Eco Reading Challenge - End

It looks like I’m not going to complete the Eco reading challenge as it finishes tomorrow. I was away this weekend and my copy of ‘Planet Earth’ was a far too big to take on the train. I read two books for this challenge:

‘Captivity’ by Debbie Lee Wesselman is an in depth, fictional treatment of the ethics of keeping chimps in captivity, if they cannot be reintroduced into the wild. Fascinating questions addressed are how much human behaviour should chimps be exposed to, is it morally wrong to teach chimps sign language or a valuable way of communicating with them and should the most damaged chimps be segregated and protected from their fellow chimps. There’s also the story of the human characters attempts to establish connections and find love. I can’t recommend this enough, a really fine book.

‘Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins’ by Colin Dann is a prequel to his well known ‘Farthing Wood series, about a group of animals who put aside their natural impulses to travel peacefully together to find a new home after their own is developed by humans. In this book the reader learns how their environment comes to be destroyed and witnesses the inevitable death of the Farthing Wood otters, the protected species that guarantees the safety of the wood.

Even if I didn’t complete the reading I did complete my eco task associated with this challenge. I stopped buying new books for the entire length of the challenge. That’s five whole months without books made form virgin paper and I also tried to cut down my book buying as a whole, even keeping away from used books.

Full disclosure – my mum continued to buy books and she did buy two books specifically because she knew I wanted them. I did buy a few books for other people (giveaways (although these were mostly good copy, used books), a couple of presents and I donated a copy of ‘Little Brother’ to a school). There were a couple of unfortunate incidents with my history book club where I didn’t check the ‘Don’t send me the editor’s choice’ box in time and ended up with maybe three random new history books. I made use of Bookmooch twice.

On the whole I think I did pretty well with this task. I also learned a bit about Eco Libris’ campaign to get publishers to use a percentage of recycled paper in their production process. I’m going to try to buy more used books and probably look for suppliers who take more care with their packaging that Amazon does (so much cardboard, so few cardboard recycling opportunities round here). I found I had quite a bit more cash to put in my savings account each month, which means my Olympic tickets/house deposit fund continues to grow steadily.

Despite all these good things I’m still really excited about being released from such a strict book buying ban, mostly because it means I can finally, finally get my own copy of ‘Flygirl’! It seemed like every week another blog was reviewing it, which kept the fires of my jealousy continuously burning. So expect to see a review of that popping up soon.

How did other challenge participants do?

The Twelve Step Poetry Challenge - Challenge List

My poetry challenge is due to start on Tuesday and you may have noticed I haven’t posted a list of the collections I’m going to read. I have a pretty casual attitude to poetry. If I pick up a poetry collection and don’t like it I don’t lose hours and hours of precious time reading it, the way I would if I picked up a novel and didn’t like it. I also don’t have a heap of favourite poets, many poets you might think a well read person should have tried will be a completely new experience for me. I have no real dislikes when it comes to poetry and I’m ready to give anything a go, it’s hard to compose a list when you would be happy putting literally every poetry book in the world on it.

But I think I’ve randomly decided on my challenge picks now:

Women poets: ‘Averno’ – Louise Gluck, ‘Men and their Boring Arguments’ – Wendy Cope

Dead white males: ‘Collected Poems’ – Philip Larkin, ‘New Hampshire’ – Robert Frost

Official poets: ‘Feminine Gospels’ – Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Birthday Letters’ – Ted Hughes

Translated: ‘The Russian Version’ – Elena Fanailova, ‘The Dream We Carry’ – Olav H Hauge

Hispanic, black, asian etc: ‘Blood Dazzler’ – Patricia Smith, ‘Gingko Light’ – Arthur Sze

GLBT: ‘Counter Attack and Other Poems’ – Seigfriend Sassoon, ‘Collected Poems’ – Wilfred Owen

I think I’ve got a nice mix of old favourites (Wendy Cope, Larkin and Sassoon), some I’ve read a little of but would like to read a whole book by (Patricia Smith) and some who are completely new to me (translated poetry is something I’ve never tried before).

There are also the two big hitters, the official poets with whom I have an uneasy relationship. Both Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy turned up several times while I was at school and honestly I hated all of the poems we read by these poets. In case you think it’s a case of school sucking the life out of poetry, I loved the Simon Armitage poems we read (sigh Armitage isn’t he dreamy...).

After reading a few other poems by Hughes and Duffy, as an adult, I think it was probably my schools choice of poems, not their choice of poets that provoked such a negative reaction. We must have read that dreary ‘Swallow of Summer’ poem at three separate stages in my school life and in my opinion once is too many times to hear about that damn swallow. Not a hint of the Plath Hughes relationship entered our classrooms and kids today were so fortunate to have Duffy’s provocative ‘Education for Leisure’ poem as a GCSE selection for a short time.

I was determined not to read collected works editions, except for the Larkin as I already own it, but I struggled a bit with finding books for the GLBT category. There seem to be plenty of anthologies but less references to well known poets publishing their own works. Can anyone help me replace the Wilfred Owen collection?

Those are my choices and I’ll keep you updated about the poems I’m reading every day from the ‘Poetry Daily’ anthology (although I won’t post about each every day - that would be insane).

If you’re playing along at home and you’re planning to post reviews, write posts about your favourite lines or write about your challenge progress please bookmark this post and leave any links to such things here. I’ll pop them up in a big collected post as we go along.

And now for the sport...

It seems as if everyone is still talking about the cricket result last week, but I’m not much of a cricket fan (to be honest my cricket knowledge is worse than my rugby knowledge, although I’m on my way to improving that). I thought we’d have a brief interlude here to talk about sporting successes in events where I understand the rules.

The British athletics team scored six medals at the European Championships last week. That’s one more than anyone predicted, putting us eighth in the medal table. Pretty respectable on the whole and good omens for a solid 2012 performance. My favourite British performance has to be Jessica Ennis’ 800 metres run to clinch her gold medal in the heptathlon. She went into the race in first place with a 12 second cushion, built up from the earlier events and I think everyone expected here to ease up and rely on the cushion, but she catches up, pushes on and wins the race.

