Rachbxl 2014

I'm hoping to be able to pay more attention to my Club Read thread in 2014 than I did in 2012 and 2013. Life just got in the way; caring for 3 small stepchildren half the time takes up a lot of energy...and I'm perhaps deluding myself when I say I want to keep my thread going this year, given that I have a baby of my own due in 4 weeks...! I'm going to try, anyway, as I've missed Club Read and LT.

Last year I tried to be strict with myself and read off my TBR pile - but I'm not always that inspired by my TBR pile so that didn't make for a good reading year. My job involves languages and I often try to read in all my working languages, but I'm not bothering this year unless I feel like it. This year it's no plans, no goals...but I can already feel a pull towards Africa. I'm reading NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names on my kindle, and am listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah.

Books read in 2014:

1. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe, kindle)
2. Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell (UK, kindle)
3. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Nigeria, kindle)
4. Une si longue lettre by Mariama Ba (Senegal, in French)
5. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (Sudan)
6. Les rochers de Poudre d'Or by Natacha Appanah (Mauritius, in French)
7. The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu (Zimbabwe)
8. The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (UK)
9. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria, audiobook)
10. Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Sudan)
11. Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4
12. An Unfinished Business by Boualem Sansal (Algeria, translation)
13. Still Here by Linda Grant (UK)
14. The China Factory by Mary Costello (Ireland, short stories)
15. El otro barrio by Elvira Lindo (Spain, in Spanish)
16. Madame Verona Comes down the Hill (Belgium, translation)
17. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (USA)
18. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (USA)
19. THe SUmmer Book by Tove Jansson (Finland, translation)
20. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Malaysia)
21. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (USA)

*stars thread*

A baby on the way?? Very exciting!

I'm jealous of your current reading. They're both books I want but can't really justify buying until I get a few more off my TBR list!

Oh, if they were paper books I'd have passed them on to you, Char!

Thanks for the thought!

Congratulations! Very exciting. I have We Need New Names on my Kindle, but haven't read it. I look forward to your review.

Congratulations on the baby, and welcome back!

Congratulations on the baby's. Do you know if the baby is a boy or girl?

Congrats Rachel - glad to have you back!

Glad to see you in here again, Rach. Are you sure you will have time to read?

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Probably good you don't have hugely ambitious reading goals this year.

Congratulations! I had my second baby last year and found that I had more time for reading than I thought. So much depends on what kind of sleeper you get! My kindle helped a ton since its much easier to read while nursing or rocking the baby than a paper book.

Great to see you back!

And Yet More Congratulations from me!!! How exciting, Rachel :)

Welcome back, Rachel! And congratulations on the new baby!

Thanks everyone! It's a little girl.

I have to say I'm NOT convinced I'll have much time for reading - but I take heart from what japaul says and I'm holding out for a good sleeper! (Good point about the kindle, too). Anyway, I effectively finished work today and I'm planning to read and read and read before the baby comes. If only the Polish workmen would finish the work on the house and give me some peace and quiet!

Congrats for the little girl and good luck this year - I have a suspicion that we won't be seeing much of you but who knows.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

I've been quite disconnected from all things literary for the last few months, so the fact that this was shortlisted for the Booker had passed me by. I was fiddling with my kindle the other day and got to going through the recommendations; I downloaded a sample and bought the book as soon as I'd finished it (I was explaining on Rebecca's thread that I tend to use free kindle samples to see if I want to read a book or not; if it looks like something I'm really going to enjoy I buy a 'real' book rather than an e-book, otherwise I get it on my kindle. I got it wrong with this one - should have got the real thing!)

10-year old Darling and her friends live in the ironically-named shanty-town of Paradise (they once knew better though; they used to live in nice houses with kitchens, bathrooms and toilets, electricity, TV - like the houses in Budapest, the rich suburb where they go to steal guavas - until their families were evicted in government re-settlement schemes). Grinding poverty is the backdrop to their daily lives, and AIDS casts a permanent shadow; the children escape through the imaginative games they play and through their dreams of a better life in another country (Darling talks of the life she will have when she goes to join Aunt Forstalina in 'Destroyed' (Detroit)).

Exactly halfway through, the scene changes; Darling has indeed been sent to live with her Aunt in the USA. It's not just the scene though; the whole tone changes. The first half of the novel is vibrant, full of life, albeit a life that is often hard and unfair, but the second half is flat, colourless - and I'm not criticising Bulawayo's writing here; the contrast is extremely effective. The USA, of course, is not quite what Darling expected, and she longs to go home, 'just to visit' but she can't as her US visitor's visa has expired so she won't be allowed back in. She doesn't fit in in the US (despite her success at cultivating a local accent)...but the increasingly infrequent phone calls home show her that she no longer belongs there, either.

I'd love to give this book to all those people (including some well-educated friends of mine who should know better) who go on about 'immigrants coming to steal our jobs, live off our state', people who have no idea that immigration is rarely, if ever, the easy option.

Bulawayo is Zimbabwean, and that's obviously where the novel is set (the government evictions), although she never names the country; she refers to it as 'our country', 'this country', etc, which means that in fact this story could be the story of someone from any number of African countries.

Another way Bulawayo successfully extends the scope beyond Darling and her immediate experience is by including two chapters, one in the middle and one towards the end, which serve as transitions, and which aren't narrated by Darling. The first swiftly details 'How they left':

'Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps.'

The second tells 'How they lived', how 'they' dealt with misunderstandings and misapprehensions about 'Africa' in the US.

And finally, another device which universalizes the narrative - the repetition of 'when things fell apart' CAN'T be coincidence, surely? It's always in reference to the government seizing lawfully-held property, and there are so many possible ways of saying it - when things went wrong, when things changed, even when OUR LIVES fell apart...but it's always 'when things fell apart'. I take this reference to one of THE great modern African novels as a way of saying that this is not just a story about Zimbabwe.

(Can someone remind me how to do italics, please?)

Hi Rachel. Love your insightful comments on We Need New Names. Thank you. I'm teetering between wanting to read it, and not. I have met NoViolet Bulawayo a couple of times, and am always taken by her unassuming, intelligent manner.

I've been struggling to load pics - everyone else seems to be doing it with such ease!

ETA: Rachel, am going to PM you in the hopes that I can get the message about italicising across there :)

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell

I've read most of Maggie O'Farrell's novels and I've enjoyed them all, without ever being bowled over. They're not junk food, full of sugar, good-tasting at the time but then leaving you feeling like you shouldn't have bothered; there's more too them than that, and I really like her writing style, but they don't leave much of a mark. I know that I've enjoyed those I've read, but don't ask me to tell you what they're about.

I think Instructions for a Heatwave is in a different league, and I wonder if O'Farrell has come into her own with it. Set in London during the 1976 heatwave (my earliest memories are related to that heatwave), it's the story of an Irish family which threatens to implode when Robert, the father, an ordinary man if ever there was one, goes out for his morning paper, as he does every day...and doesn't come back. The crisis brings their three grown-up children back to the family home, each dealing with problems of their own. Michael Francis's marriage to Claire is at breaking point; Monica is an unhappy stepmother to two girls who 'hate' her; Aoife fled to New York after a row with Monica years earlier, but the precarious new life she has constructed is on the verge of collapsing...

The individual stories within the novel all captured my attention, but what really interested me was the interplay between the characters - how families work, and how what we don't say is often more significant than what we do. The crisis of Robert's disappearance forces family members to say things they've kept secret for years, thereby changing the lie of the land completely.

I look forward to seeing what Maggie O'Farrell publishes next.

Hi Rachel, and many congratulations!

