Being sad for no reason = strange looks from others

After our works team building day I came back with the strangest hangover (so odd in fact that the day after I got back I checked my temperature for signs of swine flu) and am now feeling all weird emotionally, self pitying and stuff. I seem to have somehow triggered one of those awful, for absolutely no reason, hormonal times that became a permenant part of my life when I turned 21 (but this time minus the random outbreaks of tears which is a massive improvement). So right now, I'm off being all stupid and (I was going to say girly but have decided to invent a new word that doesn't insult my sex by association) emotivally, reading books and blogs by people much more sensible than me, listening to boys play guitars and trying to get myself to the end of this new, crazy hormonal phase.

This weekend I'll be in Bath saying bye to a friend returning to her native homeland and drinking my for no real reason sorrows away (I'm a happy drunk, so it will make for a cool weekend). Then I will return with reviews and news, hopefully refreshed and back to my more sensible self. Have nice weeks and weekends everyone!

Policy Post

A couple of authors have asked me to take a look at their books in the past week (and I’ve accepted, thank you authors). I thought I’d better make some sort of policy post for anyone looking at this blog and thinking of sending me a book to review. I'm a little afraid of putting this up because it's the kind of post that has the potential to unintentionally offend people.

I will not take books from publishers. The whole publisher, blogger relationship is getting so complicated and to be honest what kept me from starting up my own book blog before now was all the tangled politics that seemed to surround it. I don’t want to sound confrontational and I know there are tons of book bloggers out there receiving books from publishers, who write fair objective reviews, so search them out publishers and tell them about your books. This rule applies even to books I’m thinking about reading already.

I don’t actively search out the opportunity to get a copy of a book for review. I already have a massive pile of books at home and frankly it doesn’t need me to find another avenue for increasing it.

I will happily take a book if I’ve mentioned really wanting to read it, either on this blog or in the comments of someone else’s blog, if the author offers it to me. I like getting things I think I will enjoy for free. As long as the author offers it to me I will probably take it and review it, but it may not be the next book I pick up. I also can’t guarantee you a positive review (obviously).

If you’re an author and you think I’ll like your book (because you’ve seen me posting about books like it) please get in touch. As I said I’ve a massive pile of books in my house and I want to read all of them. I might not want to increase my giant pile right when you email me, but it really can’t hurt to ask. I like new discoveries.

I will always say if the book I’m reviewing was sent to me from the author, just so anyone reading is aware of that.

I don't think I have some kind of right to get free books just because I have a book blog. I don't think other bloggers make this assumption either. I don't think book blogs that get free books, or actively seek out free books for review are doing anything wrong. Hopefully you get that I love book bloggers (I've been reading some people's sites for five - six years).

I’m really grateful to authors who offer to send me free books they think I might like, that’s about the nicest gift I could get from a stranger. Ta.

Reading everything now!

Dorothy W at ‘Of Books and Bicycles’ has a post up about feeling frustrated because she wants to read from so many different categories of book all at the same time. Most of the time I love being interested in everything, bored people are boring people after all (unless they’re bored at work). Still I often encounter the same reading dilemma (oh how privileged I am to be able to use that term) Dorothy’s having right now. I want to read deeply into one subject but I don’t want to neglect all the other subjects. A more disciplined mind than mind would make a life times project out of this problem, I’ll just make a list like Dorothy’s and go back to picking up books at random.

Here’s a pretty comprehensive list of what I’m interested in at the moment:

Books about pirates: both non-fiction history and fiction, especially non-fiction books about female pirates. There are at least three books on pirates sitting in my house waiting to be read. This category can also stand for books about all aspects of seafaring life (sailors, fishermen, women dressing as men to escape to sea etc), whales ('Moby Dick', 'Leviathan'), oh and surfing.

Historical romances, based on solid history – Jean Plaidy, Georgette Heyer, Phillipa Gregory.

Non-fiction about artists lives – Caravaggio, Rosetti (yes, alright the trashy BBC2 series sparked my interest in him) Turner, Picasso and Degas.

Non-fiction about current issues – ‘The Wisdom of Whores’ is the first book that springs to mind but also books about eco issues, aid, Iraq and the global financial situation

Biblical and religious backgrounds and history – it turns out there are a wealth of books examining religious texts as if they were just like other historical document. I’ve always wondered why people didn’t treat the Bible with the same healthy skepticism and study applied to other historical source material, turns out people do and now I want to read what they have to say.

Non-fiction about adventurers – I took a history course about mountaineers and mountains in university and Erica Wagner of the UK Times has monumentally increased my interest in polar explorers like Scott.

Books about falconry and birds of prey – Yes, I flew and owl and listened to a girl talk about the falcon she has at home being mobbed by seagulls and I was reminded how much I love birds of prey.

Experimental fiction, especially by women – immediately I think of Joyce Carol Oates, Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Ali Smith…that list could get gigantic.

Nostalgia fiction and non-fiction – flapper girls, India at the cusp of the Empire’s collapse and optimistic home life in Britain during and immediately after the world wars all come under this category.

Books about the below stairs life – I admit I’ve possibly been watching too much Upstairs Downstairs recently and now I crave books about the servant/master relationship.

YA – lots of it focused on all kinds of subjects.

Historical fiction – all kinds, all periods (agh, too much for a lifetime I think).

Scientific history – I may not have the best science mind, but I do enjoy reading about the people behind the science, especially Newton and his contemporaries.

Science fiction – I want to read the great classic authors like H G Wells but also the most current offerings, oh and more by Philip K Dick.

Russian classics – 'Anna Karenina' sits on my bookcase mocking me, as does 'Crime and Punishment'.

Victorian classics– Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Gaskill, all the usual suspects.

Poetry – specifically modern poetry. I received a ringing endorsement for Seamus Heaney recently, so I’d like to try him. I also want to just wander through some poets collections and see which ones stick.

Collections of letters – fact, fiction I really don’t care I must read more.

Books on feminist theory, history and current issues.

Fiction and non-fiction outlaws from America or Australia – 'The Legend of Colton H Bryant', 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' go to the top of this list but I also want to read about Ned Kelly

Fiction and non-fiction about political prisoners and political oppression – I actually made a little list of some books on this subject after finishing ‘The Lizard Cage’ and I think ‘Guantanamo Boy’ may have to find its way into my hands quite fast. 'Persepolis',' The Kabul Beauty School' and 'The Last King of Scotland' are all on there too.

Liar, Liar Bloomsbury!

Chasing Ray has a comprehensive post about the 'Liar, Liar' cover scandal that is infuriating bloggers everywhere. In case you haven't heard 'Liar, Liar' by Justine Larbalestier features a black narrator, with short, nappy hair but its cover shows a white girl with long hair covering her face.

Colleen's post contains the link to the author's honest explanation of how the cover came about and a link to the publisher's lame attempt to spin the situation in their favour. Her post is also a clear call for bloggers to take to their keypads and explain to Bloomsbury that what they did with this cover was not acceptable.

As a marketer I'm appalled (once again) to see the industry making untested assumptions about what will sell and what the people want, assumptions which seem to be based mostly on lazy stereotypes conceived back in the bad old days. Often my frustrations with the marketing industry are caused by the way companies use gender in their campaigns, but lately I'm seeing some seriously foul marketing when it comes to the use (or in this case the exclusion of) race in marketing campaigns. The fact that marketing departments design campaigns that fit so poorly with the consumers they're suppousedly marketing to suggest that either marketeers aren't doing any substantial primary market research anymore, or if they are they're making damn sure they only conduct this research in areas where their existing views will be confirmed.