Now you can’t talk about this athletics meet without mentioning http://www.usainbolt.co.uk/ Usain Bolt. The Bolt is loaded as Steve Cram likes to say and you have to feel a little sorry for the guys who will spend their careers racing against him because he’s just going to keep running faster. With Phelps in the water and Bolt on the track 2012 is going to be something special.

The other runner dominating headlines is the female athlete Caster Semenya from South Africa who has been asked to prove her gender. She currently holds a gold medal, and has passed the dope tests but it’s possible she may lose the right to compete as a woman and be stripped of her medal. I agree with Michael Johnson who says that while the IFAA protest that they’ve tried to keep the situation private, they do a much better job of keeping drug allegations under wraps until the test results come back. For much more information on gender testing and how complex it is for judges to classify a certain gender advantage work your way through the test results as an athletics judge. The Guardian has a potted history of the problems associated with the gender test. Spare a thought for this lady as she waits to hear if she can compete in the future.

If any of you are still interested in my speedway news you might like to know that Wolverhampton were joint top of the Elite league with Swindon last week. This Monday they rode against Swindon at their home track (it was packed out because Swindon is so close by and we were late getting to the track, so we had to stand in the dark for much of the meeting) and won, but not by seven or more, which means that Swindon gained a league point as well. Although we’re at the top of the table it’s looking increasingly like Swindon will be top going into the playoffs (top four teams compete for the league title) and will get to choose who they face in the first round. We could end up facing down our Midlands rivals Coventry who have all their side back from injury (I think their team had two out with a broken leg each and one serious shoulder injury this season). They’ve clawed their way back up the table and they really want this title. If they make it through it will be a tense meeting.

And that’s all for the sport (although if anyone wants to discuss Button’s Grand Prix I’m always interested).

Weekly Geeks: 2009-32

This weeks Weekly Geeks assignment asks us to talk about those books that have been sitting on our shelves for oh so long, the ones we occassionally cast sad little glances at and say ‘ I’ve been meaning to get to you, honest darling, you must just be patient’ before we scurry out of the room for a triste with a bright, shiny new novel. While there are quite a few books that I routinely avoid eye to spine contact with ( ‘Anna Karenina’ will your pages ever see sunlight? ) the book I feel has received the shabbiest treatment from me is Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.

When Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone first came out I was 13, maybe a little older than the audience the publishers wanted to target but still quite close. I remember reading the very early publicity articles in the kids insert to the Telegraph, before everyone knew how big Harry Potter was going to be. I was there at the beginning, before the immense blow up of the brand and I really liked the books. I think I read the first one maybe four times and the second one three times, although in my opinion it wasn’t as good as the first. When the fourth book came out I was happy it was so big, it just meant more Harry Potter (and dragons) for me.

Then along came Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which in my opinion is a sad excuse for a book. It abandons a decent, pacy plot on the pretence that it will provide extensive character development, then fails to deliver. And the death – worst.death.ever and not in a satisfyingly gory, but odd way. I struggled through Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince after that, but the magic of the series was gone for me. Order of the Phoenix had broken my link with the fantasy world and no matter how good HBP was I couldn’t get into it, I couldn’t remember what had happened in the last book and I was losing the will to care about the characters.

So now I slink around the final book in the series. I know I have to read it sometime, I must complete this series and all my friends are amazed that having finished the Half Blood Prince over what, two years ago (oh really, um) I haven’t read it. Someone accused me of not being a ‘real fan’ and I admit it I’m not, I was just a girl reading and enjoying before all the big fan stuff really took off and finding myself disappointed by a book in the series I stepped away without feeling like that would damage my status as a fan. I’m also a girl horribly afraid that the last book of the series will be just as unsatisfactory as the Order of the Phoenix.

So Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows I know you’re not like that other book that done me wrong. I know you’re eager to show me how good we could be together, but I’m just not ready to take such a big step right now. Please, say you’ll wait for me!

Cover Love

How gorgeously gothic is this cover? Hubba hubba I'm in love.

Bookish Meme

Sometimes memes are just too fun! Play along and link me to your answers :)

Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!

Describe yourself: Empress of the World (Sara Ryan)

How do you feel: Magyk (Angie Sage)

Describe where you currently live: Farthing Wood (Colin Dann)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? East of the Sun (Julia Gregson)

Your favorite form of transportation: Stardust (Neil Gaiman)

Your best friend is: The President’s Daughter (Ellen Emerson White)

You and your friends are: Company of Liars (Karen Maitland)

What’s the weather like: The Great Stink (Clare Clark)

You fear: Captivity (Debbie Lee Wesselmann)

What is the best advice you have to give: Ten Cents a Dance (Christine Fletcher)

Thought for the day: I am Furniture (Thalia Chaltas)

How I would like to die: The Tenderness of Wolves (Stef Penney)

My soul’s present condition: A Secret Alchemy (Emma Darwin)

Diversity Roll Call: A few good men

It’s time for a new Diversity Roll Call, hosted by Ali at worducopia and this time I have something to contribute. This week’s roll call is focused on collecting recommendations for YA with black, asian, hispanic main characters who are male and not from the US.

Books with characters like that can be tough to find, I can think of plenty of YA I want to read with characters like that who live in America and plenty of adult fiction set outside the US, but not so much YA set in countries outside America or Britain. However I do have a couple of books I want to talk about quickly:

‘Across the Nightingale Floor’ and the subsequent ‘Tales of the Otori’ series are set in a fantasy version of feudal Japan. While there’s a magical element the society Lian Hearn bears many similarities to historical Japan. There are really two main characters, who eventually come together as a couple but the books focus a lot on the main male character Takeo.

Here’s a little bit from Amazon:

‘In a remote mountain village high in the lands of the Three Countries lives Takeo, a boy with the exceptional skills of the deadly Tribe - preternatural hearing, the ability to be in two places at once and invisibility. But brought up among the peaceful Hidden, Takeo has yet to discover the dangerous potential of his own abilities. When his life is saved by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru, Takeo begins the journey that will lead him to his destiny. As Takeo grows from boy to man he must find a path through the complex loyalties that bind him to warring clans, the ruthless Tribe and the shadowy Hidden.’

This is a really wonderful series (the fourth book will just bring you to your knees). There’s all the elements that make up an epic tale: violence, intrigue and love, combined with a detailed society.