One of my biggest worries about having a baby was that I'd never pick up a book again, but, like Jennifer, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I managed to read in the months afterwards. Admittedly, I had a reasonable sleeper and no other children to look after, but hopefully you'll be cut a bit of slack with the latter if you have a tiny baby to deal with! You may find that the fact that you're having time off from a mentally demanding job means that you'll have an abundance of mental energy to devote to something more pleasurable like reading (this may sound overly optimistic to some, but it was my experience)! You're certainly right not to worry about reading in foreign languages and to stick to reading whatever takes your fancy though.

On which note, both We Need New Names and Instructions for a Heatwave sound well worth a read and I look forward to seeing what you think of Americanah.

Great review of We Need New Names! I've never read any Maggie O'Farrell, maybe I should.

Great reviews of We Need New Names, which you appreciated more than I did, and Instructions for a Heatwave, which I'll add to my wish list.

I got quite a bit read while nursing. Guaranteed reading time!

Excellent reviews of We Need New Names and Instructions for a Heatwave

I'd love to give this book to all those people (including some well-educated friends of mine who should know better) who go on about 'immigrants coming to steal our jobs, live off our state', people who have no idea that immigration is rarely, if ever, the easy option. Good on you rachbxl

Congratulations and good luck over the coming weeks! Keep reading, the books and your reviews sound wonderful.

Thanks for the encouragement!

>22 charbutton: Char, I'm not sure you'd like Maggie O'Farrell, but you never know. Interestingly enough, I came across my review of one of her earlier books yesterday, from a couple of years ago. It basically said, 'I've had enough of O'Farrell's soppy little girls hanging around waiting for men to help them, but I love her writing style - I really want her to change subject and put it to better use!' - and I think that's what she's done with Instructions for a Heatwave.

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin

Baba Segi is a moderately successful businessman, fat, self-satisfied and not very prepossessing - but he thinks he's wonderful. He already has three wives (and several children) when his eye falls on Bolanle. Unlike his other wives, she is both educated and beautiful and could surely do better than be fourth wife to this 'buffoon', as her mother calls him, yet she agrees to join the household. The existing wives resent her arrival and plot against her - and they are right to be afraid, for Bolanle's arrival will trigger the disintegration of family life as they know it, although the fault will lie entirely with the other wives.

I found this book enjoyable to read, in particular because it felt like lifting the roof off a dolls' house and peering in for a while, scrutinising the inhabitants and their behaviour, before replacing the roof and tiptoeing off, leaving them to it. Nothing is quite what it seems, as we learn from the sections narrated by different characters - all the wives, Baba Segi himself, and his driver - and it turns out that all the wives had very particular reasons for marrying Baba Segi. This is not the life any of them would have chosen.

What I liked less was the characterisation. Baba Segi, especially, I found to be a caricature; as I said, Bolanle's mother calls him a 'buffoon', but does he really have to be such an unadulterated one? He's a stupid, fat, middle-aged man who thinks he's got it made with his business, his big house, his four (FOUR!) wives (including a beautiful graduate!) and his scores of children, and he leaps from bed to bed, from wife to wife, proud of his sexual appetite...it's just too much. (Even so, when the truth dawns, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him, but I'd have felt much sorrier for a more rounded, credible character). Equally, two of the wives I found to be similarly two-dimensional - evil schemers with no redeeming features, although their back stories do make their behaviour more understandable.

Enjoyed your review of a book and author I had not heard of, although I'm unlikely to read it.

Thanks, Dan!

Une si longue lettre by Mariama Ba, Senegal
(EN So Long a Letter)

I've been wanting to read this for several years and finally got round to buying it last week. I read it now because I wanted another take on polygamy after Baba Segi. This, I'd say, is more like it.

The novel takes the form of a long letter written by Ramatoulaye to her old friend Aissatou, just after the death of Ramatoulaye's husband Modou, looking back over their respective marriages; both women, having invested heavily in their marriages and both truly loving their husbands, were abandoned in favour of a younger wife. The women took different ways out, Aissatou leaving, Ramatoulaye staying - but staying in name only, as her husband deserted her and her children. Yes, I know this happens in other societies too, in the form of adultery and divorce, but what is chilling here is that it is part of the fabric of society, sanctioned by society.

Mariama Ba (1929-1981) was an outspoken critic of the way certain African traditions deprived women of their rights, and this, her first novel, is an expression of her frustration with the condition of women in Africa. Ba gives Ramatoulaye such an eloquent, powerful voice in her letter...and yet in society she is virtually mute. Her dignity in the face of what society expects her to bear is breath-taking.

A beautifully written, quiet but thought-provoking novel.

My husband just asked me if I had anything to read next...it came as a shock to me to realise that he is unaware of the TBR shelves. I didn't disabuse him. (I replied vaguely that there were 'two or three' things I could have a look at next...)

>31 rachbxl: Sounds like a great opportunity to drag him to a bookstore :)

So Long a Letter sounds fascinating.

#31 - funny. (Good thinking, Annie)

Nice review of So Long a Letter, Rachel; it does sound interesting, so I'll be on the lookout for it.

Interesting sounding books here, especially We Need New Names. Definitely agreeing with you and bas about giving the book to all those people... who go on about 'immigrants coming to steal our jobs, live off our state', people who have no idea that immigration is rarely, if ever, the easy option

Really funny about the TBR shelves, but I like Annie's suggestion.

>27 rachbxl:, you're right, soppy little girls waiting for men to help them isn't really my kind of thing!

Dan, Darryl, So Long a Letter is a very quick read - but worth it.

Annie, Sassy, Dan - if there were any bookshops round here worth visiting that might be an option (any excuse), but the French-speaking part of Belgium (even Brussels) is woefully badly served, something I've never really understood. There's a fairly big FNAC in Brussels...but I hate having to fight my way through the masses of people listening to CDs, trying out Wii games, fiddling with camera equipment, etc. Then there's another bookshop I used to like, but the cafe has become more important than the books. Fortunately there's a good second-hand bookshop just near work - but obviously it's pot luck what they have in stock. Anyway, my husband tends to read history magazines rather than books - but he has a huge collection of old, unread ones, so I'm surprised he hasn't worked out what my TBR shelf is! (I use the word 'shelf' in the loosest possible sense, ie big bookcase ;-) )

Back to business - I've finished Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, but am going to have to mull over it for a while. Only a short novel, but a lot to think about. What I can say now is that it was excellent.

Ick, I don't like FNAC at all, I've never bought anything from them. ...I was going to say I much prefer De Slegte (er, Polare, still not used to that stupid change) even though it's mostly used, but then I remembered they're Dutch, and as such have shops only in Flanders. Hrm. What about Standaard Boekhandel? Are they in Brussels? I know the store comes from Standaard Uitgeverij but they have a huge selection, including English & French... I think they're the only proper new bookstore chain I know of. Then there's two local shops of new, that I'm familiar with, and a few second-hand.

Hi Rachel, is the second-hand bookshop you're talking about on rue Froissart? I visited a friend who works for the Council last year and we ended up spending about an hour in there - it was much more exciting on the inside than it appeared from the outside!

We also went to Filigranes - is that the shop you used to like?

ETA: After reading Lisa's review, I'm looking forward to seeing what you say about Season of Migration to the North, especially since you seem to have liked it so much.

Monkey (am I right in thinking you're in Antwerp?), there is a Standaard Boekhandel, but it's not very exciting and not worth the trip into central Brussels, something I try to avoid (I work in the EU area and live out in Wallonia). There's also a reasonable Waterstones but it's expensive - I buy my English books online or when I'm back in the UK, or in the wonderful second hand shop...

