elkiedee in 2011, thread 2

Last year I had a thread for each of the first 3 75s and one for the other 94 books (which I didn't update with reviews for in many cases, sorry!)

Here's my first thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/106175

This thread covers books from 61 onwards.

61. 07.03 Amy Chua, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (4.5)

62. 08.03 Rachel Hawkins, Raising Demons (3.5)

63. 09.03 Barbara Mitchelhill, Run Rabbit Run (4.4)

64. 10.03 Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day (4.4)

65. 11.03 Kalinda Ashton, The Danger Game (4.5)

66. 11.03 Jane Shilling, The Stranger in the Mirror (4.0)

67. 12.03 Ruth Eastham, The Memory Cage (3.8)

68. 14.03 Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin (4.0)

69. 15.03 Rhiannon Lassiter, Ghost of a Chance (4.3)

70. 16.03 Molly Keane, Taking Chances (4.1)

71. 16.03 Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (4.2)

72. 17.03 Johan Therin, Echoes from the Dead (4.1)

73. 18.03 Doris Lessing, Time Bites (4.1)

74. 19.03 Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit (4.6)

75. 19.03 Diana Gardner, The Woman Novelist and other stories (4.1)

76. 21.03 Anna Lawrence Pietroni, Ruby's Spoon 4.2

77. 21.03 Amy Chua, World on Fire, 4.2

78. 22.03 Annalena Mcafee, The Spoiler 3.2

79. 23.03 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 5.0

80. 24.03 Aifric Campbell, The Loss Adjustor

81. 26.03 Karen McQuestion, Life on Hold 4.1

82. 26.03 Joan Aiken, The Serial Garden 4.6

83. 28.03 Niamh O'Connor, If I Never See You Again 4.4

84. 28.03 Julie Schaper and (eds), Twin Cities Noir 4.0

85. 28.03 Janice Galloway, Blood 3.8

86. 31.03 Ariana Franklin, The Death Maze 4.2

87. 31.03 Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men 4.2

88. 02.04 Christopher Fowler, The Water Room 4.2

89. 04.04 Louisa Young, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You 4.7

90. 04.04 K M Peyton, Flambards 4.6

91. 05.04 Muriel Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye 4.2

92. 07.04 Eliza Graham, Playing with the Moon 4.2

93. 08.04 Lauren Liebenberg, The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club 4.2

94. 09.04 Leila Aboulela, Lyrics Alley 4.2

95. 11.04 Paula McLain, The Paris Wife 4.3

96. 11.04 Anne Peile, Repeat It Today with Tears 3.9

97. 11.04 Hilary Spurling, Burying the Bones 4.3

98. 14.04 Allison Pearson, I Think I Love You 4.1

99. 14.04 Paul Wilson, The Visiting Angel 4.2

100. 17.04 Aminatta Forna, The Memory of Love 4.7

101. 17.04 Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring 4.7

102. 18.04 Diana Wynne Jones, Archer's Goon 4.2

103. 20.04 eds Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang, Listening to Britain 4.1

104. 20.04 Joan Aiken, Up The Chimney Down, 4.7

105. 22.04 Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast 4.2

106. 22.04 Kate Johnson, The Untied Kingdom 4.2

107. 23.04 Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance 4.4

108. 25.04 Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, 4.0

109. 25.04 Carol Birch, Jamrath's Menagerie, 4.1

110. 27.04 Amanda Hodgkinson, 22 Britannia Road, 4.8

111. 29.04 Nadine Gordimer, The Lying Days 4.2

112. 30.04 Sara Wheeler, Access All Areas 4.7

113. 01.05 Richmal Crompton, Family Roundabout 4.0

114. 02.05 David Ozmosgis, The Free World 3.9

115. 06.05 ed Robert Knightly, Queens Noir 4.1

116. 08.05 Denise Mina, The End of the Wasp Season 4.6

117. 08.05 Guillaume Musso, Where Would I Be Without You? 2.7

118. 09.05 Tea Obreht, The Tiger's Wife 4.3

119. 10.05 Jonny Steinberg, Little Liberia 4.3

120. 12.05 Katharine McMahon, Footsteps 3.8

61. 07.03 Amy Chua, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (4.5)

TIOLI city on page 17

62. 08.03 Rachel Hawkins, Raising Demons (3.5) (aka Demonglass in the US)

TIOLI Words decreased by one letter in title

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Hex_Hall:_Raising_Demons_by_...

very much enjoyed Hex Hall last year, set in an American boarding school for witches, vampires and others with supernatural powers, and was looking forward to this follow up. I was a bit disappointed that by the change in setting in Raising Demons, as Sophie goes with her dad to stay in a big country house, and there is a smaller, less interesting range of characters. New characters include the elegant Lara, and two other young people, Nick and Daisy, who seem to be bent on getting into trouble and taking Sophie with them.

63. 09.03 Barbara Mitchelhill, Run Rabbit Run (4.4)

January 1942: Lizzie Butterworth and her little brother Freddie live with their dad in Rochdale, Lancashire. Two months ago their mum was killed by a bomb which fell on her shop. Lizzie is being bullied and taunted at school and on the way home, because her dad won't join the army. He is a conscientious objector who doesn't believe it's right to kill people. As conscription has been introduced making nearly all men aged 18-51 liable to be called up for military service (and therefore required to fight), this means he is breaking the law and may well be treated as a criminal. Dad has decided they are going to move to Whiteway, a Colony (a sort of alternative community), for people who don't believe in war, in Gloucestershire.

See whole review here:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Run_Rabbit_Run_by_Barbara_Mi...

Wow, I don't think I ever realized exactly how many books you read in a year. That's amazing! :)

In 2009 I read 49 books. At the moment I seem to be a month ahead of last year - 84 books (319 by the end of 2010, but I didn't read 75 until nearly the end of April), but I think the gap will close a bit.

How do you manage it? I too am gobsmacked by the ferocious reading that happens on this thread.

gotcha :)

Found your new thread though I've still to catch up on the old one... Will try to do better with this one!

Another prize longlist:

The Orwell Prize for political writing:

The longlisted books are:

The Rule of Law - Tom Bingham (Allen Lane)

Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus - Oliver Bullough (Penguin)

Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirit - Tim Butcher (Chatto)

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism - Ha-Joon Chang (Penguin)

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance - Edmund De Waal (Chatto)

The Betrayal - Helen Dunmore (Fig Tree)

Ernest Gellner - John A Hall(Verso)

A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain - Owen Hatherley (Verso)

Hitch-22 - Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic Books)

We Are a Muslim, Please - Zaiba Malik (William Heinemann)

Death to the Dictator! - Afsaneh Moqadam (The Bodley Head)

Why the West Rules for Now - Ian Morris (Profile)

Decline and Fall - Chris Mullin (Profile)

Enough is Enough - Fintan O'Toole (Faber)

Whatever It Takes: The Real Story of Gordon Brown and New Labour - Steve Richards (Fourth Estate)

Red Plenty - Francis Spufford (Faber)

Supermac: The Life of Harold MacMillan - D R Thorpe (Chatto)

Living Dolls - Natasha Walter (Virago)

I think I've read two of these - Hitchens and Dunmore - and would like to read several more.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/forensic-and-furious-books-orwell-prize.html?u....

I have Living Dolls out of the library.

Unfortunately I discovered that Living Dolls was due back today and had been reserved by others, so couldn't be renewed. It's gone back and I've put another reservation on it (they're free from that library).

I thought I'd do a current reading update post:

Christopher Fowler, The Water Room
This is 2nd in the Bryant & May series, I found the first 3 on special offer from the Book People, for less than the price of one new. (I was sent a free for review copy of #1 in February). Somehow I ordered 2 of the sets, I think my mum's husband might enjoy them though, and it's his birthday next month. The octogenarian detectives are looking into several murders of the residents of one north London street, and learning about the waterways under London. These are strange stories but I'm really enjoying them.

Louisa Young, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You
Amazon Vine, historical novel, WW1 setting. Excellent so far.

K M Peyton, Flambards
TIOLI: published 2 years before I was born (1967)
Revisiting a childhood favourite, though I'd forgotten a lot of the content. Set in the early 1900s. Teenage orphan Christina goes to live with her uncle Russell and his sons. Russell is obsessed with hunting and beating his sons into submission, and is disabled and can't ride/hunt himself since a riding accident. Mark seems to take after dad, Will hates horses and is interested in aviation.

Muriel Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye
TIOLI: published 9 years before I was born (1960)

Eliza Graham, Playing with the Moon
Possible TIOLI nested stories
A couple in crisis discover a tragedy which happened during wartime

Lauren Liebenberg, The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club
for Bookbag review, 2nd novel by author of The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
TIOLI before I was born, 88 years older than me!

Nadine Gordimer, Telling Times
Twitter giveaway from publisher, I was very excited by this one when it arrived as they didn't tell people who had won, asked for addresses in entry email and then just sent the books - non-fiction writings from 1950 - the first piece is a memoir of childhood in 1920s/1930s South Africa first published in 1954

64. 10.03 Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day (4.4)

65. 11.03 Kalinda Ashton, The Danger Game (4.7)

March TIOLI 1 - city on page 17 (Sydney) - though most of the novel is actually set in Melbourne

My first review for Bookmunch, I'd read some of their reviews and then the editor was asking for more reviewers on Twitter (March is a crazy month in publishing, so many new books it's ridiculous!)

1st novel by an Australian writer, published there a couple of years ago but newly published here by Tindall Street Press, an independent publisher in the West Midlands who have had some real successes in the last few years, notably Clare Morrall and Catherine O'Flynn.

From my review:

Two sisters try to come to terms with their past and present in a debut novel by Australian writer Kalinda Ashton. Louise’s twin brother Jeremy died in a house fire when he was 10, and soon afterwards their mum left. Now, Louise is a recovering heroin addict but struggles with getting the rest of her life together – she has just lost her benefits and her social housing flat in Sydney. Her older sister Alice comes to the rescue, not for the first time, but is pondering her own problems – an unsatisfactory affair with a married man she doesn’t love, and a job in a school threatened with closure.

.......

Any Cop?: The distinct character portraits in the novel are memorable and convincing, and there is a message about the need for and value of resistance to change in hard times. What’s not to like?

The rest of the review:

http://bookmunch.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/memorable-and-convincing-the-danger-ga...

Backing up a bit, Run Rabbit Run looks like one I would enjoy despite its being written for children. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Luci!

Flambards! one of my favourites again. My father's father and grandfather were both involved in the early days of aviation so I had a particular fascination with that story.

Lots of literary awards around, here's a chicklit award:

The Melissa Nathan awards shortlist for Comedy Romance has been announced:

We are delighted to announce the short list for 2011:

FOURSOME, Jane Fallon (Penguin)

GETTING OVER MR RIGHT, Chrissie Manby (Hodder)

MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND, Helen Simonson (Macmillan)

OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE, David Nobbs, (HarperCollins)

A PERFECT PROPOSAL, Katie Fforde (Random House)

SWEET TEMPTATION Lucy Diamond (Pan)

I have bought the Simonson book, Manby is the only author I've read on the list - mostly her early books. Neither of the books I was sent to score as part of the selection process have made it to the shortlist - The Beach Hut was a perfectly enjoyable read but I scored it 1 and 2 out of 10 for comedy and romance as it was neither (about 7 for it as a good read). I thought The Secret Shopper's Revenge was funnier and more romantic but all these books may well have been better.

I remember reading Flambards when I was younger. It was one of my favourite books, in fact. I've still got the whole series on my shelves and I may well have to revisit them now. Thanks for reminding me!

I've nearly finished, and might well have to pick up The Edge of the Cloud soon, especially as I finished Louisa Young's wonderful WW1 set historical novel this morning My Dear I Wanted to Tell You and I'm missing that setting.

Aaaarrggh I'm now a month behind with comments already, although I have reviewed some of the books I've read more recently.

66. 11.03 Jane Shilling, The Stranger in the Mirror (4.0)

Jane Shilling is a journalist. This is a memoir of realising that she's middle aged as 50 looms, and fretting about changes in her appearance. It sounds rather inward looking and narcissistic, but it's very well written and is a great read. She mixes a sort of memoir with a look at the portrayal of middle aged women in literature.

#25: Since I will be 50 next year, The Stranger in the Mirror sounds like a timely read for me. Thanks for the recommendation, Luci!

I sympathise Luci - I have yet to comment on all of Feb and March...

Jane Fallon's first book was v. good; her second was appallingly bad. I have Foursome here, but haven't yet read it, also the Manby book.

Re the Orwell award, I have promptly placed an order for the book by Tim Butcher. His book about following Stanley's footsteps through today's Congo was astonishingly good; I gave it a five-star review on Amazon (and he was nice enough to e-mail me to thank me for the review!) So I'm thrilled to see a new book by him.

I loved the Flambards books when I was a child, even though I had zero interest in either horses or airplanes/motor cars.

I'm glad to hear the Congo book was good because I just bought a copy in a charity shop. The Bookbag has a review pending of his newest one - I was quite tempted to take it on but it went before I felt it was ok to ask (I normally choose 2 books to ask for at a time although Sue posts them in separate envelopes so that they will fit through the letterbox and not go astray at the Post Office for ages) and set myself a limit of having no more than 4 altogether from there with reviews outstanding.

I've read some of Chrissie Manby's earlier books published under the name Chris Manby.

For the Orwell awards, Living Dolls is awaiting collection again from the library.

I do wish I could review for the Bookbag; I understand the issue about mailing overseas, but it's kind of frustrating. Not every site has that policy, but there are relatively few that consistently offer the kinds of books in which I'm interested. Particularly because I do read so many UK authors.

Wonder why Manby changed her name? To make herself more "girly"???

I'm sorry about that.

I know it's only one genre, and I don't know exactly how it works at the moment, but one of my favourite crime fiction review sites is www.reviewingtheevidence.com - I did a few reviews for them years ago, and then dropped out owing two. I still feel guilty about it, and that I let down the site's founder (who sadly died a couple of years ago). Yvonne Klein, the North American editor, actually lives in Canada (and comes from New York). Anyway, you could have a look at the site and approach Yvonne for details of reviewing for them.

