A Borders Coupon - 2009 Booker Shortlist

Our Border's coupon emailer has arrived today and it is offering a 20% discount on all 2009 Booker Prize shortlisted offerings.

That means the following:
Summertime by J. M. Coetzee
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

Has anyone read one or more of these yet?
If so, any recommendations for frittering spending my tiny amount of personal time on reading?

Booknotes

There has been another gaping hole in my life recently, to go along with the lack of blog entries.
Little or no reading has been partaken in for the past month.

Still, I am now attempting to remedy that situation and while at the library the other night picked up a few Booknotes, the quarterly journal of the New Zealand Book Council. I was hoping to find some inspiration for my ongoing reading, but what I got was a series of interesting articles about writing, reading, reviewing and things to do with creative written arts in general. Included is a section called "The School Library", which will turn out to be quite handy for Miss Oh Waily's next possible reading entertainment.

What I actually wanted to share with you were one or two opinions from the first issue that passed over my bedside table.

The first paragraph, from Linley Boniface's essay A Wall of Books Around The Borders Of My Bed, stirred up a good deal of conflict for me.  Regular readers will know that I have set myself the challenge of reading all of the Booker and Pulitzer prize-winning novels as well as the BBC Top 200.  Known around the OhWaily blog as the Booklitzer Challenge 200.  And as I have bemoaned in some of the reviews of these books, I have found more than one to be hard work and more a labour of persistence than of love.  Here's the quote for you to consider:

I am an unashamedly unadventurous and intolerant reader: if a writer fails to deliver immediately, there are no second chances.  Friends will give a book 30 or even 100 pages to prove itself, which strikes me as madness.  Why plough doggedly through an indifferent book, when you know you'll die leaving so many great books unread?

The emphasis on the last question is mine.  And the cause of my conflict.  Should I 'plough doggedly' through the Booklitzer 200 because someone, somewhere thought they were the best books to be read in that given year?  Should I just give in and chuck them back on the pile having given them their 30 or 100 pages of grace?

How do I know, like reading The Siege of Krishnapur, that it may take half the book to get to the really interesting and gripping bit?  How do I expand my taste and understanding of the wide world of literature if I don't plough through some of these harder works?  Or am I just fooling myself and wasting my minimal free time on indifferent books?

The second excerpt is from Tim Corballis' piece The Writing We Don't Hear.  Most of this went over my head as it is a comparative piece about how we understand and 'listen' to music versus how we do the equivalent 'listening' to what we are reading.  Eventually this led to ideas on ...the possibilities of  'contrapuntal' writing...
But the crucial point in this essay is a section of the penultimate paragraph.

To think in terms of structure is to forget, for a time, the reader's need to understand - either that or to count on another sort of understanding.  It is to require more and different work from the reader.  Are readers allergic to such work - to literary difficulty itself?  If so, then this is a counterproductive allergy, and one that I think writers should be brave enough to challenge.

So, here we find the alternative view.  Different structural approaches to writing a novel should not be off-putting to the reader, if the reader wishes to be challenged by literature.

Is this a little high-minded?  Or is the other view a little too low-brow?  Personally I don't mind the odd challenge, but sometimes it feels like surviving the challenge brings no real reward.

Feedback on this issue is most welcome.  In the meantime, I have another two Booker winners piled up on the bedside table, so I haven't caved in immediately.

The Month of January in Books

Following on from last years reading goals I think I will raise the bar a little bit.  I aimed for and comfortably reached my 2008 goal of 24 books read, so in 2009 I will aim to do 10% better than my final tally.  That means a total of 36 books (rounded up) for the year.  I would also like to improve on my 4 Booklitzer challenge novels from 2008 but find some of them heavy going, so I'll just aim to do the same again or better in 2009.
Here ends the quickie 2009 Reading Resolutions.

On to January's actual reading.  A total of three novels, one of which is a Booklitzer challenge entry and my first Pulitzer Prize winner, and one book of shortish stories.

Fiction:

The Liar

This is the first novel by Stephen Fry.
Having already read "Making History", I was expecting great things.  Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this story as much.  Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting story of espionage with a twist.  I simply found certain parts of the life story of Adrian a bit trying and precious.  Still, it was a first book after all and there is definite improvements made in later works.

I would recommend moving on to his others rather than spend time on this one, unless you like to track the changes in an author's style of course.




Four Stories
This was part of a five book bundle at the local library that I picked up for Christmas/New Year reading.
It contains four of Alan Bennett's short stories: The Laying on of Hands; The Clothes They Stood up in; Father! Father! Burning Bright and The Lady in the Van.  The most memorable of these is the last one. Tremendous story, supposedly true, of Bennett's relationship with an eccentric lady who ends up living in a van in his driveway.  Then there is Father! Father! Burning  Bright which for other more cynical and humorous reasons is also memorable.   Highly recommended.