I want to know what kind of research Bloomsbury's team did to lead them to the conclusion that putting a black girl on the cover, or using a different kind of cover, would cause the book's sale to plummet. Looking at past numbers for books with black characters on their covers and using them as proof that their assumptions are solid is not good enough. Publishers need to go to the readers and test their assumptions with real people, the people that may or may not buy their books. They can't ask everyone personally, but they could set up anonymous web surveys to collect opinions, they could set up focus groups, they could listen to their authors and take their opinions seriously. Bloggers are even helping them out for free right now by explaining that many of us want to see books with black main characters to show black people on the covers. Maybe we need to be a bit clearer - we have money and we want to spend it on books, we want to see more books and covers featuring black, hispanic and asian characters (and a bunch of other things but that's a different, although closely related, fight). Do you see the the correlation?

Companies could be creating marketing campaigns that make consumers love their brand and attach that all important, industry sustaining brand loyalty to their company name. They could be increasing their sales by reaching new customers. Instead they're so worried about alienating existing customers that they're rolling out the same old excuses and the same old campaigns, thereby alienating a whole host of potential customers.

Read the posts linked at the Chasing Ray post. If you think it's wrong for a publisher to put a white girl on the cover of a book where the main character is clearly described as black, if you dislike the assumptions you see being made by the marketing industry, if you think spinning a bad decision is worse than a publisher admitting they made a mistake then please raise your voice in your corner of blogland.

By the way Amazon's 'Liar, Liar audio cds now carry the tag 'cover art not final' - which might indicate progress or further spin. Let's wait and see shall we.

Updated: You can now see some of the many responses to Bloomsbury's epic mess (and their sad and sorry attempt to spin the situation) collected.

Blog Improvement Project - Blog Post Bingo

Hopefully you’ve been noticing all the different types of content over the last couple of weeks (because if you haven’t then this exercise has been a little futile). I’ve been taking part in a three week run of ‘Blog Post Bingo’ as part of ‘The Blog Improvement Project’. We were challenged to try and create twelve different types of content. I managed to get nine different kinds up here which I’m pretty happy about:

Link post about projects bloggers are running.
Resource post about books to read for ‘The Spice of Life’ challenge.
How to get me to buy your book.
'Expert' post about speedway.
Short post, where I express fear and freak people out ;)
Review post of ‘The President’s Daughter’ (really there could be multiple entries for this because this is primarily a book reviewing site).
List post about the countries I’ve read about this year (Weekly Geeks).
Long Post about Nick Hornby’s ‘Slam’ – I’m going to count this review post as my long post because it got totally off track and turned into a post about my views on teen pregnancy.
My own kind of post was a picture post (not very original but I think the cool superhero generation makes up for that).

Now some questions for you:

Which of these types of blog content did you enjoy the most?
Could you distinguish between them, without the list above?
What do you think of the usual mix of reviews and general content at this blog (would you prefer the review posts to be more spaced out or do you wish I’d quit chattering sometimes and just review)?

Superheroine Away!

The readergrlz are asking that you make your own hero this month at The Superhero Factory. I love The Superhero Factory and would happily play there all day (there's no way to directly link your hero to a blog post and perhaps you should all be glad about that, because I might spend whole days linking heros here). Here's my tricked out Superheroine:

I'm not so keen on the name, but man does she look cool! Now what sort of adventures might she have?

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson

Every year, for forty years, Henrick Vanger has received a single flower from an anonymous source on his birthday. He has no idea who is sending him these eerie gifts, but at eighty two he feels compelled to make one last effort to solve the mystery.

Mikael Blomkvist has earned himself a hefty fine and three months in prison. His financial magazine published his expose about a notoriously industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, only to find that Mikael’s accusations can not be substantiated. Tricked into a vulnerable position Mikael is unable to defend himself during the ensuing court case, where he is convicted of libel. When Henrick Vanger offers him the chance to clear his name if he finds out what happened to Henrick’s niece when she disappeared forty years ago, Mikael finds the offer odd but irresistible.

Then there’s Lisbeth Salander, an intensely private woman who is also vengeful, socially isolated and a meticulous freelance detective. Salander is brought in by Vanger’s lawyer to investigate Mikael before Vanger hires him, but the investigation is dropped when Mikael agrees to take the job. Mikael decides he needs some specialist help with the investigation into Harriet Vanger’s disappearance and Salander is contracted to help him.

‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ requires a bit of patience at first. Steig Larsson delves into the complex world of financial chicanery. The Vanger family is large and initially it can be hard to remember how all of them relate to each other, especially as several are dead and take no active part in the novel. Luckily Larsson understands how to explain a complex subject clearly and provides plenty of guidance about the financial matters. The reader is also carefully reminded of the structure of the Vanger family, without any loud, intrusive recaps, as Mikael struggles to remember the histories of the different family members.

For a large part of the novel Blomkvist and Salander are apart, each contained in a separate, intensely detailed story line. Both compel readers to pay close attention. Mikhael Blomkvist is a revolutionary in the field of financial journalism and his passion for integrity transform the dull world of figures into a place of conflict and drama. He also lives an unconventional lifestyle, engaged in an open relationship with his married business colleague. This partnership is conducted with such ease and friendship between the various people involved that readers may genuinely wonder why society is so opposed to open relationships.

Blomkvist may be rewriting the reputation of financial journalism, but it’s Salander who will make readers crave the sequel. She is first described as:

‘a pale, anorexic young woman who had hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows. She had a wasp tattoo about two centimeters long on her neck, a tattooed loop around the biceps of her left arm and another around her left ankle. On those occasions when she had been wearing a tank top, Armansky also saw that she had a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She was a natural redhead, but she dyed her hair raven black. She looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers.’

which makes her sound like an edgy, almost exotic figure, the personification of a certain type of male fantasy. However Salander is not your ordinary ass kicking, taking names female character, with a sexy vulnerable side, she is a character to be feared.
Larsson reveals only flashes of her at first, making her storyline tantalizingly unavailable. Then slowly, as the reader starts to realise what an extraordinary heroine Larsson is presenting, she begins to almost colonize the book until she is just as crucial a character as Mikael.

Salander has been placed under guardianship by the state, which believes her to be mentally deficient. When her guardian changes she finds her finances controlled by a sociopath intent on making Salander exchange sexual favours to retrieve her own money. Larsson reveals the vulnerable situation her legal status puts her in, then avoids making her a victim by enabling her to exact a tough and righteous justice outside of the law. Her isolation from society results in strong principles most of us wouldn’t be able to sustain and while Salander is not a character many women will probably admit to recognizing themselves in, as she exhibits severe social dysfunction and is often close to dangerously unstable, she is a character to respect and to cherish as an example of an avenging goddess made human. Larsson has taken a character who would traditionally be a heroine because of her status as a victim and made her strong, so strong that she is hard and almost unsympathetic. Then, as the novel progresses he encourages human feeling into her veins without weakening her essential power, to create a most complex female character who defies categorization.

‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ is a novel that wants to change the world in many ways. The first section the book begins with a statistic related to women and violence in Sweden ‘18% OF WOMEN IN SWEDEN HAVE AT ONE TIME BEEN THREATENED BY A MAN’ and each successive section begins with a statistic that progresses through a scale of violence, a device which links in with the increasing violence directed at women in the novel. Larsson wants to use his novel to highlight and denounce some of the most dangerous opinions in the world, so he creates a crime and a cast of characters involved in that crime that enable him to do so. It turns out that many members of the Vanger family were enmeshed with the Nazis and other facist parties. The crimes committed in the novel highlight the ways in which society’s prejudices consistently cause the authorities to fail women and place them in dangerous situations. Larsson takes on the Swedish legal system, the journalistic institutions and the system of industry in precise passages that deviate from the main action without feeling artificially inserted. These are big issues for a crime novel to address, but Larsson smoothly links worldwide issues with the individual crimes his characters discover. The result is a novel that often feels threatening, dark and troubling in a way that fits with the crime genre, but also feels as significant as a piece of political non-fiction.