What I'm reading at the moment, details to be expanded

Paula McLain, The Paris Wife - Amazon Vine
Anne Peile, Repeat It Today with Tears - Twitter giveaway from publisher, Orange
Hilary Spurling, Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China - Bookbag review book
Allison Pearson, I Think I Love You

Paul Wilson, The Visiting Angel - review copy from publisher
Aminatta Forna The Memory of Love - Orange longlist
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Nadine Gordimer, Telling Tales - Twitter giveway from publisher

I've had the Henry James a very long time, it's falling apart and has 25p in pencil on the front page (I would say just inside the cover but the cover fell off during this reread). Of the others, I've only had to buy two, the two with "love" in the title.

Looking forward to your thoughts on the Anne Peille book. They have this at my local library but I've been put off by the subject matter.

I know you also had reservations about reading it but have just noticed you've given it a 4 star rating so presumably it is worth a read?!

I still have mixed feelings about the Anne Peile book - it's beautifully written, perhaps deserves a higher rating for that, and I think the sex scenes are quite well done too, and that's quite hard, but then I think ick, it's her dad. The girl in the story knows he's her dad and has sought him out, he doesn't know she is his daughter as they haven't seen each other between babyhood and now.

Orange Prize shortlist is out, I thought it was announced in the evening but that must just be the prize!

There are 3 debuts on it - Henderson, Obreht and Winter. I believe there were 9 first novels on the list though at least 2 - Russell and Orringer - were not first books.

Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador)
The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
Grace Williams Says It Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre)
Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking)
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape)

I've only read Room on it but am currently reading The Memory of Love and have just said to Sue I would do a Bookbag review (we've done all the other 5 and just have that one and one other longlist title without a review).

I have The Tiger's Wife on order as it was suddenly only £5.98 - which is close to the actual price I pay for new paperbacks - the other night, and I will probably buy Grace Williams Says It Loud because it is in paperback.

Just saw this Luci and am laughing because all the long list books that I bought have missed out!!

Most of mine too, Cushla - I read one last year and bought it in paperback, and have bought one and have one on order, but I've acquired lots of others which missed out. But I want to read them anyway - for me the Orange Prize gives me and others such a great opportunity to branch out into new to me authors. And it means libraries and bookclubs are more likely to offer those books.

I know - I still want to read them too. I started The Pleasure Seekers this morning on the tram and really liked the first 30 pages.

I'm not surprised Memory of Love has reached the short-list. I'm reading it at the moment and it feels like a possible Orange winner to me!

Dee, you should look at the TIOLI challenge as I put up an Orange one. I think Forna is a strong contender too, though I think this year's longlist was a lot more interesting than last year's - the ones I've read so far are all accessible to a general readership but the range of countries, subject matter etc are a little bit more challenging or stretching us.

Thanks, Luci. I haven't done a TIOLI challenge before but an Orange one sounds good- ie not too much of a challenge as it's what I want to read anyway!

I'm quite excited that the shortlist is out because my library always gets in multiple copies of the shortlisted books soon afterwards. They sometimes also have little events where people can discuss the books, drink orange juice and eat orange coloured snacks! Not sure if that'll happen this year with the recent cuts to services :-(

67. 12.03 Ruth Eastham, The Memory Cage (3.9)

sent to me in a Twitter giveaway, though I've also submitted this review to www.thebookbag.co.uk

Alex is worried about Grandad. So is the rest of the family. It started with a lot of small things, things that Alex can help him with, like lost keys and glasses. Last night though, Grandad set fire to his pillow. Alex has hidden it, but knows that this is dangerous, and it can't stay a secret for long. Grandad has Alzheimers, and Mum and Dad are thinking of putting him in an old people's home. He is also worried that 'big brother' Leonard knows what has happened and will give them both away.

Alex immediately draws the reader in to his dilemma and the story of how he starts to deal with. He is an engaging boy, obviously very bright and caring about his family. He lives with Mum, Dad, Victoria, Leonard and Sophie in Kent. The opening scene is one of apparently cosy domesticity, yet some tensions are soon shown. Alex suddenly mentions that the first family photo is of him aged 7, with Grandad. The reason for this is that Alex is an adopted child – he lost his parents in Bosnia and his little brother drowned while they were fleeing to safety. His memories are shut up in a box under the bed where he tries to forget about them. While he seems to have settled well with his adopted family, Leonard, only a few months older, still resents him.

Alex hatches a plan – he will help Grandad regain his memory by making a scrapbook of his past with him. As I love history, I found this idea really interesting. However, though I kept hoping Alex's plan would work I never quite believed that it would, especially as he only has a week to change his parents' minds. Also, it soon becomes clear that remembering the past is very problematic for both Grandad and Alex. Both have very bad memories that they would rather forget and can't come to terms with, and perhaps more in common than they know themselves.

The characters in The Memory Cage are well drawn, and the plot is interesting. The author keeps her language quite simple and clear but is not afraid to write about more complicated and serious themes.

Ruth Eastham herself comes from a teaching background and this book, while being a good read, clearly has a certain educational bent. One of her friends has produced several study guides (available free online) for use in literacy for readers at various levels of attainment or for using it as part of a history course – the history teaching guide focuses on WWII and not on the more recent conflict in Bosnia in which Alex lost his birth family. The novel also introduces various methods for researching the past and makes it very clear that history is about real people and problems, not just something from long ago that is over.

I think this story would appeal to older children but also to many more mature readers.

Thank you to Scholastic for sending me a copy to review.

Other older children's books about war include Run Rabbit Run by Barbara Mitchelhill, about World War II, and Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo (World War I). Another Kind of Loving is part of a trilogy by Sylvie Nickels, written for adults, about a Bosnian child growing up in an English family.

(note: the bit at the end is chosen to lead to other reviews up on the site).

Adding The Memory Cage to the BlackHole. Thanks for that recommendation, Luci!

Since Saturday, I've finished 3 books, all very good:

Aminatta Forna, The Memory of Love - Orange Prize shortlist - I'd intended to buy this when it came out in paperback anyway - Sierra Leone just after the Civil War of 1991-2002 there. I want to read her first novel Ancestor Stones and her book about what happened to her father now. I've also offered to review it for the Bookbag. TIOLI Orange longlist

Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring - Moscow in 1913, an English man tries to cope after his wife leaves TIOLI Spring in title

Diana Wynne Jones, Archer's Goon - one of my favourite children's writers, a book which I missed when it was first published because I was too old to read kids' books and too young to start buying them for myself again anyway... TIOLI DWJ book

I'm currently reading:

eds Paul Addison and others Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports
Collection of reports on public opinion on the progress of the war and all the issues facing people on the home front during a difficult period in the war - France fell to the Nazis and neither Russia nor the US had entered the war yet.

Joan Aiken, Up the Chimney Down - more short stories from this brilliant writer for children, though these stories are more sophisticated and darker than the earlier ones - many are about children, but are they really for them?

Kate Johnson, The Untied Kingdom - I'm not sure I've read a chicklit dystopian/war novel before.... a great read but surely not a common mix of genres (if you know of others do tell me) : TIOLI Striking cover art

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast - I recently read The Paris Wife, a novel from his wife's point of view, and wanted to read this memoir for his perspective on this period of his life when he was just starting his writing career. Paris in the 1920s, though Hemingway seems to have spent most of his time with Americans and other native English speakers. TIOLI set in Paris

Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance - a review book, for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady TIOLI published before I was born.

Nadine Gordimer, Telling Times I'm now up to 1980 in this huge volume, and have just read a piece on the newly independent Zimbabwe. My family were active in campaigning for solidarity/support for ZANU - it's weird reading this with 30 years hindsight. Gordimer acknowledges the problem in a couple of very brief footnotes.

Wow, you've been reading some great titles recently. The Paris Wife and A Moveable Feast are showing up often on LT at the moment and they both look very good. I must search those ones out.

You've intrigued with me the chicklit/dystopian/war novel description. I will have to try and track down "The Untied Kingdom" and check it out!

46: I do think this one's interesting, it's no literary masterpiece but it is very enjoyable so far and it's so different from the usual content of chicklit/commercial women's fiction.

I've acquired some really interesting books today, for the cost of some bus fares to collect them. Someone offered some non fiction books on the local freecyle, and offered to supply further details on request, I asked thinking there wouldn't be anything of particular interest and the list that came back included two must haves and some others that I asked for on the strength of the title

Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig, You're a Brick Angela! (about girls' school stories)

Gillian Avery, Childhood's Pattern (about children's books - Gillian Avery's own children's books like The Warden's Niece were childhood favourites)

Rita McWilliams-Tulberg, Women at Cambridge

ed Ruth Hall, Dear Marie Stopes (letters to a birth control campaigner)

Margot Strickland, Angela Thirkell: Portrait of a Lady Novelist

Thomson/McGusty, The Irish Journals of Elizabeth Smith 1840-1850

Christina Walkley and Vanda Foster, Crinolines and Crimping Irons (Victorian Clothes: How They Were Cleaned and Cared For)

Peter Wildeblood, Victorian Scandals (a small paperback linked to a 1970s TV series)

I also received some books from the Book People: books 4-6 in two crime series, Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther and Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May, two other novels - Tiny Sunbirds Far Away and The Summer of the Bear and a few books for the boys.

Falling even further behind - I've now read 109 books and I have some reviews to post, I just can't seem to get to it, and I still have a huge review backlog.

Currently reading:

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson - to review for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk - a Polish family try to start a new life in postwar England, but they have some difficult stuff to deal with - this is excellent, so far

The Lying Days by Nadine Gordimer - Virago Modern Classics edition of her first novel

Access All Areas: Selected Writings 1990-2010 by Sara Wheeler - to review, probably for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk - collection by a writer of travel books

Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton - Persephone reprint

The Free World by David Bezmozgis - to review for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk - a Latvian Jewish family in Rome, hoping they are en route to the US

Queens Noir by Robert Knightly (ed) - Akashic crime short story anthology

Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008 by Nadine Gordimer - publisher's giveaway - intend to review, probably for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

68. 14.03 Susan Abulhawa, Mornings in Jenin (4.0)

TIOLI Middle East

Novel about a Palestian family from the 1940s to the present, and also an Israeli settler family, though the slant is pro-Palestinian, by a Palestinian American

69. 15.03 Rhiannon Lassiter, Ghost of a Chance (4.3)

TIOLI March - word length increases by 1 in title, LT ER book, review still pending

70. 16.03 Molly Keane, Taking Chances (4.1)

71. 16.03 Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (4.2)

TIOLI "Middle East", shared read

72. 17.03 Johan Therin, Echoes from the Dead (4.1)

Transworld Crime Caper challenge, also posted on www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

More than twenty years ago, Julia’s 5 year old son Jens went missing and was never found. They were on holiday visiting her parents. She doesn’t know what happened to him, and is now depressed, living on sickness benefits and drinking too much wine. Then her father, Gerlof, rings for the first time in nearly a year, to tell her someone has sent him Jens’ sandal. This prompts Julia and Gerlof to start trying to find out what really happened all those years ago, in the hope that, if nothing else, they can move on.

A lot of evidence points to Nils Kant, who was known to be an unpleasant, sadistic man, and the story of the present day investigation is interspersed with flashbacks to his life from childhood. I’m not sure about some of the flashbacks, as we don’t learn so much about what makes him bad, we just get lots of examples of it. There is also contradictory evidence though, which casts some doubt that Nils Kant killed Jens.

I am a bit wary of missing children stories, but I was curious about a new to me Swedish writer and this sounded interesting enough to overcome my prejudice. The novel is quite long at 480 pages and seemed quite slow paced at first, but gradually I was drawn into the story. Both Julia and her dad were quite remote characters and felt difficult to get to know, but gradually they began to seem more real and engaged my sympathy. Julia also gets help and support from a local policeman and she and Lennart become increasingly attracted to each other.

The setting of Echoes from the Dead is interesting – Oland is a real island, popular with Swedes as a holiday place, but very harsh and cold in the winter, and this inhospitable weather becomes part of the plot. Theorin himself spent summers there from childhood, and has now set 4 novels there.

Echoes from the Dead has been referred to as the first book in a series, but it reads more like a standalone. I wonder if they’re linked by their common setting on Oland rather than recurring characters?

Finally, once I got into the book, the many twists and turns of the plot kept me turning the pages.

Echoes from the Dead is an atmospheric debut and I will certainly be looking for Johan Theorin’s other novels.

73. 18.03 Doris Lessing, Time Bites (4.1)

TIOLI increasing word length

A collection of articles and reviews by Doris Lessing

Someone read it on this group a few months ago and it sounded really interesting. I liked the literary and memoir pieces, and bits about the writing life and stupid interviewers, more than the bits about Sufism, but lots of fascinating material here.

74. 19.03 Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit (4.6)

My first Amazon Vine book review

Elly tells a story of growing up in an eccentric family and then of never feeling that she has entirely adapted to adult life, a tale of love and loss.

What I liked most about When God Was a Rabbit is its cast of quirky and colourful characters, as Elly's family regularly welcomes in various friends and relatives. Elly idolises her protective older brother Joe. Her friend Jenny Penny takes refuge at Elly's house from her own chaotic home life and her mum's horrible boyfriends. Then there's Joe's friend Charlie, Dad's little sister Nancy, Ginger, Arthur and others. God is Elly's beloved pet rabbit, and the title reflects the way in which Elly always looks back to a golden era of childhood, before their parents decided the family should move to Cornwall and open a hotel there.

Another strength of this novel is the dialogue, the many very funny conversations, and also the humour in the gap between what Elly understands and what comes to be revealed.

As Elly and Joe grow up the story becomes much sadder and darker, and several threads of love and loss and missing people are developed through the rest of the novel.

I was really absorbed and impressed by this debut novel, and look forward to Sarah Winman's future work.

75. 19.03 Diana Gardner, The Woman Novelist and other stories (4.1)

Persephone collection of stories

75! Congrats!

Yep, congratulations on reaching 75, and it looked like a good one too.

Hooray for 75 books! :)

Thanks all, but in fact I read 75 books more than a month ago, on 19 March! It's just I'm very behind.... I finished book #110 this year today, as well as submitting another review to the Bookbag. Will try and catch up a bit more later.

76. 21.03 Anna Lawrence Pietroni, Ruby's Spoon 4.2

Review book for the Bookbag

"This is the tale of three women – one witch, one mermaid and one missing – and how Ruby was caught up in between. "

Despite the opening, this novel is more gritty realism than fantasy – there is lots of mythical imagery but in truth, the setting for this novel is a small industrial town cut off from everywhere else by the surrounding canals. It is 1933 (the middle of the Great Depression), and a stranger arrives in town to turn Ruby’s life upside down, for better or worse.

....