Sellevision

A very strange, farcical look at the home shopping channels and their celebrity-style presenters.  Again, this book was in the Christmas/New Year bundle from the library.
On the one hand I was much taken with the obvious satire, yet at the same time it was a book that had me gritting my teeth to get through it. Perhaps it was because the characters were so appalling.  Max, the lead host, canned because of an on-air indiscretion during a children's segment; Peggy Jean the "perfect" mother and wife with image issues and Howard Toast, the producer who likes to seduce.  Not a high rating from me.


The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

My first delve into the world of the Pulitzer Prize. This won the 2008 award.
It's a novel about a Dominican family in New Jersey, although primarily about Oscar.  I found it tough going, as I don't have a word of Spanish and Diaz uses it liberally throughout the first half of the book.  What I did enjoy were the footnotes on Dominican history, a view of life for the people under the dictator's thumb and the sassiness  of  some of Diaz's characters. The story is fairly gripping, especially in parts.  On the one hand I appreciate the view of another culture, but on the other it just didn't resonate with me.  Perhaps because it felt exclusive through the language and the slang.  Still, I'd recommend having a go and seeing what you think.  On Amazon this rated from 1 up to 5 stars, so for some it's a great read while for others it's a no-go.  Personally, I'm in the middle - 3 stars.

***

And there ends the first month of books for 2009.  Happy reading.

The Month of December in Books

The last month of the year turned out a total of four books all up.  Here they are:

Fiction:

The English Patient

This is the 1992 Booker Prize winner by Michael Ondaatje.
Set in Italy as the Second World War is coming to a close.  It follows four characters living in a Villa and was made into an multiple Oscar winning film by the late Anthony Minghella.
I did a full review of this book in December, which you can read here.
Would recommend it if you have the time, and haven't had your fill of war-based novels, unlike myself.



Captain Corelli's Mandolin
This is number 19 on the BBC Top 200 list.  Personally I would not have rated it that highly, but then clearly many others did.  I did my review of this novel on Christmas Eve and it was pretty much the last book read for 2008.

This novel is partly romance, partly political commentary, partly a war story.  Covers many bases.  It's flaws and foibles I have mentioned in the review.  The upside is that despite the extraordinary amount of obscure words, it is for the most part an easy and enjoyable read.



Watermelon

This is the first in the series of stories about the Walsh family.  This is the tale of Claire.  Her husband walks out on her the day she gives birth to their daughter, and the story continues on from there.
On the one hand this should be poignant, and it is.  On the other hand it is plainly silly.   The book is very, very, very long.  Much longer than it really needs to be.  The other novels about the Walsh girls are a step up from this, in my opinion.  Try Rachel's Holiday, which I reviewed back in April 2006 or Angels, which I read in October of this year, instead.


Dead Man Docking

Well this little story wasn't really worth the effort.  The two lead characters were irritating and childish, despite being (presumably) in their 60s.  At least one review suggested that this is well under the usual standards of author Mary Daheim.  Personally, I'd hope so.
The premise is two cousins - Judith and Renie - are going on a cruise through Renie's business with the cruise line.  The owner of the company is murdered at the pre-launch event and the story goes on from there.  It is given a very 30's taste with the choice of language and supporting cast.  A martini-swilling, upper class couple and a gumshoe detective using language straight out of the black and white movies.  Unless you are a die-hard fan, don't bother picking this up.

***

And to cap off 2008, here is a quick review of the statistics for the year.

32 works of fiction for the year.
4 novels from my Booklitzer Challenge - 2 BBC Top 200 and 2 Bookers.
10 works of non-fiction for the year.

26 different authors, of which 19 were new to me.

How was your year in books?

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Well, congratulate me then - I've made it through another BBC Top 200 Read and yet another book set in war time.  Captain Corelli and his mandolin are duly consigned to the return to the library pile.

As you may have noticed, I have already made comment regarding one thing that annoyed me about this book, and that was the feeling that the author had fallen into the Oxford Not-So-Concise Dictionary printing press.  This annoying feature lasted roughly for the first third to half of the book.  After that point Mr de Bernières seems to have calmed down somewhat.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not that I don't like to have my vocabulary stretched - I do.  It's just a case of feeling that it was written in a manner that almost suggested the literary equivalent of name-dropping.  You know the sort of thing - "See who I know and just how smart I am?"  When in fact a more judicious use of unusual words would have indeed suggested the author was very smart, but not attempting to rub our noses in his erudite language skills.  Okay, that's my first gripe over with.