...which, Rebecca, is indeed the one on Rue Froissart. A small 2nd hand bookshop opened there a few years ago (just the front part), a branch of one of the big ones in the centre, and it changed hands recently. The new owners extended, and extended - I couldn't believe it when I first went in after the renovations...and like you say, from the outside it looks like nothing.

And yes, I was talking about Filigranes. I actually think it's a great bookshop - but most of the time I can only go at lunchtime and should you want books rather than food or coffee, forget it (unfortunately the sections I want to look at are the ones around the cafe area). And don't even think about going on Saturday or Sunday morning (no matter how excited you may be that something is open in Brussels on a Sunday), as it's a really popular brunch spot and again you end up being squeezed out if you're trying to browse.

In the EU area there's also a fabulous Spanish bookshop (great selection, and prices close to what you'd pay in Spain) and a very good Italian one. It's just the native French bookshops that are missing, both in Brussels and where we live. Our local hypermarket carries quite a big selection, but I don't want to buy my books with my groceries! How can you browse with your ankles being rammed by trollies, and to the sound of adverts for the day's special offers in the meat aisle?

Les rochers de Poudre d'Or by Natacha Appanah
Not translated into EN.

Now this is interesting. From an Africa point of view, yes, but more from a writing point of view. I've said on a few threads recently that Appanah's earlier work is disappointing compared to The Last Brother, based largely on La noce d'Anna, which I still haven't managed to finish despite its brevity. Les rochers de Poudre d'Or is far, very far, from The Last Brother calibre, but it's possible to see how this, her first novel, led on to The Last Brother, and it's interesting to see Appanah's development as a writer.

Like The Last Brother, Poudre d'Or deals with a period in Mauritian history I knew nothing of - this time the replacement of black slaves in the sugar cane fields with indentured Indian labourers at the end of the 19th century. The first third of the book is set in India, and introduces us to various characters who, for one reason or another, decide to accept an offer from a 'recruiter' promising them endless riches and and easy life in the fields of Mauritius; little do they know (because in most cases they can't read the contract) that in fact they have signed away their freedom.

These characters all end up on the same ship bound for Mauritius...but the second third of the novel, on board ship, is related via the diaries of the ship's doctor, Dr Grant, with the characters we've been introduced to named just in passing. So although I thought we'd get to know these characters, they fade into the background, only to be replaced by the doctor, who in turn disappears rather abruptly. The final part is set in Mauritius, and although the original characters are present, we don't get to know them any better, in part because Appanah also, inexplicably, introduces a couple more Indian characters on whom she focuses.

The story is a good one, but it falls down in the telling; I wanted to be shown the story through the eyes and experiences of the original set of characters, whereas in fact I was told the story by Appanah.

Interesting to note (especially in the light of my struggles to read La noce d'Anna, set entirely in France), is that as soon as the story moves to Mauritius, Appanah's writing starts to sing; it really comes alive, and Mauritius as a backdrop is far more real than India or the ship (or France in her later novel).

This was Appanah's first novel, and is based on her family history - her ancestors arrived in Mauritius as indentured labourers from India.

Great reviews of interesting books (at least interesting to me), Rach. I still have not read So Long a Letter but it's on my Africa TBR shelf (er, box, at the moment).

>40 rachbxl: Yup, I am. :) Sad that the Standaard isn't too good, I think it varies; we have a few here and one of them is a 2-floor really large one with a pretty nice selection of many things, while the others are small and have more of a focus (like one of them is devoted to travel-related works, and is connected with the Neckermann).

You know what, have you ever gone to the Boekenfestijn? They travel around Flanders and some of NL, it's a massive "expo" of what I assume are overstock books, new with great reduced prices, all kinds of books, the larger portion Dutch of course but even still there is a ton of English and also a decent bit of French. *checks bookmark* Oh, hey, they even visit Brussels, have you gone? It says 2013 they were at Brussels Expo 3-6 Oct... I don't know if/when they'll be there this year (the dates are from Jun 2013-Jul 2014), but I really recommend it, we tend to come away with like 40+ books and our avg is around €3/book (with some more and some less). You can probably find out on http://boekenfestijn.com about potential locations for you to visit it. :D

Very interesting about the Appanah; it's always intriguing to see authors develop. (I loved The Last Brother and would definitely read other work by her.)

I'm so glad I found your thread, Rachel. What wonderful reviews of interesting books! Do you post your reviews on the book page? I wanted to give you lots of thumbs. I'm glad you liked Seasons of Migration, or at least I think you did? Looking forward to your thoughts.

Congratulations on your impending little one! You'll have to pop on and just let us know that all is well. Photos can wait. ;-) If you can't squeeze in any reading, maybe an audiobook occasionally? I only have one daughter, so I had lots of time to read while nursing, etc, but was often too tired to read anything too challenging. My daughter didn't sleep more than 2 hrs a night for 7 months. Poor little mite was lactose intolerant and we didn't know. Fortunately she outgrew it at around age 6. How many stepchildren do you have? Good luck, we'll be thinking of you!

>43 .Monkey.: Monkey I've heard of Boekenfestijn but have never been (always assumed it was too Dutch for me), so it's good to know it's worth a visit. There's also the annual 'Foire du livre', a huge book fair in Brussels, coming up in late February (no way I'll get there this year!) But that doesn't change my original point - there's no shortage of book fairs, or even book-buying opportunities (I was marvelling yet again yesterday at how even our tiny local supermarket, more of a convenience store really, has an ever-changing rack of bestsellers)...but there's a dearth of bookshops in this part of the world (I'm talking about Wallonia and Brussels, not Flanders), places to go for a good browse in my lunch hour, or on a Saturday morning. (There is actually a whole book village in Wallonia, Redu, along the lines of Hay-on-Wye in the UK, with 17 book shops...it's fantastic, but as it's down near Luxembourg it's not exactly handy for popping to on a whim).

>44 rebeccanyc: Rebecca I'm now going to try to finish the Appanah I've been struggling with (I've only got about 50 pages left so it seems daft not to); I think I might have more patience with it now that I've read this one. I'm also going going to get hold of her other novel Blue Bay Palace (in French and not translated, despite the title), which is set in Mauritius; I'll report back.

>45 labfs39: Thanks Lisa! I don't usually post my reviews on the book page, but I should really, as I like seeing what others say, so I should reciprocate! I very much enjoyed Season of Migration to the North; I'll try to get some thoughts down about it today. It wasn't at all what I was expecting.

I'm with you on the audiobooks - that's what I'm hoping, anyway. Despite having listened to a couple that I've enjoyed, I've never really got into them, but I think that's because of my job (I'm a conference interpreter and am used to drifting off regularly for sanity's sake when I'm not actually working, and I do the same thing involuntarily with audiobooks, radio, TV...). Anyway, I'm hoping that not being at work for a few months will make it easier for me to listen. In fact I've been listening to Americanah for a few days, whilst cooking (getting the freezer stocked!), and I find it really relaxing (and am managing to keep with it!)

I'm pretending I didn't see the part about your daughter not sleeping for more than 2 hours a night until 7 months - how on earth did you manage? How old is she now? I have 3 stepchildren (9, 5, 3), all very excited about their soon-to-arrive little sister!

