BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE SEPTEMBER 2015 - LEVY & RUSHDIE

Andrea Levy a daughter of Jamaican born parents who arrived in the UK in 1948 during a time when such a diaspora was (officially at least) welcomed. The immigrant experience features heavily in her work. I have read the award winning Small Island and enjoyed it pretty much.

Salman Rushdie has written two of the finest post war novels: Midnight's Children and Shame, but he will always be remembered for the follow up to those - the hugely controversial The Satanic Verses.

Levy's books

Every Light in the House Burnin′ (1994)
Never Far from Nowhere (1996)
Fruit of the Lemon (1999)
Small Island (2004) ORANGE PRIZE WINNER, WHITBREAD WINNER, COMMONWEALTH WRITERS WINNER
The Long Song (2010) WALTER SCOTT PRIZE WINNER, BOOKER SHORTLIST
Six Stories and an Essay (2014)

Rushdie's books

Novels

Grimus (1975)
Midnight's Children (1981) BOOKER OF BOOKERS, JAMES TAIT BLACK
Shame (1983) PRIX ETRANGER, BOOKER SHORTLIST
The Satanic Verses (1988) WHITBREAD WINNER
The Moor's Last Sigh (1995) WHITBREAD WINNER
The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
Fury (2001)
Shalimar the Clown (2005) VODAPHONE CROSSWORD BOOK AWARD
The Enchantress of Florence (2008)
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015)

Collections

East, West (1994)

Children's books

Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)
Luka and the Fire of Life (2010)

Essays and non-fiction

The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987)
Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991 (1992)
Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992–2002 (2002)
Joseph Anton: A Memoir (2012)

I will probably read:

The Long Song for Levy

and

Grimus for Rushdie

Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights will be published in the US and the UK next week. I'll definitely buy it, and hopefully I'll have time to read it next month.

I'm definitely going to read Levy. I have The Long Song checked out and ready to read. I was going to try Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Rushdie, but when I looked at it and thumbed through it on the library shelf, I could tell I was not going to enjoy it. We have the new one arriving at the library soon so I'll take a look at it, but I have a feeling I'm only going to read Levy this month.

I'm going to give Midnight's Children a go. Fingers crossed.

I picked up both The Long Song and Haroun and the Sea of Stories from the library today.

I snagged an e-book of Rushdie's Shame from my local library and just got Levy's Small Island from Bookmooch, so I'm all set to go for this month.

I've had The Long Song on my shelves for a while so this is a great excuse to read it.

I finished Shame tonight and, while I liked parts of it, I mostly thought it was verbose and unpleasantly meandering. Rushdie spent the first third of the book giving a detailed account of characters who either disappear or hardly matter until the last section of the book; by the time they were important, I had practically forgotten their existence. I didn't not like Shame, especially once things actually started happening, but it's not something I will ever read again.

I started The Long Song last night, and was drawn in right away. It moved quickly -- I read about 65 pages, which is more than I've been able to concentrate on recently so I take that as a very good sign.

I finished Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It's a children's fantasy which is not my favorite genre, so it just got an OK from me.

I have Midnight's Children on the table beside my reading chair...waiting for me to finish struggling with some Flannery O'Connor criticism for the AAC. I think I've given myself a couple tough assignments this month!

Shalimar The Clown
BAC September

This was a fantastic listening. It's a mixed between a political story due to recruiting men for the cause of the Mudschahedin but also the political mess at Kashmir where people especially women weren't safe even the military was bad. It is also a folk tale where the different godhoods show their power and how people got influenced but it is also the story of a young woman who is looking for her roots and how she detects her strength and power which she has got in her genes from her ancestor.
It's a fast-paced story which I can strongly recommend.

I've finished Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and I liked it very much. The language is simple enough for children to understand, and the imagery is complex enough to hold the interest of adult readers.

I liked Midnight's Children when I read it a few years ago so Rushdie is 2 for 2 with me. I will be searching out more of his work. The Enchantress of Florence will likely be the next of his books that I'll try.

