brookmyre (c.250 pages)
51. All the Living - C.E. Morgan (c.190 pages)
52. The Third Man and The Fallen Idol - Graham Greene (130 pages)
53. Hurting Distance - Sophie Hannah (408 pages)
54. Hens Dancing - Raffaella Barker (344 pages)
55. Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels (294 pages)
56. Second Honeymoon - Joanna Trollope (383 pages)
57. Everything Will Be All Right - Tessa Hadley (422 pages)
58. Devil's Kiss - Sarwat Chadda (279 pages)

June
59. Mr Toppit - Charles Elton (343 pages)
60. The Journal of Dora Damage - Belinda Starling (452 pages if you count all the various notes and acknowledgements - which I do)
61. The Knife of Never Letting Go - Patrick Ness (479 pages)
62. The Ask and the Answer - Patrick Ness (519 pages)
63. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman (457 pages)
64. The Gone-Away World - Nick Harkaway (532 pages)
65. After the Fire, A Still Small Voice - Evie Wyld (no touchstone, linked to work page) (296 pages)
66. Love and Summer - William Trevor (212 pages)
67. Just Like Tomorrow - Faïza Guène (184 pages including notes)
68. Dreams from the Endz - Faïza Guène (170 pages including notes)

July
69. The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafón (443 pages)
70. Legend of a Suicide - David Vann
71. The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton
72. Tender Morsels - Margo Lanagan
73. The Falcon's Malteser - Anthony Horowitz
74. Granta 106 (New Fiction Special) - ed. Alex Clark
75. Bareback - Kit Whitfield
76. Nothing to Be Frightened Of - Julian Barnes
77. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell

August
78. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
79. An Elegy for Easterly - Petina Gappah
80. Not Her Real Name - Emily Perkins
81. Crimespotting - various
82. The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell
83. Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin

Not counting:
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry (re-read)
The Devil's Children - Peter Dickinson (re-read)
Heartsease - Peter Dickinson (re-read)
The Weathermonger - Peter Dickinson (re-read)

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 5:48pm.

Comments still owing for:

Fugitive Pieces
The Winter Vault
Kabul in Winter

Thought I'd start a new thread as the old one was creeping up a bit and might need a bit more space for silly-name talk!!

Message edited by its author, Jul 4, 2009, 6:05pm.

Can't wait to see your thoughts on Anansi Boys! I read it awhile ago and liked it.

*snerk*

And you thought I'd just go away and leave you alone! Silly Rachael. Here I am, the proverbial bad penny.

ETA: Stupid of me...from your previous thread...posting one's reviews centrally is a way of giving back to the community, and I am pleased as punch that this attitude is taking hold even in Merrie Oldie Englandie, the land of self-reference. Unlike the USA, of course, where we don't allow pure selfishness here in paradise.

*pause for lightning to strike*

LT is the people in it, and what better way to know those people than for them to share their thoughts about the central reason we're all here: Books! I think some people don't review books for fear of sounding stupid or making someone mad or simply not knowing what to say in a review. It's sad to me that, even here, there are users who feel the need to control the manner in which others use and enjoy the site.

Message edited by its author, Jun 18, 2009, 12:21pm.

#4: I think some people don't review books for fear of sounding stupid or making someone mad or simply not knowing what to say in a review. That would be me, Richard. I just know if I like it or not, so that's the way I put it.

Rachael, I have you starred again!

I've got you starred again too. I don't want to miss learning about the good books you read or the silly names out there!

#4 & 6 yep and me - I do try to write reviews if a book has made an impact or, of course, if it is an ARC, but they're always a bit hit and miss. I think that some people are just better at writing reviews than others!

On the other hand alcottacre, a large part of what attracts me to a book is enthusiasm in others and I've got 3 books you've commented on on my wishlist, so you're doing something right!

Hallo new-thread Rachel!

#7: I am pleased to see that you have been able to pull books off my reading list despite my lack of reviews :)

I just found you--been a bit behind this week. See my thread for explanation why. Also waiting to hear your thoughts on Anansi Boys!

Thanks all for the starrings - you are all too kind. I've been busy re-finding threads that I had unaccountably lost this evening and as a result have run out of time to write comments.... argh. So the list up in post #2 just grew a little longer.

We're nearly at the end of June though, and things will be a little calmer next month. I hope.

Just posting so I don't lose you!

Me, too, posting so I don't lose you now that I've caught up on your thread! And had to laugh about the name thing--my tuppence? My grandfather's father was insistent he was not going to use conventional names for his children, so the first two, boys, were AZ and BY (alphabetically first and last letters, obviously aiming for at least 13 children), however, when the third child was a girl, his mother stopped the nonsense, which is why the remaining five were named. My mother insisted on three-syllable first names for all eight of us, and only the boys got middle names (because the girls would be married and who needed an extra name there). All kinds of fun in this arena. I promise nothing more about names. Back to books, back to books, back to books....

ETA: Greene's The Fallen Idol was filmed, and quite a good one, directed by Carol Reed (who also directed The Third Man) and starring Ralph Richardson as the butler. Apparently the little boy had never acted before and was very young, and there were adult hair-pulling sessions about how to deal with all of it.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 7:30pm.

>12 hello Prop! Thanks for dropping by. I just loved Greene's prefaces to those books - very revealing about the process of transformation of book to film. He seemed very much at ease with the idea that the films differed from the books in several significant ways despite bearing the same titles - understanding that film is a different creature altogether, I think.

Right, I am SO behind on comments that I need to catch up. Apologies if you thought the number of unread messages you'd just spotted on my thread was indicative of lively conversation - for the next few posts it'll mainly be me talking to myself... plus ça change ;-)

63. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
(457 pages)

I'm still equivocating over Gaiman; I've liked a lot of what I've read, but not enough to designate myself a hardcore fan. It's not stopping me trying more though.

There's a phrase early on in Anansi Boys that neatly encapsulates one of the things I like best about Gaiman's writing: the bringing together of two apparently wildly unrelated events - like crumpling a napkin so that random points touch - and then using the rest of the book to smooth out the folds so we can see the connection. It reads:

"The first time (Mr Nancy) got up to sing, he sang 'What's New Pussycat?'. The second time he got up to sing, he ruined Fat Charlie's life."

We don't really know who either of these two are beyond a brief introduction, and we certainly don't know how Fat Charlie's life has been ruined, and the rest of the book will be spent explaining, in a roundabout, digressive sort of way. Fat Charlie is one of those wonderful sweet underdog heroes for whom everything goes horribly wrong in a slow car-crash sort of way, and in the process of picking himself up and overcoming everything that has been thrown at him, he works out who he really ought to be, then becomes it.

Anansi Boys is about naming and about stories: about the way people's lives are shaped by the stories they hear and the stories they tell. There are some fantastic characters, a loopy plot fired totally by mad coincidences (for which brand of fiction I have to confess, I have a not-so-secret soft spot), and clever interweaving of the Anansi stories. If you thought the idea behind American Gods was clever but couldn't quite stomach the way it played out, it's probably worth giving this a go.

One nice gem from the author interview in the 'extra material' included with the edition I read:

"You start realising that in horror fiction people get what they deserve, whereas in comedies people get what they need. And I felt that at the end of Anansi Boys, everybody got what they needed."

64. The Gone-Away world - Nick Harkaway
(532 pages)

"High-octane" - ironically for a book about a world tenuously sustained by a mysterious Pipe - is a word that seems to have been waiting for this book to come along and claim it. Our unnamed narrator is part of a gang of mercenaries who hire themselves out to protect the Jorgmund Pipe from the many threats that assail it, in order to stave off a re-run of the end of the world. As the book opens, they're being called out to "one last job" - OK, not one last job, but it's essentially that familiar device. Only having set this up, we're then treated to a 200-odd page flashback explaining how the narrator and his friends got to this point - taking in his first encounter with his best friend in a sandpit, an enormous Polish matriarch, ninjas, an unconventional headmistress nicknamed The Evangelist, cannibalism, university, student protest, government brutality and armed service before we get to the everything-blows-up bit.

This book is completely and utterly insane. It has one of the best first pages I've read in a long time. It could have done with slightly firmer editing. It is a bit uneven in places. It's very, very funny. It's about martial arts, mercenaries, war, friendship and the end of the world. Harkaway just can't let a sentence lie - everything is embroidered, dressed up, tortured, prodded, interrupted and shaken down before a paragraph can claim its final full stop (much as I'm finding myself doing trying to describe it - it's infectious!). Surprisingly, I found this a lot less annoying by the end of the book than I thought I was going to somewhere around page 25.

Somewhere after the humungous flashback, it also features possibly the most audacious plot twist of any novel that I have ever read. To be strictly honest, it doesn't 100% come off - there were still a few "but... but.." questions in my mind - but really, the sheer chutzpah in even trying goes a long way. The other really excellent thing in here is the central 'monster' concept: I'm overfond of complaining that books with scary things in often let themselves down by describing the scary thing, giving it a shape that is altogether more familiar than the black vagueness forming in your imagination. This book does not fall into that trap. It also features a sweetly old-fashioned, 'fade to black' approach when dealing with sex scenes, which I found rather charming. No Bad Sex prizes for this man.

I enjoyed this enormously, and in fact more than I was expecting to, but it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I'd recommend it to fans of dystopian fiction, but especially those that are very fond of words for the sake of words and can forgive the numerous longeurs and unpackings that go on: Harkaway clearly read Orwell's rule of using as few words as possible and laughed until his sides split.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 9:37pm.

#14 I'm going to have to read that one. Great review.

I had been planning a bit of a genre-fiction binge, but then snagged a couple of tempting-looking proofs from work....

65. After the Fire, A Still Small Voice - Evie Wyld (no touchstone, linked to work page)
(296 pages)

Set in Australia, this story of fathers and sons, of war and of history seemingly doomed to repeat itself follows two narrative strands: that of Frank, set in present-day Canberra, and Leon, set in Sydney and Vietnam in the 1960s.

Frank and Leon both have difficult relationships with their fathers. Frank's total rejection of his father has directly influenced the break-up of his relationship; after his girlfriend Lucy tries one too many times to persuade him to get back in touch, his violent behaviour drives her out, and ends with him reclaiming his grandparents' shack in Canberra as he tries to put his life back together. 40 years or so earlier, Leon is dealing with the difficulties inherent in being an immigrant when his father enlists to fight in Korea, an experience that affects him profoundly, and ultimately breaks up Leon's family. When Leon is conscripted to fight in Vietnam, he sends his estranged mother a brief postcard announcing his absence, locks up the shop and leaves nothing behind.

Unusually for a book about war, this is quiet and thoughtful: as the title has it, the "still small voice" rather than the fire. The connections between the two narratives are subtly done and not overstressed, and the theme of forgiveness in the face of horrors nicely explored. Wyld also captures the savage beauty of the beach and bush landscape of Australia in a wonderfully evocative manner, and is similarly effective in some of the passages about Leon's experiences in Vietnam.

The main issue for me was I connected much more with Leon's strand of the narrative, and just couldn't care much about Frank until I was nearly 3/4 of the way through. If the themes of war and filial relationships are of interest, though, you may well get a lot out of this.

66. Love and Summer - William Trevor
(212 pages)

Another proof, this is due to be published in August in the UK. The Story of Lucy Gault was a wonderful book, and I've been looking out for more by Trevor since.

This would make an interesting companion piece to Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn; our heroine, Ellie, is strongly reminiscent of Eilis in her obliging wilingness to go where she is told and perform the various functions required of her. This novel catches a few weeks of summer in which Ellie is tempted to kick over the traces of her former obedience and love a thoroughly unsuitable young man: the flamboyant, half-Italian Florian Kilderry, who is engaged in selling off the inherited family pile in order to pay off an enormous heap of debts. Trevor's tendencies towards Hardy-ish-ness are also apparent: he gives us lovely, trusting, caring, resourceful Ellie, and then makes her fall in love with a dilettante, rather juvenile and careless young man who quite clearly does not deserve her, and worst, is only really toying with her to help him forget his own 'one true love'.

I think I'm just in the wrong mood for this sort of book at the moment; it's so carefully drawn and the characterisation of both these two key protagonist and the other characters who come into their orbit is fantastic - very much in the style of revealing characters' inner worlds through details and observations - but I found myself a little impatient with the gentle pace of what passes for a plot, as well as wanting to wring Florian's neck for much of the book. It is beautifully written though. Read if you're feeling reflective, wistful, nostalgic, not if you need something with a thumping great engine of a plot.

>15 thanks! Nick Harkaway is John Le Carre's son, but you wouldn't know it by the writing alone. Rather different!!

Right, I had it in mind to catch myself up on all my reviews to date (except the Winter ones that are going to need more thought) but it's 2am here and I have to work tomorrow... I WILL get them done this week.

Great review of The Gone Away World that got you a thumb! On the look out list for me now.

#13: loved that review, Floss! Made me want to read the book right now. Only I don't have it yet.
#14: added that one too, oh dangerous one.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 10:29pm.

>14: I thumbed-up (thumb-uped? thumbup-ed? thumbuped? all of those look silly...) your review for The Gone-Away World too, Flossie! That one was on my wishlist, but I'd forgotten why I was interested in it. Thanks for the great reminder!

I had no idea that Nick Harkaway was Le Carre's son. The things I learn here. This makes the second or third positive mention in this group that I've seen regarding The Gone-Away World. I'm going to have to surrender and put it on my list.

Am looking forward to your The Winter Vault review. I love all your reviews. Just too many recs!~!
belva

>19->23: BDB, Tiffin, Foxen, VG, NannyBB, thank you all so much! We aim to please. Nick Harkaway's website is also worth a look - he blogs pretty regularly and there's some nice background info about the book on there.

Fortunately for you all, The Gone-Away World is now out in paperback - I've been lugging around a monster Heinemann hardback... although it says something that I did lug it rather than picking a more slimline 'commuting' book to alternate with. I seem to be finding it harder and harder to read multiple books at once; this does sometimes mean that I don't read anything at all while commuting if I'm not enjoying my current read enough to bring it with me (Angel's Game, I'm scowling at you there).

Hallo Rachel! Really great reviews as ever... Hmmm, now how to convert you fully on Neil Gaiman... ;)

>25 flissp, keep your moldy paws off Rachael! She's about to have the "Gaiman should create stories, not write them!" epiphany any...second...now...I...feel...it...building....

*sigh* Another thread I must ever afterwards avoid, this one. Sad. I can't be adding two or three books to my wishlist per visit. Rachael, nice knowing you.

ETA: oh yeah...on the thumb-positioning terminology question...I use "thumbs-upped" because it sounds less goofy when said aloud. But I also say "attorneys general" in conversation, so that explains that.

Message edited by its author, Jul 1, 2009, 10:52am.

#16 - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice sounds fascinating. Will keep an eye out for that one. Thanks for the review.

#26 ah see now richardderus, I like the way he writes! ;)

>28 flissp ...so your parents played "bounce the baby" with your head, from great heights, during your infancy...? Or perhaps you became errr ummm chemically addled during adolescence?

There must be a rational explanation in your past!

>26 - richarderus -

Totally concur on your use of "thumbs-upped." Makes it clear to me the action that was taken by the subject/thumber upper, IMHO.

Rachael, you attract amazing friends with your interesting reviews and charming threads/posts.

Luv, WH

#29 re parental bouncing, it is possible ;)

...but I like his humour and rhythm too...

>25 I still haven't read Neverwhere so there's time yet.....

>26 Richard, if you were here I might apologise for my enabling behaviour. But since you're not, I ought not to waste the pixels, really. Something to do with carbon emissions or whatever.