Yeah, I get that, I was just offering some book buying opportunities that don't involve taking vacations to other countries! :)

Ooh, Redu sounds awesome, but what kind of language variety do the shops tend to have? I'd probably check it out even if all in French just because, how cool! Haha.
Ooh nevermind, the shops were kind enough to put little flags in their descriptions, I'm going out on a limb and guess those are designations of their stock :)

The Hairdresser of Harare by Tendai Huchu

This came up as a recommendation on my Kindle, so I downloaded a sample (encouraged by the fact that it was one of the Observer's top 10 African novels in 2012 - was it a bad year?), from which I couldn't make out whether the book was going to be irritatingly vacuous and frothy, or a fascinating look at life in modern Zimbabwe. Having read the book, I still can't make out what the author's intent was; it's certainly vacuous and frothy, but there's a lot of detail about Zimbabwe in there which could have been fascinating if handled a little differently.

The female 20-something narrator is the top hairdresser in Harare, but is knocked off her perch by the arrival of a young, male rival to the salon where she works. The initial frost between them thaws, to such an extent that Dumi introduces her to his family as his girlfriend. The narrator, a 'township girl', is welcomed into the wealthy family with open arms...but Dumi has a devastating secret. It didn't take me long at all to work out his secret, which for cultural reasons is (I assume) less of a big deal for me than for the narrator - but this is the kind of thing that needed explaining, instead of just being left hanging there. I don't know who the author had in mind when he wrote this. He lives in Scotland, so an international audience, perhaps? Yet there are lots of cultural details which need clarification for a non-Zimbabwean audience.

My other gripe is the utter lack of character development, or indeed of character full stop. The characters lurch around like Thunderbird puppets, moved not by their own free will but by the author manipulating them. The reader gets no indication of why they behave as they do.

A frustrating novel, all in all. At times it was fascinating to see daily life going on against a backdrop of fuel shortages, raids by war veterans, farm seizures, currency devaluation ('no, we can't tell you what that will cost next week, because any price we give you today will be meaningless by then'), bribery...but what a shame about the cardboard characters.

Monkey mainly, if not exclusively, French, I think (haven't been for a while). The place has a nice feel to it, and it's in a lovely part of the country too, so a good day out.

Yeah it definitely sounds worth a trip. We haven't been in that part of the country at all anyhow, so it's a good excuse to go! Maybe during Hubs' spring break we can take a little adventure down south, stopping in a few cities for a night each, working our way down there. :)

#40 - My hosts mentioned that Filigranes got very busy on Sundays. I'm afraid I dragged us there on a Saturday and it was quite hard to browse, although I was determined to come away with some books! The children's section was much quieter though. (I saw you mention elsewhere - I can't remember where - reading to your stepchildren in French and not being a "tiger stepmother". Well, I'm merely aiming for the title "pretentious mum" in reading to my son in French occasionally ;) Still, since he's growing up in the UK, land of the monoglots, I reckon he needs to be encouraged to take an interest in other languages from an early age. That's my excuse anyway!)

I would encourage you to post your reviews. You write beautifully and your reviews are always interesting, like your latest, The Hairdresser of Harare. I'm sorry it wasn't a better read.

land of the monoglots Oh you are American? ;-) Ha, ha.

Oh, my DD was lactose intolerant, but diagnosed as colicky. I should have trusted my gut (and hers). You're going to be fine. Do you have family near by? We didn't/don't and there are times when I wish we did (although most of the time 3000 miles is a good buffer zone!)

#53 - I did think, as I wrote it, that that description could apply to other English-speaking countries :-) I guess we're both blessed and cursed...

Monkey lots of great restaurants down that way as well...

Rebecca for that reason I always come away from Filigranes with children's books, graphic novels and travel guides, because they're all in that lovely roomy space round the corner! As for reading to your son in French, I'd do the same in your shoes. I just haven't pushed the English with my stepchildren (despite mutterings about wasted opportunities from the in-laws) because I know from experience that acquiring a step-parent can be quite an upheaval...and if said step-parent insists on speaking to you in a language you don't understand on top of that...! They're inevitably exposed to a lot of English, though! and the little one in particular understands a lot as she just soaks it up, and she imitates my pronunciation perfectly. She was making me laugh the other day by stomping around the kitchen repeating bits of the audiobook I was listening to while I cooked dinner, Nigerian accent and all!

Thanks Lisa! My family are all in the UK and France (we're in Belgium), which is a shame as they'd give lots of help and support. We live in the area where my husband has always lived, and we're surrounded by his family...but unfortunately we won't be able to count on them for anything at all as they're just not interested in helping out. We'll manage - we already do!

I've got a filthy cold at the moment and am not feeling up to much - a good excuse to spend a large chunk of yesterday lying on the sofa listening to Americanah. I usually only listen to audiobooks when I'm busy doing something else - cooking, cleaning, gardening, driving, on the train, etc - and it was actually a real treat just to lie there and be told a story.

And, in a deviation from Africa, I also finished...

The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris

Nineteen-year old Chani is about to be married, although as a member of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in NW London she has never so much as touched a boy before. The novel opens and ends with scenes from her wedding, whilst in between we learn about her and Baruch's 'courtship' (complicated negotiations involving a matchmaker and both families, because an Orthodox Jewish boy cannot just approach the girl he likes; in fact he's not even supposed to know who he likes as he's not supposed to look at girls). This is intertwined with the story of Rivka, the rabbi's wife, and Chani's mentor in the run-up to her marriage - Rivka, who hasn't always been the dutiful rabbi's wife with her wig and her long, modest clothes, her rejection of TV, the internet, her complete submission to the strict rules of her community, but who was once the joyful, exuberant Rebecca, back in the 1980s in Jerusalem when Judaism meant something different to her...

I enjoyed reading this, but it was never compelling. I learned a lot about London's Orthodox Jews, and that was fascinating - I made heavy use of the glossary at the back of the book (once I realized it was there!) However, I found the characters a bit flat and wooden, even Chani, who is meant to be exceptionally spirited (I did wonder, too, how this community could produce a wilful young woman who knew what she wanted and was happy to stand up for herself...whist being so ignorant in most things because of her Orthodox upbringing).

Put your feet up and enjoy that book. You might not have time to do much of that in a few weeks. Feel better.

Thanks Colleen! That's exactly what I'm off to do now...

#55 - Ooh, graphic novels. Now there's an idea for next time!

It sounds like you're taking a very sensible approach with your stepchildren, although I am chuckling at the thought of the wonderful literary English the youngest one will be spouting (in a variety of accents!).

#56 - When I was looking at the Booker longlist last year, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman seemed like it might be one of the more interesting titles (interesting to me, that is), although it hasn't received unreserved praise. It sounds like it's still worth a read though... (Actually, this review in The Guardian makes me want to read The Innocents first and foremost, given my enjoyment of The Age of Innocence.)

ETA: Hope you're having a good rest!

Thanks for the honest review of The Marrying of Chani Kaufman. It's a title that I would probably have picked up based on the premise, but I think I'll pass. Have you read I am Forbidden? It has similar themes (Hasidic family, one sister who rebels) and was quite well done, although I wish it had filled in more about one character. The author was raised in a French Satmar family, but left.

My DD came three weeks early, so I actually worked the day I went in to labor. I regret that I hadn't planned to take off more time so that I could have gone into motherhood well-rested and well-read. Doesn't your bump make a good book rest?

#60 - I'm in awe of all the pre-baby reading going on. It sounds like Rachel has her priorities right :)

My heart goes out to you. Nobody should have deal with pregnant and sick at the same time! Feel better!

a good excuse to spend a large chunk of yesterday lying on the sofa
Being pregnant is all the "excuse" you need! :)

>59 Rebeki: Rebecca they have a great selection of graphic novels, and the atmosphere is so conducive to browsing round that side that I can't help myself. I seem to remember you read Le visiteur du sud after I commented on it - that's where I found it.

As for pre-baby reading, I hadn't read this much in ages and I realize how much I'd been missing it. And you've just given me another push towards The Age of Innocence, followed by The Innocents...