Ruby is a strong and memorable young character, ambitious, intelligent but unlikely to be able to carry on getting the education as she would like. She has been brought up without nearly enough love and attention, but has survived that rather well. In trying to help Isa find her relatives, she starts to uncover her own family secrets.

This is an impressive debut, and I look forward to seeing how Pietroni follows it up.

Full review here:
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Ruby%27s_Spoon_by_Anna_Lawre...

77. 21.03 Amy Chua, World on Fire, 4.2

The subtitle of this book, "How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability" really intrigued me, but I did think it would be rather dry and academic compared to her second rather controversial book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. But it seemed worth paying the library reservation fee to have a look, and it was. In fact, it's a very lively and accessible book. She looks at various countries where successful ethnic minorities have attracted more than a little resentment, in some cases leading to violence and civil war. However, Chua remains rather more pro-capitalism than me, I'm not sure the words free market and democracy go together.

78. 22.03 Annalena Mcafee, The Spoiler 3.2

Review book for the Bookbag

Several things about this novel intrigued me. It is about two female journalists of very different generations. Also, it is set in the recent past – 1997. While newspaper production had been computerised, it was just before internet access at home and work became affordable and accessible to far more people and so became mass media, and newspapers were almost entirely a print medium – newspaper websites were just around the corner. Annalena McAfee has an insider's knowledge of the newspaper world as she was a journalist for many years, and her career included founding the Guardian's review section in its current form.

Full review here:
http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=The_Spoiler_by_Annalena_McAf...

What I didn't say in the review but most of the newspapers have - she's married to Ian McEwan. I came across quite an interesting article by her on war correspondents, much more so than the novel which was a real disappointment. I believe Rachael gave up reading this, too, though I have seen some much more enthusiastic reviews.

79. 23.03 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 5.0

TIOLI 17 letters in title, group read, old favourite

80. 24.03 Aifric Campbell, The Loss Adjustor 4.5

You posted on my thread that you had the Map of Time to review at some point. I also noticed that we share Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan. I thought it was interesting that it looks like for the last two months we have received the same ER books.

It's interesting but I didn't receive either as ER books - I'm in the UK - I bought Ellis Island some time last year and the publisher here was offering review copies of The Map of Time on Twitter. The Map of Time has also been offered here on Amazon Vine and the Bookbag, a site I review for, was sent a review copy - publishers often use a number of sites etc to get publicity for their new books.

Several books I'm looking forward to receiving

Denise Mina, The End of the Wasp Season - I've been waiting for this forever, as I read the first book in the series in 2009 - I'm getting a copy through Amazon Vine, although I've noticed the new hardback is only £6 at the moment, not bad at all.

My other Amazon Vine book this time is Essie Fox, The Somnambulist

The publishers are sending Jenn Ashworth, Cold Light to review for curiousbookfans

Early Reviewer books - Jane Harris, Gillespie and I - another Victorian historical novel

And my mum has two copies of The Hare with Amber Eyes so has given me one of them (and I don't owe anyone a review for that one).

Do you like Denise Mina's books? I've been pondering those for what seems forever...

Re Zimbabwe, just downloaded on the Kindle a copy of Peter Godwin's book, The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe, after I heard him interviewed on a radio show here. Tragic, how the effort to redress the impact of colonialism has gone to such a horrible extreme.

Actually made me start wondering, though -- had Europeans not decided they were the colonial masters of Africa, would that continent be in any better shape?? Liberia was never a colony, and Ethiopia not until the Italians showed up. Neither is a model of stability today. Are Africa's problems related to tribal identity & the modern world? Would Africa still have struggled because capitalism is a different kind of hierarchical system, albeit an economic one, and it's the dominant system for global trade? Would societies, at least, be stronger, or would economic problems have eroded them? Some people say these "what if" questions are academic and foolish; I find them just as informative, in a lateral thinking kind of way, as the straightforward analyses.

Denise Mina is one of my favourite crime writers - I heard her speak at Crimescene, an event which used to take place on the South Bank each summer, a few years ago and rushed off to buy her first two novels, Garnethill and Exile. She has 3 series and one standalone, Sanctum aka Deception in the US and also works on graphic novels which I haven't tried.

Series 1 starts with Garnethill: Maureen wakes up to find her partner in a rather complicated relationship dead in her flat. Things don't get much better for her for a while.

Sanctum is a good book, but my least favourite Mina novel, though I believe I might have read it twice as it was a discussion book for a reading group I was in. The unreliable narrator is a creep, who is going through his wife's papers.

Series 2 is about Paddy Meehan, who starts out as a very junior reporter in Glasgow and works her way up, while investigating some very dark crimes. There are 3 books in a planned series of 5, but I'm a bit concerned that Mina the final two show no signs of being written.

Series 3: Alex is a police detective in Glasgow - Still Midnight is #1 in the series, the new one is #2.

As for Africa/colonialism/imperialism, colonial rule is not the only way of affecting the economics and politics of other countries or regions.

I'd be interested to see what you made of Amy Chua's book if you can find a copy (the first one, not Tiger Mother!)

The title might not grab you and it's a very ranty, polemical book, not always very smoothly written, and I wish someone had corrected her spelling of "publically" to "publicly" but Gabrielle Palmer's The Politics of Breastfeeding which I read a couple of years ago actually has a lot of material on 21st century on a form of 21st century imperialism - and the UN (she has worked for it), the IMF, the World Bank, and of course healthcare in developing countries.

81. 26.03 Karen McQuestion, Life on Hold 4.1

My first Amazon Vine book review, and I was quite surprised - McQuestion has published a number of stories via Kindle and this seems to be a scheme for Kindle authors to publish print books. I don't know what the ins and outs of how they do this are but I probably wouldn't have read this if I'd realised. I probably won't read more in print unless she gets a proper publishing deal

My review:

Rae is fed up of having to move. She has had to say "Hi, I'm Rae. I'm new here" more times than she can count. She's now 15 and she is really hoping that her mum will keep to the deal that they can stay in their latest home, a small town in Wisconsin, until she finishes high school. Although she is not part of the really cool crowd, she has made a couple of friends and she could put down roots there if she dared. She fears, though, that her always restless mum, Gina, will want to move on any minute.

Then she is asked to help befriend an even newer girl, Allison, and help her settle in. Allison is dealing with some serious issues, though - she has lost her parents in a fire, is staying with her aunt's family, and is coming to school in her aunt's old clothes. Rae also notices that her mum is going out of her way to befriend Allison, and begins to feel a bit jealous.

I was rather wary of this book when I realised it was print edition of an Amazon Kindle publication - I have read some rather dreadful self-published novels. This one was more than good enough to change my mind.

It is a well written teen read. I enjoyed the portrayal of a single parent family and the mother-daughter relationship - I would have loved there to be more single parent and step families in the books I read in my teens. The storyline flows well with convincing main characters in Rae, Gina and Allison, and Rae's new friend Nick. Rae's developing relationship with Nick is sweetly romantic, but it is a subplot to the main story about the two girls and their family histories.

As Rae gets to know Allison, she learns about what has happened to her, but she also finally finds out about her own mother's past. There was one point in the plot which I didn't think worked at all well - I didn't believe that any of it would have happened like that, but also, I didn't think it was strictly necessary in the story. However, McQuestion's writing and the rest of the story was strong enough to recover from that blip.

I think this story would appeal to fans of Sarah Dessen's novels or those who enjoy American high school films like Clueless and Mean Girls. Recommended.

82. 26.03 Joan Aiken, The Serial Garden 4.6

This is a collected stories about one family that have appeared in various volumes. Harriet and Mark have to contend regularly with magic running amok, though in between the Armitage family is an ordinary upper middle class family of its time (albeit one that can afford to send children to boarding school). The stories would be 5*, but they are published here without their original illustrations.

83. 28.03 Niamh O'Connor, If I Never See You Again 4.4

One of my Transworld Crime caper books though I've reposted this review in various places including www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

Set in recession hit Dublin, this first novel in a planned new series introduces Detective Inspector Jo Birmingham. She is having a bit of a tough time. Her marriage has broken up, and it doesn't help that her ex is her boss and is living with his secretary. Her teenage son Rory is worrying her, and she has a young baby too. She is desperate for a chance to prove herself at work. When a murder investigation comes up she asks to lead on it.

At the start of the story I was a bit taken aback by the number of personal problems experienced by the characters -Jo's colleague Gavin Sexton's wife committed suicide 18 months ago, and there's a local crime reporter whose daughter has been abducted and abused, and is still too traumatised by the experience to speak about it. It all seemed rather too much for one novel. The crime plot also seemed a bit sensational for my tastes - a serial killer with an interest in Biblical symbolism.

However, I quickly found myself drawn into the story and anxious to read on to find out what would happen next. Jo is a great character for a crime series, spiky and ambitious, all too aware of the sexism and other prejudices which have affected her career, sometimes too impulsive and reckless. Single mother detectives are rare in crime fiction, and I enjoyed the portrait of her domestic life as a contrast to work (though I wasn't quite sure why she was giving a one year old formula milk or about the way she was preparing it!) She has a passion for finding out the truth and compassion for the families of victims which is not shared by some of her colleagues, who think that the victims are just more dead hookers.

I also enjoyed the interactions between Jo and other characters in the novel - there is ex-husband Dan who hints that he regrets the affair with his secretary and the break up (but if so, why has he moved in with Jeannie?). Then there's her moody teenage son Rory, colleagues Sexton and the boorish, chauvinistic and contemptuous Mac.

With memorable characters and a page turning story, I'm looking forward to the next in the series (due out in May this year).

84. 28.03 Julie Schaper and (eds), Twin Cities Noir 4.0

85. 28.03 Janice Galloway, Blood 3.8

86. 31.03 Ariana Franklin, The Death Maze 4.2

87. 31.03 Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men 4.2

TIOLI Middle East

88. 02.04 Christopher Fowler, The Water Room 4.2

89. 04.04 Louisa Young, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You 4.7

Review book for Amazon Vine

This moving historical novel tells the story of 5 people during World War I, and the opportunities, dangers and changes they face.

Working class Riley Purefoy has had a grammar school education, and an insight into upper middle class artistic life. He has known Nadine Waveney since they met playing in Kensington Gardens as children, but her wealthy parents’ bohemian principles have their limits, and when they suspect a romantic attraction the two are kept apart. Nadine wants to study art at college but her mother is concerned that she shouldn’t jeopardise her prospects of a suitable marriage. Riley enlists and Nadine signs up as a VAD, a volunteer nurse.

Peter Locke is Riley’s commanding officer, a rather sensitive soul, perhaps too sensitive. Julia is his beautiful wife, but what does a woman for whom this description has been a full time occupation do when he is away from her? Rose is Peter’s plain cousin, for whom the war offers the chance to be a person making a valuable contribution, not just a spinster.

The title is taken from a form letter designed to help wounded soldiers write to their loved ones, and letters to and from the characters are used throughout the novel, giving variety and immediacy to the narrative and shaping how we see the characters. Peter and Julia’s letters are significant for showing how little they know how to communicate with each other, and how far apart their worlds are now. Riley and Nadine exchange more interesting letters, and I really liked Nadine’s willingness to tell Riley how she felt, including expressing anger with him as well as love.

Many of the ingredients of Louisa Young’s novel are familiar to anyone who has read much about WWI, but I found it a powerful, absorbing page turner. I liked Riley and Nadine much more than Peter and the foolish Julia. I would have liked to see Rose have more of a story in her own right; I felt that she stayed more of an observer and commentator on the stories of others in the novel.

Clearly Young has researched extensively, and she uses this to good effect in informing the fiction and evoking the setting. I liked the critique of class divisions made in the novel, especially in Riley’s story. Nadine’s support for feminist causes of her day made her my favourite character.

Young also brings in a story about the development of plastic surgery, originally as a treatment for soldiers disfigured in combat, although this is contrasted with it being offered, almost immediately, as a cosmetic treatment for non-combatants obsessed with their looks.

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You is a fascinating historical novel and a memorable love story. Recommended.

90. 04.04 K M Peyton, Flambards 4.6

Reread of a childhood favourite - my memories were very hazy.

Set in Edwardian England (just before WWI), first of a trilogy.

Orphan Christina is invited to live with her uncle and his two sons. Mark shares his father's love of hunting, Will hates it and is obsessed with flying. Her uncle is disabled following an accident and can't go out riding any more, but takes out his frustrations on his rebellious younger son Will.

I think this is really YA rather than children's, no explicit sex but some violence, and a portrait of very dysfunctional and abusive family relationships.

Hi, I dont usually go for crime/detective novels, I think I might be prejudiced! But your review makes me wonder if I should try some :-) Thanks

91. 05.04 Muriel Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye 4.2

92. 07.04 Eliza Graham, Playing with the Moon 4.2

93. 08.04 Lauren Liebenberg, The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club 4.2

Best friends Tommy and Chris are 12 years old. It is 1958 and they are growing up in a small mining town near Johannesburg, South Africa. They are learning to box and to dance to rock and roll music.

The story is told by two alternating narrators, Chris and Tommy's younger sister, Cece. Tommy struggles to protect Cece from the attentions of their father, a violent, abusive alcoholic, taking her out with him and Chris.

....

Like Lauren Liebenberg's acclaimed first novel, The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, The West Rand Jive Cats Boxing Club is a coming of age novel. In most other ways though, it is very different. Her first novel about two young sisters in Ian Smith's Rhodesia during the civil war which eventually brought Robert Mugabe to power could have been taken as partly autobiographical – this story set some years before the author was born clearly cannot be, and I actually liked it much better than the first. I can't judge the accuracy, but I found the feel and atmosphere very convincing.

The full review is here:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=The_West_Rand_Jive_Cats_Boxi...

94. 09.04 Leila Aboulela, Lyrics Alley 4.2

TIOLI Orange Prize longlist

95. 11.04 Paula McLain, The Paris Wife 4.3

TIOLI book set in Paris, review book for Amazon Vine

The Paris Wife is an intriguing look at the life of a literary legend from a different perspective, a novel in which Ernest Hemingway’s first wife tells us her version of their marriage, and their life in 1920s Paris, including encounters with other American expat writers.

I was attracted to this novel by hearing an abridged serialisation on the radio – the confiding intimacy of the first person narrative worked really well in this form, as does the selection of dramatic incidents and turning points in their relationship.

This novel worked well as a piece of storytelling – it must be 3 times the length of Hemingway’s own account of that period of his life in A Moveable Feast, a memoir in the form of a series of vignettes. McLain acknowledges that she drew on the memoir, which I read afterwards for comparison, and I did recognise a lot of the events Hadley describes.