>27 Peter, when I got to the end of the book, I found myself thinking, well, it's not top of my list but I bet there's someone out there who'd like it - and I must confess you came speedily to mind! War stories + Australia :)

>30 Thanks, Ruth - that's very kind.

Right, last two books and I'm up to date (with the exceptions of those serious books earlier in the year). And look to be for some time - you can tell I'm not enjoying my current book much by the degree of eagerness with which I am returning to this thread to update it...

67. Just Like Tomorrow - Faïza Guène (184 pages including notes)
68. Dreams from the Endz - Faïza Guène (170 pages including notes)

I'm going to put these two together as there are strong similarities of theme and style. I bought these after hearing the author and her translator at the world literature festival I mentioned in my last thread (yes, the one that was making my life hell....). Faïza Guène was a teenager when her first book was published (titled Kiffe Kiffe Demain in French), and became a publishing sensation in France.

Both books deal with the experience of young women (Just Like Tomorrow's protagonist is teenager Doria, while in Dreams from the Endz the narrator, Ahlème, is 24) living amongst immigrant communities in the Paris suburbs. In each case, the narrator has caring responsibilities: Doria's mother is illiterate and her father has left them to return to Morocco after Doria's mother fail to produce a son-and-heir; Ahlème's mother was murdered in a massacre in her native Algeria, her father is disabled as a result of an accident on the building site where he worked, and she is largely in charge of her teenage brother.

All this sounds very serious, gritty, socially worthy. But Guène isn't interested in forcing social messages down her readers' throats with a dose of grim realism. Her heroines are witty, down-to-earth, determined not to be ground down by the circumstances they have to deal with, so we go along with them and experience the sorts of lives they lead and the challenges they face. One thing I particularly appreciated was the picture Guène paints of real love between the daughters and their respective parents. I couldn't help reflecting on the fact that a novel set in a similar community in the UK would doubtless be filled with a lot more angsty inter-generational conflict; here, the daughters love their parents, respect their choices and their history, and unquestioningly accept that it is right and proper that they should be supporting them in their 'hour of need'.

Neither book has much of a 'plot' in the traditional sense - things happen, but there isn't a real narrative arc; they are more in the spirit of a sort of extended dramatic monologue. But interesting and enjoyable to read nonetheless. It'll be interesting to see what her third novel is like when it is translated into English (hopefully next year) - her translator says it's essentially a whodunnit and not at all about immigration. I'm intrigued to discover how she handles a more 'plotty' genre.

There's going to be a short film of the event online eventually so I'll have to remember to come back and link to it.

Sigh. I suppose I'd better pick up my book again...

I read Just like tomorrow last year as it was an UK IBBY Honour Book for translation. It was in the adult section of the library, but would make an appealing read for teens. I'll look out for her other books too.

>32 Faiza Guene is Algerian for "Rachael can't resist telling about good books she reads despite the fact that she knows it causes acute pain in her threadies."

*whimper*

Man up dude!~!

>34 I'm so sorry, Richard... in my defence, you did assure me you were never coming back in >26 ;-) I can pretty much guarantee you won't want to put my next read on your list, so you should be safe for a little while.

Sob. I went to a gig in Hyde Park and now my current book is covered in raspberry juice because the plastic bag leaked. Am v sad. (Don't say it serves me right.)

69. The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
(432 pages)

I'm going to start with an apology to those of you in the 75ers who really liked this. You may want to skip the rest of this post (or if you don't, you may wish to stop talking to me....)). I had a proof copy, and I am a complete sucker for proofs: they make me feel like one of the cool kids, for once in my life. Otherwise I might not have got round to this, being as I am so immensely counter-suggestible that the word "bestseller" triggers furious vibration in my BS antennae.

Confessors of the Creed of the Anti-Dickensians, take heed and learn from my sorrowful tale. The alarm bells really started ringing on page 32:

It was a rainy winter, with days as grey as lead, and I read Great Expectations about nine times, partly because I had no other book at hand, partly because I did not think there could be a better one in the whole world and I was beginning to suspect that Mr Dickens had written it just for me. Soon I was convinced that I didn't want to do anything else in life but learn to do what Mr Dickens had done.

You'd think that would have been enough for me. But no - I'm really beginning to hone my talent for sleeping through alarms. Stupidly, I ploughed on through another 400 pages of this overwrought, undercharacterised gothic farrago (although once I got to about p.100 and realised it wasn't getting any better I started flipping the pages a WHOLE lot quicker).

Brief plot summary: David Martín is a struggling dogsbody at a Barcelona newspaper, who gets a lucky break: the editor has an unexpected eleventh-hour gap to fill, a powerful sponsor intervenes in deus-ex-machina style and suggests that David, whose work he has seen, could help out. From here, David begins a career writing penny dreadfuls, serialised in the newspaper - which brings him to the attention of a mysterious publisher with an unusual publishing project he would like David take on, and also earns him the enmity of his colleagues, who resent his unexpected advancement. Weird and wonderful things begin to happen.

According to the sales figures for this book alone, 1.6 million Spaniards alone endorse Señor Zafón. The reviews - those I've seen - have been either rave or strangely coy, neither wholeheartedly endorsing nor slating the book. If they had, I might not have read this. Let me be clear. I did not like this book. It is an example for me of what my husband calls "throwing good money after bad" reading - a book I finished because I had invested too many pages in it and wanted to find out "what happened", but that I should have bailed out on much earlier and hence never had to reach that sorry state of affairs. It doesn't know what genre it really wants to be (horror fantasy? murder mystery? period thriller? metafiction?); the characters are completely 2D; what passes for the plot deflates badly at the conclusion.

Yeuch. Cunningly, the publicist had hidden at the back of the book all of the review comments mentioning the resonance with Dickens. Otherwise this might just have been another entry on the 'abandoned' ledger.

Rachael, I will still talk to you even though you did not like the book :) Great thing about LT - we all have books that we love that other people hate, lol.

I still have not finished The Angel's Game even though I loved The Shadow of the Wind because other books keep pushing it to the side. One of these days, I will actually finish it so I know how I feel about it!

Stasia, I knew you were enjoying it when last it was discussed so I was bracing myself as I wrote that.... glad you will still talk to me!! Am v cross with myself for not giving up earlier. Oh well. Hindsight is 20:20 and all that.

#39: I cannot tell you the number of times I have done that with a book! I adopted Nancy Pearl's 50 page rule a couple of years ago for exactly that reason. Sometimes (especially if a book has a number of glowing LT reviews) I will carry on, but these days, more often than not, I put the book aside. I had one of those books this past week - wonderful reviews, and the entire book I was going 'What am I missing?' because it did absolutely nothing for me.

Edited to correct grammar

Message edited by its author, Jul 4, 2009, 7:10pm.

Oh, my goodness, Rachael, that's a pretty harsh post. It almost makes me want to take it off my TBR list. Oh well, there are hundreds of other books I can read first.

I always like it better when someone doesn't like a book. Sometimes I dread reading stuff that everyone swoons over--it sets me against a book from the start.

Now I'm wondering if you poured the raspberry juice on The Angel's Game? And if you did it intentionally?

#37 - "...my current book is covered in raspberry juice because the plastic bag leaked."

My copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy got covered in Colgate "regular flavour" toothpaste in 1989 after a leaky plastic bag incident. Twenty years later, that book smells as minty and fresh as it did the day it recieved its fluoride coating!

Sorry to hear about The Angel's Game, it's in one of my piles alongside The Shadow of the Wind, but I doubt I'll be getting to it this year (or even at all after reading your review!).

Hmm...I'm still trying to figure out how the raspberry juice got onto the book. Why was the juice in a plastic bag??? Shouldn't it have been in something more sturdy? And why was the book placed in such a precarious position? I don't think we're getting the whole story of this sordid event.

Wow, that's a damning (but very good) review of The Angel's Game. Did you read The Shadow of the Wind, Rachael? If so, how did The Angel's Game compare to it?

>37 - Rachael -

Aha! An ally in the camp of not falling head over bum for Carlos Ruiz Zafón's writing style.

Read The Shadow of the Wind years past for RL Book Club. Was the only one in the group who barely made it through the book. Did not like it at all. Didn't want to go to club meeting that day ... but the refreshments and wine were very good.

I will not bother with The Angel's Game after reading your excellent review. It does sound as though it is simply more of the same as SotW.

Definitely still speaking, Dear and Admirable Rachael.

WH

Happy Sunday Morning to you Rachael.
I'm simply stopping by to say hello and to try to catch up on the posts. Your thread is a busy one with lots of great comments and books.

I never made it through The Shadow of the Wind so there is no way I am attemtping this one!!!!!!! lol

Oh, your poor raspberry-covered book! I dropped chocolate ice cream on my copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - on the very day that it was released, after driving to the nearest book store to buy it at the crack of dawn - and the book still has the mark - I was crushed!

#37 re the raspberry juice, ah, but the gig made it all worth it, didn't it! ...plus, you'll always know what you were doing when you read the book now... :)

i made the mistake of taking a book that actually requires a bit of effort with me - which was fine on the train down, but not a great plan for the way back...

Re The Angel's Game, I'm not anti-Dickens, but that snippet would have put me off too! I should probably investigate further nonetheless... One of my sister's mates was trying to convince me that Twilight was good pulp fiction on Friday - I don't know, everything I've read about it on LT (including the few positive responses) scream that this book is not for me, but I'll probably have to read it myself at some point - this is the problem with the bestsellers - I've an intrinsic need to be able to dis them for myself...

#48 this is the problem with the bestsellers - I've an intrinsic need to be able to dis them for myself

Ahh..........and dis it you will ;)

>41, >42, >43, >44: Terri/Peter/Darryl/Cait, flissp hints at it in >47 - I took the book with me to see Blur + support in Hyde Park on Friday. My bro and I raided Marks & Spencer for our picnic and I couldn't resist the half-price raspberries. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, a snap-closure plastic box + tied-closed supermarket bag were insufficient to protect the ones I hadn't eaten at lunchtime from the crowd - and the juice leaked out and onto my book. It's another proof (I'm having a bit of a run of them at the moment) with a white cover so the juice is unmistakable. Still, as fliss says - I'll always remember what I was doing!! Which is good as I virtually never go to gigs and it was amazing.

>47, Cait, that's such a sad story... my copy of Deathly Hallows, similarly acquired, got mashed up in our sofa bed after my mum borrowed it and then folded up the bed in the morning with the book still inside. I know first eds of the later Potter books are two a penny nowadays, but it's the only one I did the whole midnight-party thing for so I was quite upset (and of course trying not to show my mum I was upset as (1) she would feel bad (2) she would have further evidence for my disturbing bibliomanic tendencies).

(overexcited bouncing-up-and-down aside: am going to charity preview of Half-Blood Prince in Leicester Square on Tuesday. This is a GOOD week.)

>42, >43, >44, >46: Peter/Darryl/Ruth/luna re Shadow of the Wind - I did at one point own a copy of this, picked up for a pound in a warehouse sale, but gave it away before getting round to reading it (urgent forgotten-birthday-present to correct and it was the book I thought I could most live without - I'd only picked it up because it had been on the bestseller lists at work so I figured it might be worth a look). I have to say I'm not inclined to seek it out after my experiences with the follow-up.

>47 what were you reading, fliss? The raspberry book also needs some effort - I didn't even try on the way back, especially as we left the park in far too relaxed and ambling a fashion, and hence missed the 11.15 by minutes. grr. Slept most of the way back, and I never can usually sleep on trains. I know what you mean about Twilight. I haven't cracked yet though. You are welcome to borrow my Angel's Game if you are so inclined - I thought it might make good Read It Swap It collateral, but I can easily wait to post it until after you're done (and I owe you a Patrick Ness too!). Although really I feel like I should be withholding it from you to spare you the experience... you may like it more than me though; there are definite resonances with bits of Edwin Drood, which I seem to remember you enjoyed.

>45: hi Linda! Thanks for dropping by. I was so unenthralled by The Angel's Game that suddenly posting proper comments for the reading backlog seemed really appealing rather than a major chore....

Message edited by its author, Jul 5, 2009, 5:51pm.

Preview of Half-Blood Prince! So unfair!! I will expect a full review on Wednesday! LOL

ETA: And I think you showed great restraint, not getting upset in front of your mom. :)

Message edited by its author, Jul 5, 2009, 7:44pm.

#50 I was/am reading Seeing by José Saramago (for some reason, the touchstone never works, but I've tried to link to the appropriate page). It's a sort of sequel to Blindness (same city, 4 years on), but this time rotates around people not voting (oh, how pertinent). I don't know if you've read Blindness, but it's written in the same style - it's not that it's complicated or difficult to read, but it does require concentration (characters only have titles/descriptions instead of names, very few paragraphs, and no speech marks, despite many conversations...). I'm taking a very long time to read it, mostly because I seem to be only reading it on trains (a nice chunk of time with no interruptions...)

I somehow made quite good time and did manage to catch the 23.15, despite the fact we got a bit lost on our way to the tube (never listen to other people's short cuts/tube recommendations - I don't know why we did - I know perfectly well how to get from Hyde Park to Kings X!) - tried to sleep most the way back too, but had a splitting headache. All worth it though! Glad you had such a fantastic time - sounds like you were right in the mosh with your squished raspberries?! We were about half way back, which was nice and relaxed, but didn't have the atmosphere it would have done if we were further forward...

Very kind of you to offer Angel's Game, but I think I shall hold off for now. You're right, I did love Edwin Drood, but there is something about the paragraph you quote that makes me cringe a little bit. It may be the "Mr Dickens", so I think that it's one for the "keep an eye on, but don't rush out for" list, which is a very good thing, because my "i want to read this next" list is getting silly.

Enjoy the Half-Blood Prince preview - the trailer looked promising!

Edited to correct italics!

Message edited by its author, Jul 6, 2009, 12:07pm.

Hmmm. The Angel's Game contains positive mentions of Dickens. *buzz* Thanks for the memories, Sr. Zafon, I'll stop with The Shadow of the Wind so my good impression of you will survive.

Hidy, Rachael!

Edit to add a 'skip' link past the Half-Blood Prince...

>52 flissp, I haven't read either Blindness or Seeing, although they're both on the wishlist - they do sound really interesting. Personally I'm quite fond of no-speechmarks novels (and ones that give everyone designations rather than names are also a weakness - I did one of my finals dissertations on the subject of naming) so it's probably one I should make an effort to read! Trouble is, I don't OWN a copy and the need to winnow the piles is getting pretty severe.

We weren't right at the front for Blur, but ended up - with all the shoving - about halfway between the sound stage and the front (maybe a bit closer than that, it got quite hard to judge). Close enough to feel we were watching the stage rather than the screens, anyway, which was nice!

>53 Hi, Richard! I really really really didn't like Angel's Game. I'd read 30 pages and wasn't convinced, and made the mistake of asking around - everyone kept saying, "Well, I haven't read it, but I loved Shadow of the Wind, so... why not give it a few more pages?". By the time I'd realised it was beyond hope, I'd got just enough into it that I wanted to know "what happened in the end". There was a lot of speed-reading involved after about p.150.

I've a strong suspicion that Pottermania is not something in which you indulge, so you - and indeed, anyone else that isn't interested in reading about the Half-Blood Prince film - may wish to absent yourself a little... or at least jump down to the next post.

>51 Cait86, it's still Wednesday here (just), so....

The film was great - in my opinion, the best so far (my 10YO son thought there was "too much romance", and leaned over during one particularly slow scene to moan, "Mum, this is so BORING!" Hope no one heard him...).