My second recommendation is ‘Nation’ by Terry Pratchett. Again this book is set in a fantasy world, but one that obviously has its roots in the history and anthrohology of our own. Again there is really a male and a female main character, but the character the reader first spends the most time with is Mau a child of the Nation who returns from a rite of passage mission to find his whole tribe has been wiped out by a gigantic wave.

This is taken from the jacket flap:

‘On the day the world ends . . .

. . . Mau is on his way home from the Boys’ Island. Soon he will be a man.

And then the wave comes – a huge wave, dragging black night behind it and bringing a schooner, the Sweet Judy, which sails over and through the island rainforest. As the ship comes to a crashing halt, only one soul is left alive (or two, if you count parrots).The village has gone. The Nation as it was has gone.

Now there’s just Mau, who wears barely anything, a trouserman girl who wears far too much, and an awful lot of big misunderstandings.

And a lot of not-knowing-what-to-do.

Or how to even say that.

Together they must forge a new Nation out of the broken pieces. Create a new history.’

You can also read my own review of ‘Nation’ (summary, I loved it, get it now!).

Right off to see what others have recommended.

The Lizard Cage - Karen Connelly

Both ‘The Lizard Cage’ and ‘Little Brother (plus this article on the current state of Guantanamo Bay) make me want to get involved with work for political prisoners, but I’m not sure yet how to do that in a constructive way. I commented about this frustration on another bloggers post as she had just finished reading a couple of books about political prisoners. I think we’re both still struggling to see a big way to make a difference, but she did suggest that blogging about the books we’re reading on the subject would be a small way to highlight the way in which authors are trying to help. So the ‘Lizard Cage’ by Karen Connelly gets some time in my minute spotlight.

The Burmese prison called ‘The Cage’ houses all kinds of criminals, but the ones considered the worst by the wardens are the political prisoners arrested for crimes against the corrupt, vicious Burmese government. In the jail’s solitary area, ‘the teak coffin’, is a political prisoner called Teza, nicknamed the Songbird, who has been sentenced to twenty years in jail because he was the author of protest songs. Teza is beaten by a particularly sadistic character nicknamed Handsome if he shows any sign of strength and is also deprived of human speech, food, literature, proper medical attention and clean water. Teza is forced to break with the Buddhist teachings and supplement his scant food with the lizards he catches in his cell. This small act of murder costs him especial pain for personal reasons the reader will later discover.

The Cage also holds a twelve year old orphan boy whose father used to work at the prison, but was hit by a truck and died. No one knows the boy’s real name, but those who are kind to him call him Nyi Lau ( Little Brother). Nyi Lau is the only person in the jail who wants to stay there, because it’s where he feels safe and knows the rules. When Teza is beaten horrendously he is transferred outside of Handsome’s area so he can receive medical attention. Nyi Lau becomes his food server and the two form a shaky bond.

‘The Lizard Cage’ is a book written in a soothing tone that is heartbreakingly simple. I’m going to let a few passages about Nyi Lau speak for themselves:

‘In their kindly, misguided way the Thais are right, and the boy agrees: the prison is no place for little children. Fortunately, he is not a little child. The screams in the middle of the night, the sounds of torture, the growl and stifled cries of fighting, of men raping, being raped, the stench of human shit in the dog cells, the clear evidence of men going mad or becoming cruel, the sight of men sobbing, of men dying: he is old enough to know about these things.’

‘ “What’s going to happen to me?” He is full of weariness, and acceptance, like an old man who’s made a hard journey to the wrong village. It is night. There is nowhere else to go.’

This calm linguistic rhythm can be found in even the most horrific scenes, as Karen Connelly elicits a structure and sound from her prose, which reminds the reader of the importance of the regular breathing, that sustains Teza in prison. It is this Buddhist teaching from his mother which ultimately gives him the serenity to control his life, ending it as a protest, rather than waiting until the prison authorities find some way to trick him into extending his sentence by breaking their rules.

‘The Lizard Cage’ feels like important book that everyone should read. Its tranquil tone will probably make it easier for readers who find it hard to read about extreme violence and imprisonment (putting my hand up right now) because it almost creates a thin, distancing layer that lets you absorb the violent passage without them digging into your brain, just as Teza tries to keep his essential being apart from the violence and cruelty he experiences. This quiet distance actually makes this book more powerful, as readers can take time to fully digesting what is happening and process how awful it is, without feeling the need to flee from the violent scenes by skimming. It really is astonishing to think how calm and measured ‘The Lizard Cage’ remains, despite the aggression of the prison.

Does anyone have any ideas how the average person can help political prisoners? If so please leave your idea sin the comments.

Other Reviews

Eve’s Alexandria

R I P Challenge IV

Yes readers are officially invited to imbibe peril again as Carl’s RIP challenge returns. The spooky and dark autumn challenge is back and I can’t even tell you how excited I am about it.

As I’ve grown older I’ve started to become a massive wimp about things I used to love like horror films and scary books (sadly also afraid of rollercoasters now, but at least I had fun times on the big rides when I was a teen). I used to breeze through Stephen King books in the dead of night when I was a teenager, now I can’t see a horror film in the cinema, I have to watch them on the small screen with all the lights on. Any scary books I’m reading go under a non-fiction hardback as soon as it begins to get dark. I love Carl’s yearly challenge, because it challenges me to stop being such a wuss, dig out the creepy books and gleefully scare myself silly.

Last year I only managed to finish one book, the most wonderful find, Joe Hill’s gothic rock, ghost story, road trip ‘Heart Shaped Box’. If it’s in your house I encourage you to fish it out right now and get reading because Hill has got his father’s (Stephen King) eye for human detail and a crazed, ghoulish inventiveness all of his own.

This year I’m taking up the ‘Peril the First’ option and attempting to read four dark and demonic books from 1st September until 31st October. I’ll be picking four books from a pile made up of:

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – Susan Clarke: I started this one last year but ran out of time, not sure if I’ll be able to fit this giant in but I oh so want to.

The Stand – Stephen King: I don’t know why I never tackled the huge chunksters King wrote when I was binging on his work. I picked this up a while ago, feeling nostalgic, although I didn’t have much idea what it was about. It’s been sitting on my shelf for about a year.