>60 labfs39: Lisa I haven't read (or even heard of!) I am Forbidden, but it gets a brief mention in the review Rebecca linked to her post (59). I'll look out for it because it's a world that interests me.

I'm so glad I've had this time off just to myself. In fact I only start my maternity leave proper this Monday coming - so far I've been using up annual leave left over from last year. Originally I was going to keep it so as to spend as much time as possible with the baby, but this was definitely the right decision. (You're so right about the bump as book-stand!)

>62 avidmom: Thanks for the sympathy, avidmom! I'm taking your advice - I really don't need any other excuse, do I?

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
audiobook, read by Adjoah Andoh

Ouch, my poor head. It's a bit sore, as I've spent the weeks I've been listening to this audiobook being beaten around the head about Race. I know race is an Issue, and I know it's one, as a white European, I'll never fully understand, but I'm not sure that this heavy-handed approach is the way to go; for me it marred an otherwise lovely book.

What I really enjoyed here was the personal story of the two main characters, Ifemelu and Obinze, who meet and fall in love at university in their native Nigeria. They seem set for a life together...but both are bright and eager to succeed, which inevitably means leaving Nigeria, and Ifemelu gets the chance first, going to join her aunt in the USA, leaving Obinze behind. Life in the USA - at least, the life to which she, a black African immigrant, is condemned - is a shock to Ifemelu. She doesn't lose her spirit, but she comes close, and I found the account of her struggles poignant and very credible. Obinze, meanwhile, finds his way to the UK, where, if anything, he fares worse than Ifemelu. Again, I was touched to read about the lengths this intelligent, sensitive young man (later to become a big businessman in his own country) has to go to to survive, and to do so without losing his dignity. The two stories are in themselves, in my opinion, an excellent illustration of the harshness of emigration/immigration, particularly when your skin isn't the 'right' colour. I got the message, and I'd have been more than happy with that, accompanied by Ifemelu's observations that she'd never felt black until she arrived in the States, and that she stopped being 'black' the moment she returned to Nigeria.

But Adichie doesn't leave it at that. She has Ifemelu become a 'race blogger' in the USA, a 'non-American black' writing about race issues - and not only that; many of her blog posts are included word-for-word in the text, which I found made things quite heavy going. I get it! Now get on with the story! The novel is also littered with characters, both in the US and the UK, friends of friends of Ifemelu or Obinze, who appear once or twice only (at a dinner party, for example), apparently only to illustrate how little most people understand the issue of race. Like the blog posts, I thought these scenes held the narrative up, and they frustrated me. I felt at times like I was being held hostage, with Adichie refusing to give me what I wanted (the story) until she'd finished with her other agenda.

I'm not sure if I'd have finished this book if I'd read it, but as it was an audiobook I just let it run on, and I'm really glad I did, because on balance I really did enjoy it. I think it's always a sign of a good book when I can't imagine plunging into anything else because I don't want to leave the characters behind.

Thank you to pointing out the mention in the Guardian article. I hadn't read the review.

I have not heard great things about Americanah and I think I'm going to pass.

Hope you are feeling better.

Perhaps it would have been better reading Americanah than listening to it on audio? When reading it might be easier to screen out the bits you don't like.

>65 labfs39: Feeling much better, thanks! Had a lovely lazy morning in bed reading Lyrics Alley. I've been reading about your meet-up this weekend - sounds great!

>66 baswood: Not sure, Bas. You're right in that I could have skimmed over bits - but I really think I'd have given up on it had I been reading it.

Lazy morning in bed... sounds like just what the doctor would order. Enjoy!

#63 - Of course, yes. I'll definitely take a look when I next manage a visit.

Time to yourself beforehand is very important, I think. I used to feel guilty when I heard other pregnant women saying that they wanted to save up their leave to have as much time as possible with the baby afterwards. Maybe it's not socially acceptable to attach importance to time alone or maybe they genuinely didn't feel the need for it, but I still appreciate the six weeks I had beforehand, much of which was spent reading War and Peace! It makes no sense at all, but I felt I simply wouldn't be ready for motherhood if I hadn't read War and Peace...

#64 - That's a really interesting and helpful review of Americanah. I think a lighter touch is far more effective when trying to deliver a message in a novel. I may still end up reading this book one day, but I'll bear your reservations in mind and adjust my expectations accordingly.

but I felt I simply wouldn't be ready for motherhood if I hadn't read War and Peace...

And that makes perfect sense to me. :-)

>69 Rebeki: and here is a book with exactly that lighter touch:

Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela

It took me a little while to get into this, but once in I was hooked. There's a lot packed into this not-particularly-lengthy (just over 300 pages) novel, and I like the way Aboulela brings it all together. In a nutshell, it's the story of one family living just outside Khartoum, over a couple of years in the early 1950s, with the tumultuous political events of that period (the fall of the British Empire, the struggle for self-determination, Sudan's relationship with Egypt) as a backdrop (my interest was piqued enough to have me go off and do some googling). Add to that a polygamous marriage, female circumcision, one female character's battle to be allowed to wear reading glasses (why would a woman need to read?) and other considerations linked to the role of women in this society...but all skillfully handled in a gentle way which made me think about the issues at stake, question them.

Perhaps inevitably, given the African theme of my reading these last few weeks, polygamy has cropped up in several of the books I've read, and I'm finding it interesting to see different representations of it. The institution of monogamous marriage can vary enormously, depending on those involved and the society and times they live in, and their individual wishes...so why wouldn't the same hold for polygamous relationships? Sure enough, in my recent reading it's only The Secret Lives of Baba Segi which conforms to the stereotypical idea of the wives all living, cooking, eating, raising their children together in a kind of compound, the husband spending time with each on a rotating basis. Une si longue lettre and Lyrics Alley show, I think, a much more complex reality which is often extremely difficult for women. In the former, the narrator is effectively cast aside without warning when her husband decides to marry a younger woman; he doesn't divorce the narrator, but he may as well, as he abruptly abandons her and she doesn't really see him after that (his brother, his best friend and the local imam come round on the evening of his wedding to tell her that her husband won't be back). In Lyrics Alley Mahmoud's two wives, one older, traditional, representing the old Sudan and everything from the past, one younger, glamorous, Egyptian, representing modernity and change, do live in the same compound, but they live separate lives in their own self-contained quarters, and barely tolerate each other's existence. Mahmoud no longer has a marital relationship with Waheeba, the first wife, but won't divorce her because she is the mother of his sons; Waheeba knows she can't have Mahmoud, but doesn't want Nabilah to have him either.

Interesting discussion of polygamy. I wonder if it is still as prevalent as it used to be?

I imagine it is in the places the western world/christianity hasn't encroached too much. Most African tribes seemed to follow the practice, to some extent at least. So those who haven't been swept up by what other countries deem appropriate presumably haven't changed much.

>72 labfs39:, My understanding is that - at least in the Arab, Muslim Middle East - polygamy was never quite as prominent as it was supposed (generally by white, European Orientalists) to have been. Certainly it happened and was both religiously and socially acceptable, but there were always economic and other social constraints on the practice. Having multiple wives required a certain level of wealth - men could try to shirk this responsibility but failing to provide for the upkeep of one's wives and children probably was not easy to hide and probably would damage one's social standing.

Enjoyed catching up on your reviews and I also hope you'll start to post them on the books' pages. I thought Adichie was heavy-handed even in her debut (though I really liked it) and became Message-y with Half of a Yellow Sun, and I haven't read further.

>he is unaware of the TBR shelves
>I use the word 'shelf' in the loosest possible sense, ie big bookcase ;-)
I laughed out loud. This feels like my house; at least I hope my husband is unaware, although the bookcase is right next to his closet.