One points before you start pushing people out of the way to get to the book. This is Swedish crime fiction, even if you haven’t read any of the recent crime translations from Sweden you probably know it has a bit of a reputation. I never really like to toss out warnings about books, I assume anyone reading here is big enough to take care of themselves and can make their own judgments about whether they’ll be able to handle certain subjects. Still, on this occasion I think I’ll just mention that there are a few scenes of sexual violence just because the details are a little out of the ordinary. There wasn’t anything that kept me awake but there were scenes that made me blink a bit faster. These scenes aren’t all about the criminals getting kicks though, one scene is an unforgettable act of justice that I personally think was worth buying the book for.

Other Reviews

Insert Suitably Snappy Title Here
Eve's Alexandria
My Friend Amy
Emily Barton
Random Jottings
The Rejectionist
litlove
Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops
just add books

Blogger Projects

You might have noticed that I don’t often post general book news. I think there are plenty of bigger blogs that present book news (Bookslut, bookarama, Chasing ray) and then, sometimes I just forget to save links to stories I like. I let the bigger blogs handle the news, but I do like to post the occasional link to news of bloggers working on worthy projects. This month I’m happy to see that there’s news of several positive projects, created by busy bloggers:

GuysLitWire received 600 books donated by readers during their recent ‘Bookfair for Boys’. They’ll be using these books to create a library for boys in the LA County juvenal justice system. Read Colleen’s wrap up post on the book drive and hear about future plans.

In case you haven’t seen it yet Colleen (she of the above GuysLitWire post) is hosting a new regular series called ‘What a Girl Wants’. Female authors of young adult books share their opinions on a different topic each Wednesday. So far they’ve discussed female detectives (and come up with an idea for a socially conscious teen sleuth), race and books the author’s read during their teenage years. If those posts spark your interest you can read about what Coleen hopes to achieve with this series.

Jo is hosting the ‘Sex in Teen Lit Month’ in July. There are quite a few books being reviewed, some authors have turned up for interviews and there are regular discussion topics. Jo’s providing the opportunity for us all to make a pretty thorough examination of the topic from all angles and I really need to catch up on her posts.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week nominations are open. This is the event where we all have the power to highlight the blogs we like to read. There is every conceivable category you could want (and if you want more you can try writing them in). So get to work finding bloggers you think deserve to win awards. You don’t have to have a blog to be able to nominate, you just have to be enthusiastic about the world of book blogs (I’ve nominated blogs that I’ve been reading for ages as well as a few I found this year).

Dawn is going to walk 60 miles to raise money for Breast Cancer. No that’s not bookish, but Dawn is a book blogger, who asks if you can spare the equivalent of a fancy cup of coffee to help her raise $3,000. She’ll be walking covered in the names of cancer survivors/sufferers that people have emailed to her. Visit her donation page (where she’s already picked up over $1,000).

These are all great projects from women who blog. Now, not to make this a gender contest or anything (although I do like anything that conjures up the image of women yanking a male tug of war team into some mud) but what about you male bloggers? Do you have any projects I should know about?

While I’m linking, say hello to my fourteenth follower Paperback Reader. In her most recent post she has a yummy food picture.

A Secret Alchemy - Emma Darwin

Time for another question post. Ask any questions you like about Emma Darwin's 'A Secret Alchemy', which is part historical narrative, which begins just before 'The War of the Cousins' and part modern narrative/love story/treatise on creativity. I have absolutely no knowledge about this period in history, apart from what I found out while reading the book, but if you have questions about the novel I'd love to answer them.

Nerds Heart YA - Round Two Decisions

Round two decisions tournament decisions are coming in now:

AmyMy Friend Amy was chosing between 'Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before' by David Yoo and 'Feathered' by Laura Kasischke. 'Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before' moves into the semi finals, proving that the Smiths really do control the world :)

Heather had to decide between my first round choice 'Last Exit to Normal' by Michael Hamon and 'My Most Excellent Year' by Steve Kluger. 'My Most Excellent Year' moves on and will face 'Stop me if You've heard this One Before' in the semis.

Stephanie from Stephanie's Confessions of a Bookaholic has finished reading her books 'The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine' by April Lurie and 'The City in the Lake' by Rachel Neumier. 'The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine' will progress to the semis.

Laza from Gimme More Books picked 'The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second' by Drew Ferguson over 'Cracked Up to Be' by Courtney Summers. On goes Charlie to the second round where he will face off with Dylan.

The Spice of Life Reading Challenge

Yes, I’ve joined another challenge (look it’s a small one, it sounded fun and I’m absolutely not going to sign up for the other challenge I saw while looking at this one because that would mean adding 12 more books to this years reading list). I’ve joined the ‘Spice of Life’ challenge, where participants ‘read and/or review books about food and eating our way through the good life’. Books for the challenge can be recipe books, non-fiction, fiction and memoirs/biographies. I’ll be joining at the ‘Taste’ level, which means I’m only committing to reading two books for this challenge.

If you knew me in real life you’d probably be on your ass laughing by now at the thought of me cracking a recipe book. In fact if you were my friend Kate (she of the professional knife set) you would now be telling everyone about the time we tried to make fudge. Her cooking reputation apparently isn’t tarnished by the pound of fudge that wouldn’t set, even though we left it in the fridge for two days, because we made it in my kitchen. Alright and because she can make Creme Brule and posh sauces while I can just about make toast. Someone else might tell the story of the time I left the plastic wrapper on the bottom of the pizza. Thankfully no one would tell the story of the lasagna that melted in a plastic puddle because I didn’t check if you were supposed to remove it from its container before putting it in the oven – I’ve managed to keep that one under wraps. Being a good sport I would probably reply with the story of the tremendously hot curry my flat mates and I forced ourselves through because we’d made it (it took about two hours and we used the entire tea caddy of sugar trying to calm it down). Or I might tell you how cold Dominoes pizza and peanut M&Ms were my favourite breakfast snack during my last essay writing panic. It would all be very jolly.

But inside I would be weeping, weeping I tell you. See, I have always wanted to be the kind of person who can just whip up a three course meal with cocktails and a tiered cake in an afternoon. I think once I started Food Technology in year nine I realised that probably wasn’t going to be the kind of person I was. For our final project we had to make and decorate cakes, so we went to the food show at the NEC the food show at the NEC to get ideas from the beautifully decorated cakes they display each year. Right by the entrance was a gigantic 3D Wizard of Oz masterpiece. It had the emerald city, the yellow brick road and all the characters made out of sugar, with edible glitter ruby slippers. I desperately wanted to be the kind of girl who could make that kind of cake. Instead I was the girl whose second layer sank at ten o’clock at night (you were allowed to bake the final cakes at home). I made a chameleon cake, which everyone had to have explained to them (it had three bands of colour and the chameleon was done in the same three bands of colour so it matched its environment) while one of the other students made a sugar Noah’s ark. I wanted to stove its little sugar paste roof in.

I now know there’s a very small repertoire of meals I can make successfully and sadly only one of those is a desert that involves cooking ((crumble). ‘I’m crafty in other ways,’ I tell myself ‘Look at all those fools rushing around on ‘Come Dine with Me’, much better to buy ready made pies and pasta.’ But while I’ve now (mostly) stopped myself optimistically starting meals that might give Gordon Ramsey pause for thought I do still enjoy reading about cooking and watching cookery shows on tv. Whether you’re a great chef whose dinner parties are the talk of the neighborhood or if there’s not a hope in hell of you turning out a passable tarte tatin you should find something to enjoy in my collection of fabulous food resources below:

Television

Until last year Gordon Ramsey’s was my favourite tv chef. The ‘Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares’ showed the man would eat anything to get good ratings and the ‘F Word’ left you pondering the question – will his kids group up stone cold killers or manic vegetarians. Then he ate a puffin. ‘Nuff said.

This year Heston Blumenthal launched ‘Heston’s Feasts’, a series that ‘recreated’ historical dishes with an insane Heston twist to them. The man mixed vibrators with jelly, created an edible garden and did some potentially dangerous things with fire. I now have a new crazy male tv chef to cheer on.