The Turn of the Screw – Henry James: I expect this classic sinister tale to be small but effective. This would also count for the ‘9 for 09 challenge’, which would be a bonus.

The Mist in the Mirror – Susan Hill: I’m reading this right now, since Carl said we could go ahead and start early. I love challenges that let you break the rules because you’re excited. So far there’s been a loud shriek, a disturbing parrot and tons of dark English atmosphere. I saw Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black’ on the stage a few years ago and I am still quite scared of the ghost from that book.

Paris Immortal – Sheri Roite: A young lawyer meets new clients who are strange, yet irresistible (read vampiric). I’m hoping for kind of an Anne Rice experience, with a bit more blood.

The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins: Another one I gave up on last year. I was loving it, but again found my concentration wandered as I tried to read it during my lunch break. This book needs long stretches of reading for digesting the language.

Lonely Werewolf Girl – Martin Millar: I’ve read so many reviews of this one, everyone seems to love it. Come on, the girl’s sister is a werewolf fashion designer, that’s pretty awesome.

The Observations – Jane Harris: I may be the last person to read this mystery set in a Victorian household. Whenever I see the cover I’m reminded of Patrick McGrath’s ‘Martha Peak’, which is very atmospheric and twisted. That would make a spine tingling (yes I had to get that word in somewhere) addition to anyone’s RIP list.

Skarlet – Thomas Emerson: If I become very brave I will read this book. I started it, got freaked out after the first vampire attack and put it at the back of my wardrobe. There’s a plague spreading in London via a new clubbing drug. The drug might kill you, but you won’t stay dead for long.

Embers – Sandor Marai: Two men dine together in an old castle and trace the course of their old friendship. Amazon says the setting ‘evokes dark fairytales’.

Nothing to Fear – Matthew D’Ancona: A woman moves in with a reclusive bachelor who tells her never to open the door to a room he keeps locked. Really how is a girl supposed to resist that kind of mystery?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Seth Grahame Smith: It’s probably best to include some light zombie bashing on the list in case everything gets too frightening. At least I know life turns out alright for the heroine in this book (unless Darcy get’s bitten – agh had not thought of that until now).

Has everyone cleared out their freezers in case their choices get too scary? Will you dare to play along? Mwahahahahaha.

What a Difference a Book Makes

Isn’t it funny how one good book can change how you feel? I’ve been a little down in the reading dumps lately, starting books only to put them back on my shelves three chapters later. But after such a positive experience with the two novellas that make up my copy of ’84 Charing Cross Road’ all the other books look appetizing again.

I loved ‘The Dushess of Bloomsbury’ even more than ’84 Charing Cross Road’, it was so refreshing to see London through Helene Hanff’s eyes. Her enthusiasm for seeing the historical places great figures had inhabited and her funny, generous nature reminded me about all the great things London and Britain has to offer. I think some of her enthusiasm for life, history and literature must have rubbed off on me, because now when I look around my stacked shelves I see hundreds of opportunities for a wonderful story. I get a greedy feeling and I want to read everything now, and my plan to read one book at a time is going a bit wrong..

The first novel I’m reading is ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and so far it’s dragging me deep into its story. The novel follows three main characters and each character is focused on in separate chapters which alternate. Although I’ve read books that use this device before, this time I found myself wondering what would happen if I read all the chapters associated with one character, then returned to the beginning and followed the next character. Would the book make any sense? If anyone’s ever tried this let me know.

Now ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ is taking a harrowing turn. While I knew bad things were going to happen (the back mentions the war in Nigeria) I don’t think I properly braced myself for the horrific events that have just started. The first part of the book is kind of domestic, showing details of the character’s relationships and homelives, before quite swiftly throwing them into the middle of massacres. So I’ve taken a step back from this book over the weekend, while I prepare myself a little more.

Right now I’m reading ‘The Heart of Horses’ by Molly Gloss, which my mum picked up when it was a Times offer book. Their review made it sound wonderful, the story of a female horse trainer looking for respect as she fills the place of the male horse trainers who have gone to war. When it arrived the blurb and the cover made me a bit apprehensive about it. It sounded much more sentimental and less like the sensible, grown up horse book I was hoping for. However so far it isn’t flowerly and the main character’s training methods are less mystical and sweet than the term ‘gentling’ implies.

Now I want to be a bit nosy and ask a question. What was the last book you had a really positive experience with? How did it make you feel about the choice of books you had in your house?

David Inside Out - Lee Bantle

David is confused. He’s started seeing his friend, a girl named Kick, but he can’t stop thinking about guys, especially Sean from his running team. David is sure he’s not supposed to feel this way so he does everything he can to curb his urges and become ‘normal’. He distances himself from his friend Eddie, who has just come out, he gives up writing to romance novelists and he even puts an elastic band around his wrist so he can snap it whenever he starts to think about men. When he finds out that Sean is interested in him David thinks everything is about to get better, but Sean’s not interested in coming out or even showing affection in private. Now David has to decide what he wants from life. Is sleeping with Sean worth lying to himself and those closest to him?

‘David Inside Out’ is a thoughtful variation of the coming out story. Through its three gay characters it shows three different reactions from men discovering they’re gay. Eddie has known he’s gay for most of his life and once out he becomes involved in gay issues, as he battles to set up a gay/straight alliance at school. David denies his feelings, but doesn’t want to continue to lie indefinitely once he is involved with Sean. Sean is so entrenched in a world where being gay is wrong that he’s made up his own internal logic to explain his feelings, enabling him to live deep in denial while fooling around with David. It’s interesting how Lee Bantle manages to balance these different reactions without demonising the characters that hide their feelings and making Eddie, the more open character, saintly. Eddie is often shown as obnoxious, overbearing and crude as he tries to force David to operate on the same schedule as him. Despite his hypocrisy and unkindness Sean is often a sympathetic character, as the reader sees his mother reinforce his feeling of shame, by taking him to a shrink when she finds some copies of Playgirl in his room. David’s character is where Eddie and Sean’s attitudes collide and change, showing how wrong David’s reaction to Eddie’s news is, but how it is understandable and underlining how hard it can be for gay men to come out, while explaining how necessary it is.