Well I have just completed Grimus and I have to admit I hated it immensely.

The humanity so apparent in his later brilliant novels is missing here completely. Sort of about people who lived on for centuries. It seemed the bloody thing went on just as interminably.

Avoid.

>18 PaulCranswick: LOL ! I will not add this to my BookBullets.

Small Island
BAC September

What a great story even though the most time I got very angry and therefore had to put it away often. The story is told from the view of four persons; two Jamaicans and two Britons. It jumps between WWII and 1948. Due to being part of the British Empire the Jamaicans were fighting side by side with British people and were honoured and respected. After the war the Jamaican combatants thought that England would welcome them with open arms and tried there luck and future in England. There they had to learn on the hard way that they aren't not only unwelcomed but also treated worse than a dog.
This pure racism made me very angry. Andrea Levy has put a lot of love into the characters. She shows a great understandig and respect for the feeling of both sides.

I started reading Small Island this morning and the next thing I knew I was being called in for dinner! The four main characters were complex and interesting and I found myself empathizing with them--even Bernard, the least likable of the lot. The ending didn't quite ring true for me, but it was still an amazing read.

Oh, and I read Mr. Wakefield's Crusade by Bernice Rubens, a "thirteenth month" selection, yesterday. I was mostly indifferent to it until the last few pages, which revealed a twist ending that actually enhanced the rest of the story.

I enjoyed The Long Song. I know some people don't like the style of Caribbean literature that talks to the reader quite a bit, but I enjoy it as a cultural difference and find many of the things in those sections quite amusing. It's not a style I want to read all the time, but I enjoy it when I do venture into it.

Today's read was Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I liked much more than Shame. It actually reminded me a bit of The Phantom Tollbooth.

I didn't enjoy Luka and the Fire of Life quite as much as Haroun and the Sea of Stories--the video game thing didn't really work for me--but it was still a fun read. And any book that can work in references to Doctor Who, Back to the Future, Time Bandits, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Terminator will always make me happy.

I finished The Satanic Verses yesterday, and have just started on Small Island. I remember hearing about the fatwa as a child, and so for me, Salman Rushdie has always been that author. And now I've finally read that book. He's quite the storyteller - I enjoy the things he does with language. It's a massive book though, of interwoven timelines and dream sequences, and takes some concentration. Even with concentration I feel I lost so much of what was there. and will need to re-read a few times to come close to full appreciation.

Enjoying Small Island so far!

>26 evilmoose: " Even with concentration I feel I lost so much of what was there" I'm having that issue with Midnight's Children, although I think I love it so far! I haven't had much quiet uninterrupted reading time the last few days, so I hope to be able to get a firm grip on it over the weekend. It certainly needs your full attention. I have seen Rushdie in person twice in the last few years, and my copy of Midnight's Children is one he signed for me at an appearance here as part of our county library's Author Lecture Series in 2009. He is a very engaging, funny man.

I've been meaning to read Andrea Levy for quite some time and I'm glad I finally had the nudge to do it. I liked but didn't love The Long Song. I still have Small Island to look forward to.

I finished The Long Song last night. Much preferred it to Grimus which I read by Rushdie this month but I think Small Island was much the better novel.

It meanders somewhat and the habit of talking directly to the reader by the narrator is a tad irking at times, but overall it is a good tale well told.

Didn't make it through Midnight's Children before the month's end, but that's the nice thing about this challenge...the threads don't close down on you if you're lagging behind!

>30 laytonwoman3rd: I didn't manage to get to Midnight's Children at all. Still on my radar.

I only got to one author - Salman Rushdie - and his a children's book, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It seemed like the kind of thing my children would have liked read to them when they younger, but for myself, I got tired of the fancifulness and had to make myself finish it.

The reviews of Rushdie's new book Two years eight months and twenty eight nights have been really good. If you liked Rushdie's other titles as soon as this one is out it might be a good one to read.