When I want more food, less crazy I watch ‘Something for the Weekend’. Not only can you watch just the good bits of shows like ‘The Apprentice’ you can also see Simon and celebrities cook easy, yet effective dishes that sound and look fabulous. Their cocktail segment features award winning mixologists who always have interesting facts about the history of their cocktails on hand.

Fiction

It probably won’t surprise you that Joanne Harris is the first author in this list. She made me want to brew my own cordial and make my own chocolate. She showed me how destructive an orange could be. Harris is the queen of the sensuous use of scent, texture and taste.

Her male equivalent has to be Anthony Cappella. ‘The Food of Love’ is designed to make you want to bed a chef and with its descriptions of the delicate meals Bruno cooks from authentic Italian produce it succeeds. Food is also integral in ‘The Wedding Officer’, the story of a young man sent to stop British soldiers marrying their Italian girlfriends. There are feasts, cheeses and a very strong attachment between a girl and her milk producing buffalos. I’m hoping ‘The Many Flavours of Coffee’ which I’ll be reading for the challenge will be just as good.

This year I read ‘The Sugar Queen’ by Sarah Addisson Allen, which was less about food than I was expecting after reading the blurb. However this book evokes all those Christmassy food smells (like peppermint) and is probably good for Americans, who will like the nostalgia candy aspect. I did almost salivate over Cloe’s hot sandwiches; her shop sounded like it would put Subway out of business.

‘The Food Taster’ by Peter Elbing is a little trashy for a historical novel but the descriptions of the Italian banquets will have you groaning throughout the book.

If you want more food fiction check out this list at ChowHound (scroll down a few posts to see links to other lists).

Non-fiction

Jessa Crispin occasionally reviews food book for a ‘Smart Set’ column called ‘The Kitchen Library’, where she tries out a few recipies to see how they turn out. Her publication ‘Bookslut’ also features an irregular column called ‘Cookbookslut’ written by Charlotte McGuin Freeman. You can also visit LivingSmall where she sometimes talks about food (and currently hen raising).

Wishlist

There are still so many food books I want to read, he’s what I can think of off the top of my head:

‘Madonna of the Almonds’ – Marina Fiorato (amaretto)
‘The Short Life and Times of Mrs Beeton’ – Kathryn Hughes
‘Like Water for Chocolate’ – Laura Esquivel
‘Julie and Julia’ – Julia Powell
Falling Cloudberries – Tessa Kiros
The Coffee House: A Cultural History – Markman Ellis

How to...

So you’ve written a novel and I’ve heard about it. I think it sounds pretty cool because it’s about one of the many, many things I’m interested in (right now I kind of hope this imaginary book is about pirates or falconry). But what extra little things would ensure that I (obviously the most important customer in existence) buy your book? Here’s my handy how to guide for getting me to pay actual money for your book:

Do…

Give your book a crazy title. I am attracted to strange titles above all else and in the past have bought books and cds based on their title alone. Yes I have been burned buying this way (‘Starfish and Coffee’ are not my kind of band), but it’s also helped me discover some great stuff (‘Dogs Die in Hot Cars’, ‘Pirates! In Adventures with Scientists’).

Give away an accompanying food item/food offer with your book. If your book has won a Galaxy award it should come with an accompanying bar of chocolate. I’d also be stoked to get free seeds if your book is about plants, fruit or vegetables. Food bribery may just work.

Make your author biography interesting. In the author biographies for ‘Good Omens’ Terry Pratchett encourages you to send him banana daiquiris and Neil Gaiman says he’d settle for cash. If I think an author is interesting I’m more likely to buy their book, read the wonderful story inside and keep buying their books, so please include random facts about yourself or a blog link in your author biography.

Encourage your publishers to leave out any quotes from reviewers who compare your book to ‘Birdsong’ simply because you’ve written a historical novel. If your book is compared to it I’m going to be expecting ironic names and terrible sex scenes. I actually just finished a book where two reviewers compared it to ‘Birdsong’ but I didn’t buy my own copy, I borrowed it from someone. See if you can find quotes from reviewers who’ve read a bit more widely and can compare your book to, oh I don’t know, any other good historical novel in existence!

Include a list of other books, related to your topic, that you would recommend. It shows your passion for the subject and your commitment to research. I love authors who love their work.

Don’t…

Have a headless woman on your cover (unless your book is about a woman with no head/face). I know you probably using the headless woman cover as a visual indicator/trying not to impose a picture of the character on your reader’s minds but they’re glutting the market and they look unimaginative.

Use endnotes. This one is not just me, Sylvia at Classical Bookworm talked about how annoying they are in her review of ‘Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)’. Footnotes are the way forward. No matter how big they are I prefer footnotes.

Have a forward that contains spoilers about the book. Spoilers are not cool, even in editions of classics. Put an afterword in if you want to talk about specific events in the book.

So now you know : )

BIKES GO FAST!

This weekend I’m going to try and keep away from the computer, otherwise there won’t be much time for reading in between television, as it’s speedway-stravaganza over the next few days (with a good helping of Deppinger shoved in on Saturday). It’s quite an exciting time in speedway at the moment so it seems like a good point to step away from books and talk about one of the few sports I really like to follow.

Speedway is a motor bike sport, which is most popular in places like Sweden and Poland but has a considerable following in Britain. Under the British league system there’s an elite league, a premier league and a conference league. The basic differences between the leagues are the speed of the races, the technology used in the equipment, the level of sponsorship (just like in the different football leagues but on a smaller scale) and the safety precautions. Teams must have an air safety fence to compete in the elite league (this is quite expensive, especially as you really need a back up in case the fence is punctured during a meeting), while premier league teams have boards or wire, which is part of why the races can be slower. Safety is paramount because speedway bikes have no brakes and speedway crashes can still cause fatal injuries.

Each team must contain seven riders, plus two reserves. Each rider has an end of year average, that is worked out from the amount of points they accrue over the season and this average must fit in a proscribed team ‘pot’ at the beginning of the season. The combined average amount changes almost every year and this year it was lowered to something like 37, which has meant several of the top riders have been unable to find places at British clubs this year (because they were high scorers and have high averages, meaning that a team manager would have to pick up more low scoring, low average riders than they would have to if they took on a middling rider and hoped he improved over the season). I think all the fans are still waiting to see if this lower points allowance really does make the league more competitive, or if it just means we’re deprived of seeing top riders ride in Britain.

Each league meeting has 15 heats, where four riders (two riders from each team) compete for first place (three points), second place (two points) and third place (one point). There are all kinds of other rules and point scoring opportunities, like putting in tactical substitutes and the new points scores for winning and drawing meetings will probably just be confusing if I try to explain here. So let’s just say there’s a home and an away leg to every meeting, your team wants to win both legs but are more likely to win the home meeting.

Our home team is The Wolves and after a dismal season last year we’re actually in contention to win the league. We have one of the smallest tracks in the elite league, the craziest announcer (he actually injured himself trying to recreate a Britain’s Got Talent Moment on the track) and the windiest stadium in winter. Me and my dad go to every home meeting as long as it isn’t raining. My dad used to follow speedway a long time ago, when http://www.cradleyspeedway.co.uk/ Cradley had a team (this is a massive speedway controversy) and has always kept up with it, but we started going to meetings together about five years ago.

Right now it’s about the middle of the speedway Grand Prix season, where riders who qualify race as individuals on some of Europe’s biggest tracks. Speedway Grand Prix has even more complicated math involved so lets just say at each meeting everyone races, the ones who get the most points move to the semi finals for that meeting, the riders who take first and second place in each of the two semis move to the final and one rider wins the final. Then all your points from each Grand Prix race you are in keep getting added together and the person with the most points after all the meetings wins the entire thing. This year the Aussie, Jason Crump looks set to take the title, yet again.