David’s voice is a lot of fun. How could I not love a character who goes to church and says ‘This is what I had sunk to. Checking out Jesus.’ . Listening to David can at times be a really intimate experience of the first person narrative. That sounds odd doesn’t it, because surely every first person narrative is intimate. However, David’s narrative feels special because it never feels like he’s shielding or blurring parts of his experience. There’s something raw in his voice, as he reveals things to the reader that show how fractured his sense of identity currently is. One part that absolutely broke my heart was:

‘My eyes were blazing. I saw my mother’s lipstick sitting out on the counter. I pulled off the top, wound it out and stabbed at my lips. I was a girlie boy too.’ .

There are a few places in this book where paragraphs that discuss big teenage issues seem to have been tacked on in strange places,

‘ “You need a haircut.”

Suddenly I was twelve years old. “No I don’t.”

“This weekend,” she said firmly, heading off to bed.

My mom can be confusing without even trying. If I tell her I have to do something because everyone is doing it, she says just be yourself. She says people respect that. But what if you send fan mail to romance writers?...Being yourself might make people reject you. People you care about desperately. Being yourself only work if you’re basically cool. Which I’m not.’

This portion jumps from getting a haircut to being yourself, which doesn’t quite seem to follow on naturally. However this is a rare occurrence and most of the novel is written is precise prose.

‘David Inside Out’ has a couple of main themes in common with ‘The Saints of Augustine’ and ‘What They Always Tell Us’. Both are coming out stories and both feature characters who are enthusiastic about running. I don’t want to compare the books too much in this review, but I did notice that ‘David Inside Out’ shares the one flaw that bothered me when I was reading the other two books. Its female characters are entirely undeveloped, which is especially unacceptable in the case of Kick. If you give a girl a cool name like that then she’d better have a personality strong enough for that name. ‘David Inside Out’ contains minimal information about Kick: she feels her parents are too controlling and she wants to sleep with David, that’s pretty much it. She exists as a blank girl for David to use as a shield against temptation. The most insight into her character appears in a note she sends to David after he tells her he’s gay and while that note shows a new, vulnerable facet to her personality little else is revealed. Kick has a female friend Molly who is even less developed and who seems to exist for no reason at all. I know this book is all about the boys but secondary characters always deserve proper development and while it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the book as I read it, it’s something that played on my mind when I thought about it later.

Overall ‘David Inside Out’ is a fantastic addition to the dialogue about coming out, portrayed in young adult books. If you want to read about more YA novels that feature teens thinking about same sex relationships you can read my reviews of ‘Empress of the World’, ‘What They Always Tell Us’ and 'Saints of Augustine’.

(Full disclosure this book was sent to me by the author).

Other Reviews

GuysLitWire
YA Fabulous
Steph Su Reads
Naughty Book Kitties

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon October

The dates for the October instalment of the 24 hour read-a-thon have been announced! I was a cheerleader in April so I plan to be a reader this time.

I don’t know about you but I’m already thinking about what books I already have that would fit with this event (short, entertaining and perhaps something light). Right now I’m thinking:

Dewey the Library Cat – Nicki Myron
The Mist in the Mirror – Susan Hill
Venemous – Christopher Krovatin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Book One) – Lemony Snicket

What books are you contemplating saving up for an October reading slurge?

England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton - Kate Williams

Not being an Emma Hamilton scholar, or having access to the original documents Kate Williams used to write her book I’m unequipped to judge her book on a historian’s terms. Maybe she’s got it all terribly wrong and other readers will come and scoff at my naive enthusiasm for her book. I hope not because I’m a new adoring fan of the Emma that Kate Williams has presented in ‘England’s Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton’ (and because I don't like the word scoffing).

Everyone knows Emma as the dazzling mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson, but before she began her association with him she had played many roles. She grew up in the midst of a poor family, supported by women and throughout her early life she earned her living as a maid, a dancer, an artist’s model and a prostitute. The last profession dropped her into the life of Harry Featherstonehaugh who fathered her first child and then cast her off. In trouble Emma turned to the dullest, yet most dependable member of Harry’s set Charles Greville and became his mistress. Later, eager to marry and improve his financial standing Greville palmed Emma off on his uncle, William Hamilton, the British envoy to Naples. Greville tricked her into making the trip to Naples by pretending she would just be visiting on holiday – classy or what. Emma and William’s arrangement grew into a devoted, faithful relationship and Emma secured a marriage with her respectable older lover, making her Lady Hamilton. Her journey from poverty to splendour and then unfortunately back to poverty at the end of her life sounds interesting when only the plain facts are laid out. With a skilled writer able enliven her story and the historical period with all the relevant details Emma’s story becomes an engrossing tale.

As I said above I’ve really got no background knowledge that I can use to judge the accuracy of William’s interpretation of Emma’s life, but I can talk about the way the book is written. I think Williams understands her audience much better than many writers of historical non-fiction and that doesn’t mean she dumbs down her book. ‘England’s Mistress’ is laid out in short chapters, which helps to lift the pace of the narrative and combats the problem of a reader’s wandering attention span (I don’t know about you but personally I find non-fiction harder to concentrate on than novels). Her sentences are varied in length and the prose style consists of a fluid main narrative that continues to be alluded to, even as Williams diverges from the main characters to provide information on more general matters. As she ties Emma and her companions in with the details of the society, or history the author keeps the action progressing and this keeps the reader’s attention. The writing style feels natural, current and deft, avoiding the clunky turns of phrase or archaic word choice that seemed to clutter so many of the contemporary sources we read at university.

One history theory bit: a reviewer on Amazon mentions that much of Emma’s early life is largely constructed from assumptions, based on other poor families whose lives were recorded or the normalities of the period. That bothered me a bit at the beginning until I used my slightly rusty historical skills and realised that because Emma’s parents were illiterate they would have left few records behind and because no one would have expected Emma to become famous, as she was a female child born in poverty, no one was likely to be keeping detailed records of her life. You can argue that Williams should have started her investigation of Emma from the point in her life where definite facts became more available, but working with narrative history (especially commercial narrative history) demands that you tell a story. I think Williams made the right choice when it came to the interests of her readers and also craftily, uses these assumptions to persuading readers that Emma is a heroine worth supporting. Without a look into what her early life was like and an active involvement with Emma readers might have been less sympathetic about her later actions (like taking up with a married man).