I enjoyed it a whole lot more than OotP, although I'm wondering if that may be in part because with OotP, I'd just re-read the whole series in preparation for Deathly Hallows so the book was still fresh in my mind, and I spent far too large a proportion of the screening time being outraged at what was being left out. This time, I didn't even attempt to re-read the book, with the result that, while I was aware that things were different, I was actually able to enjoy it more as a film than as a "representation of the book onscreen". Which is as it ought to be, really.

The whole colour scheme of the film is much, much darker, even than OotP: greys, browns, blacks, and very few bright spots of colour to cheer things up (Weasley's Wizarding Emporium and a couple of Christmas parties are notable exceptions). However, by contrast, there are a lot more moments of genuine comedy too - I really did laugh out loud in several places, and all the teenage-relationship-awkwardness is very well done.

On the whole, the cuts that have been made really do help the film along - some of the Pensieve memories have been omitted, and although I was sad to see them go (particularly all the ones with Tom Riddle's family backstory, which I thought were gloriously creepy in the book) they would have slowed down the momentum too much. Quidditch scenes have also, mercifully, been reduced to a minimum.

It's also really noticeable how much the three leads are improving as actors - everything flows much more easily. I was reading somewhere today that Daniel Radcliffe dreads comic scenes as he's worried about overdoing it, but the manic style in which he played the Felix Felicis sequence was spot-on - very funny. And Tom Felton as Draco gets to extend his range a bit more beyond sneering upper-class twit - not a lot more, as he doesn't get all that much screen time in which to do it, but he makes the most of what he's got.

The final scenes - the cave sequence, the confrontation on the astronomy tower, and Hogwarts in mourning - were really excellently done. And the pacing was perfect - it's monster long, nearly 2.5 hours (and boy, was it a treat to be able to watch it without preceding trailers and ads!!!!), but I didn't even notice the time passing until a couple of people got up to leave hurriedly 2 hours in - presumably worried about trains home - prompting me to check my watch.

I was going to go and see it again next week as the 7YO would like to go - it was just me, the 10YO and my father-in-law (who bought the tickets) last night - but I think I may hold off a little while. He's not the world's most patient person, so going straight after school and football when he's tired and hungry is probably not a good move... will wait for the buzz to die down and emptier cinemas before we go again! (Because we WILL go again. Oh yes.)

So there you go. Hope you've booked your tickets :)

Message edited by its author, Jul 8, 2009, 6:47pm.

This post provided as a public service for those wishing to skip over Potter-related burblings.

I need to pop a brief review of a bit of comfort re-reading in here, but my son has to be up at the CroD tomorrow to get on a bus for a Tudor re-enactment day in Peterborough - and as I tried and failed to catch the train home last night, and ended up staying at my parents-in-law at about half past midnight, I REALLY need some sleep.

Ack! I can't wait to see Half-Blood Prince. I am so jealous that you've already seen it. Oh well, my turn will come soon enough :)

I love the CroD abbreviation! Somehow says it all ;)

Great review of Harry Potter - very much looking forward to the film now!

Re Blindness and "Seeing", I'd definitely recommend both even if you weren't a no-speechmarks kind of girl, so they definitely sound up your street! From memory (it's been a while since I read it), the former felt a lot darker and more apocalyptic than the latter (where, I keep finding unexpected giggle moments), but maybe that's because I'm only half way through.

At any rate, general review opinion seems to be that the 2nd isn't as good as the 1st, possibly because they found Blindness far more hard hitting. I don't know if it's because I read too many end-of-the-world dystopia type books when I was growing up, but, while I enjoyed it very much, for me, Blindness didn't have the same impact as, eg Brave New World, 1984, The Chrysalids or even Extinction is Forever. Personally, I'm enjoying "Seeing" just as much, even if the pace isn't the same.

You're very welcome to borrow Blindness if you like? ...and, of course, "Seeing" when I've finished it (probably this weekend - I've got a whole Sunday to myself - yay!)

Edited to make touchstones work

Message edited by its author, Jul 8, 2009, 8:53pm.

Flossie;
Thank you so much for the little preview. I am so excited to see this one. We have been watching a "Potter" a day on the 1st five DVDs for almost 2 weeks now in preparation of.
I was one of those who; "My Gawd!~! I am NOT reading that crap!~!" Then my 11 year old grandson challenged me to a reading duel of the H.P. books and well, how can you not take the kid up on that? So I began. He was already on #3 or something when I began and we were sharing books. So I, all of a sudden was: "What page are you on? I'm on such and such. Would you hurry up, I am almost ready for that one!~!" LOL He has created a 61 1/2 yr old H.P. monster here.
We are all going together; my husband, (enjoys the movies but won't read the books), my son, his daughters, my daughter, son-in-law, and their boys. Should be fun and then of course we get to go out to dinner afterward and knosh over the whole movie. I am just jazzed!~!

Hey Richard----you don't know what you're missing. If you could do (any) Phryne Fisher, you can easily handle Harry Potter and I am sure enjoy him more!~!

Thanx again, Flossie, for the preview. You made my day.
belva

Message edited by its author, Jul 8, 2009, 9:27pm.

> 54 Thank you for the info on the new Potter movie. I was fretting over not having time to re-read all the books before then. It sounds like the best thing is not to read it just now. I may start the re-reading after I've seen the movie. Thanks again for sharing!

Now just one dad-blamed minnit here...I read each and every Harry Potter book, and while I confess I like OotP least because teenaged angst annoys me mightily, I loooved them!

I won't go to theaters to see movies because I can't abide rude audiences that chitty-chat during movies and use their stupid cellphones to text their worthless "friends" while I'm trying to involve myself in the action. And, may I point out, paying $10 for the seat. Oh HELL no.

Netflix, Netflix, you're my dream! You can make the cinemas scream!

So, St. Richard, mine sveete, you actually enjoy H.P. and watch the DVDs?
Well, blow me down and call me sassafrass!~! I take it all back. And I ask for your forgiveness as I do not wish to be sent back to the vestibule.

Message edited by its author, Jul 17, 2009, 10:48am.

BACK to the vestibule...? Dear Beelzeva, you've not been reinstated into the Great Bookstore yet. Though with that completely over-the-top GIF, I guess you can move into the cash-and-wrap area.

Whoo Hoo!~!~!

>56 kittybee, not long to wait now! My father-in-law kept apologising that we weren't ACTUALLY in the Odeon with the stars but I didn't care - just too exciting to see it early :)

>57 flissp, the onomatopoeia of CroD is quite satisfying, isn't it? We were there in plenty of time in the end, but I think I'm still slightly in denial about it being daytime even now. I'd love to borrow Blindness later in the summer - I realise that I haven't actually read ANY of those classic dystopian novels you mention (couldn't finish 1984, have a copy of Brave New World but never got round to reading it), which is odd as I really do like dystopian fiction. Really looking forward to the new Margaret Atwood (incidentally, another casualty of the "going home from Edinburgh too early" sickness. Next year I think I'll just go for the whole damn fortnight...)

>58 Belva, I can't really remember how I really got into reading the Harry Potter books. I bought the first three in the 'adult' covers when my eldest was very small - maybe about 2 - possibly thinking that he'd be into them one day and I'd better do some prep? My father-in-law was also reading them with my sister-in-law at the time (she would have been about 9), so that may also have had something to do with it. At the time, I thought they were OK, but I found them a bit derivative of other books that I had loved as a child (e.g. Worst Witch). I was never a "buy it on release day" girl until Deathly Hallows - my friend Chris used to save me the trouble by getting his, reading them quickly and then lending them to me. But by the time I was re-reading the series for book 7, my eldest was reading them - I can remember the, "hurry UP, I've finished mine!" argument over books 5 and 6. Anyway, glad to have made your day, and I hope you enjoy the family outing!

>59 profilerSR, I actually felt quite relieved I hadn't re-read it. I came out of OotP so cross at what they'd changed - this was a much happier experience.

>60 Richard, I apologise profusely for maligning your appreciation of the boy wizard. OotP I also disliked intensely when I first read it, for many of the same reasons (also the heightened awareness of cinematic potential got a bit irritating), but I've come around to it over the years.

Okay, I give up. What does CroD stand for? According to Google, CROD stands for the California Registry of Ovum Donors, but I suspect that wasn't the purpose of your journey.

:-) "Crack of Dawn".

Ah. That makes more sense. :-)

Did you see the play "God of Carnage" when it was in London? (Is it still there?) I saw it yesterday on Broadway, and it was hilarious!

Re Blindness, no probs - just let me know when you'd like it and I'll drop it round...

Brave New World is definitely worth a read if you've got it, although it is a little dated (from my memory) - and I preferred 1984 - but since that's not for you, you may enjoy the former more? I still haven't got round to reading Orxy and Crake, so I feel I should read that before the new one, but I agree, it does sound good (will I resist?)!

"CroD" made me smile, too. I work in a coffee shop, but usually in the afternoon. I've been appropriately bleary for the morning shift this week.

I am so glad to hear that the Harry Potter movie is as good as I was hoping it would be. I've generally disliked the others (with the exception of OotP, actually) but am rather excited for this one. Maybe because this is the first to come out when I haven't had a book release to look forward to instead. Or maybe because it looks really good.

Thank you for the preview review!

Thanks so much, Rachael, for the HBP info! It sounds great, and I am so, so excited to see it!! It doesn't come out here until next week, so now I am really impatient! LOL

I was 13 or 14 when I discovered Harry Potter - it was just before Goblet of Fire was released. I borrowed the first one from my neighbour, and then went and took #2 and #3 out of the library. I remember enjoying Philosopher's Stone, and then I thought that Chamber of Secrets was just ok. Prisoner of Azkaban absolutely blew me away though, and really started my obsession. I still count it as my favourite book - it isn't the best, but it is my fav, because it is what really got me hooked. The end sequence is really fantastic, and I love the introduction of Sirius and Lupin. From that point on, I was a get-up-at-the-CroD-on-release-day-to-buy-a-copy person. Release day meant me sitting in my bedroom all day long, with no interruptions, until I finished the new book. Then, I turned around and immediately read the book again.

I think I have read this series about 20 times, at least....and now I want to go start it again! Must...resist...

Thanks again for the preview!!

OK, I know it's very naughty and un-public-spirited of me to update my own thread when I haven't finished catching up on everyone else's but... I am SO tired: stressful presentation to do today, up too late last night preparing it, then couldn't sleep when I had finished, yada yada yada (er - or is that another of those things that English people aren't allowed to say? Oh well, too late now.). Speedy update.

>67, Darryl, am hopeless with the theatre - it's so expensive in London, and I never seem to have enough time. Am trying to make plans with my mum to go and see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which I love, but it's not looking like it's going to work out as she never seems to be free when I am :-( Glad you enjoyed it though! The review on your thread sounded very entertaining.

>68, flissp, I have an ex-Rock-Road-Library copy of Brave New World! I would like to read it sometime. A man on the train this morning had one in the new Vintage livery but the cover illustration made my eyes go funny - one of those overlaid-lines giving the impression of movement type things.

>69 and >70, Foxen and Cait, no doubt you've been to HBP by now - what did you think?

Speedy update on reading - not proper comments, just super-brief summary, comments later.

Have finished:

The Changes Trilogy - Peter Dickinson: not counting towards total as a re-read of books I loved as a child. We were near Beaulieu Abbey, which has a well-regarded car museum, a few weeks ago for my auntie's surprise birthday party, which made me remember the wonderful scenes in The Weathermonger, in which the child heroes 'liberate' a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost from the museum in order to investigate what has caused the demise of technology in England. These are three absolute gems, which I believe are sadly out of print - all based around the premise that England has suddenly gone back to the Dark Ages: everyone has woken up one day believing that machines are evil, and are to be avoided or smashed. Those caught using them are stoned as witches; use nearby can provoke nausea or even murderous violence in the susceptible. Cracking stuff: great plots, well realised and consistent central theme, believable characters.

Books that I am counting:

70. Legend of a Suicide - David Vann: New York Times Notable Book in 2008, due to be published by Penguin in the UK in October. My poor abused proof (be-raspberried, and then later squished in my bag and finally chocolate-smeared by small daughter). Subject matter not entirely my kind of thing, but extremely well written. Deserves more detailed comment (later).

71. The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton: this debut novel completely blew me away (more so than avatiakh, i think!). Have marked so many pages as notable that there are hardly any left over. Astonishingly good by any yardstick, let alone for a first novel by someone who is only 23. Requested tickets to see her event at the Edinburgh Book festival in August on a pure whim, and I'm SO glad I did. You can see for yourself - the first chapter is on the Granta website (scroll past all the rot about the School of Life until you see the heading 'Thursday').

Finally, have acquired too many books this week. Currently reading Tender Morsels, which seems to have caused a bit of a storm-in-a-teacup in the UK press. Jonathan Cape offered some copies via their Twitter feed for readers to "see for themselves" and I got one, so it kind of jumped the queue.

Then I went upstairs and snared a few off the review shelves:

Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors - Lisa Appignanesi
Children and the Internet
Once & Then - Morris Gleitzman (single edition of both books)

and then I did that rare thing of going to the bookshop and buying a book I'd never heard of before that just looked interesting:

Leaving Beirut - Mai Ghoussoub

Then, Borders UK announced it was closing 5 of its stores, including the one on Oxford Street which is about 15 minutes' walk from my office when I'm in London. Everything is half-price. I have been twice this week, once on Tuesday en route to sing evensong in Westminster Abbey (yay!), and once today, for rather a longer lunch break than I should have taken. I bought some stuff for the kids, and:

Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin
Black Boxes - Caroline Smailes
Paris review Interviews volume 1 - ed. Philip Gourevitch
A Reading Diary - Alberto Manguel
Sunstroke - Tessa Hadley
Angel - Elizabeth Taylor (bizarrely, no touchstone)

I am very proud of myself because I also PUT BACK 6 books. So I can't be a COMPLETELY hopeless case, right?

#72 - I'm crossing my fingers that The Rehearsal wins the NZ Montana Awards Fiction prize next week. It's up against Emily Perkins' Novel about my Wife which I haven't read and a couple of others. Catton's book has been a unique reading experience,in a class of its own, most of what I've read since has felt almost pedestrian alongside. So glad you loved it.

On a movie note - I saw HP&HBP with my 12yrs daughter a couple of days ago, we loved it, and had a good discusssion on the books - and we'll probably both reread the series before the final films come out.
Saw the trailer for Maurice Gee's Under the Mountain which I must must reread before the movie arrives. Also saw the trailer for Elizabeth Knox's The Vintner's Luck - that book has been on my tbr pile for a few years now and it has suddenly become a must read.

I have had a copy of Tender morsels on my tbr pile all year and haven't felt like picking it up, I've enjoyed her short stories so will be interested in your thoughts.

edit: my cursor is jumping around the text!

Message edited by its author, Jul 16, 2009, 9:25pm.

Hi, Just de-lurking to say also interested what you both think about Tender Morsels, she is one of my favourite short story writers. Also thanks for the link on the rehearsal going to check it out. I love it when you can read an excerpt on the web, opens new horizons.

Rachael, I was originally going to disagree with you about the cost of London theater performances, as I only paid a total of £60 for the four National Theatre performances I'm going to (The Observer, England People Very Nice, All's Well That Ends Well, and The Black Album), which is almost as much as I paid to see God of Carnage ($91). But then I saw the price for the tickets for Arcadia (£55 and up), so I retract my opposition.

I loved Dickinson's Changes trilogy when I read it in the '70s as a young adult, as well. Probably time for a reread one of these years!