I think it is quite a challenge to write fiction based on real people’s lives – do you write about your “characters” as you believe they were or as you would have liked them to be? Hemingway’s Hadley sounds too good to be true, (he described her as too good for him), but by telling her story in this way, McLain makes her sound a bit more real and less saintly, and this actually makes her more likeable. At times I felt she was rather too willing to sublimate her needs to his, but this seems quite realistic in the context of the time. She spends a lot of the novel seeming rather passive, even dull, but then we get glimpses of someone rather more assertive and prepared to stand up for herself – in the end, when put in an impossible situation, it is Hadley who has the strength to make another life changing decision for herself and her son. Her love for him also doesn’t stop her voicing her opinions of his writing when needed, when he writes a book satirising a friend’s work and Hadley tells him how wrong he is to even think of trying to publish it.

From Hemingway’s account we know that Hadley was an enthusiastic reader, who particularly liked the work of Henry James and compared other work to his, not always favourably. I think McLain misses an opportunity to make Hadley more interesting by mentioning Hadley reading frequently but not what she is reading – this is something I want to know about fictional (or real) bookworms in books.

The portrait of Hemingway in The Paris Wife is also interesting – his public image is often based on him in late middle age – here he is in his early 20s. We see him at his best and most romantic at the beginning of the novel, and becoming increasingly selfish and dishonest later – like his wife, we see his more appealing, sweet side, and also some of the damage that has been done to him by his wartime experiences, and as things go wrong, we also see his more obnoxious side.

Other characters in the novel are less well drawn, apart from the predatory Pauline. Some of the other writers don’t emerge beyond being names on the page, and McLain doesn’t add much to the descriptions of these people than what is mentioned in A Moveable Feast.

I was also struck by the fact that a novel set largely in Paris gives little feel for the city or its native residents. This reflects the memoir, perhaps, in which Hemingway describes hanging out with other expats and English speaking writers the whole time, but it was another area in which I thought McLain could have actually made up and embellished Hadley as a character.

The Paris Wife made me want to read/reread some of Hemingway’s work and perhaps that of some of the other writers mentioned.

Overall, this novel has some faults and frustrations but I thought it was a great, page-turning read.

Very nice review of The Paris Wife, Luci. I hadn't planned to read this, but I'll have to reconsider it.

96. 11.04 Anne Peile, Repeat It Today with Tears 3.9

TIOLI Orange Prize longlist, Twitter win

97. 11.04 Hilary Spurling, Burying the Bones 4.3

Reviewed for the Bookbag, TIOLI Striking cover art

Pearl Buck, the 5th of 7 children, was born in 1892 to American missionary parents working in China, where she was then brought up. She learned Chinese before she learned English, and only realised that she was considered a foreigner when anti foreigner riots known to as the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 forced the family out of her childhood home. Later she became famous for her novels and short stories set in China, especially The Good Earth. She won America's most famous literary prize, the Pulitzer, in 1932, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. Yet her work is mostly forgotten in the US and Europe, and in the country she loved, her books were banned by Mao's regime after they came to power in 1949.

In Burying the Bones, Hilary Spurling presents a fascinating and accessible account of the life of this writer, with all its troubles and contradictions. She has drawn on Buck's own writings and those of some of her friends and family. Spurling is the author of many biographies, but is not an expert on China and found that her research was much more restricted for this book than for others, with just six weeks in China and very limited access to research materials not available outside that country. She acknowledges clearly these limitations, which were clearly very frustrating for this professional biographer, but has skilfully read between the lines of Buck's own writings and those of people close to her. She has also had the support of two of her subject's surviving children.

Full review here:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Burying_the_Bones:_Pearl_Buc...

98. 14.04 Allison Pearson, I Think I Love You 4.1

Lovely henlit fluff, and also a Mumsnet bookclub choice - the author comes to do live webchats.

A 1970s schoolgirl in Wales is obsessed with David Cassidy and enters a competition to meet him.

Years later, in her late 30s, divorced with kids, a dream comes true.

The sections about the girl are interspersed with sections from the viewpoint of the man who ran the fan club and started a successful career in publishing by answering David Cassidy's letters (and pretending to be him).

99. 14.04 Paul Wilson, The Visiting Angel 4.2

100. 17.04 Aminatta Forna, The Memory of Love 4.7

My review written for the Bookbag (however, I bought this book, rather than getting a review copy)

The setting for this story is a hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, soon after the government has declared an end to an 11 year civil war. How can people come to terms with the terrible things that have happened? Actually, can they come to terms with those things?

Adrian Lockheart is an English psychologist who is finding his professional training and experience rather inadequate in a country where almost everyone is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. His colleagues refer patients when they are not sure how to help them, the patients are confused by not being offered medicine, and most don't come back. So he has plenty of time to listen to the memories of a terminally ill man, Elias Cole. He also becomes friendly with Kai, a young surgeon.

At first I found this novel a little confusing, as it shifts between past and present and between different strands of the story. Forna's writing is beautiful though, and I was gradually drawn into his world and the contrasting perceptions of Adrian and Kai in the present of the novel, and Elias in the past. It is a novel about thoughts and emotions - love, lust, sadness, grief, rather than action.

Elias tells his story in the first person, a story of betrayal and disappointment. I was interested in the portrait of university campus life and politics in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but I found the other two main characters much more engaging, as Elias comes across as rather self-absorbed and selfish. Saffia, the woman he is obsessed with, remains shadowy as we only see her through his eyes. She is married to his friend and colleague Julius, and one day both Elias and Julius are arrested and interrogated. Elias later marries the widowed Saffia, but doesn't find the happiness he expected. I thought it was interesting that, while in some novels the first person narrative brings us closer to characters, it was used here by the least sympathetic of the three main protagonists.

Adrian and Kai are a study in contrasts. Adrian seems to have come to Sierra Leone because it offers an escape from his life in England and his unhappy marriage. Kai has seen many of his friends and colleagues leave Sierra Leone, notably one who writes to him from the US. He has stayed for a long time, but now he has made up his mind to leave.

The civil war and the political violence and repression which affected the country for a long time before it are the background to the story rather than the foreground, but The Memory of Love raises some important questions about the extent to which such a conflict can ever be over. How can Agnes, one of Adrian's patients, forget her experiences of rape and witnessing murder, especially as she returned home after some time to find her daughter married to one of the killers? Such shocking examples brought home to me the tragedy of the war in Sierra Leone.

In contrast to the poverty and violence, and the ailments Adrian and Kai are attempting to treat, are the stories of Adrian's love affair with the beautiful singer Mamakay, and Kai's earlier relationship with his childhood sweetheart Nenebah. These are beautifully written and again, more compelling for me than Elias Cole's account of his relationship with Saffia, but they are hard to discuss without revealing too much of the plot.

I was very impressed with The Memory of Love and hope to read Forna's other books, a novel and a memoir also set in Sierra Leone, soon.

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

Interestingly, I talked to a colleague at work who comes from Sierra Leone. Aminatta Forna's memoir is about searching to find out what happened to her father, a doctor and politician who was killed in the 1970s by a rival. A, my colleague, told me that Dr Forna was her mum's doctor. I've lent her the book.

Well, I am 50+ messages behind again, Luci, and not even trying to catch up.

I have seen nothing but good reviews of The Memory of Love, so I really need to get a copy of that one some time!

>71 elkiedee:: I picked up Sanctum from a charity shop after remembering the positive things you've said about Denise Mina. I might try to read the Garnethill trilogy first though. My local library has some some new copies on order.

>94 elkiedee:: How interesting that your work colleague has that family connection with Animatta Forna. I have Forna's memoir on my wishlist.

Sorry about double posting but I forgot to say how much I liked your Memory of Love review! I gave it the thumb up when you posted it on the book's main page a couple of weeks ago. Do you know about Jill's Orange prize group. There are threads there to discuss all the short-listers and it would be great if you could add your MoL review. I'll send you an invite, not because you need one but because it'll help you find the group if you're not already aware of it!

I gave your excellent review of The Memory of Love a thumbs up when you initially posted it, too. I agree with Soupdragon about posting your review on the Orange January/July group; the thread for discussion of The Memory of Love is here.

Hi, Luci, just to say how nice it was to finally meet you yesterday. Sounds like the rest of your day went well. Hope we can meet up another time, in the not too distant future.

It was lovely to meet you, I'm glad we finally got it together.

Popping by to also say it was good to meet you yesterday :-)

Just got my notification that Swamplandia!, Great House and The Memory of Love are available for me to collect from the library.

Repeating what the others said - lovely to meet you yesterday, and thanks for showing us round some great bookshops!

101. 17.04 Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring

102. 18.04 Diana Wynne Jones, Archer's Goon 4.2

103. 20.04 eds Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang, Listening to Britain 4.1

Reviewed for the Bookbag

This book is subtitled “Home Intelligence Reports on Britain’s Finest Hour – May to September 1940. It is a collection of reports from 1940 into the opinions, feelings and general state of morale of ordinary people around Britain in relation to the war with Germany.

The Home Intelligence Department had been set up by the government to assess home morale by studying immediate reactions to specific events and to find out public opinion on important issues, including pacifism. One reason for this was to provide a basis for publicity, that is, to plan propaganda and test its effectiveness. The reports drew on various sources, including Mass Observation, a market research style Wartime Social Survey, staff listening to conversations on the way to work, and visiting pubs and other places where lots of people went and talked to each other.

......

This book was a challenging read at times, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes reading non-fiction about the war or fiction set at this time, and even more to anyone researching and writing work set in this period – how useful to be able to immerse yourself in the mindset of a different era in this way. My rating is for readability, it would rate higher for usefulness to readers and writers seeking to deepen their understanding of this period. Thank you to Vintage Books for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

Full review at the Bookbag :

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Listening_to_Britain:_Home_I...

104. 20.04 Joan Aiken, Up The Chimney Down, 4.7

105. 22.04 Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast 4.2

106. 22.04 Kate Johnson, The Untied Kingdom 4.2

Start of my review:

Eve Carpenter is having a very bad day, and it is about to get worse. She comes round from a paragliding accident but everything is rather strange. Although she’s still in London, this is a city and a world she hardly recognises. There is just enough that is familiar to be totally confusing. In this world, England is a backward country with a population kept too busy fighting in a civil war to do much else. She is taken captive by a small group of soldiers who take her marching across the country with them. The leader, Major Harker, is obnoxious and scruffy, and is convinced Eve is a spy, or perhaps she is just mad. While they apparently speak the same language, they struggle to understand each other – their worlds are so different.

The Untied Kingdom is an unusual combination of genres – a dystopian chicklit novel, as much a war and adventure story as a romance (not just a romance with a war setting).

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=The_Untied_Kingdom_by_Kate_J...

#108: The Untied Kingdom sounds very good. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Luci!

I am so glad you all took pictures of the London meet up. It is nice to be able to put names and faces together :)

Great to meet you properly on Friday! I do remember your face from the Virago book club event but it was nice to get a chance to chat this time. Sorry I had to dash off so quickly.

I also like the sound of The Untied Kingdom (although at first I read it as the United Kingdom).

The United Kingdom does look really good, thanks for the heads up. I'm jealous you had a LT meetup, sounds fun.

121. 13.05 Essie Fox, The Somnambulist, 4.2

122. 13.05 Nicole Krauss, Great House, 3.8

123. 15.05 Amor Towles, The Rules of Civility, 4.3

124. 16.05 Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country, 4.2

125. 16.05 Nadine Gordimer, Telling Times 4.7

126. 17.05 Mark Ellingham, Peter Florence and Barnaby Rogerson (eds), Ox Travels, 4.2

127. 18.05 E M Delafield, Consequences, 4.3

128. 19.05 Jacek Hugo-Bader, White Fever, 4.4

129. 20.05 Janine Amin & Nathaniel J Moore, Toronto Noir 2.8

130. 21.05 Joan Aiken, Tale of a One Way Street 3.3

131. 21.05 Alexis Hall, In the Red 2.9

132. 24.05 Jane Harris, Gillespie and I 4.4

133. 24.05 Peter Akinti, Forest Gate 4.2

134. 24.05 Natasha Walter, Living Dolls, 4.3

135. 24.05 Esther Hautzig, The Endless Steppe 4.8

136. 28.05 Jenn Ashworth, Cold Light 4.2

137. 30.05 Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine 4.7

138. 02.06 Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything 4.1

139. 03.06 Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray 3.9

140. 04.06 Rachel Gibson, Any Man of Mine 3.7

141. 05.06 Tessa Hadley, The London Train 4.2

142. 06.06 Caitlin Davies, The Ghost of Lily Painter, 4.2

143. 08.06 Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited 4.3

144. 10.06 Jill Dawson, Lucky Bunny 4.3

145. 10.06 Hamid Dabashi, Iran, The Green Movement and the USA 2.9

146. 11.06 Lucy Kellaway, In Office Hours 3.7

147. 13.06 Rachel Ferguson, Alas Poor Lady 4.1

148. 15.06 Adam Creed, Pain of Death 2.9

149. 16.06 Vera Brittain, The Dark Tide 3.3

150. 18.06 Paula Byrne, Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead 4.2

I hadn't updated this for TWO WEEKS - eek! Reading list updated at 112 and 113, reviews at 91 and 104.

107. 23.04 Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance 4.4

Reviewed for Curious Book Fans

When Nuri was 14, his father disappeared. Looking back nearly 40 years later, he still doesn’t know why. This is a story of coming of age, of different types of love and desire, of loss and of the difficulty of moving on when you don’t know what has happened. It is also a story of deceptions and lies.

Matar was brought up in Tripoli and Cairo by his Libyan parents – his own father disappeared and was imprisoned in 1990, and like Nuri, he doesn’t know if his father is alive or dead. His novel clearly draws on autobiographical elements but there are big differences too, and I think readers should not assume this novel to be a memoir.

.......................

Anatomy of a Disappearance is rather different in many ways from my normal reading, and I found it took me out of my comfort zone. It is quite a short book packed with the confused emotions of its adolescent character. It is beautifully written. Much that happens is never fully explained – every turn of events seems to throw up a whole host of questions for Nuri and the reader, many of which seem to still be waiting for answers at the end of the story. I would recommend this as a thought provoking read if you can deal with the frustration of all those unresolved issues and tensions.

http://www.curiousbookfans.co.uk/2011/fiction-books/7137/anatomy-of-a-disappeara...