And on top of all the league and Grand Prix excitement this week is the Speedway World Cup where eight national teams compete. There are two meetings and the teams that takes first in each of them automatically get a place in the final, those who are second and third at each meeting go to a race off (which Britain were in on Thursday) and the first and second place teams from that meeting take the last spots in the final (Saturday afternoon).

This year there was a massive upset in the first meeting as the Russians took an automatic place in the final thanks to their new star rider and his motivational force. Denmark’s top rider was injured and unable to take part after the third round of races (there are twenty five races in each World Cup Meeting, five riders in a team and each rider goes out five times). In the World Cup you can no longer put someone else in if a rider has to bow out for any reason (mysterious injuries were happening last year when riders started to do badly). This pushed Denmark, who were the favourites to win, into the race off.

In the second meeting the Polish would not be beaten by the Australians, leaving the team with the current Grand Prix leader in the race off meeting.

Tonight we’ll watch the DVD of the race of meeting to see if Britain can make the final. It’s a young, promising team so I think fans will be happy if they just acquit themselves well and look to the future. Then Saturday we’ll watch the live final. I’d put money on Poland taking the cup whichever teams make the final, but I don’t think Russia will make it easy for them.

You can find British league meetings on Sky sports channels most Monday nights, or sometimes Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can see Grand Prix meetings on alternate weekends, where all you Yanks can cheer on your countryman Greg Hancock. To find out more about speedway check out the Wikipedia entry or the http://speedwaygp.com/ speedway Grand Prix website. You can watch a fantastic speedway race from the 2008 Grand Prix series at YouTube.

I’ll be using the magic of scheduled posting for the rest of the weekend – whatever you’re doing I hope you have a great time.

Slam - Nick Hornby

Sam is a young guy who likes to skate (on a skateboard not an ice rink in case you haven’t already guessed that from the title of this novel). He plans to go to college to do art and design. His mum, who failed her GCSEs because she was pregnant with Sam at the time, couldn’t be more proud. Then she introduces Sam to her friend’s daughter Alicia and the pair fall into the deepest kind of infatuation. They start sleeping together and although they’re careful, there’s this one time when they’re not and Sam doesn’t tell Alicia that something half happened that could change their lives. Their feelings for each other disappear, but it doesn’t matter because a few weeks later Alicia finds out she’s pregnant. Now Sam’s bright future seems to be disappearing.

Sam doesn’t know what to expect, but his skating hero Tony Hawke is going to help him out. Usefully Sam can talk to his poster of Tony Hawke and when Sam needs a push to embrace his responsibilities Tony Hawke whizzes him into the future so he can see what’s going to happen. It doesn’t always work out so well, in fact after the first trip into the future Sam runs away, but in the end it might just be the one thing that really helps.

Every time I think about Nick Hornby’s young adult novel 'Slam' I get angry. Sam and Alicia’s pregnancy comes about because of stupidity – there’s no nice way to sugarcoat it. Sam’s mum tries hard to make sure that her teenage pregnancy acts as a cautionary example about what can happen when you don't use protection. Both teenagers come from Britain where there are plenty of health clinics that offer free condoms. Both go to school and while the sex education they receive there is never discussed I’m assuming that because they both know about condoms and don’t come up with any of the crazy playground myths, like not getting pregnant while standing up, that they’ve both been taught the basics. There’s no kind of pressure that prevents them from using protection, they’re just stupid and Sam even admits that at the beginning of the book.

Hornby’s book seems to say that no matter how much sex education you give teens, no matter how much the generation before them talks about teenage pregnancy, no matter how easy you make it for them to get and use protection teenagers will still decide to have unprotected sex. Hornby feels this is a realistic description of the current situation in Britain and that depresses me. Maybe that’s because I kind of agree (I know I certainly put myself in one similar stupid position that could have ended in pregnancy even though I knew all about protection) maybe because I don’t agree at all (perhaps I’m naïve but I’ve always think the current generation of teenagers have a good grip of the full consequences of teenage pregnancy and that the majority of teenage pregnancies in Britain are down to poor sex education, not willful naïveté).

It’s hard to be sympathetic with the main characters, but it’s also hard to condemn them, unless you’ve never made a stupid mistake. So my attitude to the main characters was mostly ‘You seem like nice people but you’re also kind of dumb, try to raise your kid well.’ I felt like I’d pretty much written off the people I was reading about and was just crossing my fingers for the next generation. Judge not and all that jazz was a real struggle for me in relation to this book.

Now not much of what I’ve said above is to do with the actual book, it’s more about my personal response to the book because of who I am. There’s more of that stuff, for example I personally didn’t enjoy the way Hornby has Alicia describe abortion as murder and let’s that statement sit without having other characters challenge it in a meaningful way. I didn’t love being inside Sam’s head and listening to him talk about how all lads want a girl that looks like a model but with a bigger chest. Sometimes it’s a struggle for me to read a novel written in a male voice because I get the urge to slap them when they start talking about women.

However in the interests of objectivity I also have to say that Hornby’s writing is competent, funny and compassionate. Sam has a genuine voice and he thinks and talks like a real British, male teenager. I enjoyed his dedication to skating and it was touching to see how his hero worship of Tony Hawke filled the space his own father left in his life. I liked how Hornby kept the book British, rather than creating a blank landscape to avoid alienating readers from other countries (dodgy reasoning in my opinion). Hornby also thinks sensibly about what happens to teenage couples who get pregnant after they stop being a couple and the different forms their relationships can take. I think that because of all these elements ‘Slam’ would be a useful book to hand out to teenagers who find they are about to become dads and to teenagers you want to discourage from accidentally becoming dads. Sam is a character who teenage boys will be able to identify with and he’s a character they might take advice from.

If you have opinions, arguments, praise for the 24 hour pill advert currently airing on British tv… leave them in the comment section. If you’ve reviewed ‘Slam’ leave your link as a comment and I’ll add it at the bottom of my review.

Other Reviews

Ink and Paper
RhinoasRamblings
Nymeth
Stainless Steel Droppings

Do the book math

The other day someone (I think maybe it was Care?) posted about how they’ve decided not to keep going with books they aren’t enjoying. They’d done the average book math and worked out just how few books an average person might be able to read in their life. I worked out my book math last night and man is it scary! If I read 60 books each year and I live to be 74 (I just added fifty years on to my age now) I can only fit in another 3,000 books.

Eeep.

What’s your personal book math (be a bit more optimistic than me and work on the basis that you’ll live to be 85 or older :) ?

The President's Daughter - Ellen Emerson White

Anyone who reads this review without singing the theme tune from ‘My Date with the President’s Daughter’ can have an ice cream on me. I don’t believe it can be done – prove me wrong internet readers, prove me wrong.

Meg Powers’ mother is a highly successful senator. To others, especially her over enthusiastic teacher, Meg will always be ‘the senator’s daughter’ and Meg can’t help but see herself as a less athletic, less attractive, less intelligent version of her mother. One of the first things Meg thinks about her mom is that ‘her mother was the kind of woman who made her wish she had on pumps.’ The first time readers see them together Meg makes several other negative comparisons between herself and her mother, setting up a pattern for the way Meg defines herself.

But what if her mom wasn’t just a senator, what if she went all the way and became the first female President of the United States of America? Meg can’t see any positives about her mother entering the presidential race; her mom already seems an effortless model of perfection that Meg can’t compete with and she’s sure being President will keep her mom away from home even more than her current job does. At first it seems unlikely to Meg that her mom will actually win, but as the campaign progresses, more and more people begin to think it might just happen and surprisingly Meg finds herself standing up for her mother when people express their doubt about the capablities of a female President.

I’m a late convert to the Meg Powers books (they’ve actually been recently reissued with slightly updated political and pop culture references). Ellen Emerson White is one of those writers who can make a third person narrative feel as confidential and intimate as a first person narrative. She makes Meg uncertain about her own feelings, so it never feels as if she is blatantly telling readers how Meg feels, but all the time she’s signaling Meg’s most private thoughts and the clashes that occur in her mind so that readers can become well acquainted with Meg. Meg’s interactions with her family, friends and teachers sound natural, meaning that while Meg is capable of putting a point across she doesn’t always have the perfect comeback at the perfect time.