The basic storyline follows Carlo Guercio, Antonio Corelli, Doctor Iannis and his daughter, Pelagia.  There is also a wonderful set of supporting characters to back up and give the texture to the story.  The setting is predominantly Greece, but moves through the war in Albania briefly before settling back into Cephallonia .  The majority of the book is devoted to the complicated relationship that builds between Pelagia and Corelli whilst the Italians occupy Greece during the war.

The novel moves from cynical to dark to gory to funny to heartwarming to horror to disbelieve very easily.  You are not always sure what the next chapter will be bringing.  The tone and language also changes throughout.  Some chapters are crammed full of a variety of uncommon words, while others are full of easy, smoothly readable descriptions of places, people  and their personalities.   There is no shortage of commentary on the nature of man during wars, and the infliction of pain on soldiers and civilians alike.  There is also a good dose of some absolutely hilarious, acid and brutal political commentary.  To illustrate this, I have taken two extracts from near the end of the book. The first extract is in the context of Greek liberation from the German occupation, only to be overrun by the communist andartes.

In all this there was both an irony and a tragedy.  The irony was that if the Communists had continued their wartime policy of doing absolutely nothing, they would undoubtedly have become the first freely elected Communist government in the world.  Whereas in France the Communists had earned themselves a rightful and respected place in political life, the Greek Communists made themselves permanently unelectable because even Communists could not bring themselves to vote for them.  The tragedy was that this was yet another step along the fated path by which Communism was growing into the Greatest and Most Humane Ideology Never to Have Been Implemented Even When it Was in Power, or perhaps The Most Noble Cause Ever to Attract the Highest Proportion of Hooligans and Opportunists.

The second extract is a commentary on Britain and it's position in the world.

In those days Great Britain was less wealthy than it is now, but it was also less complacent, and considerably less useless.  It had a sense of humanitarian responsibility and a myth of its own importance that was quixotically true and universally accepted merely because it believed in it, and said so in a voice loud enough for foreigners to understand.  It had not yet acquired the schoolboy habit of waiting for months for permission from Washington before it clambered out of its post-imperial bed, put on its boots, made a sugary cup of tea, and ventured through the door.

There are more moments like this.  If you particularly would like to poke fun at Mussolini, then you will love reading the chapters entitled The Duce and A Pamphlet Distributed on the Island, Entitled with the Fascist Slogan 'Believe, Fight and Obey'.

My only other major complaint, without giving the ending away, is that there is a pitifully weak break in the story with regards to how the author arranges the main characters' lives after the war is over.  The reason given for the actions of at least one character is nothing short of improbable and impossible, in the circumstances.  For me the ending itself  isn't unsatisfactory, but I can see for others it would be.  And I would completely agree with anyone who finds the manner in which it is arrived at as implausible and irritating.

Saying all that, though, I can still happily recommend the book.  Just keep a dictionary beside you for the first little while.  :)
I would give it a rating of 3 out of 5.

Now I am done with war stories for a little while.  I am done with despair and gruesome details and black deeds for now.
Jeeves and Wooster are calling me in a loud voice to join them, which I am more than happy to do.

- - -

On a slightly related note:

Has anyone seen the movie?  Is it any good?
Personally I can't abide Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz doesn't rate as "must see", so I have some serious doubts about it.  Would be interested to know other's opinions though.

The English Patient

Finally I have managed to make my way through a book that, by Booker panel adjudication, is a worthy read.

Many, many years ago I went to the movies and saw Anthony Minghella's Oscar-winning adaptation.  I believe it won 9 golden statues in total.  Sadly, all these years later, I can barely remember much about it.  Apparently it wasn't earth-shattering in my world.   Now, having read the book I feel the urge to go back and see the film.  I have strong suspicions that Ralph Fiennes (eye-candy value aside) and Kristin Scott-Thomas may have been mis-cast.  Still, I'll withhold judgement until such time as I rent the movie.

So, the book.

I am a little bit out of practice in reading interesting novels, so please cut me some slack on my minimalist review and probable obtuse comments regarding the underlying themes of the novel.

A tale of woe before and during WWII.  Four people come together in the Villa San Girolamo as the war in Europe comes to a close.  The English Patient, who appears to have lost his memory and is badly burned in an aeroplane crash in the deserts of North Africa; Hana, a young Canadian nurse who has lost a baby and her father during the war; Caravaggio, a thief and spy who has his thumbs cut off by the Germans and knows Hana from their previous life in Canada; and Kip, a young Sikh who is working his way through Italy defusing bombs, booby traps and other nasty devices while blocking out the harsh reality of the personal and professional loss being a sapper brings.