108. 25.04 Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady, 4.0

109. 25.04 Carol Birch, Jamrach's Menagerie, 4.1

TIOLI Orange Prize longlist

110. 27.04 Amanda Hodgkinson, 22 Britannia Road, 4.8

Review for Curious Book Fans

Silvana and Janusz Nowak are struggling to rebuild a family life together in a new country after years apart, in this beautifully written debut novel by Amanda Hodgkinson.

They married in the late 1930s, settled in Warsaw and had a son, Aurek. Then both the German and Soviet armies invaded Poland and war was declared. He escaped to France and later, through service with the British Army, to England, while Silvana and Aurek have lived rough, foraging for survival.

22 Britannia Road is an end terrace house in Ipswich, England. Janusz hopes they can make a better future for themselves, while Silvana doesn’t seem sure what she wants. After struggling to survive for so long, can she settle in this insular market town? After his early experiences, Aurek also finds it hard to adjust to sleeping on his own away from his mum, and hard to trust another strange, frightening man. Silvana and Janusz have terrible secrets they feel unable to share with each other.
.....

22 Britannia Road is an impressive and memorable debut, with characters real enough that I wonder about how Janusz and Silvana lived out the rest of their lives. I will certainly be looking out for Amanda Hodgkinson’s next book.

http://www.curiousbookfans.co.uk/2011/fiction-books/7209/22-britannia-road-amand...

Wow, you've read heaps! Nice work.
I have to say that when I see your star ratings, all I see is the Richter Scale magnitude readings, a sure sign of earthquake overload on my part.

111. 29.04 Nadine Gordimer, The Lying Days 4.2

112. 30.04 Sara Wheeler, Access All Areas 4.7

113. 01.05 Richmal Crompton, Family Roundabout 4.0

114. 02.05 David Ozmosgis, The Free World 3.9

A Latvian family set out for the US via Rome, but something has gone wrong and they spend months living there trying to sort out visas to move on. Proper review for www.curiousbookfans.co.uk still to be written.

115. 06.05 ed Robert Knightly, Queens Noir 4.1

116. 08.05 Denise Mina, The End of the Wasp Season 4.6

Amazon Vine review, also posted on www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

The End of the Wasp Season is 2nd in a series about DS Alex Morrow, a Glaswegian police detective who was introduced in Still Midnight, although I think it could be enjoyed by someone who has not read that book.

It is a crime novel but there is not much of a mystery for the reader, as the story opens with the murder of a young woman, Sarah, in a big house by two teenage boys. One strand of the narrative is about Thomas, one of the killers, and the background to his action. Another is about the police investigation into the crime, led by Morrow, and also about the politics of her workplace.

One of the strengths of Mina’s writing is her depth of characterisation, especially of the female characters, and The End of the Wasp Season doesn’t disappoint. Morrow is spiky to the point of being abrasive and normally very ambitious. Yet here, her ambition is tempered for several reasons. One is that she is pregnant with twins and still anxious that nothing should go wrong – while she doesn’t plan to leave her job, she is well aware that she will be on maternity leave. Another is that this case will test her loyalty to old friends. She is coming to realise there may be other things that are more important to her than work.

Mina has always been a very political, class conscious and avowedly feminist writer, never more so than in this book. The other women in the story provide a contrast to Morrow, and introduce a series of issues into this thought provoking novel about how horrible crimes reflect on society. It made me muse on how and why women take on different jobs and roles. When we first see Sarah, she appears to be a very successful young woman in a posh house, but she was there sorting it out after her mother’s death, and the truth was rather more sordid. Then there is Kay, who helped run an army of carers looking after Sarah’s mother, who was at school with Alex, now trying to bring up 4 teenagers on her own and fighting to defy the stereotypes of a working class single mum in a Council flat.

Mina also works hard to engage the reader’s sympathy for her less likely characters, such as Thomas Anderson, teenage killer and son of a millionaire businessman. Thomas’ father Lars has just committed suicide, leaving behind his wife and Thomas and an equally messed up daughter. I didn’t like Thomas but I did find myself drawn into feeling sorry for him and caring what happened.

The End of the Wasp Season is not one of Mina’s best novels – I preferred Still Midnight, her debut Garnethill and the Paddy Meehan series starting with The Field of Blood. However, that means it is just very good rather than outstanding.

117. 08.05 Guillaume Musso, Where Would I Be Without You? 2.7

Amazon Vine pick

118. 09.05 Tea Obreht, The Tiger's Wife 4.3

119. 10.05 Jonny Steinberg, Little Liberia 4.3

120. 12.05 Katharine McMahon, Footsteps 3.8

121. 13.05 Essie Fox, The Somnambulist, 4.2

Amazon Vine review, also sent to www.curiousbookfans.co.uk

17 year old Phoebe lives with her mother and her aunt Cissy, a former opera singer at Covent Garden, in a big house in Bow, east London with several servants. When Cissy dies suddenly, Phoebe is devastated. Mama is struggling to make ends meet when Nathaniel Samuels, a wealthy businessman who knew Cissy, makes an offer – of a sort of job as companion to his invalid wife in their Herefordshire mansion. Mrs Lydia Samuels has never got over the tragic death of her young daughter. Phoebe finds herself accidentally discovering a whole series of dark secrets.

The Somnambulist is set in London and Herefordshire and is a sort of Victorian historical melodrama combined with a coming of age tale, with the theatre, a big country house, issues of inheritance and betrayal, and several disturbing secrets. Despite its size, I found the story quite compelling and flew through nearly 400 pages very easily.

Phoebe develops into a great character in the course of the story. Mama is a member of the Hallelujah Army, campaigning against the sinful theatres, whereas Phoebe has identified herself with Cissie, enjoying the occasional secret trip to the music hall. She feels pressured into accepting what happens to her at the start of the novel, but throughout, she takes every opportunity to find out what is happening, listening to conversations and chatting to the Samuels’ servants. Towards the end of the story, she has become a tough, independent young woman who has learned much from her own family and from the Samuels, and can make her own choices.

The other characters in the story are also interesting and complex, as Phoebe frequently sees different facets of the people around her. I thought the portrait of Phoebe’s difficult and changing relationship with her mother, as she takes on very different values and perceptions, was particularly well portrayed.

The Somnambulist is a story of places as well as people, with several different settings, including a middle class home in Bow, the theatres and music halls, the East End and the Samuels’ great house, Dinwood Court, in the Herefordshire countryside. I really loved the Author’s Note at the end of the book, an 11 page account of the places and other bits of the historical background to her story. Wilton’s Music Hall in London’s East End and Tredegar Square, Bow where Phoebe and her family live, the nearby Victoria Park and others are real places which still exist. Dinwood Court is apparently based on Hampton Court (in Herefordshire, not the more famous one) and two other nearby stately homes. Fox also credits some online sources for her research, and admits where she has taken liberties with reality and changed things for the purposes of her story. The title of the novel is taken from a painting by Millais, showing a woman sleepwalking.

The Somnambulist is an engaging, intelligent good read which might well appeal to those who like Sarah Waters, Charles Dickens and other contemporary and historical writers who have set their fiction in Victorian London. I recommend it and will certainly read Essie Fox’s future work.

122. 13.05 Nicole Krauss, Great House, 3.8

123. 15.05 Amor Towles, Rules of Civility, 4.3

Reviewed for the Bookbag

Katey Kontent works hard during the day as a typist at a big law firm in 1930s Manhattan, but at night she likes to sample the nightlife – jazz clubs in Greenwich Village. There on New Year's Eve 1937, she and her roommate Eve meet the charming Tinker Grey. This is the start of a year of many changes for Katey and her friends.

Rules of Civility is a story of a young woman making her way in the big city, with a cast of intriguing and memorable characters.

Katey is a great heroine, independent, tough and clever, the orphan child of Russian immigrant parents (this means there is no one to worry about her respectability and curtail her freedom). She types 80 words a minute, knows the location of every church in Manhattan, and is a serious bookworm. Eve suggests that if Katey piled up every book she ever read, she could reach the moon, and she opts for Dickens as comfort reading. Her job in a staid, traditional Wall Street law firm contrasts with her out of hours adventures.

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Rules_of_Civility_by_Amor_To...

124. 16.05 Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country 4.2

125. 16.05 Nadine Gordimer, Telling Times 4.7

Reviews of

eds Paul Addison and Jeremy A Crang, Listening to Britain #103
Hisham Matar, Anatomy of a Disappearance #116
Amanda Hodgkinson, 22 Britannia Road, #119
Denise Mina, The End of the Wasp Season #125
Essie Fox, The Somnambulist #131
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility #133

If by any chance anyone is stopping by, do say hi even if you've nothing else to say. I know I've neglected my thread and everyone else's lately, having a lot of computer trouble and a review writing backlog.

Hi Luci!!!

The Somnambulist has been added to the wishlist. The End of the Wasp Season is on my bedside table. I'd say there's a very high chance of it being started tomorrow!

We had computer trouble at a training session on work's new case recording system that I attended in York today. The tutor sent us home early giving me lots of time for shopping and sunshine. Ended up with eight books (seven of which were Virago Modern Classics) from Oxfam and Ken Spelman books plus a rather nice hand-knitted linen tunic/dress from Bill Baber!

I know Jane aka FleurFisher also loved The Somnambulist.

Wow, York's a wonderful place to have spare time for shopping. I hope you've posted your haul on the VMC group.

Hi, I am so impressed with the amount of books, the range of books and so many books with a good rating that you've read recently. Very bad for the wishlist as I added about 6 titles but I couldn't resist, they were calling to me..

*waving Hello*

#124 I have to try and get this one, my father is Latvian and came to NZ as a WWII refugee. Is it in English?

Ditto with what KiwiNyx says- that's an amazing amount of books you are churning through.

I'm here and I'm blown away by how many books you're reading too!

Megan - do you listen to the Guardian Books podcast? The author of The Free World was interviewed yesterday and it sounded really good. Tea Obreht was on too.

Yes, it's in English - the only other language I could possibly read anything substantial in is French and I'm much too lazy to do that - the author has been brought up in Canada since his family moved there as a young child.

Ooh, thank you, I'll have to download that podcast for that date in the distant future when I have more time to catch up.... and back it up on several gadges in the hope I'll get round to listening before they all crash.

Nice review of Rules of Civility, Luci. I will be on the lookout for that one once it is available.

podcast- what's that? :-)
Oh dear

Hello! I'm catching up on threads too. Did you get anything good from Vine this week? My targeted selection was the worst ever, lol, all I got was gum and dog treats. I was offered some nice (and probably expensive) children's items but I don't have kids. :(

I'm looking forward to next week. I've gotten some really good books from Vine so far and hope the streak will continue.

Aarrrgh, lost first answer. My targeted newsletter didn't appeal much at all this week - there was a book by Megan Abbott I probably would have taken but I'd realised from you and others I could go back to last month's offerings and did, as there were at least 5 books I'd be happy to get still available.

I got Katie Ward, Girl Reading which looks beautiful and I really enjoyed, a number of pieces inspired by paintings showing women reading a book, set between the 14th and 21st centuries. I was less impressed by Margaret Drabble's A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, her collected short stories, I like short stories but these didn't do much for me.

Biggest mystery: why did so many people go for some dangerous and nasty sounding weight loss tea containing laxatives this month?

My first author interview this month (done by email):

http://www.curiousbookfans.co.uk/2011/creative/7367/qa-with-essie-fox-the-somnam...

(The book was another Vine pick!)

Nice interview, sounds like a pretty good book too.

I enjoyed the interview, Luci. I do like the sound of The Somnambulist and am waiting for it to arrive at my local library. It's been "on order" for too long!

Sorry not to have been around much on my own thread, lots of distractions. I'm still trying to catch up with some reviews, I made a bit of headway but then I took a few days off... I've failed miserably to update, but I've actually finished 163 books, I think.

I succumbed to the lure of owning a Kindle - I'd started trying to save earnings on a website that will pay a very tiny pittance on reviews in Amazon vouchers (I no longer write reviews for that site, I just post most of my reviews written for books sent to me for that purpose there. Then I talked about it to my mum and said I'd like a contribution to that for my birthday.

2 days after my new toy arrived and the day after my birthday, Amazon started a Kindle summer sale, with over 500 titles from 99p to £2.99 - there's quite a few I might well have bought in paperback at some point. I've started a "collection" called Kindle but I haven't added most of my new acquisitions to it yet.

I'm going to a Virago Bookclub discussion of Natasha Walter's Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism tomorrow evening, and have finally written my very long waffly review of it which I've posted on the review page. Of course Dee Soupdragon has posted a much more succinct reviewIf you have any comments or questions on it, please do post them here!

Pink Princesses and Pole Dancers

This book is a disturbing account of the ways in which girls and young women are being encouraged to see themselves. It also examines the way that men and boys are conditioned to view women. It includes topics such as pole dancing, prostitution, glamour modelling and lads’ mags, children’s toys and theories on differences between female and male children from a very young age. At times I found it very uncomfortable and depressing reading, but it is well worth reading for the important arguments made.

Current reading:

I have several books on the go as usual:

Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Amazon Vine book for review - WWII in Seattle, Henry is a Chinese-American boy. He's been sent to a white school where he becomes good friends with the other non-white kid, a Japanese-American girl called Keiko. Then Keiko and her family are interned as enemy aliens. I love this one.

Charlaine Harris, Dead to the World - I read the first book in the series years ago, the second in the series in 2007, I know because it was my book in hospital when and after Danny was born, it took me a while, and #3 some time since then, it's taken me a while. Then it suddenly got really hyped and I went off picking up any more in the series after that. But it's good enough fun, though I can't see that I'll ever catch up with the series at this rate.

Charlotte Moore, Milicent's Book
Odd but interesting, Bookbag review book - I reviewed her second novel last year. This is a sort of YA novel based on the true story of one of Moore's ancestors, a Victorian girl. She has written a non fiction book Hiscox about the family home where she now lives with her children and the family, and this draws on the same material, I think I'll have to get a copy of Hiscox.

Jim Kelly, Death Toll
Series crime novel I've had out of the library for a while and I think I should try and read some of those library books - police detectives in Kings Lynn, Norfolk (where my partner comes from, I'm wondering whether to get one of these for his mum).

Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues
for Bookbag review - Story about mixed race and black American and German jazz musicians in the early 40s (yes, under Nazism) and 50 years later. Only just started.