Personally I had a bigger problem with the psychological suppositions made about how an event might have affected Emma’s developing character. However, that’s an old prejudice set up by a history teacher while I was in college and again I think those kind of guesses help William’s to win readers to Emma’s cause.

By the end of this book I felt passionately involved with Emma’s life. I cared about her and I was angry when the men in her life, so unconventional when it came to affairs of the heart proved so conventional when it came to financial matters. Both Hamilton and Nelson knew the extent of Emma’s debts, but they left her insufficiently provided for and at the end of this history, the despair and deception that makes up the end of Emma’s life felt tangible, as if it was being recreated right in front of me. It’s a special writer who can make a historical character feel not only relevant, but truly real to a modern reader.

Now for some fun historical facts learned from this book:

When Emma became a fashion leader her simple style of loose white satin gowns, satin slippers and free flowing hair freed women from the impractical fashions of the day, such as hoop skirts and hairstyles piled high with ornaments.

False eyebrows were made from mouse fur!

Jane Austen was not a fan of Emma. She used Emma’s signature turban to signal affected female characters. Jane was more on the side of Nelson’s wife, Fanny and honestly as much as I loved Emma I felt terrible for Fanny. She was disliked by her husband because she was barren, quiet, not quite as wealthy as her guardian made out and unwilling to play to the crowds.

I just found out that Kate Williams has a second book ‘Becoming Queen’ about Victoria – which now goes straight on to my wish list.

The Twelve Step Poetry Program

Yesterday I revealed I was planning to set myself a personal challenge to do with poetry and hinted at reasons why fellow challenge addicts might want to join in. Here’s how my challenge idea came about:

In 2008 I was unemployed for about six months. Going to the job centre is an experience that can pretty much be summed up as ‘meh’. Any establishment which has bouncers in the daytime is not somewhere you should be going regularly. Sometimes you’d see funny things like the man who ran into the job centre and hid underneath a desk to try and escape the police (it didn’t work). But mostly meh.

The job centre I went to was right by the town library and my appointment was at an oh so inconvenient time when it came to getting buses to and from my village. I spent a lot of time waiting around in the library. I’d start out filling in application forms for jobs I didn’t really want (at companies that never seemed to want me) but after half an hour I’d usually have drifted in to the stacks. At the time I was using this library regularly the librarians were leaving eager, handwritten recommendation cards everywhere to try to encourage people to pick up poetry collections. I could read a whole poetry book before my appointment, return to it after and whatever I read it usually reminded me that most of the world wasn’t grey and crazy like the job centre.

Then I got a job, which was great but it meant less library visits (I’m not allowed to borrow from the libraries near my work, because it’s in a different borough from where I was born). Somehow poetry slipped off my reading agenda. Now it’s two years later and the world continues to have grey and crazy patches, I bet (even if you describe them a bit more coherently) some of you have those times. Over the past year I’ve begun to feel really sad about the lack of poetry in my life.

Now poetry isn’t supposed to be a plaster that makes us all feel better, yet somehow even the most bleak, condemnatory poems spark something optimistic in me. Some poems make me feel better because the poet is seeing and describing just what I see, they understand. Some poems show me all the things I’m not seeing or imagining. Some impress me with the force of their emotions. Some offer questions and confusion, which makes me feel like I’m seeing a living dialogue evolve. Sometimes the fact of a poem in front of me reminds me that there are people out there creating, believing that art still matters, which in turn puts the office world into its proper context (day to day business may be important, but it’s not the only thing that gives life meaning).

So, yes, the challenge.

At it’s simplest level the challenge requires that anyone who feels like joining reads twelve books of poetry, each by a different author, in twelve months. Each book must be the work of one poet (that means no anthologies, like ‘The 101 Best Love Poems’, are allowed). Inject your lives with poetry from 1st Sept 2009 – 30th Aug 2010.

However I know what you serious challenge addicts want. You want something that allows you to make an uber-complicated list which includes categories. I want that too, what is the point of a challenge without at least a provisional list? How much better is it if the list includes separate classifications? So for my personal challenge I’ll be reading two books from each of the six categories below:

2 female poets: There are tons of wonderful female poets I want to recommend – Wendy Cope, Dorothy Parker, Adrianne Rich are just a few.

2 translated poets: This is an area I know very little about, yay for new discoveries. Anyone have recommendations?

2 dead white male poets: I have plenty of recommendations for this category – Philip Larkin, William Blake, Robert Frost.

2 poets who have held an official poetry post: I’m British so I’m thinking of reading Poet Laureates like Carol Ann Duffy and Andrew Motion. You may want to find out about poets in other countries who have held equivalent positions.

2 black/ hispanic/ asian poets: You can read books by any poets who are not white for this category. Personal favourites of mine are Srikanth Reddy and Patricia Smith.

2 GLBT poets: I put this category in because I wanted to include all kinds of diversity, but if you find it hard to pick poets (because you’ve already read all the poets where their sexuality is publically known) then you’re free to replace it with two books of poetry where the authors write a specific type of poetry (such as comic poetry, epic poetry like Beowulf etc). Personally I’d recommend picking up something by the ‘Great War’ poets Wilfred Owen, Rupert Graves or Siegfried Sassoon to fulfil this category if you haven't already read their stuff.

Here’s the especially challenging part, you can’t overlap categories and use one poet to fill many categories (for example Carol Ann Duffy is gay, female and England’s current poet Laureate but you can only use her in one of those categories - you can pick which category you use her book to fulfil but she can only count for one). You can also only read one book by each poet. That means you’ll read twelve books by twelve poets in twelve months.

But wait there’s a third level of challenge! You can join me in making poetry an even bigger part of life. In my house sits Poetry Daily’s 2003 anthology, which has a poem from each day of the year. I plan to read a poem from this anthology every day from 1st Sept 2009 until the end of the challenge on 30th Aug 2010. If you want to go the extra mile and let poetry flood into your everyday life you can either read that anthology with me or read a poem daily at heir website.