>73 Kerry, I thought it was just incredible. There is a quote from Joshua Ferris on the cover of the UK edition that calls it something like "a glimpse into the future of the novel itself". Given I found Then We Came to the End distinctly meh, this really discouraged me, but I'm grudgingly going to have to admit he's right (not grudging because of Catton, grudging because I don't think much of Ferris.)

Just about the only thing I can think of to argue with is the complete lack of external perspective: actors are all terribly terribly tortured (as are the teenagers) and at times I just wanted to shout, "GROW UP!" at them. But then, to levy that against it would be to judge a novel not according to how well it succeeded in what it set out to do, but against some obscure internal system of unwritten books that ought to exist.

I tried to watch that TV NZ show but it won't let me 'cos I'm not in New Zealand. Will have to do a bit of YouTube browsery... there is a short interview on the Granta website too which I've downloaded but not yet watched.

I'll cross my fingers for that fiction award too!

>73 and >74, (And clfisha, thanks for de-lurking!) I'm nearly halfway through Tender Morsels now and still not really sure what to make of it. It's very well-written, and having re-read the Brothers Grimm tale last night, the things she's doing with the original are certainly interesting. I don't think I'm really the target reader though, as while I do generally enjoy fairy-tale re-tellings, I don't read a whole load of them, so am probably missing lots. I am finding it compelling though - I don't seem to have much in the way of nice big chunks of reading time at the moment, but I am looking for every opportunity to pick it up and fit in another few pages.

>75 Darryl, the National is generally quite reasonably priced - it's where I saw the original production of Arcadia years and years ago. But West End theatre is awful. theatremonkey.com is a good site for discounts, but the ones for Arcadia only run to the end of July - and my mum and I couldn't find any dates in July when we were both available!! Find it shocking that I could go and see an Olivier-award-winning Janacek opera at ENO with my husband for a tenner each, but supposedly "popular" theatre wants to bleed you dry.

>76 roni, the Changes trilogy is in that special (small) category of "books I have re-read more than once". I felt compelled to pick it up when I remembered the Rolls-Royce and they were every bit as good as I remembered - particularly The Weathermonger, actually, which although it slightly runs out of steam at the end, is just brilliantly done at the beginning.

Thanks for the update on Tender Morsels, sounds worth sticking on my wishlist!

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie spoilers below!

Hey Rachael,

So I finally saw HBP today, and thought I would share my reactions! I actually really, really enjoyed the movie, and like you, I think it is the best one so far (well, I really like OOTP, so maybe it is a tie). I didn't reread the novel before going, and I think that made my experience more enjoyable, as I had forgotten certain things, like the Quidditch tryouts and the trio following Draco into Burgen and Borke's.

I thought the relationship stuff was a great addition to the movie, especially the Harry-Ginny pairing, which I always felt was lacking from the earlier movies. Lavender Brown was perfectly annoying, and Rupert Grint was hilarious - I loved the "we snog so much that my lips are chapped" scene on the train! Lavender blowing on the train door and then writing on it was priceless! Emma Watson is by far my favourite of the trio, and I think she was great in the movie. Hermione and Harry have a very touching friendship, and the tension between Hermione and Ron was perfect.

HBP was also quite funny, between the love potion and Felix Felicies, and also the scene when Harry arrives at the Burrow and Ginny, Mrs Weasley, Ron, and Hermione are all looking for him. I agree that Dan Radcliffe was bang on in the Felix Felicies part, and that was probably my favourite section of the movie.

Now, some things really bugged me - and I wouldn't be a rabid HP fan if they didn't! Tonks and Lupin were just thrown in to one scene, with no mention of their relationship, or even Tonks' name - I knew who she was, but my sister, who hasn't read the books, didn't remember her - she didn't even change her hair colour or nose! Also, I always feel like the older actors are underused. Poor Maggie Smith had about 5 lines, and even Snape didn't have a huge role, and he plays a pretty central role in this book. As well, Neville had all of one line, and Luna had about 10. I know cuts have to made somewhere.....

My biggest irk was the horrible explanation of the Horcruxes. Since they eliminated some of the memories, Harry doesn't even know what the other Horcruxes are - there was no mention of Nagini or Hufflepuff's cup. I think they are going to have to do an awful lot of exposition in the next movie in order to remind the audience about Horcruxes, since they are a pretty important concept. I think this series is always light on the details - the Marauder's Map was never sufficiently explained, or the prophecy, etc - and wasn't this the book when Harry finds out that Snape was the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy in the first place? Oh, and the attack on the Burrow was completely pointless, IMO.

Really though, these are complaints that only the avid HP fan would have - my sister really enjoyed the film, and didn't seem confused about anything. We will probably go and see it again next week. I can't wait for Deathly Hallows - it will be exciting to see the book done properly as a two-part movie.

End of Spoilers - and my rant! LOL

I saw HBP on Friday and really enjoyed it. I thought it was genuinely funny and is my favorite *so far:)* The changes from the book don't usually bother me because if I let every little thing that is different bother me I'd go nuts!

#79 cait86 - I saw the movie last week, and like you I didn't reread the book so I could enjoy the movie for itself. I came away wanting to reread the series in prep for the final movies, just so I can refresh my memory on all the little details and character development along the way. I'll probably reread long before the movies come as I still like to have that distance. Anyway I enjoy the movies, but it's always noticeable that there's so little screen time for so many of the characters. Can't figure out how nonreaders enjoy the movies when you know how much detail is left out.

#77 Rachael - shame about the link, as it was quite an interesting discussion. On this morning's tv discussion it seems that the main competition comes from The 10pm Question which has already won the New Zealand Post Book Award for Children & Young Adults. This is a crossover novel that everyone in NZ seems to like except me.
What's the latest on Tender Morsels?

#79

Absolutely agree with everything you said about HBP! I've been ranting about it since I saw it lol

>81 avatiakh, I finished Tender Morsels earlier this week but have been completely exhausted - passing out about 8.30 pm! - so a bit short of time to write about it properly. Briefly: it's not a genre I read widely in, so difficult to judge it against what it's really setting out to do. But it's an interesting look at some important themes: living in an imperfect and unfair world; motherhood; female companionship and support; ageing and loss; developing sexuality, amongst lots of others. And in places, it is beautifully written. It suffered a little for me because I've been so pushed for time that I was reading it in lots and lots of batches of a very few pages, which didn't help me much with retaining a grip on the narrative thread.

Still working through what I think about the whole topic of whether it should have been marketed as a YA novel or not. The first 50 or so pages are really hard going, just because so many unrelentingly horrible things happen to Liga (real misery-memoir territory). After that it gets a bit easier.

Proper comments eventually (I hope) but since you asked! That's the sort of helicopter-view version.

I just finished reading Eleanor Catton's story in Granta 106 as well. Not quite in the league of The Rehearsal, but then how could it be. Fantastic example of the short story though.

>79 & >82, Cait & Luna, re HBP, think that's why I'm glad it's so long since I've read the book - I could watch the film without being bugged by any of that stuff. I just remember coming out of OOTP boiling over with the sorts of complaints you mention! Whereas, although I'm having "oh yeah..." moments reading your comments, it didn't disrupt my experience of the film :-) (except for Tonks and Lupin, who I struggled to place at first, particularly because Tonks is SO not how I saw her in my head when I read the book that it's always a struggle for me to remember who she is even when she's properly introduced...)

Rachael.

You raise a valid point regarding the classification of YA. Since joining LT, I discovered this genre, mainly through the posts of Anita. I marvel at the complexity and serious subject matter contained in some of the YA books I've read.

I'm wondering if there is a clear definition of the YA category. I think that sometimes simply because there are teenagers in the story, it is classified this way...

#83 Thanks for comments on Tender Morsels.

I think the problem with marking books YA is it covers such a wide range of ages mixed with the age old problem of one size doesn't fit all (if you see what I mean). I agree with Whisper1 I don't think there is a clear definition, I think some authors are on the cusp and get put in YA. Margo Lanagen is always there, such a shame as her short stories can be very adult. Er.. that turned into a bit of a wafflle..ahem.

Message edited by its author, Jul 24, 2009, 4:53am.

>84 and >85: I hadn't actually heard of Margo Lanagan before this, though it seems she has been published in the UK for some time, looking at the Amazon listings.

The furore in the UK seems to be because it is being sold as both an adult and a YA novel, when there is some really pretty strong stuff in it. It's not shocking because the horrible stuff is graphically written and detailed (although you wouldn't know that from the newspaper reports); in fact, a lot of it happens in the spaces between the words and paragraphs. But the basic facts of what happens are not your typical everyday teen experience. I'm not glossing over exactly what they are to be coy, but because the words themselves are so emotive that the reaction they elicit is out of all proportion to the way the events are handled in the novel.

On the other hand, as someone who read Virginia Andrews in her teens, I feel horribly hypocritical trying to say it shouldn't be marketed to teenagers; I wonder if a lot of what I found distressing in Tender Morsels was actually because I have more capacity now, as an adult (and a mother), to understand and empathise with what is happening to the heroine. I suspect that a lot of it would have, if not exactly washed over me, then at least not affected me so deeply if I'd read it as a teenager, and I think I would still have got a lot out of it.

It must also be said that the real tradition of fairytales, if you go back to Perrault and company, is pretty graphically violent, so in many ways it fits right in (though the Grimm tale on which it is based is pretty sanitised).

Emotionally speaking, my preference would be for it not to have been sold as YA at all (because those that are up to could always find it for themselves in the adult section). But I think, with some reservations, that the approach they've taken in the UK is fair enough: the YA edition has clear warnings that it may not be suitable for younger teens.

Hit my 75 :-) I feel it isn't really official until I've actually REVIEWED the last 8 or so books I've read. But still - wanted to mark the moment. (Also a bit worried that the silence after my last probably-too-lengthy post means everyone is appalled at my views on YA reading. Internet paranoia!)

Hi there Rachael
I am not "appalled at your view on YA reading." Actually, one of the things I like most about this group is honest, open sharing of ideas.

And, congrats on reaching 75!

Congratulations on reaching the big 75!~!
Whoo Hoo!~!
belva

Congratulations on reading 75!

Internet paranoia, don't be sill.........who's that standing behind you!

'K, I did actually look over my shoulder then. I'm home alone this week - what can I say? Kinda twitchy...

Congratulations on reaching 75. I always enjoy your reviews.

Go away for a month and come back to new threads!! I'll try to catch up soonest!

Hi Rachel!

I don't know, I come back from holidays to discover YET ANOTHER PERSON has passed the 75 goal! Hmph! Congratulations and all that ;)

...lots to catch up on, but Tender Morsels sounds intriguing and The Rehearsal has been duly added to my Wishlist...

I hope you enjoy Brave New World as much as I did when you get round to it...

#75 kidzdoc, agreed, the NT is a fantastic institution! When are you going to see "The Black Album"? I'd be very interested in how well you think it's adapted - I've been meaning to get tickets, but not quite got around to it as it's something I know my sister would also like to see (along with "The Cherry Orchard"), but she's proving hard to pin down... Hope there're still tickets left!

Congratulations on hitting 75, Rachael!

flissp, I'm going to see "The Black Album" this coming Saturday at 2 pm. I also have tickets for matinee National Theatre performances of "The Observer" tomorrow, "England People Very Nice" on Aug 8, and "All's Well That Ends Well" on Aug 12. When I made my reservations, about a month ago, there were plenty of tickets available.

Does TKTS (is that what it's called here, similar to NYC?) on Charing Cross Road sell tickets for NT performances, or just for West End performances? I passed by the office today, and there were less than 10 people in the queue.

Message edited by its author, Jul 29, 2009, 12:24pm.

...ah, but the cheap tickets for NT shows sell out very quickly (and I think "The Black Album" is on at the Cottesloe, which is quite small, isn't it?) - fingers crossed though! I've also got tickets for the "All's Well That Ends Well" - it's had extremely good reviews I think - we'll have to compare notes...

Looking forward to your post Saturday comments!

Well done on the 75 mark Flossie.

Yes, according to the NT website the Cottesloe is the smallest of the three NT theatres.

I'll definitely post comments about all four performances...and I may also go to see "Three More Sleepless Nights" at the Lyttleton Theatre, all tickets are only £10.

Yeah yeah, nice work on hittin' 75 and all...but what *I* wanna know is, how in the name of all that's holy did you manage to get a whole week to yourself?!?

I. Hate. Rachael. Forever.

Congratulations on the 75, Flossie!

And remember: just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they AREN'T out to get you...

#101: Remind me not to tell you, Richard, that I was home by myself this past weekend. Of course, I was working the weekend, too . . .

>103...working and alone ain't the same thing at all, Stasia, since as I recall you have eleven jobs and all of them full-time which is why you sleep fifty-nine seconds a week. Not having little pumpkins around to make an extra job isn't the same thing as Rachael's luxurious week of solitude. Long, langourous reads, leisurely trips around the Internet, dinner of what and at when she desires...I am frothing green ichor in jealousy.

#104: Richard, I am absolutely fascinated with your view of my abilities, lol. I assure you I sleep at least 60 seconds a week and I only have 1 job.

>101 and >104: "home alone" was very lazy shorthand. I sent away the eldest sprogs (and their father) - it's the cheapskate's alternative to summer camp. The boys had a few days at their grandparents', then spent most of last week away with their great-grandmother, who handily lives by the sea, chaperoned, theoretically, by my other half.

I use "theoretically" primarily because just over 24 hours after reaching their destination, the middle child fractured his wrist in a particularly unorthodox stream-crossing incident, involving overly-enthusiastic fatherly propulsion and an awkward landing. In true 21st century tradition, I was informed of this event by picture message: cute picture of bedraggled child and accompanying text. "Dear Mummy, I might have fractured my wrist, love..."

And actually, technically I wasn't alone as the 3 year-old was asleep upstairs. And I still had to work.

I hope that makes you feel a bit less green.

Did read some books though. Still searching for time to write about them but trying to keep running list in first post roughly up to date.

Oh, I hope your little one is healing well with cast in place. Sounds like the father has a sense of humour to lighten the stress.

Rachael.

I hope the fractured wrist heals quickly.

I so enjoy your thread. Your well-written descriptions of your life make me smile.

'{T}he middle child fractured his wrist in a particularly unorthodox stream-crossing incident, involving overly-enthusiastic fatherly propulsion and an awkward landing...'

Hmm...it sounds to me as though his father pushed him. What do others think? Anyone know how to get in touch with child protective services in the UK?

(Just kidding, Rachael!!!)

chortle.

hope the fractured wrist isn't too painful though!

my dad once had my sister and i climbing up bird rock in wales in our wellies - pooh pooing our moaning en route - we got near the top to discover rock climbers with crampons and harnesses coming up another face! he let us go down after that... ;) ah, fathers...

Heavens! The most athletic thing my father ever made me do was go car shopping. Bless his lazy hide. We toured the Sierra Nevada once, and I remember getting out of the car a couple times. We thought of it as a wilderness vacation...five people in a Cadillac, windows down, air conditioning off, sleeping in *shudder* motels...ah, roughing it! Such memories.

>109: Darryl, some might say "pushed". Others might say "flung". Although obviously I wouldn't be one of them because that might be deemed to be "rubbing it in". Ahem.

I am SO behind on LT that even the 'My posts' unread messages run to 2 pages...

Ricardo, you ARE a silly pea! Although I do hate sleeping in motels, so I can empathise. Flossie, sorry about your sprout's broken wrist.

Richard - I shudder to think what your resting pulse is!!! Motels are out for me - I prefer a tent or a hostel. Either that, or a five star luxury hotel. Moderation is boring.