The writing style is quirky, and disjointed, but you get used to it very quickly.  As the book moves on it gets easier to follow and it stops you from getting too bored with what is a particularly simple story about relationships.  The 'trick' of this novel is the way in which the author chooses to tell us about those relationships.
Ondaatje chooses to release small snippets of information at a time.  We get to know the characters at a leisurely pace, and without cramming masses of details into each passage.  It is a very relaxing novel in that sense.  You have time to think about everyone's story and what brings them to the point we join them at the Villa.  This can be quite hard going for those of us (no fingers pointed at Ms O, of course) who are used to reading books crammed with detail, forcing as much in to 300 pages as is humanly possible and treating their readers as though they have no imagination.  (Ooo, was I just scathing about most of the chick-lit and trashy reading I've been doing lately?)

Anyway.
I agree with the Amazon reviewers who gave it a 4 out of 5 rating.
Personally I would have to give it a 2.5 or 3.  I understand you may be confused by this double rating, so here's my explanation.
Even though I didn't find it a 4 star read, I know that it is.  This is the danger of reading candy floss books.  They can block your ability to appreciate the art of storytelling, especially if you get caught up in 'instantaneous gratification' mode and want things laid out in front of you at top speed, preferably without distracting things like interesting prose and unusual imagery.  Having read this novel, I now find myself feeling the need to check-in to junk fiction rehab.   Is it possible to get the DTs in a novel-reading sense?  I'm beginning to think it is.

Mr Ondaatje really has an eye for unusual phrasing and beautiful sounding words. So here are some that I thought worthy of noting down.
Imagery:

That which plucks the fowl.

Dust coagulating

The paranoia and claustrophobia of hidden love.

Words:

autodidact

burnoose

antiphonal

propinquity

fata morgana

---

Also on an historical note, the descriptions of the bombs and how many there were, was quite an eye-opener.
The names for them: Hermann, Esau, Satans.
The number of them: 2,500 unexploded bombs in August of the blitz, 3,700 by September.
The insanity of the mine-laying:

The scale of the laying of mines in Italy and in North Africa cannot be imagined.  At the Kismaayo-Afmadu road junction, 260 mines were found.  There were 300 at the Omo River Bridge area.  On June 30, 1941, South African sappers laid 2,700 Mark 11 mines in Mersa Matruh in one day.  Four months later the British cleared Mersa Matruh of 7,806 mines and placed them elsewhere.

The Month of September in Books

This month was an even split between fiction and non-fiction.  In total I managed six books.  Here they are:

Fiction:

The Siege of Krishnapur

This is the first Booker book that I have read in my Booklitzer Challenge 200.  It is the 1973 prize winner, set in India during the 1857 mutiny.  It is a bit slow to start with, but on the whole I feel that I can reasonably recommend this if you are looking to expand your reading.  I would probably go so far as to say that I may try to find another J.G.Farrell book to read once my Booklitzer 200 is finished.  For my full review you can browse back here at my post The Siege of Krishnapur.

The World According to Bertie

This is the fourth book in the 44 Scotland Street series. It once again follows the stories of Bertie Pollock, Angus Lordie, Domenica MacDonald, Pat and Matthew.
As usual I am horrified at the personality of Bertie's mother, Irene, but the wit with which she and her family are drawn is irresistible. Without giving anything away, it is also nice to see two separate storylines come together at the end of the book.  I am wondering if a previously minor character is going to be bumped up a notch.  I must take the time to get the next installment - The Unbearable Lightness of Scones.

And What Do You Do?

I chose this book because it sounded interesting, for chick lit.  A woman gives up her high-powered life as an executive in London to have a baby and move to Paris with her much younger French husband. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't a view of infidelity and supposed French marital mores.  While the writing was light, the characters didn't grab me and frankly neither did the tit-for-tat affairs.  But then again perhaps I have an old-fashioned view of marriage.  You know, that there should only be the two of you and that being faithful is important.  Obviously I was never French in another life, nor Bohemian, nor Hippy.  Oh well. Can't say that I would look for another by this author.

Non-Fiction:

Trump: Never Give Up

Following up from last month's Carolyn 101, I spotted this at the library and decided to take The Don for a test drive.
The book was extremely easy to read, full of anecdotes and ego.  Considering the fortune that the man has made, he is probably entitled to gloat over his achievements.
Love him or hate him, he certainly takes his business seriously and if we are to believe many of the comments repeated throughout the book, he is also big on improving things. Certainly not a business classic, it does still give common sense advice as well as an insight into a larger than life personality.

Your Mortgage And How To Pay It Off In Five Years

Yet another in the Anita Bell series of financial advisory books.  I whipped through this one at light speed because we already have a mortgage, while the first half of the book is dedicated to saving for one, estimating what you might reasonably want to pay in order to do as the title says, and structuring that said loan with an institution of your choice.
My interest was in any advice for those of us already up to our ears in home ownership. Briefly, it goes like this...
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice and budget like a demon.  (And I thought I was bad about paperwork!)  Still, I can heartily recommend this to anyone not yet encumbered by a loan, especially if you don't want to flounder about for the normal 25-30 years of repayments.