Reviews

Book bloggers don’t tend to review poetry, maybe because they don’t feel like they have the expertise to judge poetry, or because they’re not sure how to make their review format work for poetry. So, while you can fully review the books you read for this challenge if you like, you can also take the option of just sharing some of your favourite lines from the book (remember please don’t post full poems, there are copyright issues with that, instead link to full versions somewhere else). If you want to include anything else (poets biography, how particular poems made you feel etc) please do! I’d love to see all kinds of poetry related stuff popping up. I’ll sort out a way of organising the links to these posts later so people can find them.

Also there’s no need to post daily reviews of your daily poems, we’d all quickly be swamped!

So after the blather, the recap:

Challenge runs: 1st Sept 2009 – 30th Aug 2010

Challenge name: The Twelve Step Poetry Program

Option 1: 12 books of poetry, each by a different author
Option 2: 12 books of poetry, each by a different author, with two books chosen from each category mentioned above
Option 3: Option 2 + a poem a day from Poetry Daily until the end of the challenge

Sign up: In the comments below by leaving a link to a post you make about the challenge (including lists if you want). I hope loads to see a few challengers join me in September.

Other Participants

Kathleen
Peta
Katrina
ascian

Reviews and Musings

'The Dumbfounding - Margaret Avison ascian

'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis' - Wendy Cope katrina

'The Migraine Hotel' - Luke Kennard katrina

'Selected Poems' - Sharon Olds kathleen

Skirrid Hill - Owen Sheers kathleen

Challenge: Coming Soon

So it’s August but you’re snowed in, snowed in by the challenges piled around you. You’re cold and you’re afraid, afraid because you know that sooner or later you’re going to pop over to ‘A Novel Challenge' and a big shower of icicles and snow mush will fall on your head as you can’t quite resist signing up for just one. more. challenge. Then you’ll be buried in challenges (and snow apparently).

So why should you listen to me when I say you should join my new, never been seen before challenge? Well, there are a few reasons:

1.) It’s not an ‘official challenge’. It’s a personal challenge that I thought other people might like to hear about. No one but me will be judged for failing this challenge – doesn’t that make it sound shiny, exciting and non-pressurised. Granted I’m not quite sure what make a challenge official, as it’s not like there are book guards breathing down your necks if you look like you’re going to miss the deadline, but this challenge will be somehow more unofficial than all others. Perhaps I’ll wander through your blog posts saying ‘Who gives a bibble, gabba gabba hey’.

2.) The completion date is way in the future – September 2010 to be precise. That’s after Christmas, after New Year, probably after your next birthday. That gives you plenty of time to complete it.

3.) There’s no need to do formal book reviews, I’ve thought up a whole other easy system for this challenge. You can concentrate on creating your own posts with very little responsibility to the challenge.

4.) It has levels and categories and the potential for intensive list making. It may in fact be a categorising list-makers dream challenge.

5.) There may be prizes. The completion date is way in the future, so I feel quite happily about promising some of my future salary away.

6.) If someone else joins we could have a button. I don’t think a challenge just for me merits a button, however if people wanted to play along we could get a button. A cool button.

So are you ready for a little teaser about what the challenge might involve (all the details to be revealed tomorrow)? Well, it’s all focused around poetry....

84 Charing Cross Road - Helen Hanff

I have just finished Helen Hanff's '84 Charing Cross Road' in one greedy sitting (luckily my edition also contains 'The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street' so I'll have something to devour at lunch tomorrow). It is the kind of book that makes me think in the voice of a proper speaking British person (the kind who had a BBC accent before the BBC even existed). At first I thought I was just enjoying the letters, but when a sad part unexpectedly turned up I found myself a bit teary and realised the book had made itself a little home under my skin.

It's delicious, that's all there is too say. The perfect book for a nosy person like me who loves other people's conversational letters and the perfect book for anyone starved of a good book loving circle of acquaintances (see acquaintances Frank Doel's voice is invading my brain). I must see the film (and keep reminding myself I must read Peyps' 'Diaries' and 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady').

Would anyone else like to enthuse with me about this book?

Other Reviews

Of Books and Bicycles
The Zen Leaf

Fashion - Turn to the Left...

In honour of my shiny new work bag I’ll be taking a short break from books today to gush about some fabulous fashion purchases of late. Men, you might want to take a walk or something :)

Yesterday I finally picked up some new flat shoes to replace my
beautiful satin pumps which met with a terrible beer accident at a recent Athlete gig. These ones are made from slightly stiffer material, but they’re almost a perfect match and cheap!

I also picked up some purple suede flats supposedly for work, but now that I think about it the British weather may not make them so practical. I might pick up a pair in the silver leather as well next week, as they’ll probably make better winter flats. Clarks fashion wear has really picked up since the last time I shopped there and the prices make them a very attractive retailer. I lusted after this
chocolate and teal patent pair for a while, but sadly I can’t imagine where I’d wear them.

These zebra print small heels are just for fun! Again M&S have an uber cute shoe range now. Gorgeous pinky patent, retro leopard print high heels and blue leather beauties (gah why don’t these fit me, they would go so well with my new work bag!).

I love my new work bag – it’s just the right size, a gorgeous colour and it makes me feel fashionable when I’m just slumming around work (I work for a company with a really casual dress code, and I have to say I mostly just chuck myself into jeans and a top at seven in the morning). I can’t find a picture of it online but it’s kind of like this LK Bennett bag but much, much bigger (and with really cleverly reinforced straps for holding maximum weight.

Finally I just want to give a shout out to my favourite fashion blog ‘Work with What You’ve Got’. Erin posts lots of pictures of her really funky fashion style ( I love how she combines girlie elements with more hardrock elements and how she has items she’s besotted with ) and a husband who likes cool hats. Oh and she introduced me to this Etsy shop orangyredink, with tattoo style necklaces.

Did you make any new fashion purchases this weekend?

Crossed Wires - Rosy Thornton

(Full disclosure time – this novel was sent to me for free by the author, with the understanding that I would produce an entirely honest review.)

Mina works in a car insurance call centre, dealing with pushy people all day. She lives in her mum’s old house with her book obsessed daughter Sal and her unreliable younger sister Jess. Her mum lives with her boyfriend Dave and won’t have anything to do with Jess. With effectively two children to worry about Mina finds her social life severely restricted by her overactive conscience.