#86/87 Rachel - just jumping back to your thoughts on the YA genre. It's taken all this time for my son to upload a pdf for me so I can link to it. It's a talk by Garth Nix that focuses on publishing and marketing YA books that I think you'd enjoy. Nix worked in publishing before he wrote books so knows the industry quite well. http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~samba/Nix_o...
I'm pushing Tender Morsels right up my tbr pile. There have been some good reviews on it lately.

BTW The Rehearsal won best first book at our Montana Awards last week. The Best Fiction title went to Emily Perkin's Novel about my wife which is set in London and runners up were Kate De Goldi and Bernard Beckett (both YA writers).

Hope your son doesn't need to spend too long in plaster.

>113 Hey Tui! How's by you? Motels *shudder* are the work of Satan. They have crab lice and bedbugs and shepherds apparently rent the rooms to dip their sheep in, judging by the smell. What else they get up to in there is the subject of a Fox show, Pigs or something like that.

>114 kiwidoc...I have a resting pulse? If it's resting, how can it be a pulse?

Sorry to take over your thread here, Flossie.

Ha ha, Richard - watch out, or you will get a physiology lesson that would make bedbugs seem like a spa treatment.

>115 thanks for the link, Kerry! Have been reading a fair bit about the YA genre (in a meta sense, rather than actual YA books) recently - there was a Society of Young Publishers event last week on it, plus as my eldest moves inexorably towards that category I'm naturally getting more interested in it. I must write a proper review of Tender Morsels very soon as I really owe the nice lady at Jonathan Cape... Have just downloaded your PDF and will read in my lunchbreak.

SO thrilled that The Rehearsal won the first book award! I'm really looking forward to Ellie Catton's event in Edinburgh - only 10 sleeps to go now! Emily Perkins' book is on my wishlist too. I have a book of her short stories on my TBR shelf that I haven't got onto yet, but may push up. Am I right in thinking she presents that arts show that you linked to?

Belatedly, >107, >108, >110, >113 kiwidoc, Whisper1, flissp, tiffin, thanks for the well wishes for the injured soldier. He doesn't seem to be allowing it to hold him back too much. The plaster is due to come off shortly before he goes back to school, so he's had all of the irritation of impaired activity during the school hols with none of the benefits of playground kudos, poor love. Not that he seems to care - he is one of those children for whom the phrase "water off a duck's back" seems to have been especially invented. He's a bit miffed at not being able to cycle and that's about it.

Well, I've never seen bedbugs in a motel, but I did get them from a B&B in Venice - a perfectly lovely one too, so I guess it was the guest before me who spread them to my friend and I. Somehow, I was much more susceptible to them than my friend - she had about 5 bites on her, and I had about 500! Thanks goodness it was my last stop on my travels, so I was able to get rid of them as soon as I got home. Without getting too personal, lets just say that I had bites everywhere.

>119 eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

#118

Lol for the not being able to cycle. I broke my wrist last year and was riding with a cast on about 2 weeks afterwards, so I'm sure at that age I wouldn't have let a cast stop me on my bike! However, I think both you and my parents would be the deciding factor.

I also know the feeling of injury/illness with no benefits. When I was 11, I developed my first chickenpox spot on the Saturday of the start of a half term....spent my entire week itchy and then had to go to school as normal the following monday all spotty. No days off school for me, and no fun in half term either!

I had bedbugs in Mongolia. Despite this not being a totally surprising occurence, it was highly irritating, especially as then they infested my sleeping bag *sigh*

My goodness Flossie;
I needed a good laugh this morning and have had such a good one here that the family continues to say: What's so funny, what's happening now. Belly laughing is soooooooo good for the soul.
I am sorry about your son's broken wrist, but your description and all the reactions to it were a hoot.

Richard, I am so sorry that your life as a child was so traumatized!~! Hopefully in your next life it will be much more hazardous to your health and you will feel much better about the whole thing.

luna, chickenpox AND bedbugs; now that is trauma Richard!~! Especially, when you must wear said evidence to school.

Cait86, I don't even want to begin to think of where your bedbug bites were, but will share that once I was riding in a convertible with an erstwhile boyfriend, top & windows down, in my bathing suit with my leg hanging out the window and a bee flew into the car and you can probably imagine where I got stung as I had the leg flung up and out the window. "It"
hurt for a week!~!

kiwidoc, The St. has no resting pulse. Haven't you heard? He sleeps in a crypt.

To all the rest that I may have missed
Happy Dayz,
belva

Message edited by its author, Aug 6, 2009, 9:03pm.

#122 - Belva, well, that will certainly teach you not to drive with your legs out the window! LOL too funny :)

Guys, I hold all this bedbug talk responsible for messing up my insect karma: I am now nursing five - FIVE! - vicious bites on my right ankle, having passed approximately the last decade being not tasty enough to be badly nibbled by bugs. Grrr.

Flossie;
My dear girl, that is just what you get for being the hostess with the mostest!~! Hope they stop itching soon.
belva

Hey there! Just dropping in... trying to get caught up on everybody's threads. I have Tender Morsels out from the library... definitely can't wait to read it now, as dark fairytale retellings are right up my alley, and I loved Black Juice, her book of short stories, a lot of which were VERY dark.

Some interesting comments on YA marketing here. There are some extremely dark/adult books that are marketed as YA, aimed at older teenagers, and then there are some that are lighter and written for younger teenagers. There seems to be no clear line. It's interesting that in the UK you have a fuss about it... over here, I haven't heard any controversy over Tender Morsels. There's no warnings or anything on my copy.

What a fun thread! Just catching up - belated congrats on reaching 75, Floss!

Bedbugs are epidemic in NYC--my daughter's boyfriend's apartment was infested, and she got not only the bites (and transfer to her apartment which had to be cleaned), but it turns out she's severely allergic to the beasties. Swelled up like a melon and ended up with meds, oatmeal baths, and lots of rest to recover. Hope your experience is much, much better.

Well, guys - I don't know what it was that has been munching me (the 3YO asked in a puzzled voice, "Mummy, who has been biting your leg?") but it put me in hospital for most of today :-( Long and boring story, but what, it now seems clear, was an unusually - for me - strong allergic reaction to those damn bites led to my leg swelling up to about 1.5 times normal size. This in turn led to my husband insisting that I go to A&E and get it scanned to rule out a DVT. Sigh. So I spent just shy of 7 hours mostly waiting around (WITH the 3YO, who was astoundingly well-behaved and patient given the circumstances), but persuading nurse practitioners to let me see a 'proper' doctor rather than sending me away with a patient information leaflet, having blood tested, calves measured, ultrasounds performed etc. etc. - to be told I'm in the clear and sent away with antihistamines and ibuprofen.

The really infuriating thing is that I only took one book in with me since I was expecting to be out well before lunch - so the last half-hour or so of my stay was bookless. Good job they had already taken my pulse and blood pressure at that point or there might have been cause for clinical concern.

We are in the wars a bit in our family at the moment.

I've been updating my first post with the books I've finished, but I am at least 10 books behind on detailed comments; in addition to those already finished that I still haven't commented properly on, I've added:

73. The Falcon's Malteser - Anthony Horowitz
74. Granta 106 (New Fiction Special) - ed. Alex Clark
75. Bareback - Kit Whitfield
76. Nothing to Be Frightened Of - Julian Barnes
77. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell
78. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
79. An Elegy for Easterly - Petina Gappah
80. Not Her Real Name - Emily Perkins

I haven't a hope of writing proper reviews for any of these until at least the end of August, so my apologies. I want to say in the meantime that:

- Julian Barnes's book was wonderful and could have been written with me in mind
- Granta 106 was fantastic and made me very sad that Alex Clark has gone (still won't be reviving my subscription though)
- some of the stories in An Elegy for Easterly were really good, but it wasn't quite as amazing as I'd been hoping it would be
- Not Her Real Name is possibly the first book I've read that makes me want to be able to award quarter-stars; I somehow don't feel it's quite good enough to get 4 stars, but I also felt that it was definitely better than other books I've awarded 3.5 stars to. Great short story collection, which reminded me a lot of Lorrie Moore's Self Help; looking forward to reading Novel About My Wife at some point.

Now I need to go and pack... am surprised to note that I don't seem to have recorded here, in this most bookish of places, that my eldest son's poems were selected for next year's Red House Young Writers' Year Book <<proud mummy moment>>. Red House began life as a children's book club, but is now a monthly catalogue + website that sells kids' books at huge discounts - and their picks are often really good. Every year they publish an anthology of writing by children aged 9-17 and the eldest made the cut this year! Anyway - part of his 'prize' is a creative writing workshop led by children's/YA novelist Matt Whyman, which I'm taking him along to tomorrow - by train now, rather than original plan of car, as I still have an Elephant-Man leg and am dubious of my ability to drive. All the more time for reading then (oh, and, um, talking to my son, of course....)

Plus! All my Edinburgh Book Festival tickets are now in and I am doing nutty things like counting them and chuckling happily to myself. No, really. 8 sleeps to go.... one of which I must start ASAP.

Wow! Sorry to hear about your allergic reaction, Rachael... and I'm even sorrier that I joked about it. Did you get an ultrasound of your leg, given your husband's concern? Did they give you anything at A&E? No systemic symptoms, right? (In other words, no shortness of breath, drooling, difficulty swallowing, facial swelling, swelling of any other body parts, hives or urticaria?) Have you had local or systemic reactions previously? Any reason to get an Epi-Pen (injectable epinephrine, for anaphylactic reactions)? I'm sure your husband can give you good advice, but these reactions can recur for up to 72 hours after the initial exposure, so it may be worthwhile to stay on the antihistamine RTC for at least a day or two. This probably doesn't need to be said, but if you develop severe pain, increased swelling, or significant warmth or tenderness in the area, go back to A&E ASAP!

Why were you in A&E for seven hours? Your daughter deserves a medal for behaving herself for that length of time.

I hope that you have a restful, and uneventful, weekend!

#130--I was reading a list of my daughter's symptoms in your questions. OMG! No wonder she's triple checking every stuffed piece of furniture coming into her apartment!

My word FlossieT;
Sounds like you have been run through the mill, so to speak. I hope everything continues to improve and that your trip is uneventful excepting for the wonderful workshop your son is attending. And do keep in touch with hubby so he doesn't worry too much.
My thoughts will be with you and listen to what kidzdoc is saying. This is nothing to mess around with.
Best wishes,
belva

Flossie - so sorry to hear about the allergic reaction - it has given me a big guilt cloud about being so flippant and joking about the bugs. Your A&E dept sounds the same as ours!!!

...and a big congrats about your son's writing success - he obviously has a creative mind. Maybe I should get an autograph before he hits the big time!

...and thanks for the book synopses. Ditto re the Barnes book. I had a gift subscription from my Dad to Granta a few years ago but did not renew it, because I found it hard to read them consistently. I preferred getting stuck into a full length novel. I still waver about renewing. Do you think the quality has changed? I generally like their published books.

Rachael, as someone who has terrible reactions to insect bites, I completely empathize with your situation. I hope that everything is under control now (including the 3 year old!)

Oh man - what an ordeal, all from bug bites! I hope you are feeling better today :)

Congrats to your son, that is too cool! The writing workshop sounds like a lot of fun.

From one fellow bug bite reactee to another, my most sincere best wishes for a speedy return to normal. Not only do things swell, but you feel quite miserable inside while reacting, as your body deals with the situation.

Wow, really sorry about your awful allergic reaction! Sounds rubbish, especially the no-book bit.

Also, I got my ticket for Margaret Atwood today. Yay :)

Ticket for Margaret Atwood? Is she singing? dancing?
Just kidding - but do tell!

Hope you are back in good health by now. Congratulations to your son and a writing workshop is a great incentive.

Message edited by its author, Aug 8, 2009, 3:46pm.

BOOO to bug bites!!!! A few years ago I had to go orienteering in the woods at night for my Environmental Survey Methods class and ended up with SUPER itchy tick bites all over my legs. I had to go to student health and get a steroid shot, a topical cream and antibiotics to treat Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. NOT FUN at all.

>130 Darryl, thanks for the handy checklist ;-) Yes, they eventually did an ultrasound... after having been sent away from A&E with my little leaflet, I buzzed my husband to let him know what had transpired. He was so outraged they hadn't checked me out properly that he (1) explained the situation to his boss, who agreed and released him from clinic to come down and chaperone me back through triage (2) collared a colleague and got him to provide a second opinion, to avoid any suspicion of marital bias. Cue surreal scene in disabled toilet in doctors' mess, three of us plus the 3YO crammed in while said colleague palpated my calves. Very embarrassing. Anyway, they did a blood test, which - after an aeon of processing in the lab - showed my D-dimer (whatever that is, I just had to ask my husband to spell it for me) to be elevated, and hence according to their protocol required an ultrasound. After that, things went pretty quick and I got out by 4, but up til then had taken about 6 hours. Partly it was a time of day thing, but I can't help thinking that they won't have been very inclined to speed me through the system given I had re-presented after supposedly being diagnosed & discharged by the nurse practitioners... Anyway, I'm still popping the anit-histamines. Things haven't got worse, but they are getting better only veeeeeeeeeeery slowly.

>132: Belva, having sent me to A&E I think my husband considered his job done in the "worrying" dept. - plus, he was on call all weekend - actually still is, technically, though he's sitting 20 yards from me reading his email, ah, the joys of modern married life, too many commas now, must stop. He definitely operates on the out-of-sight, out-of-mind principle unless it's him that's away from home - in which case he claims to miss me horribly.

(He also says I definitely must not record here that he was watching Lara Croft last night while waiting for a phone call from the hospital, since that might suggest it's the sort of thing he would ordinarily watch. So obviously I didn't.)

>133 Karen, I don't think you could have an autograph just yet - he opened a savings account a couple of months ago and was completely floored by the request for a signature (to go on his passbook) since he had never had to provide one before!! I really liked the issue of Granta that I read, but then I really like fiction - and now the editor has changed AGAIN who knows what will happen. I had a subscription for several years but cancelled after I also realised I wasn't being very good about reading them consistently. I'm going to try to pick up John Freeman's first issue just to see what it's like. It does sound as if Granta is slightly imploding at the moment, though. I like their books too - and they seem to send their remainders to my local warehouse sale fairly regularly (if anyone wants a copy of the last Best of Young American Novelists do give me a shout). And they published Eleanor Catton too, from whom I now have hopes for great things after The Rehearsal.

>134 Stasia, the weird thing is I hardly ever react to insect bites - I must get them, because everyone does, but I think I can still count on my fingers the number of times I've reacted seriously to one, and this episode is worse than all the rest put together. I don't know what I've got lurking in my garden, but I'm buying industrial-strength citronella candles next time we dine al fresco.

>135 thanks Cait! Son professes to have had great fun at the workshop, although for about the last 10 minutes he was sunk in a grump and refusing to write anything. Apparently I was an insufficiently supportive brainstorming partner :-( and kept identifying too many problems, thereby throttling his creative genius. I am feeling very bad about this, albeit slightly less bad since he has told everyone else what a fab time he had, and conveniently airbrushed out the sulky bit.

>136 and thanks too tiffin. I've taken the supposedly-less-effective meds since I was concerned about taking "drowsy" stuff when there was still a possibility I might have to drive to this workshop thing, so I don't think I have come off as badly as I might; have been pretty shattered, but then we stayed with the in-laws last night, and my daughter was up about 5 times, so it may be more to do with that... I tired of lumping her back properly onto her airbed somewhere around 3am and decided she looked pretty comfortable half-in, half-out. So she woke up this morning with carpet-waffle marks on her face and arm. The shame.