Meg is one of my favourite young female characters. She’s politically aware to a degree that makes me want to run out and buy current interest books, but she also likes romance novels. She’s intelligent and she knows she has the potential to do even more, but she kind of wants to buck people’s expectations of her. The fact that she takes up the offer of a date, despite knowing the guy probably just wants to date the daughter of a presidential candidate, shows she’s not perfect and she’s not trying to be. The fact that she turns it down in the end shows she has enough commonsense and self-respect to triumph over her fantasies. She’s athletic and competitive when it comes to tennis and even when she skis for fun she wants to take on the hard runs. Finally although she’s conscious of her public image reflecting on her mom she doesn’t want to have to always compromise herself so she sometimes expresses her own views publically and dresses the way she wants to. While she sometimes lacks confidence and can be occassionally be bratty she has qualities that allow her to elevate herself to a new level when required, making her a wonderful example of the flawed heroine. This makes her similar to her mother, although Meg is never a carbon copy of Senator Powers as she wants to excel in different ways and arenas.

I didn’t want to start off talking about Meg’s mom and how she contributes to the excellence of this novel because I know how much Meg would hate being overshadowed by her mother, but Katherine Powers is a huge part of what makes this novel so strong. Not only is her career the plot device that kicks off all the emotional changes in Meg’s life, she’s also a complex character who is fully engaged with the rest of the novel. She’s an astute woman, who longs to change the world and wants to reach the highest levels in her career. She’s adept at creating a public image, but is plagued by private insecurities and cracks emerge behind the scenes as she attempts to balence the most demanding career in America with family life. Her character has depth, just like her daughter’s and it’s possible for readers to form almost the same level of connection to her hopes and her struggles as they can with Meg’s. Meg’s relationship with her mother is probably the defining plot strand of ‘The President’s Daughter’, as her pride in her mother battles with her desire to have a different kind of mother. It’s a difficult theme balence neatly, without taking one character's side and the author’s skillful handling of both Meg and her mom’s points of view will make tons of women instant fans.

While a novel that just focused on Katherine, Meg and their relationship as Katherine campaigns to become President would be interesting ‘The President’s Daughter’ would be poorer without the rest of the Powers family. Meg’s father and brothers are all distinct characters who add extra layers to the story of a family closely connected to politics. Her parent’s relationship has been fraught in the past because of her mom’s career and while there are times of great love between them her father is destined to become the First Man, while his wife will be President, meaning that tension often creeps back into their relationship as they try to keep equality in their relationship. Meg's younger brother Stephen is intensely private and often angry at the impact his mother’s career has on his life, while Neal as the youngest of the family misses having his mother around. Ellen Emerson White wants to closely examine the problems that the election of the first female President could cause for her family, but without providing fodder for those who would use these problems as a reason to keep women out of the Oval Office. She does so with style (as Katherine's aide, Preston would say).

‘The President’s Daughter’ is a compelling start to a series about women in power, featuring an intelligent female teenager. Does anyone think they deserve that ice cream now?

Weekly Geeks: 2009, 26

This week'sWeekly Geeks topic is fictional travelling. We're all being encouraged to look at which countries we've visited during our reading and post the kind of maps you see below:



I filled this map with all the countries I read about in books so far this year. If I'd tried to base this map on authors it would have been a bit dull (but I'm working on it, I'm working on it).

Create your own visited country map.

Where have I really travelled so far in my life? Well there's been:

Africa (Kenya)
Italy (Rome twice, Florence, Verona and Venice)
France (Nice twice because it's one of my mum's favourite places, Paris when I was little and Bourdeaux)
Spain (Madrid and Barcelona)
Gran Canaria
Greece (although I don't really count this one as it was a week of British clubbing in Malia)
Prague
Belgium
Ireland (Dublin twice)
The Seychelles
Canada (Toronto, Ontario and a couple of other places)
Jersey
All around the British Isles

Where do I still want to go? Oh, just a few places...

India
Iceland
Milan
Jamaica
Bracelona (again)
Tanzania
Brazil (maybe, I don't know if I'm brave enough though)
Australia and New Zealand
Athens
The Azures

Where have you been and where do you still want to go in the world?

Empress of the World - Sara Ryan

I know I said I was going to take ‘Empress of the World’ on holiday with me, but after my depressing reading experience I cracked. I decided that a young adult novel might be just what I needed to remind myself that modern books do not suck, so I pulled ‘Empress of the World’ by Sarah Ryan down from my bookshelves. It was exactly the right book for me and my faith in good modern novels is back.

Nicole is studying archaeology as part of the Siegel Institute summer program for gifted students. Nicole is a notebook girl and she drifts from the dull speech given on the first day of the program as she writes down her thoughts and sketches the people around her. One of the girls she draws notices her pictures and that’s how Nic meets the friends who will come to define her summer: nice but screwed up Issac, uber-enthusiastic Katrina, composer prodigy Kevin and Beautiful Hair Girl, Battle. Nic quickly finds herself attracted to Battle, which is odd because she always thought she liked guys…

‘Empress of the World’ is a love story, a story of summer love, first love and first love with someone of the same gender, but it never feels like an intense, angsty novel. That’s mostly because it’s written in the first person, from Nic’s point of view and while she’s unsure about her feelings towards Battle before they begin their relationship she’s completely in love the whole two weeks they’re together. This total immersion in Nic’s opinion and feelings makes it easy to connect with Nic and to empathize with her, making her a likeable narrator. It’s a bit weird to say that her sort of self-focused attitude is what makes her so easy to like, but Nic is never deliberately inconsiderate, she tries to understand other people and this is clear from the thoughts available for the reader.

As Battle, can be a little more obscure she is sometimes harder to like. Honestly when I started this book I thought I was going to roll me eyes at Battle a lot during the course of ‘Empress of the World’. Her feelings are a mystery to Nic and she seemed to cultivate a deliberately enigmatic personality to increase her allure. I was sure she was going to be a ‘wise woman’ figure, always shaking her head indulgently at Nic’s mistakes as she comes to terms with liking girls. Battle also comes off a little bit priggish in the beginning, holding her nose when Katrina smokes and sometimes making comments that make her sound like the preacher’s daughter she is. However, the way Nic describes her feelings about Battle, made me see her with new, less cynical eyes and as it becomes apparent that her reticence stems from doubt in herself and in other people, caused by her family she is a much more sympathetic character. Then she does something monumentally awesome which made me look at her with awe (no spoilers but it’s perhaps the best fictional act of teenage rebellion I’ve ever read).

The cast of friends that surround the couple are one of the novel’s standout features. It is still rare to find novels where the secondary characters are as interesting as the main characters. Kristina and Issac avoid ‘buddy syndrome’, where friends become convenient plot devices that allow main characters to work through their feelings. Issac has his own problems, as his parents get divorced and his dad tries to prove he’s Jew-enough for Israel. Kristina is this crazy ball of energy who just blurts out whatever she feels and she’s a female computer programmer, with a fiendish enthusiasm for fashion combinations. If anything was missing from this novel it was more Kristina. There’s a possibility that giving her a stronger, independent storyline could have overpowered the delicate story of connection that is central to the novel, but I personally I think a balance could have been found that allowed Kristina to do a little more. I did like how her sudden turn around about her inappropriate crush tied in nicely with one of the main things Nic discovers during the book, that not everything comes from a fully thought out reason.