Why Mars And Venus Collide

This is another in the Mars and Venus series by John Gray.  I thought it was time to see if Dr Gray had anything new to say, and apparently he does.  Unlike the original (which I am dredging my memory about), this effort introduces testosterone and oxytocin to the explanation for the differences in gender response to stress and therefore interaction.  He also has two new techniques to deal with these responses and the communication problems they can generate.  If like me and you have wondered if he was sitting outside your house pressing a glass up to the wall while reading the original Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, then you may enjoy this updated version.  Get it from the library first though.

***

That's it for September.  I will see you back here at the end of the month for a review, hopefully, of some Pulitzer prize winners and the odd BBC Top 200 entry.

Happy reading.

The Siege of Krishnapur

This is the 1973 Booker Prize winner by J.G.Farrell.

The setting is the 1857 Indian Mutiny.  The story is told from the perspective of a number of British residents in Krishnapur.  The central characters are Mr Hopkins, the Collector; Fleury, a recent arrival to India and his widowed sister, Miriam; the Dunstaple family - father, the local physician - son, a young military man and daughter Louise, the season's beauty; Mr Willoughby, the Magistrate; and the Padre.

I felt that the story started off very slowly and I was dreading another reading trial like The Poisonwood Bible.  Fortunately as I went further through the book and when the siege finally began it all started to flow for me.  In the end I was fascinated by the characters and the way the author grew them and altered their views through the trials and deprivations of living through a siege situation.

And for the first time in an absolute age, I actually felt like I picked up on some of the themes.  Admittedly they came to me one morning in the half-dozing state that occurs when you are on the cusp of waking up.

The political & philosophical themes were primarily voiced in the observations of each main character given page time by Farrell, although behaviour was also used, especially by the minor players.

One aspect that this novel shared with The Poisonwood Bible is the theme of people under stress and what that brings out of their character.  Are character and world view interlinked and changeable?  The Poisonwood Bible seemed to suggest a strengthening of existing character traits and views, while The Siege of Krishnapur seems to suggest a person could go either way with an extreme strengthening of convictions or a complete weakening of convictions, even to the point of altering them diametrically.

Briefly the themes I identified were:

• Materialism and Advancement through Invention of things versus the importance of Advancement of the human spirit.

This was primarily played out by Mr Hopkins and Fleury.  Hopkins has fitted out the Residence at Krishnapur with items he believes represent advancement, especially items from The Great Exhibition.  He is reverential about the Exhibition, almost to the point of worship.
Fleury, on the other hand, views the advancement of the spirit to be the most important thing that humans can aspire to.  Certainly materialism and objects are not worthy of the reverence he sees Mr Hopkins display.

• The Established View versus Scientific Observation and Rationalism

This pits the two Doctors against each other.  Dunstaple is 'old school' and is frequently found to be criticising the methods of his colleague, McNab, as experimental and cold.  Dunstaple views the 'establishment' as the source of information and direction, while McNab views his own observations (as well as alternatives to the prevailing treatments) as valid guides to patient treatment.  This comes to a head over the treatment of a cholera outbreak.  While the Dunstaple cholera episode should be sad, it is actually completely, gut-bustingly and ironically funny.

• Scientific observation

The Magistrate also showcases the duality of science that prevailed during this time.  On the one hand he views scientific rationalism very highly, as seen in his support of McNab's use of statistics to back up his arguments on the treatment of cholera.  On the other hand is his interest and wholehearted believe in the "science" of frenology.

• Sin

Farrell also touches on themes like "sin" as well.  This is displayed through the Padre's progressively vigorous pursuit of sin, and the expunging of it from the congregation.  The women also feature here, with a "fallen" woman, Lucy, brought into the enclave.  She is socially shunned with the exception of Miriam and Louise who feel it their duty to be kind to her until she begins to make herself cosy with their brothers.

Through the latter half of the book, and the siege, the writing gets progressively more double-edged.  You can't help laughing at the characters.  I am sure that Farrell intended to almost caricature certain aspects of British India, Victorian science and the intensity with which people hang on to, or shed their beliefs.

I thought that the "voice" of the book was reasonably authentic.  Apparently a lot of material was taken from diaries of events and there is even a note by Farrell that indicates some sections were almost completely lifted from his research.  Presumably this is why it felt 'of it's time'.

I can highly recommend this novel.  After the first, slower part of the book, it picks itself up and becomes at once entertaining, sad and thought-provoking.