>137 luna, the no-book bit was baaaaaad. I do have a copy of Burnt Shadows on my phone that I considered trying to read as backup, but then realised that technically I was meant to have my phone switched off since I was in the hospital. And I MUST sort out my ticket - glad yours has come through!

>138 Diana, Margaret Atwood's "touring" with The Year of the Flood in the UK in late August/early September, and is doing an event in Ely Cathedral, which is about 15 minutes on the train from me, and also local for lunacat, so we thought we'd go.... I'm really looking forward to it. She's launching the book in Edinburgh, but only after I get back :-( V. annoying.

>139 thanks, Kerry - he got a lovely Puffin goody bag to take home too; the company that owns Red House also runs Puffin Post, the book club to which I bought him a subscription for Christmas, so there was lots of Puffin paraphernalia around.

>140 Kitty, that sounds horrible - orienteering is meant to be FUN. I am becoming slightly prejudiced against the great outdoors....

Oh - and I am really enjoying the book I'm reading right now too!! That rare animal: something that's been on the wishlist for years. I added it based on a New Yorker review in 1999, and finally bought it a few years ago. Finding it unexpectedly compelling...

At the risk of sounding like a johnny-come-lately, my sincere commiserations on the ordeal you are going through with your leg. It sounds simply awful.

Note: There is nothing wrong with watching Lara Croft!

Well Flossie, your leg may be wonky but your sense of humour sounds quite intact. Must thank you for the heads up re the Edinburgh book festival and La Atwood (it should technically be L'Atwood but it sounds better when you say the La full out). She NEVER tours here, her country of origin. Just TRY getting a signed copy in Canada! So I am going to send a friend in to Edinburgh to hunt her down for an signed copy and pay to have it posted over here. Just hope said friend goes for it - she always goes to the book festival, so we live in hope.

Re the citronella candles: perhaps a propane torch might be more to the point? It's this darn global warming, isn't it. We've got bugs coming up from the U.S. which would normally stay down in Tennessee. Your culprits are probably Moroccan. ;)

Tui, Atwood is going to be in Toronto in October for the International Festival of Authors. I'm going to try and go, since her appearances here are so limited, like you said.

Oh, and Peter, there is everything wrong with watching Lara Croft! LOL

Cait! Seriously? *groan* they'll be lined up for blocks for her. Maybe if we dressed up as Oryx and Crake we could hop to the front of the line....

Rachael;

"(He also says I definitely must not record here that he was watching Lara Croft last night while waiting for a phone call from the hospital, since that might suggest it's the sort of thing he would ordinarily watch. So obviously I didn't.)"

Isn't that just kind of a husband thing there? Way too funny!~! LOL

Glad you are improving, even if at a slow rate of speed and thank goodness your husband insisted on you being re-evaluated. But this is a good excuse to prop said leg up and read books. Hee hee
belva

#141: There is enough material for a good TV mini-series here. What should we call it?

I completely overlooked your son's fantastic accomplishment (typical doctor, focus on the disease and ignore everything else). Well done!

IMO, the expression of marital bias is quite acceptable and laudable. Watching Lara Croft, on the other hand, is not. Maybe for the mini-series we can portray the husband of the protagonist as a Lara Croft addict, who turns off his pager while watching an episode in the doctors' lounge, as his wife tries to reach him in A&E, her leg progressively increasing to the size of a tree trunk, in sight of the bored and unconcerned triage nurse and nurse practitioners. The 3 yr old, the smartest one in this exceptional family, sneaks away from her mother, and locates her father in the doctors' lounge. He rushes to A&E, after the Lara Croft episode ends, and saves the day.

>143 thanks, Peter. I always had a bit of a soft spot for Lara Croft the game character, after it was revealed that her voice on the games was provided by a mother-of-three(?) and housewife. Bringing out the inner-kick-ass-heroine in all of us...

>144 Tiffin, she's on at 3.30 on Sunday 30 August in Edinburgh - not in the regular festival venue but just down the road in St John's Church on Princes Street. The event itself is sold out, but I guess she may do a signing at some point during the day as well; they usually put the signings schedule up on a screen near the entrance in the morning. I'd be happy to try and pick you up a copy at Ely, though, if you don't fancy your chances in Toronto?

>147 Belva, I wish I could just prop my leg up and read... but it's school hols so I have the kids to entertain (Bad Mother: I've left them with the electronic babysitter while I log on here; I'm actually meant to be doing various chores, making phone calls, paying bills, but I got distracted...) and I have to work this week too.

>148 The 3 yr old, the smartest one in this exceptional family, sneaks away from her mother, and locates her father in the doctors' lounge I can seriously see this happening - even if not the smartest, she's definitely the most sensible and organised member of our family by a looooooong chalk!!

OK, I promise to stop whingeing about my health now. Next time I'm on I shall actually say something about books.... even if I'm not up to reviews I'll post my Edinburgh schedule :)

Sounds like you've had an eventful week Rachel!

Congratulations to your son for his published poems - extremely impressed!

Boooo to biting insects - as a permanent bug-feast I sympathise massively - sounds horrible. Booo to long, book-less waits at A&E... Wooo to patient 3-year-olds!

tiffin is right though, I reckon a propane torch is the way forward ;) - speaking from experience as a target, citronella NEVER works. In fact the only thing that does, is massive quantities, of DEET - I don't care what anyone says, Jungle Formula is the way forward! ...and in the meantime, calamine lotion/something with aloe vera is quite good for soothing the throbbing temporarily - augmented by anti-histamines, obviously ;)

I didn't realise Margaret Atwood was doing something in Ely - shall have to investigate - I just googled and notice that she's also doing Bath - may be a good excuse for a Bristol weekend - woo!

Sorry you didn't enjoy the Petina Gappah more - a casualty of over-hype perhaps?

...ooh, and can I ask for a brief pre-end-of-August take on the Julian Barnes book? I have mixed feelings about the stuff I'd read, so your comment has me intrigued...

Re the starring system, I'm considering giving up on it altogether - I don't think I've been very consistent in my scoring...

Hmmm, and woo for passing 75!

(only a few more days to Edinburgh...)

#149: you are so sweet to offer but I think you have enough to cope with at the moment. Having someone impose on you to battle crowds, go to the trouble of posting it, etc., etc., is just too much to ask a busy mother of three. My friend in Scotland often gets behind the scenes passes to things like this, as a writer herself - and would also tell me very directly with the comfort of long friendship to bug off if my request is unrealistic. So thank you, Rachel, but I won't take you up on your kind offer.

I have no idea who Rachel Croft is. And I too forgot to say "way to go" about your son getting his poetry published, so a belated congrats for that.

>150 Margaret Atwood in Ely is Monday 7 September - in the cathedral, run by Topping and Company. If Bath/Bristol isn't working out, I think they still have plenty of space left :-) lunacat & I are both going.

Petina Gappah was an odd experience for me - I thought some of the stories were really excellent, but overall found it a bit uneven. Still looking forward to her event though; Harare North (Brian Chikwava) also sounds interesting from kidzdoc's review.

Julian Barnes: this one's non-fiction, and hard to categorise; it's primarily an extended meditation on his intense fear of death (which I have to admit to sharing), but takes in family reminiscence, discussions of religious belief, and various other things. He somehow manages to make it an entertaining read, and also a good choice if you're likely to be interrupted a lot, as it's split into short, 3-4 page sections.

Only a few days til Edinburgh... and my accommodation has gone a bit pear-shaped. Tearing hair out trying to sort out replacement. argh.

Damn, I broke promise to talk about books. Sorry.

Re Margaret Atwood - good good! I shall have to take a look at my diary...

Yes, in retrospect, I'd probably agree with uneven for the Petina Gappah, but there were definitely a couple I thought were fantastic - the dancing competition comes to mind... Looking forward to it too - actually, it's just occurred to me that I don't know where the event is happening - will go and look that up now...

Julian Barnes sounds intriguing - maybe I'll have a browse while I'm up in Edinburgh (I inevitably come back with at least a couple of new books, so I may as well have an aim in mind!)

I'm sorry your accommodation has gone pear-shaped - I wish I could think of somewhere to suggest, but I've only ever stayed centrally or with mates and I imagine most central places will be sold out by now. Have you tried lastminute.com?

...only 3 sleeps now - woo!

...you did talk about books a little bit ;)

Rachael...hi there...no sense chiming in on all the stuff that's happened except to point out to Tui, re: bugs from Tennessee, that all she need do is stand outside and fan real hard to get the cooler air down here where it belongs and stop hogging it all for the Great White North.

Could a problem have a simpler solution?

Smooching your swollen owwwie in a fatherly way,
RMD

Oh, this thread makes me laugh....

Ricardo, no can do: the prevailing winds are from the southwest and they're dragging gobs of humidity, rain, thunderstorms up from the Gulf of Mexico (which must be just about empty by now, judging from the humidity we've had here for the last 3 weeks). I'd love a north wind for a few days. So we've got your bugs AND your heat, you generous neighbours to the south.

>156 Tui, the one export I feel bad about sending y'all's way is your current Conservative government. Bushitis spread too far, so sorry.

The humidity? Ha! Just don't go sending any blackflies south, thankewveddymahch.

It's ok, Richard - I think it was a global trend. Also, Canada's other national sport is politician watching/baiting. He's on a short, tight leash, as he found out not too long ago.

simply stopping by to say thank you for the laughter.

Nearly Edinburgh time - woo!

Oh to be in Edinburgh, now that the books are here. ;)
Oh to be in Edinburgh anytime, actually.

I am with you, Tui! Oh, to be in Edinburgh!

>161 and >162: tiffin and Stasia, here is the weather forecast for the next three days in Edinburgh:

Friday: Heavy rain, max temperature 16C
Saturday: Heavy rain, max temperature 18C
Sunday: Light rain (hey!), max temperature max 18C.

I hope that makes you feel better!

(Apparently there will be "sunny intervals" on Monday, but I'll believe that when I see it...)

I am planning - at the moment, not sure how I'll manage - on leaving my computer behind so may not be on here much. If anyone wants to run a book on how many days it will be before I crack and fling myself panting desperately into the nearest internet cafe, they're more than welcome. My money's on 2.

Right now, I'm at the point of maximum stress - "There is no way I can possibly get done all of the work stuff and home stuff that I need to get done AND I still haven't packed AND my husband is making me go to a barbecue tomorrow night".

So I'm taking 2 minutes just to remind myself that I am going to see:

- Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava
- Ellie Catton (with Colin McAdam, new to me)
- Cornelia Funke
- A.L. Kennedy/Ian Rankin/James Robertson
- Tracy Chevalier (to keep my father-in-law happy)
- Neil Gaiman (Graveyard Book, yay! Sorry Richard, I really liked it)
- James Lasdun/Valerie Martin/Nadeem Aslam on the "art of the short story"

plus a load of other stuff AND I will be ON HOLIDAY, with my lovely family. And by the time I am actually, really, truly on holiday, as long as I have the tickets, everything else can be overcome.

Hurrah!

Have just re-read Evie Wyld's After the Fire, a Still Small Voice and am feeling I may have been a bit harsh on it. But - there's still something about it that seems to me missing; it's very, very good, but in some way lacking a certain spark. It's really annoying me that I can't figure out what way, exactly, that is. Oh well.

Flossie, you don't go to Edinburgh for the weather. Pea green about Gaiman, et. al. Have an excellent adventure.

Oh Rachael...dear...wonderful Rachael...please, please tell me this Neil Gaiman (Graveyard Book, yay! Sorry Richard, I really liked it) was merely facetiousnness! You, o reader of sterling character and redoubtable literary probity, cannot *like* a Neil Gaiman book! Nay, say it is not so!

*broken sobs as he retreats to fetal position, thence to grieve*

#165: Poor Richard is just having a bad week . . .

Pah to getting to see Neil Gaiman and Cornelia Funke! I'll be back home again by that point (and yes, I've taken exactly 3 hours to crack and find a computer... But I had a question to check - honest!)

Rachael
I hope you have a wonderful time!

Have a great time, Rachael! I hope that the weather reports are incorrect.

msg169 Afraid they're not... It's pissing it down right now... Maybe tomorrow...

Checking in briefly... complete LT deprivation over past 10 days. Turns out I can't seem to post to LT from my phone. argh. Have had FABULOUS time in Edinburgh, although have only read 2 new books. More in a few days.... Everyone was wonderful and I didn't want to come home.

Welcome back! I'll be interested to hear about the festival.

Eager too, Flossie.

You tease! Soon, please, soon! Edinburgh gossip needed!

Looking forward to hearing about the festival.

I am joining the clamor, too! Pictures?

Hope you had a good journey back and have caught up on sleep! Did you see any good Fringe stuff as well as the literary festival stuff?

>177 fliss, I only did kids' stuff for the Fringe... budgets & all that. My husband went to a couple of concerts, though, and also did some events at the "real" (Intenational) festival.

Potted Potter was great though. Some of the jokes did actually make me cry with laughter.

OK, so... my festival. Lots of rain. WAY too many books bought (cunningly I made my husband lug them home on the train). Fabulous events. Great walks.

Immediately before I went to Edinburgh, I had the Week From Hell at work: catastrophically misjudged the amount of time I needed to meet a deadline, which meant I'd said yes to things the previous week that I should have said no to, and then ended up having to make the time up. Then, it was my turn for the late-Friday print production duties I share with a colleague - at which we set a new record for lateness: finally left the office at 00.45am. All in all, I wasn't really starting the holiday week well rested.

Despite all the above, my festival got off to a good start. I squeaked (sprinted, sweated, huffed & puffed, flustered) in to the Edinburgh International Book Festival at 1 minute to 6 for Petina Gappah and Brian Chikwava, with flissp's ticket tucked guiltily away in my bag... It was a great event, and I'm really looking forward to reading the Chikwava now (thanks Darryl).

Then on to Ellie Catton & Colin McAdam afterwards (via quick cuppa with fliss!). Actually, this event was probably the most disappointing I went to: the EIBF seem to programme a lot of two-book events, where the books share a common theme, but this can fall flat; in this case, one author didn't seem to want to talk about his book much, and it's frustrating not being able to ask questions straight after the reading, but to have to wait while a second reading interposes itself, and hope you can hold on to whatever it was you wanted to ask.

To make up for that, though, I ended up going to the book festival launch party afterwards, and had a surprisingly good time talking to lots of people I didn't know from Adam, which my husband always complains I'm usually enormously reluctant to do. It helped that they all seemed to think I was a good 8-9 years younger than I actually am ;-) And that it was clearly a much cooler party than I would normally attend... It was a really fun start to the week, and made up for the stress of what had preceded it.

Sunday: time off travelling on the buses with the smallest two for me, while my husband took the eldest to a couple of book events.

Monday: bit of a dud event in the morning - the children's book events really do seem to err on the side of caution when they're announcing their age banding, and this, like several of the events we went to, really seemed to be aimed at kids rather younger than specified. But then I went to see the Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett talking about the financial crisis with author Kieran Levis - v interesting, and I think I finally have an inkling of the idea of derivatives... The real highlight was Cornelia Funke (author of the Inkworld books) in the afternoon, in conversation with Barry Cunningham (the publisher who "discovered" J.K. Rowling): absolutely wonderful. Sharp, witty, insightful, very patient with audience questions - a surprisingly large number of which revealed that their owners were already writing themselves, which was very encouraging.