I actually turned around and re-read the book after finishing it for the first time so I could really focus on the details of this book. It’s got the typical fast, intense pace you’d expect from a young adult novel, which makes it an easy book to race through, but it’s also short enough that you can easily go back after your burst of book gluttony and read it again. After a second reading the real roots of Battle’s secrecy and unwillingness to answer personal questions are clearer, as are the impulses that drive Nic to question and label everything. It’s also fascinating to see Sara Ryan use Nic’s thoughts to discuss society’s desire to understand and label everyone’s relationships and sexuality.
You can read Sara Ryan’s thoughts on a new topic every Wednesday as part of the ‘What a Girl Wants’ series at ChasingRay. If you want to know why I picked up this book head over to Collen’s Bookslut column 'Holiday Break' where she gets excited about how this book has smart teenage characters.

Other Reviews

Villa Negativa
things mean a lot
The Zen leaf

Returning from Holiday

I'm back from holiday (more on that later when I've properly woken up). Sorry I don't have any pictures of the pool yet but they're all on another person's camera. I just wanted to jump on here quickly to tell you what I read while on holiday:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsoon (excellent)
The President's Daughter - Ellen Emerson White (very good - looking forward to the rest of the series)
Slam - Nick Hornby (mixed, still thinking about it)

I started A Secret Alchemy by Emma Darwin (so far a little confusing but engaging) but didn't have time to finish it because the last three days were packed with excursions (camel riding, jeep safari to the interior of the island and a boat trip). Proper reviews will follow soon.

I hope you all enjoyed my question and answer posts. I checked comments from my phone on the last day of my holiday and I think I'll be doing some more posts in that format soon.

I also want to let you know that Heather has made her decision in the second round of NerdsHeartYa. Sadly 'Last Exit to Normal' will not be moving to the semi finals, but I think I knew it faced serious competition when it was announced it would be going up againt 'My Most Excellent Year'. Let's hear a big cheer for Heather and for 'My Most Excellent Year'. I'll be catching up on all the second round news tomorrow, during my day off and will try to put together a cath up post about what's happened so far.

I forgot to post this at the time so here's what Michael Harmon had to say when I told him his book was moving on to the second round:

'Well, thank you! What a great honor. I know Martin, and am pleased that Last Exit is doing well with the group. Please let me know how it all turns out. It sounds fun.'

Tomorrow should hopefully involve lots of blog hopping to see what you've all been up to, some review writing and I'll be off to the post office to send out the prize packages that are running a little late. Btw I know I forgot to announce who won the Weekly Geek Terry Pratchett trivia quiz before I left, sorry about that. Four people posted the correct answers (yes all of them - I really thought that a couple might fox you but obviously there are some dedicated TP fans among WGers, which just makes the world a more beautiful place) and Nymeth over at 'Things Mean a Lot' is the winner picked by a random number generator. If you see this before I have a chance to contact you please email me your postal address and I'll send you my copy of 'Slam' by Nick Hornby.

So I'm off to finish my washing now and hopefully read a bit more of 'A Secret Alchemy' before I collapse in a heap somewhere. Happy Sunday everyone (and hi to my thirteenth follower - that's my lucky number you know).

The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney

This is the final post in my interview series, where other bloggers ask me questions about the books I never got around to reviewing. This last post has just one question about a fabulous book that absolutely deserved to win the Costa prize:

classicvasilly has a questioning mind (you might notice she asked the most questions about the most books - yay for curious people): 'I read the description of Tenderness of Wolves. It sounds like a great read. I want to know everything about it.'

‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ is a historical novel set in a small pioneer town in Canada. An old trapper is found murdered and the narrator’s adopted son, Francis appears to have run away which makes him an obvious suspect. Our narrator, Mrs Ross, must join up with an Indian man to track him down through the vast, snowy Canadian wilderness and clear his name. Following behind them are the official investigators, sent by the malevolent Company that seems to control all of Canada. So the novel has bucket loads of crime and suspense, but it’s also full of love stories, ‘forbidden’ behavior and failed relationships. Pervading over everything is the claustrophobic feel of the landscape that the various parties travel through and the frequent encounters they have with the wolves that roam the land. Now that I start thinking about it there are way too many storylines to really examine them all fully in one review, yet they all blend together well and the variety of viewpoints make the novel a fascinating, multi-layered experience.

I remember when it was published there was an outcry about how the author had agoraphobia and had never travelled to Canada. People questioned how could she possibly have created a realistic book and felt that the book must suffer from Stef Penney’s lack of physical experience of Canada. Let me cry bull on all the people who said things like that. I personally think that Penney’s agoraphobia probably enhanced this book – the descriptions of the storms, the landscape closing in despite being such a wide, open space and the constant, endless snow all create this claustrophobic tone, which complements and enhances the anxious, fearful emotions present among the characters. The feeling of the land and weather malevolently closing in is a perfect example of nature being in sympathy with the plot, which is a novel full of crimes, deception and brutality. I think probably Penney’s experience as an agoraphobic had a lot to do with how successfully she created this atmosphere. It’s also well-written and feels well researched, without feeling overburdened with historical details.

If you’re losing faith in contemporary novel that get a lot of hype I suggest you start ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’ right now.

Have more questions, then leave them in the comments. If you've reviewed this book leave me a link and I'll include it in this post.

A Passage to India - E M Forster

I totally think I'm going to do this kind of review again - answering specific questions makes it so easy to decide which bits of the book to write about. This time I'm answering questions on one of the great E M Forster's novels - eep I hope I get them right (wait this is not school and this is not a test so it's ok):

bookwormans said 'I have been wanting to read "Passage to India" for awhile. Did you enjoy it? How does it compare to Forster's other works (like "A Room with a View"). How does its treatment of British imperialism compare with those of, say, Kipling?'

I honestly can not believe how few E M Forster novels there are. I’m trying to ration them out over my life, as I am Jane Austen novels, because otherwise I might get very sad about the lack of new novels from these authors. I love his novels so much because they make big issues so simple, without ever appearing simplistic. His prose is light, swift, witty and while he creates dialogue that flies he can slow the pace down, when he wants to indulge in descriptions of nature. So yes, I enjoyed ‘A Passage to India’ very much.

I read ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’ last year and both books talk about the incompatibility of the English and foreigners. They’re also both scathing about the British meddling in foreign countries. Of course they both have that fantastic light, sharp writing style that makes it a breeze to read all Forester’s novels despite the fearful classic status.

As for Kipling, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on that question. I’ve only ever read the ‘Just So’ stories and I’m worried reading Kipling’s adult books will spoil my memories of them. I am still not quite back on friendly terms with C S Lewis after starting to appreciate the subtleties of Narnia’s train wreck ending. It seems like I’m constantly hearing bad things about Kipling’s political views (although after seeing ‘My Boy Jack’ I’m currently inclined to view him as patriotic and naïve). Let’s just say Forster is not on the side of the British at all, ever. Even when he creates British characters he wants the reader to sympathize with he undermines them, but then he’s constantly doing that with all his characters.

Jenny has a hard hitting question about Forster's politics: 'How well, sensitively and/or accurately does Forster deal with/portray the issues surrounding British imperialism and Indian independence? How PC is it by today's standards?'

Forster does not really do sensitivity and yet his novels transcend the term PC in the best possible way. Forster was, as far as I can tell, angry about a lot of things. He was angry at the British officer set and their wives for dealing so crassly and ignorantly with Indians. I don’t think there’s one British character that comes away from this novel with a completely positive endorsement from Forster, although Mrs Moore and Fielding are much more positive characters than the rest of the British because they at least try to understand and help Indians. While Indian characters are more sympathetically dealt with they aren’t presented as glowing, native saints, instead their character flaws are documented in a realistic manner alongside the positive aspects of their characters. The ways in which Indian culture is incompatible with British culture (especially when it comes to matters of time-keeping and invites to dine) are made clear. Forster avoids taking sides on these issues and also avoids making an argument for the peculiarities of separate cultures being important. Instead he plainly lays out how Indian culture frustrates the British and how British culture frustrates the Indians. When it comes to the central scene of Dr Aziz’s trial for an alleged attack on an English woman in the Marabar caves Forester is very clearly on Aziz’s side.