>72 labfs39:-74 I'm no expert, but I tend to think Kris is right. I was interested to see in the novels I read last month that in quite disparate countries and societies, even where polygamy is legal, it isn't necessarily what the characters (the women, anyway) want; in other words, it's not a given that there will be a polygamous relationship, i.e. it doesn't have to be that way. Incidentally, I believe that So Long a Letter (Senegal) was loosely based on Mariama Ba's own experience, and that after her husband of many years took a younger wife Ba became an active campaigner against polygamy.

>75 detailmuse: Thanks for the visit, MJ. Interesting that you picked up on that with Adichie right from the start.
As for our respective husbands, I'm glad it's not just mine!

Bowing to pressure, I'm off to put some reviews on the book pages now...

Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists

Not sure what to read after Lyrics Alley, I picked this up intending to dip into it sporadically over a couple of weeks...but it was so good that I zipped straight through it. As ever with Granta, this was a great mixture of pieces by writers I knew and by writers whose work I now want to get to know, even when at first glance they're 'not my type' (that's why I like Granta - I might not have picked up a novel, but I'm happy enough to read an excerpt...and to discover that I might just want to read the novel after all). I've added to my wishlist works by Ned Beauman and Adam Thirlwell (definitely in the 'not my type' category, these two), Tahmima Anam, Naomi Alderman, Nadifa Mohamed, David Szalay, Evie Wyld, Joanna Kavenna, Sarah Hall, Helen Oyeyemi and Sunjeev Sahota, all new to me.

I might add that the 'British' part of 'Young British Novelists' is quite generous and seems to apply to anyone who's ever been to Britain! Who cares, when the writing's this good? But where's all the home-grown talent? Or are the need and the ability to write fostered by living between different cultures? Incidentally, the few pieces that didn't pique my curiosity were all by 'real' British writers.

Rachel, I posted this on someone's thread in the 75 Group, but wondered if you had seen these board books. The illustrations are beautiful, and the books are perfect for a book lover's baby. They are called Baby Lit by Jennifer Adams.

Jane Eyre
Anna Karenina
Pride & Prejudice

There are several more.

>78 NanaCC: I hadn't seen those - just had a quick look on Amazon though, and they've gone straight on my wishlist. They look fabulous. Thanks!

I love the BabyLit books! I buy them for all my friends.

An Unfinished Business by Boualem Sansal
translated from the French by Frank Wynne
published in the US as The German Mujahid

Unusual for me to read a translation of something I could read in the original; I think I came across this on the swap shelf at work and thought it looked vaguely interesting but maybe not worth seeking out the original. Well. I was right about it being interesting, but it would most definitely have been worth getting hold of the original, and I'll be looking for Sansal's other books (banned in Algeria, incidentally) in French (I think this is the only one to have been translated anyway). It's given me a lot of food for thought, and I'm in danger of going away and thinking about it for so long that I no longer know what I want to write about it (as happened with Season of Migration to the North), so I'm just going to jump in and get a few thoughts down.

Brothers Rachel (very hard to get used to reading about a male Rachel!) and Malrich were born in a remote Algerian village to a German father and an Algerian mother (gosh, don't people end up in some strange places? how does a German come to be in an Algerian bled? You might well ask...) before being sent to France, one after the other, to live with family friends and go to school in one of the infamous Parisian high-rise banlieus. Rachel rises above the tower blocks, gets a good education and ends up with an excellent job and a house in a nice area, happily married, whilst the younger Malrich, tough and streetwise, has embraced gangster culture and flirted with the Islamist ideology increasingly prevalent on the estate.

The novel opens with news of Rachel's suicide, which Malrich is at a loss to understand, since as far as he can see his brother had it all...until the local police commissioner passes on Rachel's diaries, from which we learn that Rachel's descent into madness was triggered by a raid by Islamist fundamentalists on their home village a couple of years earlier, in which many villagers, including their parents, were murdered. We learn about Rachel's visit to the village (a risky undertaking), and his discovery of a box of their father's belongings, including items which clearly suggest their father had been a Nazi (their father had never discussed his past with them). Piecing together their father's role in the Holocaust becomes an obsession for Rachel, costing him his job, his marriage, his sanity, and ultimately his life.

Rachel is unable to shake off the idea that he, the son, is responsible for the sins of his father, which to Malrich is nonsense at first. Malrich, however, comes to feel that he has to complete his brother's unfinished business (hence the UK title, also the title of a Primo Levi poem included in the opening pages), and embarks on his own journey, both physically and metaphorically.

I think we've all read novels where there are too many threads, where you end up thinking, 'why couldn't you just concentrate on the essentials? why do you have to prove to me that you know about all these other things too?'; this novel's not like that. There is an astonishing amount crammed into under 250 pages (the Holocaust, Nazi war criminals, the civil war in Algeria, Islamic fundamentalism, the Parisian banlieus and their problems, racism, the integration of immigrants in France, etc etc), but it's all very necessary and it all works. And not only that - it all makes for a really compelling novel. Not comfortable to read, but one I couldn't stop reading.

A great review of what sounds like a brilliant book!

I loved this book too! So much to think about. My French reading skills being deplorable, I'm stuck waiting for more of his work to be translated.

78 and 79 - There's another series of board books called Cozy Classics from Jack and Holman Wang. They use needle-felted figures, showing a scene or something per page with a single word (and sometimes pairs using opposite words, I think) sort of describing it. They're pretty cute, though I find the concept a bit silly (that kind of thing being aimed at adults rather than children which always jars me).

Unfinished Business sure went on my list! Sounds VERY interesting.

I also apprecited your earlier comments about immigration not being the easy option. And of course the discussion about polygamy is interesting. My marriage and family texts and anthro texts say that the practice of polygamy is related to economics. That is when there has been a lot of death due to war, famine, whatever, you find the practice of polygyny needed to increase the population whereas if there is overpopulation you will find polyandry which of course decreases the population. Not that people are necessarily THINKING or AWARE of this as a cause, but that pattern is usually found. Of course anthro says that religion forms around whatever is needed for survival also, so the practice of polygamy would then become part of their religion to enforce it. I find the topic of mating fascinating especially from a cultural or anthropological perspective.

Excellent review of An Unfinished Business and I see that a few other club read members have really liked this book.

Catching up a bit. Enjoyed your review of Unfinished Business. And I liked how just getting your thoughts down evolved into such a nice review.

Thanks for calling in, everyone. I haven't responded sooner as I've been lying low (but not giving birth, sadly).

>83 labfs39: Lisa - yes, I saw your excellent review on the book page (and duly thumbed it!)

>84 mabith: thanks Meredith; I hadn't heard of that series either. I had a look - VERY cute, as you say, but I see what you mean about appealing to the adult rather than the child. What a labour of love, though!

>85 mkboylan: Merrikay, that's fascinating. I hadn't thought about (or come across anything about) polygamy in those terms before - thanks. And the idea that religion forms around whatever is needed for survival - yes, makes perfect sense, but that's new to me.

>87 dchaikin: thanks Dan! Sometimes those end up being the best 'reviews', I find - better not to think too hard sometimes.

Still Here by Linda Grant

Picked this off the TBR shelves because I really didn't know where to go after Unfinished Business/The German Mujahid; all I knew was that I needed something less harrowing, and not about the Holocaust. Still Here looked safe enough...but it's Linda Grant, after all, so I should have known that there'd be a strong Jewish slant, and I have to say that when there was a mention of Auschwitz on page 4 I almost gave up... I persevered, though, and I'm glad I did as it turned out to be a tangential mention (another recent horror, the Arab-Israeli conflict, featured instead - but safely in the background).