Monday finished up with A.L. Kennedy, Ian Rankin and James Robertson reading from and discussing a new Edinburgh-set crime fiction collection, Crimespotting, in aid of the OneCity Trust. A really fantastic event, very funny, the readings were great, and the book itself is also really good (aside from one awful copy-editing name-change blooper in Rankin's contribution) - it includes contributions from writers like Margaret Atwood, who are not generally known for "crime fiction".

Um. I hate to be a dirty stop-out, but I need to sleep... there is more, but will have to post later.

Oh boy, pea green about A.L. Kennedy. Go to sleep. We'll happily wait for more. And thanks for this.

#178 Rachael - Fantastic report. Sleep well, and I'll bide my time while waiting for the second installment :)

Rachael, I enjoyed your report (except for the part where you made your poor husband serve as your personal book caddy). I'd love to hear what books you bought.

Yep, sounds like you had a great time - am very jealous of the Cornelia Funke thingy, would have loved to have seen her speak. Did the weather improve - it looked like it was going to when I left on the Monday?

PS Thank you again for the ticket!

>179 ALK was really funny and charismatic; her story in that collection is great. I think all 3 writers were doing separate events at the festival but I was already going to too many so thought it was better to kill 3 birds with 1 stone.

>181 in my defence, Darryl, it was at least a wheeled bag the books were in - but unfortunately, the draggy-handle-thing refused to extend on the last leg of the journey and he had to lump it about by the top strap (erk). Most of what I bought was YA/kids (for Matthew - the eldest), and in fact, having (literally) just unpacked aforementioned broken book bag, I realise some of the new books are still in the suitcase which has not yet made it out of the car... will update later. I don't think it's as bad as I feared, actually.

>182 fliss, we kind of stuck with chucking-it-down-with-rain in the mornings, sun in the afternoons. The final Monday was glorious (so naturally, the day I had to spend mostly packing).

On with the report....

I realise I left out a MAJOR highlight of my Monday, which was interviewing Ellie Catton (The Rehearsal, see above) for avaland's exciting new project, Belletrista. I'm still working on the piece but I feel indescribably privileged to have been able to spend an hour or so talking to her about her book and her writing. Promise to link it in when it's done (if avaland likes it enough to publish it, of course :-)) Definitely the best bit of the whole holiday for me, and I'm glad I put a decent amount of work into preparing.

Tuesday: Tracy Chevalier at 11.30, for Remarkable Creatures, a historical novel about Mary Anning, the working-class girl who discovered huge numbers of incredibly important fossils on the strand at Lyme Regis. It was OK, but not really my kind of thing - I went mainly to keep my father-in-law happy, and because I'm kind of interested in Mary Anning, generally.

We spent the afternoon 'doing' Arthur's Seat with the kids and my husband's cousin, who's studying medicine at Edinburgh; the 3YO clambered to the top ALL BY HERSELF, which led to my completely failing to acknowledge/recognise/hail British comedian Bill Bailey just below the summit - he was on his way down, but I was so focused on how well she was doing with her climbing that I just grinned maniacally at him and marched on. Doubletaking later of course.

A friend of a friend babysat for us in the evening, so we actually managed to get out to an event together (via an exceptionally nice dinner, in the restaurant that we went to on both our fake 'honeymoon' and 5th wedding anniverary trip). Booked on a whim (one of the authors is someone we know ever so slightly - as in nodding and smiling over coffee - from Cambridge), the theme was deserts: one author, John Hare, is a standard-issue eccentric Englishman who discovered an extraordinary form of camel in the Gobi desert that can survive temperatures of -40C and +56C (hmm, might have got those numbers swapped round... still pretty impressive), and that drinks salt water. Plus some incredible stuff about 3,500 year old mummies they found... and so on. Amazing. The other author (our very slight acquaintance) was talking about twin sisters from the 19th century who made extremely significant manuscript finds over the years. Both were totally fascinating stories, and it was a really enjoyable event.

Wednesday: husband took boys to some boy-like book events (Heroes/Warriors/Athletes/Robots) and I took the little girl to see Burglar Bill. I think it was her first ever trip to the theatre, and it took her a little while to get the hang of it - not least because there were only two actors, and the female one was playing about 6 different parts; she's clearly reached the age where she can see past the disguise, because she kept saying, "But that's Burglar Betty!" By the end, though, she was thoroughly enjoying herself, and spent a lot of time over the following days asking to go back and see it again....

Late afternoon was Neil Gaiman, reading from The Graveyard Book and doing Q&A. Scarily high percentage of teen goths in the audience (or are they all called emos nowadays? I'm so out of touch.). A great event, although my real purpose for going was thwarted: I thought he ought to be right up Matthew's street (fantasy and comedy) and it would be a good opportunity to get him started on a new author. However, Mr Gaiman chose to read the Danse Macabre chapter, which has fewer laughs and is less appealing to a 10-year-old boy, so he's come away still not convinced (Richard should be happy), even though he got a fabulous little graveyard sketch in his book at the signing. Sigh.

Wednesday closed with a debate entitled 'The End of Childhood?', participants Sue Palmer (author of Toxic Childhood), David Bainbridge (Teenagers: A Natural History) and Richard Layard (the UK government's 'Happiness Tsar' and rapporteur for the Good Childhood enquiry, which produced the report A Good Childhood). Chaired by former Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, it was interesting, but could have done with being weighted more in favour of the debate portion of events - the panellists were given a bit too much time to talk about their books, and a bit too little to properly engage in interesting discussion (and take questions). Most of all, I missed any real discussion about the role peer pressure plays in the way children grow up - although, that's not a great surprise, since I checked the indexes in each of their books in the bookshop afterwards and there was nary a mention. Worrying, though, since I remember peer opinion being possibly the single most important factor in how I chose to live my life as a teen. Maybe I'm just an unusually docile sheep, though.

Oh dear - sorry, it's taking me ages to do this.

Hello Rachel;
Your trip sounds so wonderful and busy. Almost a dream of a lifetime for some of us. Am so glad you had a good time and what, if not to lug our "stuffs" around, did we marry for? Oh yes, love and children. But I say: "Good job there."
Thank you for sharing your fascinating adventures with us. Enjoyed it tremendously!~!
belva

Great report - I would love to have been at that dinner event - sounds right up my street!

On Mary Anning - I remember reading a book about her as a primary school student. It is one of the few books I remember from that period of my life, so I must have been pretty impressed! What I can't remember is the name of the book, but I guess it's not important - there is a multitude of books aimed at younger readers on her and her fossils.

I'm looking forward to your Catton interview very much indeed. What fun to have been able to do it, Rachel! So glad you were able to enjoy the fact of doing it, rather than feeling all snarled up about it.

Having slogged it to the top of Arthur's Seat (and slid on a wet rock onto MY seat on the way down), I am quite impressed at the prowess of your 3 year old. That's no mean feat for short legs. Isn't the view splendid too?

Great report, Rachael! The account of your daughter's first play sounds especially memorable, and reminded me of the outdoor children's plays my mother used to take me to in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village (NYC) when I was a kid (which probably has a lot to do with my love of live theater).

Wheels on bags are good. I love the Samsonite Spinner suitcase I have, which has four wheels, and can be pushed instead of pulled. It's much easier to navigate airports and train & subway carriages now.

It's very tough to be a teenager these days, much more difficult than it was when I was a teen in the mid to late 70s. Peer pressure is bad enough, but so many good kids are under so much stress in trying to get into good colleges that it adversely affects their health. We're seeing lots of teens admitted with stress-related eating disorders, which are usually associated with anxiety or depressive disorders, and lately I've seen more and more boys being admitted to hospital for evaluation and treatment of anorexia, which used to be very rare (I saw one boy on Friday who was about 5 ft 6 in, and weighed 93 lb, who looked absolutely skeletal). If I get the time off I'll be going to an eating disorders course at Stanford in October, as I need to how to take care of these kids in hospital more effectively.

You posted your message at 9 pm Eastern Time (US), which is 2 am in London. When do you sleep?

Message edited by its author, Aug 26, 2009, 10:20pm.

Rachael, I *knew* there was good genetic material in there! Your son is a young man of high caliber smarts and strong moral fiber. Any kid who's not suckered by Gaiman's faux "humor" and facile...

Errrmmm...Good stout lad. Let's leave it at that.

Tuesday evening sounds delightful to me. I am now puce with envy and fury. I hope this makes the event that much more fun in retrospect. I've never heard of Mary Anning! Now I must know. Off to Amazon, oh how I hate you.

But I *am* glad you're back.

Rachael - Latest news from Lemony Snicket for you - http://www.thebookseller.com/news/95132-...

Wooooo! for the Lemony Snicket news!! But 2012? That's ages!

Rachel, thanks for the wonderful update - very impressed by your 3yo's climbing abilities and perceptive talents! I didn't make it up to Arthur's seat or Calton Hill (also amazing view, including of Arthur's Seat) this year, because whenever I'd left gaps in the day to do it, it was pouring with rain. ...speaking of which, sorry it didn't brighten up permanently for you, but it makes me feel better... ;) Looking forward to the Eleanor Catton interview, but I'll clearly have to read The Rehearsal first...

An all round boooooo to suitcases on wheels, however convenient and sensible and useful they are (sorry, have too recent Tube battle scars...). Kidzdoc, the forward facing one sounds like a good solution...

richardderus, I can not leave that jibe unanswered - in what way is Gaiman's humour "faux" exactly?! Feeling a little facile myself now ;)

Belletrista looks very cool, so I just signed up for it. Thanks for mentioning it Rachael!

>184 not done just yet, Belva! More to bore you with...

>185 Peter, the books at that event were Sisters of Sinai and Mysteries of the Gobi. I haven't read either yet, so can't speak to the quality of the books themselves, but if the event was anything to judge by they should be awe-inspiring. So pleased we went.

>186 tiffin, I totally overdid the preparation - spent way too much time on it - but with the result that although I was nervous about actually doing an interview, I felt like I knew what I wanted to ask about. And I really did love the book, which helped a LOT. Just hope I can do a good job on writing it up - I didn't take notes, just recorded, so feel like I need to transcribe it first before I can see what shape I want it to be... all very new to me.

And yes, we got a pretty good view too. The little girl was so pleased with herself - like Burglar Bill, wanted to go back and do it every day.

>187 Darryl, I have to confess to HATING wheeled bags (when other people are lugging them). There are just so many around in London, and their owners so rarely seem to realise just how much physical space they occupy. Flissp & I have had a bit of a banter going on on Facebook about founding an anti-wheeled-bag organisation.... I know they're practical, I just don't like the way they get used.

Your comments on anorexia in boys are really scary. It seems to be so hard to have a healthy body image nowadays. My boys are both incredibly skinny and there's a history of anorexia on my husband's side, so I get a bit anxious about it sometimes (especially with the middle one, who's incredibly picky about what he eats).

I sleep more than Stasia at least :-) Seiously though, life's too busy at the moment - if I slept as much as I really needed, I'd never get any reading done and that is definitely a fate worse than death.

>188 Richard, glad you are pleased with the Gaiman verdict (you may also like to know that my son further quantified it by rating the event 6 out of 10 in the grand high awarding of scores on our last night...) - I was just disappointed not to get him to try someone else out. He's stuck in a bit of a rut at the moment - although he has read quite a few new things as a result of the festival, which is good news. Particularly pleased that he's wolfed down Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses series, after finding it initially hard going ("the problem is, Mum, she's telling the story from different points of view and it gets kind of hard to follow"). Great to see him stretching himself a bit.

>189 thanks for the link, Kerry - saw that yesterday. SO excited! Although really I want more Baudelaires...

>190 flissp, I didn't get up Calton Hill sadly - one of the highlights for me last year was the long walk I took on Saturday down past the leaflet-wielders on the Royal Mile and then up Calton Hill - marvellous for dispelling the hangover cobwebs. Husband took the kids up though.

OK, will try and be a bit quicker with the rest of the festival...

edit to split the post up so you can take a deep breath...

Message edited by its author, Aug 27, 2009, 6:12pm.

OK, so last chunk.

Thursday: absolutely threw it down with rain. I took the two littlest to a science show, which was fantastic fun: lots of bubbles, circus tricks, and that theory whose name I can't remember about fluid following a curved surface explained with football, blowing candles out and airzookas. Then Potted Potter in the afternoon, which was just hysterical, even though aimed mainly at the kids' level. I think my favourite joke is still: "So let me get this straight: Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard of all time.... and he's chosen to go into TEACHING??" Very, very silly, lots of fun.

My husband went off to see the Romanian production of Faust in the evening (cast of 100, technical crew of 120, held in a warehouse somewhere just outside Edinburgh as the sheer scale of the thing meant it was too big to put on in a regular venue), but pronounced it disappointing: said it substituted spectacle for acting and dialogue. Although the latter may be blamed on translation, since the production was in Romanian and subtitled...

Friday: the kids and I had a quiet morning in the flat while my husband went to see Hesperion XXI performing Dowland and other stuff (his highlight of the week), before I went off to meet an old friend for lunch (who incidentally was responsible for sorting us out the babysitter AND the accommodation after everything went a bit pear-shaped. yay Julie!). Then Fantasy Quest with Dominic Barker in the afternoon - a reluctant-hero comic fantasy series. It was a pity there wasn't a better turn-out for this, as he worked really hard to make it lively and interesting, and the books seemed quite funny; the audience was just a bit lacklustre. Shame on us.

Then a bit of a stressful afternoon with lots of running around, occasioned by the facts that (1) we only had one set of keys (2) my husband was taking the boys to a kids' comedy club at 6 at one end of Edinburgh (3) I had to be at an event at the book festival (at the other end of Edinburgh) at 7 (4) I had a party to go to straight afterwards so also had to be washed and brushed. All of this was further complicated by (a) my husband managing to lose our eldest on the Royal Mile (b) the friend of a friend who was babysitting the smallest during the comedy club being a bit ditzy and completely underestimating the amount of time it would take to get a 3YO across the city (because I had to meet her to hand over aforementioned sole set of keys). All ended up with rather comic scene of me tearing (or at least, trying to tear) down Princes Street on 3-inch heels, with scarecrow hair - since I hadn't had time to dry it due to rushing out of the door to meet husband after panicked phonecall about missing offspring (are you sensing a pattern here?).

I arrived at the book festival five minutes late for the LATECOMERS-WILL-NOT-BE-ADMITTED (they all say that) 7 p.m. event, in time to see them hanging out the sign saying "Closed - event in progress". It transpired shortly, however, that this was an error: the event in fact started 15 minutes late in the end, in near-darkness with no sound system, as both the main generator and the backup had gone AWOL.... So, a rather subdued discussion on family memoir was held - particularly subued owing to the very softly-spoken LRB editor, who could barely be heard beyond about 3 rows back.

Then a party afterwards, at which I totally embarrassed myself by gushing to Vincent Lam about how much other people I knew had liked his book before realising that I had to admit I hadn't actually read it myself... oh dear. Took refuge in glass of champagne. This was a very bad idea....

Saturday: the extra champagne took its revenge on me, and I failed to make it to the first event of the day (Ian Jack and Sarah Lyall on Englishness) owing to my need to crawl back under the duvet and whimper pathetically. Managed to pull myself together sufficiently to get to Malorie Blackman at 1.30, which was a relief as I think my son would NEVER have forgiven me if I hadn't. She was fantastic - wonderful exuberant woman, took lots of questions. HUGE queues for signing afterwards, but she signed all 4 of my son's books.

Then the Granta event on the art of the short story: Nadeem Aslam, James Lasdun and Valerie Martin, chaired by John Freeman. Thoroughly enjoyable, although a bit surprising to have Aslam on the panel since he's mostly published novels. A follow-up to Faber after the event confirmed that they're not publishing his stories, although Freeman referred in his intro to a volume coming out next year... fingers crossed. Oh, and a lovely Granta goody bag to take home afterwards (although annoyingly, I already had the New Fiction issue. It's my new favourite book bag though.)