I think Forester was also angry at a world, filled with societies and prejudices that prevented people from different nations from forming meaningful relationships. Dr Aziz and Fielding are two pleasant young men who like each other and start out as friends, but their national identities come between them after Aziz is tried for improper conduct towards Miss Quested. That’s why in this book (as in ‘Where Angels Fear to Tread’) the attempts characters make to transcend national boundaries are unsuccessful and end in unhappiness, as well as deep resentment. This is definitely not an attitude we would call PC now, as we all (hopefully) feel that successful inter-racial/inter-national relationships and friendships are possible. The constraints and prejudices of society present in Forster’s time made them seem impossible, something which Forster wanted to present accurately and rage against.

Eva saw the film and wanted to know: 'Have you seen the earlier movie of A Passage to India? If so, does it follow the book well? (I've seen the movie and am trying to decide whether to read the book!)'

I’m afraid I’ve only seen part of the movie, what you could call the central event at the caves. From what I remember that part stuck pretty closely to the book (the chaperone misses the train and Miss Quested stumbles from the caves apparently attacked). From what I remember of the film the attack is set up in a much more ambiguous way than in the book, so that you’re not sure Azir, or someone else, hasn’t attacked Miss Quested.

It's quite possible I may crack and read 'Howard's Way' this year as well. So much for rationing, but it's a lot easier to get my hands on Forster's novels than on other authors who only wrote six or so books because my mum has part of a Forster boxed set. Keep watching the blog to see if I give in to temptation ;)

East of the Sun - Julia Gregson

I think this would be a fantastic book to take on holiday (I'll let you know how I enjoy my own book choices when I return) - for now read my answers to some smart ladies questions:

classicvasilly said 'I read a great review for East of the Sun but what did you think of it? Were the characters believable? Would only a certain type of reader love the book or anyone?'

I certainly found the characters believable. The women are friends, but they struggle with being fully intimate with each other. They hold back secrets and thoughts, which the author makes much of as she shapes a novel that wonders how much we can ever really know about those we love. All the three main characters struggle to form their own identities without shutting other people out and they often feel frustrated or confused by the people closest to them. They’re also girls searching for fun; the novel is full of parties and weekends away. I suppose they felt like real young women to me: confused, happy, hiding, courageous – a big mixed muddle like most of us are in our twenties and thirties.

I think this book will appeal to readers who like romance and travel. I picked it up because I was looking for a book that captured both the indulgence of the Empire abroad but also the crumbling nature of upper-class expat society and the new spirit of India. The novel certainly has some problems, for example some storylines were abandoned and returned to rather abruptly and I’m not sure it would pass the Bechdel test, because the women usually just think about things other than men but talk about men. Still, I think it’s a book that’s easy to enjoy.

Sherrie thought 'East of the Sun – Julia Gregson sounds like a great book! As it's listed as a historical book, does it stick to the facts of history in this era?'

I’m not too up on my Indian history, although I’ve read a few books that follow the various conflicts within the country. I’m going to have to give you a bit of a cop out answer and say that the author names a range of books that informed her about the historical issues. The book mostly focuses on three female friends and two of them do their best to stay out of politics. Viva gets herself involved when she starts working at an orphanage and I liked that the author explains the reasons why many of the children are not especially grateful to the orphanage for taking them in. In terms of female history and attitudes at the time towards unmarried women I’d say the book felt like it was sticking with an authentic historical line. If you want a novel that really gets its teeth into the history of India, while still having a strong romantic storyline I’d recommend ‘The Far Pavilions’ by M M Kaye.

Leave further questions about this book in the comments section. If you've reviewed this book leave me a link and I'll include it in this post.

Other Reviews

A Work in Progress

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick

I won't have internet access while I'm away so I've scheduled some posts to pop up while I sun myself and drink cocktails. This week you should see all the answers to the questions book bloggers asked about the books I hadn't reviewed yet as part of Weekly Geeks/a mini challenge for Reading Dewey's Books. This series of posts begins with the answers below for the group of ladies who were curious about 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' by Philip K Dick (which I am a massive fan of):

classicvasilly asked 'Was the Philip K. Dick book your first book by the author? If not, how does it compare? I don't read a lot of sci-fi so what made you pick it up? Would you read more by the author?'

I always think of Philip K Dick as one of my favorite authors but I’ve only ever read two and a half of his books. I look out for any author hailed as the new Philip K Dick and cram them on to my bookshelves as fast as possible, which surprisingly results in some great finds (like ‘Spaceman Blues’ by Brian Slatterey). I love Dick’s kind of sci-fi which mixes elements of the hardboiled crime genre with futuristic settings. ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ features a world weary bounty hunter, left to survive on an Earth that most of the human race has abandoned because it’s atmosphere contains mutating particles. It’s dark and slick, but also relatable because the main guy is the kind of work-a-day PI character recognisable from the crime genre.

A long time ago I read ‘The Man in the High Castle’, which I think I was not at the right point in my reading development to understand. It’s very complex, both politically and scientifically. I read about three quarters of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ which I loved, but it was during my teenage years when I was incapable of finishing a book. The writing style of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ reminds me of ‘A Scanner Darkly’, as does the striking imagery and imagination. I absolutely plan to read more and I hope to read all of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ at some point in 2009.

I’m a big fan of quirky titles so I think that was one of the main reasons I picked this book up. I make pretty shallow book decisions sometimes. I’m a big fan of sci-fi, but I think everyone needs to find their own comfort level within the genre. I’ve tried books like ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Snow’, which at times had much more science than story and I couldn’t get into them because I have a terribly limited knowledge of science. Like I said above Philip K Dick has written some novels that are more about crime, action and characters with great inventive science thrown in. I’m also crazy about moral dilemmas, which sci-fi specializes in. The more complex you can make them and the more twists there are that completely subvert my original view the more I like them.

Kim said 'I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep awhile ago, but I'm always curious what people think of it. Did you find any of the characters sympathetic?'

Good question! I absolutely found the characters sympathetic. All Rick Deckard wants is to own a real animal. All the androids want to do is escape slavery. They’re just chasing their own dreams, which are almost never possible or sustainable on their version of Earth. The weight of the depression, disillusion and apathy in the novel is almost unbearable because I wanted the characters to achieve their small, simple goals because these goals are ultimately the search for true happiness. I wanted the animals at the lab to be real, because they uplift Rick’s spirit. I want Rachel to be human and I even wanted the murdering androids to escape detection, at some points in the novel. There’s also Rick’s terrible marriage and the use of the mood organ, which are just parts of a very sad, but normal life on radioactive Earth. I just wanted everyone to find a happy ending, but this is sci-fi so a happy ending for all is probably as likely as a pink puppy dog saving the world, bittersweet is really all you can hope for.

There are plenty of scenes in the book when all I could feel was disgust for some of the characters. The androids rip the legs off a precious spider and ridicule Isidore because of his subhuman intelligence. Resch is probably the most unsympathetic character, as a human who displays no real signs of regret when he kills androids, almost relishing it. They’re all damaged by the way their society has ended up and in some ways they have to be almost irreparably damaged and hopeless for the novel to work. Sci-fi is all about cautionary tales after all.

Finally Eva wanted to know 'If I'm not a big fan of sci-fi, would I enjoy Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'

I think so (but then I would say that, I hope to lure everyone into reading sci-fi). Let me lay out what ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Has’ going on: robots (as a metaphor for slavery but also as big killer robots), red herrings and crime, futuristic settings, penetrating questions about what it takes to be human, warnings about our planet and our society, quick quipping dialogue, action, apathy, sadness and hope. If anything there sounds like it’s something you might enjoy then give this book a go.

If you have a question about this book ask me in the comments and I'll answer you after I get back. If you've written a review of it leave me a link in my comments and I'll link it into this post.