I got the wrong end of the stick from one of the review excerpts on the back cover; I expected this to be the story of an unlikely courtship between two prickly, knocked-about-by-life, middle-aged characters, Alix and Joseph. As long as I maintained that expectation, I was disappointed, because I couldn't help comparing it to Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection, which does that so well. When I realised that only a very small part of Still Here is concerned with that, I started to enjoy it much more. There is an element of 'will they, won't they?', but for the most part the novel tells the backstory of these two characters - larger-than-life Alix, daughter of a prominent Liverpool (Jewish) family and wealthy heiress to a face cream fortune, back in town for her mother's funeral, and (Jewish) American Joseph, an architect, in Liverpool designing a hotel.

The narrative flits between the two characters, a couple of chapters at a time. I loved Alix as a character; I can picture her very clearly, both her appearance and her personality - not always likeable, perhaps, sometimes a bit arrogant, a bit full-on, but true to herself. She walks off the page, and I found her story compelling. Joseph doesn't live up to her, though; his story is no less interesting, but it didn't captivate me in the same way. I tried to work out why not but I'm not sure - possibly because Linda Grant is less successful with a male voice than with a female one?

I can't not mention Liverpool! In fact, for me the two main characters here are Alix and Liverpool, as Grant's portrayal of them both is so vivid and lively, warts and all.

The China Factory by Mary Costello

Picked this collection of short stories up in a wonderful little bookshop I found on Trinity Bar in Dublin last year, in the little 'local writers' section. I didn't hold out great hopes for it, assuming it was one of those books which is stocked just because it's local - I was wrong! What a fabulous set of stories. I was also put off by the comparison to Alice Munro (!!!) on the back cover. Come off it, an obscure Irish writer's first short story collection, and Anne Enright is comparing her to (in my opinion) one of the greatest short story writers ever?

And yet... Alice Munro she isn't...but Mary Costello definitely has something very special, and her stories do remind me of Munro's in their unflinching sparseness. They are beautiful...but often utterly desolate, full of loneliness and isolation hiding amidst daily life. Another thing I enjoyed here was the extent to which these stories are so deeply rooted in Ireland; Dublin is the big, faraway city, and there is the constant pull of the green hills and ocean of the west of Ireland.

Costello hasn't published anything else so far, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for more.

I do like good short stories. The China Factory is duly noted.

>64 rachbxl: Your thoughts jive generally with mine. It violated the rule "show don't tell," imo.

>71 rachbxl: Very good to know about Lyrics Alley, which I still have (alas, packed away and in storage right now). I enjoyed her Minaret, and enjoyed hearing her on a discussion panel at the PEN festival a few years back.

>89 rachbxl: Caught that reference to The Idea of Perfection, one of my favorite books.

You are doing a lot of reading! Are you still working? Surely not as much as you were a few years ago?

It would be wonderful if you posted your last two reviews. Not only are they insightful reviews, but there are no others on either.

Feeling well?

Can't believe I only just found your thread! Thanks for the fab reviews, An Unfinished Business is definitely added to my wishlist. And I agree with you about Alix in Still Here - she's a great character.

Looking forward to hearing some good news from you soon....

>91 RidgewayGirl: Kay, hope you enjoy it.

>92 avaland: Hi Lois, good to see you. No, not working, hence all the reading! I'm on maternity leave now as the baby's overdue, and before that I took a couple of weeks of annual leave left over from last year; I think I've been off for 4 weeks now and it's been lovely.

>93 labfs39: Lisa, will do. I didn't do so immediately as as soon I'd finished posting here I had to run off to see the midwife. Well, as much as I 'run' anywhere at the moment!
Feeling fine, thanks. I keep thinking I've got time for one more book, just one more book, before she's born. I'm being induced on Monday if nothing happens before.

>94 wandering_star: Welcome, Margaret - I was missing you!

Both of mine were two weeks late, coincidentally the longest two weeks (twice) of my life. They both emerged in outrageously good health.

>96 RidgewayGirl: yes, time is passing ridiculously slowly at the moment...

El otro barrio by Elvira Lindo

I have long enjoyed Spanish journalist Elvira Lindo's occasional column in El Pais newspaper, so I thought it was time I gave her fiction a try (this, her first novel for adults - she's also written some well-known (in Spain at least) children's books - was published in 1998). Whilst I very much enjoyed reading this short novel, for a variety of reasons (there are lots of things I think Lindo does really well - dialogue, characterisation, etc), I don't really know what to make of it...and what's more, I don't know what Lindo wants me to make of it either. It's mainly a light read. Indeed, in some places rather than just being entertaining it's mordantly funny; I snorted with laughter at the black humour of the sequence that sets up the whole plot, where the teenaged main character's struggles to get the ring-pull from a tin of cockles off his finger triggers a rapid series of deaths and near-fatal accidents... Yet it also triggers the unravelling of everything Ramon thought was his life, in a way that's not funny at all. There's a children's home, an abandoned, unloved teenaged AIDS victim, the shame of single motherhood in the Spain of the early '80s...it all makes for a good read, but it sits oddly with the biting humour of the opening chapters.

Anyway, I'll definitely be seeking out Elvira Lindo's later novels.

Sounds unusual.

Good luck tomorrow!

Our little girl was finally born this morning after a long (over 40 hours) and rather difficult labour, weighing just over 4 kg (I'm on the small side myself..) She's absolutely fine, which is the main thing, and so am I.

Congratulations! Get some rest.

Congratulations! After you get some rest as Colleen advises, please let us know her name!

Congratulations Rachel and family!

Hurrah! Thank you for letting us know you and she are well. 40 hours. Egads! I thought 25 was bad. I'm thinking you must have gone into labor naturally as your induction wasn't until Monday, right? She was just taking her time. And at 8.8 pounds, I wouldn't say she was on the small side. Or did I do the math wrong?

I just realized that in my last post I said good luck tomorrow, when I meant Monday, but then she was born on the "tomorrow". I must be prescient. ;-)

Rest well, and know we are thinking of you and sending our best wishes!

Congrats! Glad you are both alright. A friend of mine had a 60somthing hour labor, which included a broken pelvis bone, so just think, it could've been worse! ;)

Congratulations! Glad you're both well!

Many congrats!

Thanks for letting us know your lovely news - congratulations!

Congratulations to you all

Congratulations!

Amazing, Rachel! Congratulations to you and your family! :D

Oh, wonderful! Sorry you spent 40 hours at it! How exhausted you must have been. Congratulations to you, especially, and to the entire family. We will expect a picture here, of course.

Congratulations!!!

Oh I'm way behind here. First of all, congratulations on the birth of a healthy baby girl! I'm glad to hear that you and she are doing well. And, as always, thanks for your great reviews of books that are usually destined to end up on my wish list. Fortunately I already have Granta 123, which I haven't read yet, and The German Mujahid (the US title of An Unfinished Business), which I also enjoyed.

Baby photo, please.

More congratulations. What will be her first book?

Congratulations and happy first (week!) birthday.

Yahoo! Congratulations! Look forward to hearing more.

Belated congratulations! I hope you're both nicely settled at home and that she's letting you have some rest every now and then!

Congratulations! I hope you're resting and sleeping well and so is the newest Club Read baby.

Congratulations!

>118 RidgewayGirl: She should have a little onesie with Club Read printed on it. :-)

Thank you, everyone!

My beautiful little girl is thriving (photo later, I promise!) She's a wonderful combination of placid and easy-going on the one hand, and very alert (when she's awake) on the other. She very obligingly feeds for hours on end, thanks to which I'm on my third book since she was born! (Not that I read at all for the first week, as I couldn't do anything other than gaze at her in wonder).