The Month of August in Books

This month I managed five books.  Here they are:

Fiction:

Carry On, Jeeves


This was my antidote to slowly grinding my way through The Poisonwood Bible.  It is your typical Wodehouse.  Bertie getting into scrapes and Jeeves attempting to redeem the situation.  The outcome is not always what Bertie would like, but sometimes the best answer isn't what we like.
This is a series of short stories, some set in New York as well as England.  It was a nice, light work to offset the darker novel that I read concurrently.

The Careful Use of Compliments


This is the fourth book in the Isabel Dalhousie or Sunday Philosophy Club series. It once again follows the stories of Isabel, Jamie and Cat.
We see the domesticity that follows the arrival of Charlie, Isabel and Jamie's son.  We see the conflict this provokes with Isabel's neice, Cat.  And thrown into the bargain is the world of Scottish art and artists.  The mystery of a dead artist is the background for this story, as well as changes at the Review of Applied Ethics.

The Poisonwood Bible


This book has been given a full post here.  Briefly, it is the first book from my Booklitzer 200 Challenge, in which I am going to attempt (slowly, it seems) to make my way through all of the Booker Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners (fiction only) and the BBC Big Read Top 200.
This is book #125 of the BBC Top 200.
Hmm. Scary that it got there.  Mind you, considering Gormenghast made the list I shouldn't really be disrespectful of this work.  Hard going though it was.

The Tainted Relic


This is the first collaboration book that I have come across.  Perhaps I lead a sheltered life.  In this volume (there are three of them according to Amazon), six authors of medieval fiction collaborate with their own settings and characters to create a short story series with a central theme - The Tainted Relic. Starting with Simon Beaufort and the character Sir Geoffrey Mappestone, set in 1100 AD during the First Crusade and finishing with Philip Gooden's character, Nick Revill, set in the 1600s with Will Shakespeare as a minor character, we follow the course of the tainted relic through many hands and settings.  We witness the mayhem and deaths of those who come into it's sphere of influence.
I liked the idea of different authors allowing their creations this type of collaboration, but strangely found that there was very little distinctive voice to be heard between each story.  Erroneously I thought that the different authors' work would have rung out with a unique and personal style of prose.  I am quite surprised that this was largely a uniform sounding work.  Of course two of the six authors are one person - Simon Beaufort and Susanna Gregory - but what of the others?  If anyone else has read this, please let me know if you also found it to be this way.

Non-Fiction:

Carolyn 101


I picked this up out of curiosity.  I have never watched more than a few minutes of any of The Apprentice series.  While Mr Trump is obviously very successful, I struggle with the whole concept and execution of "reality TV".  It's not so real, and it's not my idea of entertainment.
Still, I wondered what the suited woman (the hardback has a photograph of Carolyn in a sharp looking red business suit) might have to say about working for such a flamboyant employer as Donald Trump.  Turns out that it is a book full of short, anecdotal stories from her rise into corporate Trump-land.  I was surprised that she chose to name individuals, especially those that she held up to be bad examples.  However, in saying that, a lot of the ideas and suggestions held a lot of common sense.  They also held a lot of "no bull" attitude too.
If you are looking for a pithy book that is readable (I finished it in about four sittings of an hour or so each), gives you a little bit of insight into the Trump organization and dishes out some fairly straightforward views on how to run a business and the people in it, then you may find this worth reading.  Get it from the library though, as I doubt you will feel the need to keep a copy.

***

I know I have posted a whole four days early, but the books I am now reading are not going to get past the finish line before Sunday.  I am once again on the Booklitzer 200 trail with The Siege of Krishnapur - this is the 1973 Booker winner - and I am about to start on a couple of business books. Wish me luck and see you here at the end of next month.

P.S. August's reading has tipped my over my 2008 reading goal of 24 books.  Will miracles never cease!

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

This is my first foray into my Booklitzer Challenge.
If this novel is anything to go by, it truly will be a challenge to start and finish each one in it's turn.

Set in the Belgian Congo, which later became Zaire, which later became the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The story follows the Price family from Georgia, USA into the Congo in 1959. They are missionaries. Ill-equipped, self-centred and self-absorbed. They are also odd, dysfunctional and frequently difficult to like. We follow their misadventures through the eyes of Orleanna, the mother and each of her four daughters; Rachel, the eldest and most self-absorbed, Leah and Adah, the twins - one whole, the other 'slanted', and Ruth May the baby.

We spend over half of the book watching them struggling with the reality of jungle and village life, as well as their own dysfunctional family life. Then the latter half of the book brings us in jumps through time into the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

The family's story is the focus of the first part of the novel, with the latter half dealing predominantly with issues of the Belgian Congo's transition to "independence", international interference with that process and ultimately what each of the Price family live with as a result of being a white person in Africa during a time of change.