And my first Kindle read: Isabel Ashdown, Hurry Up and Wait - the plot features a school reunion and flashbacks to school days in the 1980s. The author is about my age (actually slightly younger).

I will start trying to catch up with comments and reviews where I've written them later this week. Of course, I still have lots more reviews to write.

Wow, good haul of reading there, is it Kindle-hysteria to blame! or the mere passage of time?

It's not Kindle hysteria, as not only have I not had it for a week yet, if anything it's a bit of a distraction from actually reading.

>154 elkiedee:: I think by succinct you mean short, Luci! Your review really does the book justice by covering the full range of issues Walters covers. Well done! The example you cite about the boy playing pass-the-parcel was one which really struck a chord with me when I read the book.

I wish I could be there for the Virago Bookclub discussion!

Got very behind on your thread Luci, sorry. Of your recentish reads The Somnambulist, Rules of Civility, 22 Britannia Road and Girl Reading all look very interesting and at some point I'll try and work out library availability for those.

#153 Yay - kindle! I had a quick browse through your kindle collection and it looks like you picked up a few books from the sale I've also been considering.

#154 To my surprise I found a copy of Walker's Living Dolls on bookmooch when I was searching for Viragoes and snapped it up. I'm very grateful to you and Dee for commenting on it and reviewing it because otherwise I think I would have automatically dismissed it and it sounds very interesting. Hope the discussion session was interesting - I saw the Virago blog post about it and it seemed like there was quite a good discussion from the summary they gave.

It was a very lively and interesting discussion, and both Katie and I contributed. And it is special to hear the author's own perspective on her work.

151. 18.06 ed Dennis Lehane, Boston Noir 3.9

152. 19.06 Rachel Genn, The Cure 3.2

153. 20.06 Emma Kennedy, I Left My Tent in San Francisco 4.2

154. 24.06 Felix Palma, The Map of Love 3.4

155. 24.06 Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad 4.6

156. 26.06 Katie Ward, Girl Reading 4.2

157. 26.06 Margaret Drabble, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman 3.0

158. 27.06 Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy 4.2

159. 30.06 Natasha Solomons, The Novel in the Viola 4.7

160. 30.06 Stephen Merrill Block, The Storm in the Door 3.7

161. 30.06 Samantha Hunt, The Seas 3.9

162. 03.07 Judy Blundell, Strings Attached 4.3

163. 04.07 Sophie Hannah, The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets 4.5

164. 06.07 Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet 4.2

165. 06.07 Charlotte Moore, Milicent's Book

Congrats on the Kindle, Luci!

Welcome to Kindlemania! You'll soon find you become addicted to as the home to many books...

Well done on more than doubling the 75 target, Luci! And I suppose it's congratulations on the Kindle, though as a non-user myself I'm not sure what my response is. (I do use a Kindle app on my smartphone though, but it's a much smaller screen and not so enjoyable a reading experience).

Congratulations on the Kindle, I don't have one but quite like stealing my husbands one to play the Kindle at a quick game of scrabble.

Another congratulations for the kindle and a late Happy Birthday. I saw a copy of Half Blood blues at the library after seeing you mention it here, it looks quite interesting.

Very neglected thread again, lots of reads to catch up on but I thought I'd mention the Booker on here in case anyone wants to come and liven up my thread!

The Man Booker longlist was announced yesterday, some surprising choices on it - 4 first time novelists and several who I'm pleased to see because I like to see less well known writers getting the attention that the prize lists bring (especially the Booker and the Orange)

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books) - also Orange longlist - read a few months ago
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile) - have just written a Bookbag review - would love to see this on the shortlist
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld) - want to read this one
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan) - want to read this one
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review) - have this out of the library, have considered requesting a review copy - WWII and the before and after are a bit of a theme in my reading
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press) - I've read some of her other books and this sounds interesting - sounds like a feminist dystopian novel but I may have made that up
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

Where can we read your review of Half Blood Blues?

Here, and I'm going to go and cross post the link around the place:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Half-Blood_Blues_by_Esi_Edug...

Excellent review of Half Blood Blues, Luci! Regarding your comment about wanting to learn more about jazz in this period, the book Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story Between the Great Wars by William A. Shack might be of interest. I haven't read it, so I can't personally recommend it.

#165 sounds like something I'd do!

I love looking over the Booker lists each year. Its exciting....thanks for posting it

#169 Nice review Luci. I feel strangely unexcited by the Booker list but I think that's more due to be being in some kind of tiredness slump and not wanting to read anything remotely challenging atm...

Luci, hope you and the family are ok?

Thanks Heather, we're all fine though it's a bit scary, and my sister and her boyfriend currently live at different addresses in Hackney (Stamford Hill and Dalston) though she's moving in with him next month, I think. We and she live well away from the main shopping areas, thankfully - we're around 1.5 miles from 3 of the locations where things kicked off on Saturday.

It's the people who live in the centre of the areas affected I feel sorriest for. And those who have been burnt out of homes or out of jobs - retail is so casualised. I hope the local indie bookshop doesn't go under from this latest blow to its business. I'm going to have a few days off with the kids later this month and if it's not actually a riot scene at the time I hope to drag them up there next Friday for storytime and maybe we'll buy a book or two... And Whitechapel Library had a window smashed, just what we need! The gay bookshop near work has also been attacked by some mindless bigot, in an area which has been otherwise unaffected so far.

Glad to hear you are all ok. It's awful indeed especially for those who've lost homes or livelihoods. I hope your time off with the children is riot-free and that there are still bookshops standing...

What Genny said!

Terrible footage on the TV, I can barely stand to watch it. It is so mindless.

Glad to hear you're all ok - hopefully things have calmed down now.

I must update the thread properly with reading and reviews since June (!) but here's a link to the book I've most recently reviewed on Amazon, Immigrant Nations. I will post the review here on LT soon. I had big issues with the book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0745649629/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UT...

Oh dear! I'm not familiar with this book or the author but I can see why you had issues with it. I, too would "question the academic rigour" of an author who quotes Melanie Phillips, particularly if she is intended to represent the voice of Britain!

I will look out for the Gary Younge book you mention.

#179 Doesn't sound like a book I could read without feeling a lot of irritation - it also sounds like he assumes any lack of integration is the fault of the immigrant rather than the society the immigrant is trying to integrate into. Isn't it more likely to be both? Looks like there are a lot of mixed opinions about this book from looking at the other reviews.

Also added the Gary Younge to my wishlist.

124. 16.05 Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country, 4.4

Virago Modern Classic, TIOLI 2 letters in common in main title words

The story of the astonishingly loathsome Undine Spragg.

125. 16.05 Nadine Gordimer, Telling Times 4.7

A collection of work by this writer spanning over 50 years work in 740 pages. This lovely book was offered in a Twitter giveaway but I had no idea I was going to get a copy until it arrived. Proper review still intended.

126. 17.05 Mark Ellingham, Peter Florence and Barnaby Rogerson (eds), Ox Travels, 4.2

Reviewed for the Bookbag

Ox Travels is an anthology of travel writing compiled to raise funds for Oxfam, but it is well worth buying and reading in its own right. Its generous 432 pages offer the chance to meet 36 writers, including travel writers, journalists and novelists, with an introduction by Michael Palin and an afterword by Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's Chief Executive.

Each writer was asked for a story about a meeting while travelling, so the stories are focused on people rather than the scenery. The editors explained that they assumed some of the invited authors would be too busy and/or away travelling, and they were surprised by the response – most of the contributions here are original pieces.

.....

Big names include Paul Theroux and Colin Thubron. Others include Dervla Murphy, Sara Wheeler (favourite writers) and Patrick Leigh Fermor who died at around the time the book came out. I enjoyed the pieces by Sonia Faleiro (India) and Raja Shehadeh (Ramallah, Palestine).

Full review here

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Ox_Travels_by_Michael_Palin

Ox Tales sounds like a fascinating read, hopefully it will get to this part of the world. Looking forward to seeing what else you've been reading. I've found it hard to update my own thread lately.

I just have so many reviews to catch up with, and I can't resist further review books given half a chance, any more than I can resist buying or borrowing books.

127. 18.05 E M Delafield, Consequences 4.3

128. 19.05 Jacek Hugo-Bader, White Fever, 4.4

Eeek review still to be written more than 3 months later....

The publisher was offering proofs of this on Twitter, and it was a very good read though a bit grim - a Polish journalist drives to and around Siberia and talks to people. There are a lot of deaths from acute alcohol poisoning and other depressing reasons, and I think this is what the title refers to.

129. 20.05 Janine Amin & Nathaniel J Moore, Toronto Noir 2.8

One of the weaker entries in this series

130. 21.05 Joan Aiken, Tale of a One Way Street 3.3

131. 21.05 Alexis Hall, In the Red: The Diary of a Recovering Shopaholic 2.9

At the start of this book, Alexis Hall owed £31,637.84 in unsecured debt, in credit cards and bank loans. In the Red is an autobiographical account, presented in diary form, of a compulsive spender's attempts to cut back and reduce her debt this terrifying figure. She decided to cut back on non-essential spending for a year in order to cut her debt.

I am very interested in the subject of personal finance and how people manage it or completely fail to do so, so I was pleased to receive a copy of this book to review. I was a bit disappointed though.

Some of the content would have made a good magazine or newspaper article. However, over a whole book of nearly 300 pages, the almost daily diary entries here become a bit dull and repetitive.

I found some of Hall’s attitudes to her spending hard to understand. Her main addiction is to designer clothes and expensive skincare, neither of which I have ever really been into. I do recognise the messy cupboards full of unworn clothes, though mine tend to be from much cheaper shops. She is used to driving everywhere and is frightened of buses, while I have never had a car or learned to drive (and she lives in a big city, so it isn’t about that). She invests in a scooter and the problems of where to keep it are a recurring theme in the book.

There are several things I found really annoying about Alex. The first is her definition of essential spending, some of which turns out to be ridiculous. She continues to buy insanely extravagant presents for her partner, Kevin, and their dog, and her family and friends. At one point she gets baby bath for the dog costing over £30 (who spends that on baby bath for a baby, even?) On another occasion she spends £35 on a friend’s child’s first birthday. This was hard to identify with and rather frustrating. Alexis and Kevin earn good incomes, and have no dependents (apart from the dog), but they are living way beyond their means.

As a bookworm, I also find it hard to identify with someone who writes a book but never reads a book herself, preferring to read fashion magazines. At one point she buys her stepdad books to read in hospital but is astonished that he wants to continue reading when he gets out.

On the positive side, this book is very easy and quick to read, and the money voyeur in me enjoyed the gory details of Alex’s finances. She seems like a nice person and I really do hope she can continue to curb her spending and cut her debt – considerably less than it was, but it takes a long time to pay off that amount of money.

Since I read the book, I’ve discovered that she has a blog on which she writes about her continued efforts not to spend too much money, and the blog seems more interesting – it is a better form for the content. See http://inthered-alexis.blogspot.com

I’m not sure I can recommend the book, but I will probably continue to read the blog occasionally.

I received a free copy of this book, published by Icon Books at £7.99 for www.newbooksmag.com, and a much, much shorter version of this review previously appeared on that website under my name.

132. 24.05 Jane Harris, Gillespie and I 4.4

LTER book - review to be written

133. 24.05 Peter Akinti, Forest Gate 4.2

134. 24.05 Natasha Walter, Living Dolls, 4.5

Sent to me by Virago as part of their Bookclub/First Reviewer scheme

This book is a disturbing account of the ways in which girls and young women are being encouraged to see themselves. It also examines the way that men and boys are conditioned to view women. It includes topics such as pole dancing, prostitution, glamour modelling and lads’ mags, children’s toys and theories on differences between female and male children from a very young age. At times I found it very uncomfortable and depressing reading, but it is well worth reading for the important arguments made.

The book is divided into two halves: The New Sexism and The New Determinism
The New Sexism

Walter visits a Southend club for a Babes on the Bed night in which women compete for a modelling contract with Nuts, with a young woman who has broken into this career herselfmaking it clear they are expected to be willing to take their clothes off and be photographed in explicitly sexual poses. Interestingly, it is made very clear to her that some of those involved in putting the show on really would like her to leave – they are not comfortable with critical observers. Walter interviews a lot of young women involved in various parts of the “glamour” and sex industry, including stripping, modelling, pole dancing and outright prostitution. It was interesting to see the contrast between what some of those involved do and the doubts they express in interviews about their work. I was impressed by how much her interviewees were willing to say.

Walter also looks at the contrast between the popularity of a wave of recent books and films on prostitution presenting it as a respectable (and well paid) career choice, notably Belle De Jour’s writings, and some of the harsher realities such as the women trafficked and exploited from other countries, and the murder of 5 women working as prostitutes in Ipswich.

There is much to be shocked by and to think about in this part of the book. As the mother of two very young boys, I was particularly appalled by the chapter on pornography, and the account of the effect of internet porn and much wider access to it, chosen or not, including the culture among young teenagers of sending pornography to each other on mobile phones. Ugh!
The New Determinism

Walter starts the book with an account of a visit to a huge toyshop with separate floors for boys and girls, and finding herself in a sea of wall to wall pink, dominated by dolls, princess costumes and all sorts of features designed to encourage girls to model themselves on dolls. This is where the title of the book comes from. After linking the images of dolls to the images of women in various parts of the sex industry in the first half of the book, the second half is focused on the debates about nature or nurture, especially in relation to bringing up children. As a mum, I thought a lot about my own little boys when reading this, but you don’t have to be a parent or want to be to find this interesting – we were all kids once, and there is plenty here that I would argue everyone needs to think about.

This section starts with journalistic observation and anecdote and then moves on to chapters of more theoretical, analytical discussion. I was very shocked at some of the stories of casual assumptions made by children’s parents, educators and others – for example, a scene at a party where a girl in her princess dress and tiara hits a boy for not playing Pass the Parcel properly, and his running away is described as him not being very good at party games – the little girl’s aggressive, competitive attitude is totally ignored, as it doesn’t fit the parents’ theories about their children.

The theoretical sections are packed with bibliographic references – to parenting and self-help books, sociological studies and media reports – and make much more dense reading, but they are worth the effort. Again, I found plenty to be outraged by, as male and female writers and journalists from across the political spectrum conduct some highly suspect research purporting to show that differences between boys and girls are natural, and not the product of research. Depressingly, it seems that 1970s and 1980s attempts to try bringing up children in less gender stereotyped ways have been forgotten, and that most people with a view believe in genetic difference.