Today I'm planning to start a collection in my library for her books. Her very first books were The Night You Were Born and Guess How Much I Love You, followed by a Hairy Maclary collection sent by a friend. I suspect more may appear tomorrow, when Grandma and Grandad arrive from the UK.

Love the idea of the Club Read onesie...

Just before the baby was born I treated myself to an Amazon order of several books that were recommended here in CR recently, and they finally turned up the other day:

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller

My plan was first to finish The Snow Child, which I'd started pre-birth but put aside in favour of baby-gazing, but on finding myself pinned under a feeding baby with only the new books to hand, I went for the shortest:

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill
Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer

Akeela read this recently, and anything Akeela enjoys I am willing to try. As she said, this is a charming little tale about Madame Verona, a widow, her deceased husband, gone some 20 years, their house at the top of the hill, and the village at the bottom of the hill, and its inhabitants. Less a linear narrative than a series of vignettes of the characters, for my taste it did get a bit twee at times (it made me think of the stereotypical French village in Chocolat, which I had a similar reaction to), but when it kept on the right side (for me) of that line, it was a lovely, enjoyable (and very quick) read.

She sounds wonderful and what a magical first week you must have had. Congratulations! (Glad you are able to keep reading)

Does darling daughter have a name yet? Oh, I'm dying for a picture! Now you've started me thinking of all the cute board books my daughter had when she was little. We loved The Runaway Bunny and Good Night Moon, I Like It When... and Snuggle Puppy: a little love song. I have a small box of them somewhere. I just couldn't part with them. :-)

Do you know I have read all five of the adult books you mention? How did you like the beginning of The Snow Child? I thoroughly enjoyed it when I reviewed it for Belletrista, not that it can compete with a new baby. In fact, not really new baby mood reading at all, come to think of it. The Summer Book and Norwegian by Night both feature charming children and grandparents.

How are your other littlies doing? And proud papa? Are these your parents that are coming to visit? Your in-laws are local, right? Enjoy!!

I'm so pleased to hear you're doing well and that your daughter is such a delightful and "easy" baby. And, of course, that you're managing to keep up your reading. Make the most of this time!

So glad to have news of you and your darling daughter!

Wow, belated congratulations. Glad to hear it's going well with your new baby.

Glad you liked Madame Verona. And very glad you are still getting some reading in.

Made me smile thinking of baby gazing. How are you ever get anything else done? Never mind, there is nothing better that needs to be done! My daughter's favorite smell is baby neck and I actually saw it in a store the other day. I couldn't believe it!

It's been a while...and I haven't read many books in the meanwhile (I have read a couple, though - if only I could remember what...) My husband got me a 3-year subscription to Granta for my birthday last month, and an issue has already arrived, so I'm enjoying dipping into that.

Meanwhile, my wonderful little Edie will be 6 months old on Saturday - how time flies! I still do a lot of baby-gazing, but I also try to read to her every day. She has a lovely little bookcase in her room, which I keep having to refrain from filling further! I'm currently making curtains for her room (a whole new venture!) from a gorgeous Roald Dahl print. So I'm doing my best to foster the reading bug...

In no particular order (or rather, in the order in which they pop into my head):

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
As recommended by several CR members - Lisa, Colleen, maybe Rebecca. I loved it! Hugely atmospheric - I hadn't thought about it for several months, but suddenly I'm back in that residence, and it feels just as real as when I was reading it. And I liked the character of Gen, the interpreter (the reason for the recommendation in the first place).

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
What to say that hasn't already been said here? A deliciously quirky book with a fabulous pair of characters. The grandmother reminded me of my own grandma, for whom my daughter is named (she died while I was pregnant), and I have a headstrong niece called Sophia. But even without that, a lovely book I'll be going back to. I've already spread the word off LT.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm pinned under a sleeping baby so can't check.

Baby-gazing and being pinned under a sleeping baby - sounds wonderful!

6 months! Time flies. Such a fun age. We read to Katie every day too, until she was about 9 or 10, when she started weaning us off. LOL. I miss snuggling with her to read at night. She prefers to read to herself now. Sigh.

Popping in again, but I hope to stay this time. My little monkey is now 8 months old and has two teeth, and is trying to crawl. I went back to work part-time a month ago, meaning I now have two 20-min train rides in which to read three days a week - luxury!

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

I'm in the mood for big, sweeping stories that pull me in and take me to another world, and this was perfect. Not, I think, as polished as his second novel The Garden of Evening Mists, but still incredibly evocative; Tan Twen Eng has an amazing ability to convey time and place. I was almost surprised, sometimes, when I looked up and found I wasn't in 1940s Malaya. And the nostalgia! Like the later novel, this is full of yearning for times past. I suspect some might find it too much, but for me it stays just on the right side of what's credible, and the sense of loss is so real it almost hurts. Just for the record, I felt the dialogue sometimes let it down, in comparison with the descriptive passages; it didn't always ring true (I don't remember feeling this about the later novel, maybe because he decided to play to his strengths and dropped the attempts at dialogue?)

Nice review! And, welcome back.

I remember that -- when 20 minutes on public transportation without the baby was a treat. I got stuck once in an airport alone for three hours. It was divine. Coffee and nothing I could be getting done.

Welcome back!

Nice to see you back again!

What a lovely review to be greeted with upon your return! I have been meaning to read The Gift of Rain for ages, ever since reading and loving Garden of Evening Mists. I even picked up a book once thinking I was buying GoR, but it was another copy of GoEM. How bizarre was that!

So, does your daughter have a favorite book yet?

Welcome back, Rachel!

Good to see you back Rachel

Thanks everyone!

Lisa, I think I read too many different things to her for her to have a favourite yet. Having said that, she's always reacted well to the Hairy McClary stories, even when she was tiny - I think it's the rhythm and the rhymes. Back when she was immobile she'd lie and bash her arms and legs on the floor with pleasure (I think). Now she just shuffles off to find the nearest electrical cable to suck.

I've read a couple of other things over the last few months, including:

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

As I said to my mum, 'I've read it so you don't have to'. I want those hours back! To be fair, I enjoyed the first half, and I thought Flynn displayed a nice understanding of how both women and men tick (not necessarily flattering to either). But then the plot takes a surprise turn and it all gets more and more far-fetched. I kept on reading in the hope that it would redeem itself, but it didn't.

How fun! My daughter does all her reading on her own now, and I miss reading to her. Electrical cables? Yikes!

Oh, Gone Girl. I read it recently for book group. Had much the same reaction. I hated everybody in the book. They deserve each other.

I had very low expectations for Gone Girl, so I actually ended up liking it more than I thought, but it did get worse as it went on. The ending was ridiculous.

I had made up my mind to not read Gone Girl (it didn't sound like something I'd like anyway) and now of course it's a pick for my bookclub in February... Sigh.

I have recently seen the film of Gone Girl and will resign from my book club if they choose to read it.

>146 baswood: The worst thing is only five of us really participate (it's an online book club) but at least 12 people voted and then two of them left the group!! SO ANNOYED.

I think i must read The Gift of Rain. I listened to The Garden of Evening Mists earlier this year and i keep thinking about it. My favorite book of the year.

Rachel, it sounds like you are having a wonderful time with your little one! I read Gone Girl this weekend; well, maybe 'read' is overstating it. I started reading the first chapters and then found myself skimming the rest of it. I didn't feel I was missing anything by skimming. There were some interesting (and strange) thoughts on marriage, but this is not my kind of read in the least.