Kingsolver has given each character a unique and interesting voice. Rachel is often the only source of light relief in the entire book. She allows a small smirk during what is mostly a dark story with such classic malapropisms as:

The way I see Africa, you don't have to like it but you sure have to admit it's out there. You have your way of thinking and it has its, and never the train ye shall meet!

All I need is to go back home with some dread disease. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed is bad enough, but to be Thyroid Mary on top of it? Oh brother.

"Mr Axelroot," I said, "I will commiserate your presence on this porch with me but only as a public service to keep the peace in this village."

And my all-time favourite, speaking about the village children who try to pull her white blonde hair :

But at least I don't have to be surrounded with little brats jumping up and pulling on my hair all the livelong day. Normally they clamber around me until I feel like Gulliver among the Lepidopterans.

I found the twins the most sympathetic, although it takes a while to warm up to them.

The novel is part history lesson, part psychology of the family. Both stories are dark and filled with actions to hide and run away from.

I struggled with reading this. It has taken over three weeks to make my way through 543 pages. Perhaps I am out of practice reading 'serious' literature. Maybe there has been far too much chick lit and murder mysteries on my bedside table.

I found the language of this novel difficult. Some passages were vague, flowery and completely fuzzy in meaning. I would come out the other end of the paragraph wondering what the heck it was all about. Then in contrast there would be wonderful turns of phrase and evocative images drawn in clever, concise word pictures.
I also felt that the book was too long. I think the first half could have been truncated without damaging the picture the author painted. It was only because I had committed to the Booklitzer Challenge that I struggled through to the point (somewhere around page 350) where I actually then wanted to read the remainder of the book. If I had picked this up off the library shelf, it would have gone back after about 50 or so pages.

Having just complained about it, I will give it a huge thumbs up for opening my eyes to the world of central Africa and more importantly the process that many of those nations have gone through to gain independence. Or rather, not quite gained independence. A country in name, but still a slave in economic terms.
Maybe a few more people in a few high places would do well to study the history of political change - and the aftermath of economic and ideological interference.

Suffice it to say, I am now much more interested in the history of this part of the world and will be making an effort to better understand how the current situations of many African countries came to be.

If you are feeling brave or are joining me in the Booklitzer Challenge, borrow this from your library. Otherwise I'd skip it.

***

BBC Top 200 #125

Prize Winning Novel Locations

Where do you set your next novel?
Where do you place your master work?

If you want to win a Booker Prize, then here are the settings in order of most likely to win for you:

1. England - 9 winners


2. Africa - 7 winners


3. India - 7 winners


4. Australia or en route - 3 winners


5. Britain (general) - 3 winners


6. America or en route - 2 winners


7. Ireland - 2 winners


8. Canada, Germany, Europe, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland and Wales - 1 each

Suffice to say you're on to a fair chance if you stick to Old Blighty, the Raj or The Dark Continent.

What does this say about the Booker Prize, I wonder? Or the judges? Or the offerings from afar?

Just a thought.

A New Book Challenge

Inspired by a visit to Josette's blog about books I have decided to create a boundless book based challenge for myself. I have the tendency, as you may have noticed, of latching on to a particular writer and reading them to death. Not that there is anything wrong with reading books that you are likely to enjoy, after all the whole idea of reading should be for pleasure and not for punishment.
Still I do find myself digging deep reading ruts. I thought that these existing challenges would help me scale the walls of my various ruts and perhaps introduce me to other authors I can then obsess over reading the entire back catalogue of. I have decided that I will add the BBC Top 200 to this list as well. I will put the whole shooting match to the bottom of my Goals: 2008 page for updating as books are knocked off the list.

But to start, here are the books in question. Sadly I don't believe I have even read one of the Bookers. Fortunately some of the Pulitzers overlap with the BBC Big Read list, so that's a handy list-shortener.

The Bookers

2007 - The Gathering (Enright)
2006 - The Inheritance of Loss (Desai)
2005 - The Sea (Banville)
2004 - The Line of Beauty (Hollinghurst)
2003 - Vernon God Little (Pierre)
2002 - Life of Pi (Martel)
2001 - True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey)
2000 - The Blind Assassin (Atwood)
1999 - Disgrace (Coetzee)
1998 - Amsterdam: A Novel (McEwan)
1997 - The God of Small Things (Roy)
1996 - Last Orders (Swift)
1995 - The Ghost Road (Barker)
1994 - How Late It Was, How Late (Kelman)
1993 - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Doyle)
1992 - The English Patient (Ondaatje)
1992 - Sacred Hunger (Unsworth)
1991 - The Famished Road (Okri)
1990 - Possession: A Romance (Byatt)
1989 - The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)
1988 - Oscar and Lucinda (Carey)
1987 - Moon Tiger (Lively)
1986 - The Old Devils (Amis)
1985 - The Bone People (Hulme)
1984 - Hotel Du Lac (Brookner)
1983 - Life & Times of Michael K (Coetzee)
1982 - Schindler's Ark (Keneally)
1981 - Midnight's Children (Rushdie)
1980 - Rites of Passage (Golding)
1979 - Offshore (Fitzgerald)
1978 - The Sea, the Sea (Murdoch)
1977 - Staying on (Scott)
1976 - Saville (Storey)
1975 - Heat and Dust (Jhabvala)
1974 - The Conservationist (Gordimer)
1974 - Holiday (Middleton)
1973 - The Siege of Krishnapur (Farrell)
1972 - G. (Berger)
1971 - In a Free State (Naipaul)
1970 - The Elected Member (Rubens)
1969 - Something to Answer For (Newby)