Sunday: last day. Anne Fine in the afternoon - very, very funny, refreshingly politically incorrect, although you get the impression she's one of those people who is able to be funny because they're actually fairly intolerant and not all that nice... it was a great event though (hmm, am I sounding like a stuck record yet?). At this point, the exhaustion of the week caught up with the boys, and we were very nearly banned from the children's bookshop owing to their fighting... husband took the little ones back to the flat, and I dropped the eldest off at his last event (a matchstick-modelling workshop) and went to hide in the National Gallery, which was just exactly what I needed: an hour of Raphael, Titian, Florentine school, Botticelli, Cezanne... then a wander back through Princes Street gardens, and I was at peace with the world again. Evening meal in a local steak place, then packing packing packing while husband went back to the book festival to see British comedian Frank Skinner talking about his memoir (which he said was basically a stand-up gig with the odd bit of reading in it).

Monday: started with a poetry reading - Canadian Lorna Crozier, National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, and Aussie Emma Jones (shortlisted for the Forward prize for first collection, and another acquaintance - she did her PhD at the same time as my sister-in-law). Wonderful start to the day. And then it was time to go home. Sob.

Phew. Hope you're still with me! I will write something about books soon. SOON.

I read every single word. Thank you!

Aw, thanks :)

I'm not compulsively and egotistically checking my own thread, I promise: having just finished transcribing my interview (badly, with many many many typoes), I just found out that The Rehearsal has been longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, which obviously I am thrilled to bits about - so I had to come here to post it. Now I'm going to go away and do some READING. really enjoying Ariana Franklin.

Message edited by its author, Aug 27, 2009, 9:09pm.

Rachael & flissp, the four-wheeled suitcase I have is very easy to navigate, and is practically self-propelling, which makes it easy to turn it sideways and avoid sensitive toes and knees of other passengers. The carriages on the Atlanta subway system (MARTA), which I use to go to the airport, include several areas for luggage at either end and the middle, so these bags rarely get in the way or assault other passengers.

That's quite a narrative, Rachael! I'll probably read it over the weekend, or on Monday, after I finish my four day stretch at work.

Thanks for the final installment. Loved reading it - had me smiling throughout! Thanks for the titles of those books. I will look into them :)

Except for it being in Edinburgh, a place that lives in my memory as dankness embodied (but then again, I'm from Texas...impossible to experience dankness there), it sounds like a boatload of fun.

I loved following your adventures in Edinburgh - what a great week of family fun.

Sounds like you had a wonderful, if exhausting, week :)

I enjoyed reading about your adventures, Flossie! Sounds like a great time!

Wonderful adventures with so much fun stuff, Flossie. Reading with green eyes!

I noticed The Rehearsal on Darryl's posting on the Prizes thread. I was interested to see that she is a young New Zealander who was born in Canada, so that connection was interesting.

The Bellavista site looks interesting. Are you contributing interviews. I do not see any postings on it as of now?

Darryl needs to know that lunging the books of your partner is a sign of undying love and devotion, and quite adorably romantic!! (In my case, it is the postman who lunges my books into the house, and I have no romantic attachment to him, so he gets understandably miffed at times).

Great recap of your time in Edinburgh. Count me among the jealous. New York is Book Country and the Brooklyn Book Festival pale in comparison to the seemingly endless entertainment opportunities at the Fringe Festival. Wow!

#202: Hmph. I don't think that slipped discs and hernias from carting untold numbers of books are signs of undying love (undying pain, perhaps).

Umm...not that I have room to talk, of course. How many books did I schlep back from London (and San Francisco earlier this year)?

Happy that my rambling about Edinburgh was of some interest (it's my thread and I intend to continue to do what I want with, but it's lovely that it should be able to divert a little)! I really did have a fabulous time.

Now back, and in a bit of a reading funk, somehow: had a wonderful weekend in Somerset, near Glastonbury, in a house stuffed to the gunnels with books, yet I found myself wandering round the house amassing piles and then not really wanting to read any of them. I've finished recently:

81. Crimespotting - various: enjoyable (if rather sloppily copy-edited) collection of crime stories about Edinburgh by some great writers, including some (like Margaret Atwood) who aren't ordinarily noted for crime writing.

82. The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell: found this quite confusing and hard to follow all the geo-political stuff, but I'm sticking with Kurt for a while longer before I give up altogether. Now partway through The White Lioness (snaffled from aforementioned house shelves) and enjoying this much more than the previous books.

83. Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin: I did find this a little bit difficult to get into, but it was great fun once I got going, and I ended up finishing it around 4am (I had 150 pages to go and sat down intending to read about 20 of them...). Still slightly freaked out by the fact that the horrible maze of death at the heart of the plot is, ostensibly, under the country park that is amongst my boys' favourite places to spend a Sunday afternoon... next time we're unpacking our picnic I'll be looking over my shoulder more often. Still, I love reading books set in places I know. Minor gripe: Cherry Hinton is to the east, not the west, of Cambridge - and in any case, I'm still not entirely convinced that it actually existed under that name at the time the book was set... I sense a close consultation with Google and Wikipedia in my future.

I'm reading too may books at once at the moment, something I don't ordinarily do but which is indicative of my present funkiness:

The White Lioness - Henning Mankell
Generation X - Douglas Coupland (a re-read, he's doing the Guardian Book Club on Friday)
Book of Clouds - Chloe Aridjis
Letters to a Fiction Writer - ed. Frederick Busch (really enjoying this one, actually, but don't seem to be in the mood to read it much at the moment)
The Striped World - Emma Jones (poetry, a little bit at a time)

>202 Karen, Belletrista is set to launch in early September, and will have contributions from several LTers - it's avaland's baby. I'm relatively pleased with my interview, though I was really intending to write more of a profile than a basic transcript... but ran out of time (plus ça change, eh).

Now caught up on all "my posts" but still a way to go on starred... and as for checking new group threads, well! If my true literary soulmate is somewhere amongst them, he or she will have to wait some time before we connect, I suspect.

And tomorrow the kids go back to school. Sigh. So I need to log off, lay the table for breakfast, put uniform out etc. etc...

The Adventures of FlossieT and family: loved it. Thank you for the sharing of it. I am pea green with envy except for the rushing and hustling about. Am waaaay tooooo old for that.
Glad you made it home safe and sound. Missed you.

"(it's my thread and I intend to continue to do what I want with,"--------------love it, love it, love it!~!~!

We should all take that power!~!

hugs,
belva

My kids are in their last week of summer break. It's hot and they're fussy and bored. Much like their father.

What d'ya think of Generation x?

#206: I completely agree with belva. I loved the festival accounts from you & flissp.

Thank you for my part kidzdoc!

I very much enjoyed your updates too Rachel - and not at all in a jealous way, honest!

I always think of Cherry Hinton as being south of Cambridge?! :) I think parts of it are quite old, even if it's mostly housing estate now. When is Mistress of Art and Death set? You've reminded me that this was on my wishlist - now I know why - I also like reading places I recognise...

Booooo to back to school! That explains why my commute time's doubled again (not that it's ever that long, but still...)

Just looked at a map - South East. Ariana Franklin couldn't really have been more wrong! ;)

aargh I hate mistakes like that in books *shudders*
I'm moving that a few spots lower on my wishlist - ha! take that Ariana!

>206, 208, 209 thanks, guys :)

>207 There's been practically no summer to speak of here, Greg, so no one is hot even if they're bothered :-( I could have done with another couple of weeks of not having to get up in time for the school run... Generation X I'm kind of enjoying, although I don't think it's his best book - and I do remember getting more out of it first time round (but then I was, ahem, quite a lot younger then...) I'm looking forward to Generation A despite the mixed reviews.

>209 Mistress of the Art of Death is set around the time of Chaucer. I think that there are bits of it that were around then - I'm just not convinced it was called Cherry Hinton. Still trying to get to the bottom of it though - probably need to email the Cambridge Preservation Society...

#212

I had no idea Mistress of the Art of Death was set so early. Or set in Cambridge. I would think you are right in thinking it wasn't called Cherry Hinton though. I don't know why I think that though!

#212 ah yes, that would be quite a lot earlier than I assumed! You'll have to keep us posted ;)

I'm agreed with you about Generation X - I enjoyed it, but wanted more from it in some way - definitely better than Girlfriend in a Coma anyway... Generation A? Is this a sequel?

>213 indeed - Henry II plays a small but important part in moving forward the plot. Most of it is set in the centre of Cambridge, but a significant chunk takes place in the Wandlebury Ring (now Wandlebury Country Park) - in fact, the book opens with many of the participants encamped there. Also lots of references to Trumpington.

>214 ah, you see, I loved Girlfriend in a Coma.... wow, all this is making me want to re-read all my Coupland <<sits on hands>>

Generation A isn't exactly a sequel - the title comes from a Vonnegut commencement address, which in turn was a direct response to the 'Generation X' tag that had been applied to a generation, and taken to mean "directionless slackers". So it's referential rather than sequential. It's supposed to be about a world in which bees have become extinct, but then five people are stung unexpectedly and in different parts of the world (I've seen more than one review refer to it as a "golden ticket plot").

Generally speaking, I think I'm fonder of the whackier Coupland than the more 'zen' stuff, and everything I've seen suggests Generation A fits into the former category.

Just a little brag to say that Douglas Coupland is a Canuck who grew up in Vancouver! Ownership statement and all that.

The only Coupland book I've read was JPod, which I picked up at a book sale. While I actually enjoyed the story, I couldn't help feeling ambivalent about the gimmicky layout, which felt more like padding at times. I then started watching the TV series based on the book, but after the second episode lost interest. He's remained a writer I would consider reading again, but wouldn't actively seek out.

Rachael, where do place JPod? In the 'whackier' or 'zen' category?

Yes, when I read Generation X because it was HIGHLY relevant to me. It was also new! So, yeah, I'm old. All I've read from Coupland is Generation X and Microserfs, which wasn't bad. It reminded me of a 70s comic novel.

I have Girlfriend in a Coma on my tbr pile as it was recently reviewed on breakfast tv and sounded interesting.

>216 Karen, I'm having a CanLit-tastic weekend with Coupland this evening and Margaret Atwood on Monday. I would squeal excitedly, but that would be, like, bare uncool. And we all know that us bookish types really worry about cool.... ahem.

>217 Peter, I have to admit to having not read JPod, but for the most embarrassingly geeky of reasons: I was SO excited about it that I bought the limited-edition version which came in a box with a little Lego figure... and I just couldn't bear to open it. I believe, however, that it's one to file under "whacky" - seem to remember the reviewers didn't really know what to make of it.

>218 Greg, the more I read, the more I'm struck by how little has changed: the type that Coupland is describing is still very much around today. Also, I'm inclined to be sympathetic to his characters' aims rather than writing them off as dropouts, as searching for meaning in an increasingly consumerist society seems to be even more relevant than it was nearly 20 years ago. He does a good job relatively early on of setting his protagonists up against Claire's extended half family, who are all achingly hip and witty in that very empty, superficial, flip kind of way that is so familiar now.

Also noticeable is the influence the book has had on later writers: I'm strongly reminded of The Flying Troutmans, and also Then We Came to the End, which in retrospect reads like an extended riff on the office scenes that Dag describes from his "former life".

I liked Microserfs a lot more, but then I think that was partly because I was working in telecoms and IT... I've re-read that a couple of times, but not for several years now.

(I wouldn't call you "old" - I'm not many years behind you :) I have a very clear memory of being quite envious that I wasn't quite old enough to technically describe myself as a member of 'Generation X' since at the time I identified quite strongly with a lot of what it stood for.)

>219 Kerry, I found Girlfriend in a Coma really moving, actually - although it is a LONG time since I read it. I had a big Coupland phase towards the end of uni and read virtually everything he'd ever written, but haven't been so good at keeping up subsequently (besides JPod, I still haven't read The Gum Thief either).

I think my issue with Douglas Coupland was that I wanted to enjoy the books I read much more than I actually did - like you Rachel, I identified with the themes and some of the characters (and a me too to the envy-of-not-quite-generation-X). I also found him very readable. Somehow, however, I always felt a little bit let down by the time I finished.

It's been about 10 years since I read the last one though and I like the sound of "Generation A" from your description, so I'll probably end up giving him another go...

Generation X...my eight-years-younger brother...gadzooks, my half-centenary is fast approaching! But I found Coupland's prose underwhelming when read back in the 90s. Just not that interesting. I guess that's the letdown you refer to, flissp.

#222 -- The things that I enjoyed about Generation X that made it feel fresh for me in my 20s, all the twee pomo sleight of hand with the diagrams, footnotes, illustrations and what not, would become very annoying very quickly for me now.

>223 I think that's it...the age factor. It was published for the crowd it described, and I wasn't ever one of them.

I notice that effect in lots of books. I don't recommend any Thomas Wolfe novels to those over 22-23 because it's just too late to be suckered into the cult at that age, in my experience. I wonder if stuff like Everything is Illuminated will suffer that fate...the Kerouac-ization of literature....

Ooh, Hesperion XXI! I would love to see/hear them! Is Jordie Savall still leading? I LOVE him!

And Nadeem Aslam--lucky you!

>223 & >224 I've found I've quite enjoyed the "twee pomo sleight of hand". One thing that really interests me on a re-read is how the type Coupland is describing hasn't gone away - makes me think of that Larkin poem about sex 'beginning' "between the time of the Chatterley ban / and the Beatles' first LP". Every generation thinks it's the first to feel a certain way. One thing Coupland said last night rang very true to me - that the desire to excise too much period detail in the hope of creating something "timeless" was doomed; "there's a kind of honesty that comes with locating something in the hyper-specific." Think 'detailed time capsule' rather than 'horribly dated'.

Richard, I found Everything is Illuminated totally unreadable (though I really liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close).

>225 yes, apparently Jordi Savall still leading, and "virtuosic" - husband says it was the highlight of the festival for him. The Granta event was a bit odd - not as odd as Ellie Catton's, but John Freeman was a slightly awkward chair, and apart from James Lasdun, it rather felt like most of the panellists had too many 'corners' to share a platform comfortably.

Floss, I just got a packet in the mail from a dear friend in Scotland with all kinds of pamphlets and book info from the Edinburgh book fair! So between the two of you, I almost feel like I was there.

>226 I tried to like Foer, I really did. I just don't.

One thing Coupland said last night rang very true to me - that the desire to excise too much period detail in the hope of creating something "timeless" was doomed; "there's a kind of honesty that comes with locating something in the hyper-specific." Think 'detailed time capsule' rather than 'horribly dated'. I think there is a lot of truth in this. I read The View from Pompey's Head in 2004 or so. Its Big Secret, the Shameful Reveal, was so ludicrously anticlimactic in today's world that I almost laughed. But the book was written in 1954 Murrika and thangs wuz difernt then. It made me think...a mere 50-year gap and I was out of sync with my predecessor telling the story. Now I go back to the history books that I've read with a huge boulder of salt strapped to my back, to be applied liberally, when an author has the audacity to offer "the probable emotions" of people in bygone eras as facts. Ideas, probabilities, opinions...informed or less informed...sure, fine, cool. Facts? Not unless you're quoting a diary! And even then my personal malarkey filtration unit kicks on. People lie about feelings, always have, always will.

Which is why I like history so much, paradoxically.

Starting a new thread as I wanted to post a picture... hopefully see you over there?