I was particularly interested in the interview with Marianne Grabrucker, a German lawyer who tried to bring up her daughter in a less sexist way and wrote a book about it, There’s a Good Girl (which I reviewed for my student union newspaper when it was published in the UK in 1988!). Her daughter appreciates her efforts, but a newspaper article had claimed that Grabrucker had failed to prove her theories because there are differences – Grabrucker in fact believes that her choices for her daughter were countered by other family, childcare, school, church etc.

Importantly, Walter does not confine herself to describing the various studies and theories put forward arguing in support of innate differences between girls and boys and the need to treat them differently. She is very critical of these biologically determinist theories. She also challenges the idea that these are fresh new thinking, going back in time to look at the historical theories. She even finds that in the 1920s and 1930s, different colours were used for boys and girls, but they were pink for boys and blue for girls! She points out that stereotypes themselves often affect how people behave, that girls and boys may well learn that certain behaviour is expected of them in order to fit in and be accepted. Women still earn less than men and have less status, and these new determinist theories are not just abstract, they are often the basis for arguments put forward that this is just the way things are.

Finally, Walter tries to introduce a more upbeat note into the book at the end. This is not as memorable as all the shocking stories of women in the sex industry, and the sexualisation of girls and young women from a very young age, but she describes some of the campaigns that have been set up online and offline to challenge sexism and the oppression of women. There is a Give Your Support section at the end with postal addresses, phone numbers and websites where readers can go to join in the campaigns. I plan to find out more about Pink Stinks and Women for Refugee Women (the latter organisation is not really related to the contents of this book, but it campaigns on issues close to my heart and I would like to see if I can do something more active.

I think this is an important and interesting book which more people, women and men, parents, grandparents and people who have no intention of having children should all read. Then, we should think about how we challenge stereotypes and expectations in order to create a more equal society.

135. 24.05 Esther Hautzig, The Endless Steppe 4.8

My rating is partly sentimental for this memoir written for teenagers, which was a reread - Esther and her family were deported from Poland to Siberia. Life is very hard there but this 10 year old spoilt princess from a wealthy Jewish family, adapts wonderfully to her new surroundings, and life gets better for them. She is almost sorry when it's time to return to Poland. Although it clearly wasn't the Soviet intention, the deportation saved their lives.

Hautzig died in 2008 in the US, aged about 78. Her daughter Deborah Hautzig is also a YA writer.

The Oxfam one sounds really interesting. I love travel stories, but sometimes a few get published that are pretty blah....so a collection would enable me to skip trough. Ill check it out!

I must avoid the Alexis Hall book. It's the sort of book that I would start reading compulsively but then want to throw out of the window! I can see how if you never read books but did read loads of fashion magazines, you could get brainwashed into thinking you need to continually spend a fortune on new clothes and make-up though!

OxTravels and The Endless Steppe both sound interesting. Shame about the Alexis Hall book.

I'm very excited, a couple of weeks ago I asked the owner of the Curious Book Fans website about 3 books I'd quite like to review. 2 arrived very quickly, and one of those was a Penguin - they also sent me 3 books I asked for to review for CBF very fast a few months ago. I didn't really think I'd get the other one.

Janine di Giovanni's memoir of her relationship with another war reporter arrived this morning (I recently bought a previous memoir of being a war reporter in Sarajevo by her secondhand). I've heard some of Ghosts by Daylight on the radio.

#191 It's amazing what some people regard as essential spending! I think your review is all I need to read of that book... Now would I want to hear about someone who ran up a huge debt buying too many books instead?

OxTravels does sound good.

200: I'm sure I would have felt more sympathetic.

136. 28.05 Jenn Ashworth, Cold Light 4.2

Chloe and her boyfriend Carl died 10 years ago and the Council is putting up a memorial to her. Laura follows the local news and goes to work in the shopping centre as a cleaner and remembers what really happened. Chloe’s other friend Emma contacts her. They have been checking up on each other regularly, to find out what the other one knows.

.................

For me, the build up of this novel took a while, but in the end I found it a powerful and disturbing study of jealousy, secrets and lies and I will probably look out for more work by Jenn Ashworth.

Full review at:

http://www.curiousbookfans.co.uk/2011/fiction-books/7791/cold-light-jenn-ashwort...

137. 30.05 Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine 4.7

138. 02.06 Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything 4.1

Review for Amazon Vine and posted at Curious Book Fans

"Fiction places people where they belong in society. There is no such thing he said as a dated novel. The novel set in a particular time gives a picture of that time with all the details of life as it was lived then." (Elizabeth Jolley)

The Best of Everything is the story of four young women living and working in New York City - their jobs, their living conditions and their love lives. It was first published in 1958, and its subject matter and form have both been used in many popular novels aimed at a female audience since then. Can Rona Jaffe be described as the mother of modern chicklit? Yes, I think she can. Is this book worth a read? I thought so, both because it is quite enjoyable and for its depiction of the time when it was written and set.

Caroline, April, Gregg and Barbara are all in their early 20s, working as secretaries for Fabian, publisher of commercial fiction and magazines. Caroline has a degree, Barbara's education has been interrupted by early marriage, motherhood and divorce, and the other two have theatrical aspirations.

Jaffe dissects the ins and outs of office life with detailed observations about how things work, an interest in how her characters interact and flashes of sharp wit. There is a dragon boss, a woman who will do nothing to help other women in the workplace, and a lecherous creep who recognises Caroline's ability and promotes her to a role as reader and later a junior editor even though she rejects his sexual advances in no uncertain terms.

I found the lives of the characters outside work a lot less satisfying. This was an era when women were judged by their success in getting married (and preferably hanging on to the husband). I thought the way in which Gregg and April totally demeaned themselves in front of the men they had relationships with was probably realistic but found it all incredibly irritating. Caroline and Barbara were less pathetic, but at this time women who weren't married by the age of 25 would have been seen as failures, no matter what they were doing at work. Jaffe writes openly about women having sex outside of marriage including extra-marital affairs - her characters are not presented as immoral although sometimes they are obviously deluded. At work and in their love lives, these women's stories showed the need for the women's liberation movement of the 1960s, and the effect that wave of feminism has had on women's lives even for women who don't consider themselves feminist.

My favourite of the 4 characters was Caroline, who is bright and opinionated, and although she wants love as much as any of her colleagues and friends, is not prepared to settle for any old unsatisfactory compromise.

This Penguin edition of the novel includes an introduction written by the author for a US reprint in 2005 (she died a few months later) in which she described how she came to write the book. She worked in publishing and a man talked about a 1940 bestseller by a man about women, and wanting to write something as good, or at least, as successful. Jaffe read the book mentioned and felt that it was not at all a realistic portrait of women's lives, and that she could do better. She confidently proclaimed that she could write a novel herself, and started to do so. Interestingly, she interviewed lots of women about their lives and views on things and drew on this in her novel - how many modern chicklit authors can claim they do so much research into what makes their heroines tick? The inclusion of this introduction was a great touch in the presentation of the novel.

I found this an engaging and memorable read and a valuable period piece, and have found myself looking for some of Rona Jaffe's 15 other novels. Recommended.

139. 03.06 Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray 3.9

140. 04.06 Rachel Gibson, Any Man of Mine 3.7

Book for review - pending

141. 05.06 Tessa Hadley, The London Train 4.2

142. 06.06 Caitlin Davies, The Ghost of Lily Painter, 4.2

Review for Amazon Vine and posted at Curious Book Fans

Despite its title, The Ghost of Lily Painter is not really a ghost story; there is a ghost and sections of the story are told from her viewpoint, but it is a story about the various people who have lived in the same house in Holloway, North London, over the years.

In the present, Annie is determined to stay in the house she bought with her husband before they broke up, but doesn’t know financially how she is going to do it. Her day to day activities and worries are observed by the resident ghost, Lily. These include taking her young daughter Molly to auditions for various acting jobs. She starts researching the history of the house in the local library and uncovering its secrets.

I found Annie as an impecunious middle class single mother quite easy to identify with, and I liked the portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship through the changes of Annie’s husband Ben moving out and Molly growing up, no longer being a small child, becoming her own, more independent person with ideas of her own. Then there are the strange ghostly happenings in the house.

The most interesting story though was the one set in 1901, the turn of the century and the end of an era. Lily and her parents lodge with a policeman, Inspector William George and his family. His investigation into baby farmers, women who took in babies for money, often from mother who couldn’t keep them for reasons of money and/or the disgrace of illegitimacy, coincides horribly and tragically with the story of Lily Painter, and we learn why she is a restless ghost.

Baby farmers often took a small lump sum to take in a baby, but wouldn’t keep them indefinitely, and babies were often allowed to die or deliberately murdered. Caitlin Davies draws on the true story of Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, who were hanged for baby farming in 2003.

I found this story to be an absorbing read, drawing on a very sad piece of women’s history. I quite liked the idea of ghostly Lily watching Annie and her daughter, and other occupants of the house, though there was a point when Lily in the first person comments on Annie using her computer, and I wondered how Lily would know what the computer is – I was amused to be thinking about realism in a ghost story! All the characters seemed quite convincing and I was interested in reading about their lives.

The plot is a bit weaker than the characterisation, particularly towards the end when its resolution and tying up involves far too many coincidences, and the story would have been complete and satisfying without at least one of the final revelations. However, I do like the way in which Annie’s research into the past helps her come to terms with her own present.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes stories about the links between past and present, and social/London/women’s history.

143. 08.06 Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited 4.3

144. 10.06 Jill Dawson, Lucky Bunny 4.3

Amazon Vine review

Lucky Bunny is fiction, but it is presented as the memoir of a female criminal, from her birth in 1933 to the 1960s.

Queenie, as she has chosen to call herself, was born and brought up in London's East End. Her life of crime starts with stealing some milk, then she moves into shoplifting as a child, often working with older family friends. She has been brought up largely by her grandmother and her dad's girlfriends, most of them involved in various criminal activity.

I found Lucky Bunny a joy to read. Queenie is a vivid and memorable character, clever, tough, sharply observant and funny, soaking up all around her. She meets many of the famous, and infamous, Londoners of her day, and is witness to many real episodes in East End history. In some ways, her life has been a bit of a nightmare, with poverty, neglect and deprivation and several family tragedies. Queenie doesn't see it like that. She is no one's victim, but a great survivor. Or is she? I am not totally sure I can trust all of Queenie's statements about herself. Is she really as lucky as she proclaims?

I was also fascinated by the way Dawson takes up so many bits of London's social and women's history as well as criminal folklore and weaves them into a terrific yarn. I was amused by Queenie's namedropping of lots of real people and events, including Ruth Ellis and Christine Keeler. Queenie even suggests she might have been delivered at birth in 1933 by a young midwife called Jennifer, undertaking her training with the nuns, a reference to Jennifer Worth's Call the Midwife. In fact, Worth wasn't even born then and her book takes place more than 20 years later - is this a clue that some of Queenie's encounters with other real people are also her own inventions?

145. 10.06 Hamid Dabashi, Iran, The Green Movement and the USA 2.9

Rather disappointing LTER review book

146. 11.06 Lucy Kellaway, In Office Hours 3.7

TIOLI workplace challenge for June - two women working for a big oil company have unsuitable affairs with someone at a different level in the company. Fun enough to read but a bit disappointing, and why give your protagonists rhyming names (Stella and Bella)?

147. 13.06 Rachel Ferguson, Alas Poor Lady 4.1

148. 15.06 Adam Creed, Pain of Death 2.9

LTER book, review pending

149. 16.06 Vera Brittain, The Dark Tide 3.3

Vera Brittain's first novel. Two women meet at university and feel themselves academic rivals. Brittain apparently gave one of the characters characteristics of her best friend and then made the character seem a bit stupid and other things. I'm glad I read this for its interest for but really couldn't recommend it. Stick to her memoir/bio books.

150. 18.06 Paula Byrne, Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead 4.2

WH Smith book for review, still pending!

How did I get this behind?

woah woah, so many books, any review for Brideshead Revisited? 4.3 is a pretty good rating.

Just catching up... I loved The Endless Steppe too, when I first read it, although it's been decades since I attempted a re-read. It jumped back into my mind when I went to the museum in Latvia devoted to the Soviet-era repression, which included many people dispatched on the same kind of trek that Hautzig was.

I became a mild Rona Jaffe fan in the 80s, after reading Class Reunion. It wasn't until later that I read The Best of Everything and realized that it was seen as a kind of pre-feminist novel -- chick lit before there was chick lilt, really! It wasn't until years after I first encountered it that I realized she hadn't just been looking back at a time long past, but had been writing about experiences of her own generation. Many of her other novels (the ones that work as stories) tap into the same themes, however, so be cautious about over-spending on them...

Looking forward to your comments on Gillespie and I; have been keeping an eye on that one for a while...

Really interesting reviews, Luci. I already had The Ghost of Lily Painter on my wishlist, on the strength of enjoying Caitlin Davies' memoir, Place of Reeds but didn't know much about it!

I haven't read any Rona Jaffe but have been wondering about The Best of Everything. I picked up a paperback of one of Jaffe's other's in a charity shop recently but put it down again because it was tatty and had a trashy cover! I'm now thinking of going back to see if it's still there.

219: No intention of overspending on Jaffe, I've bought one through Amazon Marketplace and if I can get others cheaply, maybe. Gillespie and I is an ER book - I have two I must write first but maybe that should be my 3rd, or perhaps an earlier ER review.

218: I don't plan to review Brideshead Revisited but I do have a review to write of Mad World which is a bio of Waugh based on the novel (which was why I read Brideshead).

Somehow I have managed to get 40+ messages behind on your thread again, Luci. I will have to try and keep better track of you in future :)

I sympathise on the being behind with reviews, Luci. But they are worth waiting for when you do get them written. Interesting discussion about Jaffe too.

151. 18.06 ed Dennis Lehane, Boston Noir 3.9

152. 19.06 Rachel Genn, The Cure 3.2

I won this in a competition on Twitter months ago and was sent the Arc a while before publication date.

A young Irish man comes to work on London's building sites. He has left behind the disappointment of a failed love affair in Galway, but he is also following in his father's footsteps, even going to lodge at the pub where his late father Seamus once lived, and asking Jack, his dad's old boss, for work.

I liked Rachel Genn's writing style, and was impressed by the range of characters she develops in this novel. As well as Eugene, there is Della the pub landlady and her daughter Julia, and the boss, Jack. Then Eugene works on the building site with colleagues from all kinds of backgrounds. He seems to be making a new life for himself.