The Pulitzers

2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)
2007 - The Road (McCarthy)
2006 - March (Brooks)
2005 - Gilead (Robinson)
2004 - The Known World (Jones)
2003 - Middlesex (Eugenides)
2002 - Empire Falls (Russo)
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Chabon)
2000 - Interpreter of Maladies (Lahiri)
1999 - The Hours (Cunningham)
1998 - American Pastoral (Roth)
1997 - Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer (Millhauser)
1996 - Independence Day (Ford)
1995 - The Stone Diaries (Shields)
1994 - The Shipping News (Proulx)
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (Butler)
1992 - A Thousand Acres (Smiley)
1991 - Rabbit at Rest (Updike)
1990 - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (Hijuelos)
1989 - Breathing Lessons (Tyler)
1988 - Beloved (Morrison)
1987 - A Summons to Memphis (Taylor)
1986 - Lonesome Dove (McMurtry)
1985 - Foreign Affairs (Lurie)
1984 - Ironweed (Kennedy)
1983 - The Color Purple (Walker)
1982 - Rabbit is Rich (Updike)
1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole)
1980 - The Executioner’s Song (Mailer)
1979 - The Stories of John Cheever (Cheever)
1978 - Elbow Room (McPherson)
1977 - None given
1976 - Humboldt’s Gift (Bellow)
1975 - The Killer Angels (Shaara)
1974 - None given
1973 - The Optimist’s Daughter (Welty)
1972 - Angle of Repose (Stegner)
1971 - None given
1970 - Collected Stories by Jean Stafford (Stafford)
1969 - House Made of Dawn (Momaday)
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner (Styron)
1967 - The Fixer (Malamud)
1966 - Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter (Porter)
1965 - The Keepers Of the House (Grau)
1964 - None given
1963 - The Reivers (Faulkner)
1962 - The Edge of Sadness (Edwin O’Connor)
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
1960 - Advise and Consent (Drury)
1959 - The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Taylor)
1958 - A Death in the Family (Agee)
1957 - None
1956 - Andersonville (Kantor)
1955 - A Fable (Faulkner)
1954 - None
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway)
1952 - The Caine Mutiny (Wouk)
1951 - The Town (Richter)
1950 - The Way West (Guthrie)
1949 - Guard of Honor (Cozzens)
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific (Michener)
1947 - All the King’s Men (Warren)
1946 - None
1945 - Bell for Adano (Hersey)
1944 - Journey in the Dark (Flavin)
1943 - Dragon’s Teeth I (Sinclair)
1942 - In This Our Life (Glasgow)
1941 - None
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
1939 - The Yearling (Rawlings)
1938 - The Late George Apley (Marquand)
1937 - Gone with the Wind (Mitchell)
1936 - Honey in the Horn (Davis)
1935 - Now in November (Johnson)
1934 - Lamb in His Bosom (Miller)
1933 - The Store (Stribling)
1932 - The Good Earth (Buck)
1931 - Years of Grace (Barnes)
1930 - Laughing Boy (Lafarge)
1929 - Scarlet Sister Mary (Peterkin)
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Wilder)
1927 - Early Autumn (Bromfield)
1926 - Arrowsmith (Lewis)
1925 - So Big (Ferber)
1924 - The Able McLauglins (Wilson)
1923 - One of Ours (Cather)
1922 - Alice Adams (Tarkington)
1921 - The Age of Innocence (Wharton)
1920 - None
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons (Tarkington)
1918 - His Family (Poole)

The Big Read - Top 200

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George’s Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O’Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte’s Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

If you are brave, or mad, why don't you join me in my quest to become better and more widely read? I will post each time I manage to read another book off the list, and if you want to join in, just leave a comment with a link to your updated reading list or review.

In the meantime here are some external links for your pleasure:

The Man Booker Prize website
The Pulitzer Prizes website
The BBC Big Read website
The Nobel Laureates