However, the storyline is too slight to sustain a novel of nearly 300 pages, and many of the detailed descriptions of everything feel a bit like padding.

This said, I will probably look out for more books by this author.

Everyone else on Amazon seems to have loved it, but I haven't found many positive reviews off Amazon.

153. 20.06 Emma Kennedy, I Left My Tent in San Francisco 4.2

A memoir of the author and her friend on a gap year holiday travelling in the US, intending to work and travel. They get off to a really bad start as it takes ages to find work that will earn any money, and their travel budget is accordingly very limited. The later part of the book, travelling, is better than the first part, as they start meeting some interesting people along the way.

154. 24.06 Felix Palma, The Map of Love 3.4

155. 24.06 Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad 4.6

156. 26.06 Katie Ward, Girl Reading 4.2

Amazon Vine review book

Girl Reading comprises seven linked stories set over a period of over 700 years, from 1333 to 2060. Each is an imagined story behind a painting, or in some cases the author has taken inspiration from more than one painting. The chosen paintings show girls, or young women, reading. How can an obsessive bookworm resist?

The pictures are not shown in the book, but images of most of them can be found online, and I mean to do this some time. I found though that the words of the stories were quite effective in calling up images in my mind.

The stories are also concerned with the changing position of women and the choices they have over this period of time. For example, Laura in medieval Italy can read a little though she cannot write, and is thinking of entering a convent. Her growing friendship with the artist and his wife may help her sort out her future. Jeannine in 2008 works in Parliament and has great ambitions for her own political future.

Each story is 40-50 pages, giving the author a little time to introduce her characters. Some of them are more likeable than others, but all are interesting enough to make me want to read more about them and what happens to them next.

The final story is about a possible near future for art, visual media and society, one close enough in time to conceivably be in some younger readers’ lifetime. It also shows a connection between the stories and pulls the book together.

The writing has some stylistic quirks. All the stories are told in the present tense, and there are no quotation marks. I didn’t even really notice when I was reading, as I was so caught up in their lives, and I think the use of present tense, done well here, creates an immediacy and engagement.

This is an impressive debut and one I will think about and return to.

157. 26.06 Margaret Drabble, A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman 3.0

Margaret Drabble is probably best known for her novels. A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman collects together 13 short stories, previously published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies between 1966 and 2000, in book form for the first time. Jose Francisco Fernandez, who has written the introduction, is clearly a great admirer of her work, and his introduction and Note on the Texts offers some background to the original publication of the stories and highlights some of the connections between the short stories and the novels. The diversity of publications intrigued me, ranging from 1970s feminist magazines like Spare Rib and Ms, much more mass market and mainstream publications like Cosmopolitan, and various anthologies. The stories are arranged in chronological order. He also mentions some anecdotes about the stories which are intriguing but I'm not sure I believe some of them - would the Woodcraft Folk really have bothered to sue over remarks made by a very unreliable narrator in "Homework"?

I enjoy reading literary short stories by women writers like Katherine Mansfield, Mavis Gallant, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter, but I was disappointed by these ones. Some seem rather overwritten, with long paragraphs and sentences and too many adjectives which don't add much. The majority are told in the third person, and many of the third and first person stories are heavy on the irony. This made me feel very distant from the characters, although I did like two of the later stories, both told in the third person, "The Dower House at Kellynch" and "Stepping Westward", a bit more. One is about a woman who becomes obsessed with a particular house, the other is about a woman on holiday alone, asserting her independence. Some of the other stories are about affairs. I was annoyed by the attack on political activists in "The Gifts of War" about the issue of buying (or not buying) military toys for children.

I have mixed feelings about this book - I wonder if I should give some of the stories another chance, whether I would like them more at a different time. I still have some of her novels and hope to read or reread them at some point, and I will probably keep this book so I can compare work with common themes, and because there are a couple of better or more interesting pieces. Also, it is very attractively presented, and I enjoy looking at it if not reading it.

I think this is a book for existing admirers of Margaret Drabble's work rather than for those looking for an introduction.

158. 27.06 Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy 4.2

159. 30.06 Natasha Solomons, The Novel in the Viola 4.7

Austrian Jewish Elise comes to England as a refugee, hoping to get her parents papers to come and join her. She has a job as a domestic, about which she knows nothing - she's from a privileged background, and she learns the English language and adapts to the culture. Witty, sad and romantic at the same time. I seem to have read quite a lot of books on this sort of theme in the last few months, and though this perhaps won't please highbrow purists, I think it works very well indeed as what it is.

Oh my goodness, a bombardment of reading. Looks like you've been having fun.

#227: Sorry to see that you did not enjoy that one more. I borrowed the book recently from my daughter Catey.

Like you, if I'm going to read short stories, I want them to be well written short stories, so A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman won't be going on the wishlist. Having said that, I'm listening to Drabble talk at the Beverley Literature Festival in October and will probably end up being won over and come away with an expensive, signed hardback copy!

If it hadn't been for the Elizabeth Jolley quote you put at the top of your Rona Jaffe review, I might have said that some of the stories sound a bit dated!

227/234 The Map of Love is worth a read I think, I'm going to have to look at it before I write my long overdue review to see what I did and didn't like so much. 3.5 is an ok rating.

235: I'm actually quite a big fan of short stories, but I just found these ones a bit boring on the whole.

Girl reading sounds wonderful and one I'm taking note of. The Novel in the Viola is already on my tbr as I enjoyed Mr Rosenblum's List, I'm looking forward to it even more now after seeing your rating.

#236: Good to know. Thanks, Luci.

... just wandering through, catching up, waving hello ...

160. 30.06 Stephen Merrill Block, The Storm in the Door 3.7

ER book, review still owed

161. 30.06 Samantha Hunt, The Seas 3.9

162. 03.07 Judy Blundell, Strings Attached 4.3

Amazon Vine review book, July TIOLI book set in more than one time period - although in this case the times are quite close together as the past flashbacks are just a few years or even months back

Kit Corrigan is a 17 year old looking for a big break in the New York City theatre world. She is not just looking for stardom, though, she has run away from heartbreak, as the boy she was in love with back home in Providence is furious with her and has run off to join the army. It is 1950, and maybe he'll be sent off to fight in the war in Korea. One night, she is made an offer she can't refuse. Perhaps, though, she should have said no.

Strings Attached is an exciting historical novel aimed at older teenagers, with the colourful, atmospheric story about coming of age in the big city, and layers of mystery and drama. Some readers may be drawn to the theatrical setting, although this is portrayed as much less glamorous than it sounds. Kit is still quite young, and sometimes I was impressed by her courage, while at other moments I was irritated by her naivete and her misjudgements of other characters. Kit's old boyfriend Billy didn't seem like much of a catch, more like a violent young thug. When Billy's dad offers her an apartment in central Manhattan, asserting his conviction that Billy will come back to her, she should have realised that nothing comes for free.

This is marketed as young adult fiction - there are some dark themes of sex, death and violence although the sex and violence aren't explicitly described, and I think the book would appeal to readers of 14/15 up, who are probably already raiding their parents' bookshelves, as well as to much older readers (like me).

163. 04.07 Sophie Hannah, The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets 4.5

Collection of short stories. I really enjoyed it but as I've let so much time go by and it's gone back to the library, sadly I can't really say more. The title story is a particularly intriguing tale of a mad receptionist.

164. 06.07 Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet 4.2

Amazon Vine review book, TIOLI (moved for shared read purposes)

(This was a bit of a stopgap review as I had to put one in to be able to get more review items and I keep meaning to go back to it...)

1942: Henry is having a hard time. He has been told not to speak Chinese at home with his family, even though they can't speak English well. At his new school he is being bullied. His friendship with Keiko is one of the few good things which has happened to him. They share an interest in jazz music. However, Keiko is Japanese, and soon has to go and live with her family in an internment camp, as America and Japan are at war and they are enemy aliens. Henry continues to visit and as they grow up they start to fall in love.

1986: Middle aged Henry has been widowed. As well as mourning his wife Ethel, he remembers his first love, Keiko, and their experiences in wartime Seattle, and wonders what happened to her.
This novel is an absorbing page turner, and I was caught up in the story of the two children. The portrayal of two young people caught between their immigrant parents and the country they now live in, between a desire to assimilate and conflicting loyalties to their own families and to each other, is fascinating. I really enjoyed the story of Henry's friendship with Keiko and also with a black jazz musician. Henry and Keiko are memorable characters.

The 1980s scenes didn't work quite so well. Why does a man in his mid 50s consider himself an old man?

Several recent historical novels have explored this period in history and the wartime internment in the US of enemy aliens. This love story is an interesting look at that issue.

165. 06.07 Charlotte Moore, Milicent's Book

Bookbag review book, TIOLI Title ends with my middle initial (K for Katharine)

"My name is Milicent Bella Ludlow and I am an orphan."

So opens this story told in diary form of a year in the life of a young Victorian girl whose father has just died. Luckily there are some kind and loving relatives willing to help her and Mabel, her older sister, and they are able to stay living in their family home, Yotes, for a while.

1883 is an eventful year for Milicent and her family, starting with her father's death, and her diary is an outlet for her to process her real thoughts and feelings about what has happened with extraordinary candour. She is a bright, perceptive girl, and this is a fascinating read.

Although this is presented as a novel, Milicent Ludlow was a real person – Moore lives in a house which once belonged to her and has drawn on Milicent's actual diaries. I don't know what proportion of this book was written by Milicent or Moore, but I found the narrative voice really convincing. I enjoyed her excitement at the good times and felt sad for her at other times.

Read the rest of the review here:

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Milicent%27s_Book_by_Charlot...

Charlotte Moore has also written a book, Hancox, about the history of the family home where she still lives and its occupants, which includes a lot more about Milicent, who later became the stepmother to Moore's grandfather. I should have read it for last month's Victorian biography challenge!

A few more review updates added, lots still to be written etc.

Milicent's Book looks like one I would enjoy. Thanks for the review, Luci!

I spend years without a face to face reading group and then two come along at once.

I have a terrible dilemma as a result:

NCT branch discussion locally of Caitlin Moran's How to be a Woman next Tuesday

Virago Book Club discussion in their central London offices of Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore and featuring Ms Duffy, also next Tuesday

Both discussions likely to be entertaining, Virago one perhaps more focused on book, refreshments probably available at both, Stella Duffy at Virago, a short walk home from NCT book group as host lives very near me.

How to choose?

Nooo! What a dilemma! Both sound wonderful. Have you been to a NCT book group before? I would have thought Stella Duffy is more likely to stay focussed on the book, as you say and possibly a safer bet. If the NCT group turned into a general gossip you might regret not going to the Virago but I can't imagine you'd regret seeing Stella Duffy!

I didn't request the Duffy book from Virago as I got the email a week late (when I returned from holiday) and it seems to be first come, first serve now. Will be interested to read your thoughts on it.

I still have to write a review and didn't know what to expect of this one but Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore is excellent - I like Duffy's Saz Martin books or at least the 3/5 I've read, and I actually own all her novels (I think there are about 10), but this is the best I've read so far (out of 4).

The first NCT book group meeting (this is #2 coming up) did talk about the book for a while, and on the Moran book I imagine it's easier to go off topic and drift back on topic. I'll be interested in what those of us with daughters make of the chapter on what to call a certain part of our bodies! (I've only got sons).

I'm going to a pub evening tonight, and I'm leaning towards Duffy because I think I can catch up on the conversation I missed re Moran more easily on some other occasion, but I'm a bit disappointed that they're on the same night.

I think from what I've heard about Duffy speaking (see Genny's thread), that discussion might be v. meaty and interesting.

Re yr comments on a man in his mid-50s feeling old -- that could be because the narrator is much younger and imagines he'll be geriatric by his mid-50s, or just mid-life crisis on the part of the man in question. I've known 55-year-olds who have moaned and groaned so much you'd think they were octogenarians. Really, they're just coming to grips with the fact that they won't ever be sports stars.

I've actually heard SD speak several times, and I'm sure she'll be good. Because I have heard her speak, I'd probably be less anxious to hear her speak again, but this book is different from her previous work.

251: book mentioned is Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - it took me a minute to remember that!

It's not because the narrator is younger - the story is told from the 3rd person but from Henry's narrative point of view in both the 1980s and the 1940s.

Hi Luci, you've been busy with the reviews. I love the sound of Girl Reading in particular. And I'm pleased to hear that Theodora is so good - I must get to that one sooner rather than later.

Shame about the clash of book group evenings. And unlike TV programmes, you can't catch up with one on iPlayer.

There was that sort of dilemma a lot during my recent festival (with a large number of venues running events simultaneously, even when I ignored the ones of no interest there were often several left to chose between) but it is possible to order recordings of most of the talks so I didn't feel I had to entirely miss out when there were clashes. However, I never seem to get round to listening to the talks when I do order them...

It's occurred to me that one starts at 6.30 and the other at 8. Usually I walk to Waterloo Bridge and get the bus from there, but if I get the tube and it runs ok I can maybe get to part of the Caitlin Moran discussion a bit late - finishing the book didn't make me want to hear the discussion any less.

I never get to watch anything live at the moment - I'm usually with Conor and sometimes asleep at TV peak time (then I get up later and sometimes watch things if I don't get totally caught up in the radio and forget!)

#228 Good to see another fan of The Goon Squad. It's one I want to read but I have no idea when I'll get to it.

#229 I'd already wishlisted Girl Reading (I thought on your recommendation so perhaps you've mentioned it before?) - glad it was a good Vine choice.

#245 Milicent's Book sounds interesting, perhaps one to get out of the library.

#248 Oh no! I saw the email about the Virago one but decided I had no hope of reading the book before Tuesday and Tuesday evenings aren't great for me anyway.

#254 That sounds like it might be a good solution.

Looks like you have been enjoying your amazon vine books - for the most part! :)

Did you manage to get to the Virago or NCT meeting?

I went to both, and got to the NCT one rather late. It occurred to me that the first one would finish at the time the other started, although the Virago offices are in a slightly out of the way place for me. Stella Duffy is a great speaker, very funny. She's worked as an actor and comedian for years as well, so is used to putting on a bit of a performance.

#258 Yes, she's a very entertaining speaker, isn't she. I'm glad you managed to squeeze in both talks.

New thread here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/123804

A couple of updates for books on this thread - have added my review of Living Dolls and a comment on The Novel in the Viola. I still have quite a few reviews outstanding which belong with this thread.

Very thorough review of Living Dolls - I really must get a copy of that...