Peter is a geography professor at Cambridge university, responsible for twin daughters and a hermaphrodite cocker spaniel. Peter is immediately a sympathetic character, if a little fussy, he’s the kind of person who goes to the pub on his own because he’s worried about his PHD student’s finances and wants to create a babysitting job for her. He’s also terribly accident prone and after his neighbour’s cat causes him to crash his car he rings the call centre where Mina works.

Something in their conversation, which strays a little outside of Mina’s work script, sparks an interest between them. After a second car accident allows them to continue their conversation Mina and Peter begin a long distance friendship, which becomes an important bond for both of them. Although apart for the majority of the novel this relationship feels real, as the characters listen to each other’s problems and offer comfort their understanding of each other grows. Could long distance love flourish between two such different people?

One of the things to be celebrated about Rosy Thornton’s ‘Crossed Wires’ is the novel’s wonderful recognition of the diversity of English life. In a world where English writers seem increasingly sure that London is the only place worth describing in England, Thornton sets the majority of her action in Yorkshire and Cambridge. She embraces the unique words and phrases used in these locations, for example the fantastic expression ‘tea that could stop rust’, deftly demonstrating the differences that can be found in this small country. She includes social housing in her novel without demonising its inhabitants, or resorting to the stereotypical image of tower block flats. She includes a traveller community, without using easy ‘gypsy’ stereotypes to portray them. The characters are varied, showing the many different forms of romance and friendship that can be found in England’s communities. Thornton is a novelist who has really looked at England before writing about it and this realism provides a nice counterbalance to the fantasy of the central romance.

At the beginning of the novel the writing feels a little slow, as it fully tracks the physical and mental activities of Peter and Mina. Peter’s thought processes especially seem overly described, but after about twenty pages I realised that this overabundance of detail had sucked me into the main character’s lives quickly. It’s easy to care about Mina and Peter because so much attention has been given to revealing what goes on in their minds and what makes up their worlds. The secondary characters may be more mysterious, as the narrative does not provide direct access into their thoughts, but much can be learnt through the two main character’s interactions with them and by listening to their concerns about these characters. Even Mina’s mysterious sister is illuminated, both by Mina’s thoughts on her history and by the way Thornton fleshes out her absence with other character’s recollected sightings of her. By the end of the novel I felt like I knew the majority of the characters intimately and even the children had their own struggles to face.

The weakest area for me is the set pieces created for comic, or dramatic effect, for example, when Peter holds a firework party at his house the fact that something will go wrong is excessively signalled. Every aspect of setting up the fireworks is described in great detail and it’s clear to see an accident coming from the beginning. When the same level of description that gives such an insight into the characters minds is used to set up a joke, or a particularly dramatic moment it tends to deadens the episodes effect. This type of set piece seems to be discarded as the book progresses and the biggest times of tension and drama were announced quickly, producing a suitable feeling of shock. However the comedy does sometimes suffer from too much preparation, meaning that there are times when you feel Thornton meant an episode to be funnier than it was.

Before I finish let me just mention the lovely cover art. It’s cute, cartoonish and has some lovely small touches like the rings of the tree which are shaped into a heart. It may be pastel pink to attract the eye of female readers who like romance, but the graphics department has avoided the depressing formula of the majority of chick-lit covers, resulting in something more individual and quirky. It fits well with the tone of this original, attentive story of family and romance.

Other reviews

Vulpes Libris

Literate Housewife

Presenting Lenore
The Zen Leaf

Dedication - Nicola Krauss & Emma McLaughlin

If you read the blurb ‘Dedication’ sounds like a satisfying tale of revenge, misunderstandings and unrequited love. Kate Hollis packs a bag, jumps on a plane and abandons her grownup life when she hears her ex-boyfriend Jake Sharpe has returned to their childhood home town. Kate’s not after ‘one last chance’, or anything as wussy as closure, she’s intent on making Jake regret his entire life and to help her achieve this she’s packing the ultimate wardrobe. Kate’s gloriously, righteously angry, because Jake didn’t just hurt her by disappearing right before the prom, he’s managed to continue hurting her by becoming an international rock star and writing all his songs about her. Everywhere she goes Jake’s songs about her sexual habits, her deepest emotions and her family’s dysfunction play over loudspeakers. ‘Dedication’ sounds like it will teasingly examine how a teenage dream, like a rockstar who writes all his songs for you, becomes an adult nightmare when the rockstar makes his money from your lifestory.

Unfortunately ‘Dedication’ is a novel populated by underdeveloped characters, with a barrelful of melodrama.

The novel’s main problem is the amount of plot its authors have tried to ram into it. ‘Dedication’ roams through two timelines; the first is set in present day Vermont where Kate has flown to find Jake and the second is a series of flashbacks that follow Kate through her teenage years. The Vermont sections have the ability to capture the reader’s attention as this storyline is allowed to progress at a reasonable pace and the scenery is described in loving detail. However, the sections set during Kate’s teenage years are disjointed and sketchy as Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus try to map out every important moment of Jake and Kate’s adolescent relationship, while also explaining why Kate and her best friend Laura still have such a strong relationship. There’s too much that needs to be done to create a believable coming of age storyline to relegate the characters’ teenage years to a secondary storyline, just to provide the reader with more information about one relationship. While the use of the flashback device is a valiant attempt to put into practise the show don’t tell principle, by showing the reader Kate’s full involvement with Jake, a summary of Kate’s teenage years and a more attentive hand with the portions of the books set in Vermont would have allowed for a more fully rounded cast.

In the storyline set in the present the main story strand is the aforementioned ‘making a rock star pay’ plot. The authors apparently didn’t think this would provide enough dramarama to keep readers interested so it turns out that Kate’s parents are selling their house without telling her, her dad is clinically depressed and coming off his meds, Laura is fighting Jake for the royalties he owes her husband and Kate and her mum have monumental issues. That’s all going in the present, in the flashbacks to the past there are typical teenage angst issues, which are drawn in broad, unimaginative lines, but in case that isn’t dramatic enough the authors have thrown in Jake’s alcoholic, abandoned mother, an affair and a bride breaking down at her reception. ‘Dedication’ strives for depth by including all this real life tragedy, but ends up top heavy and obvious as the authors cram in big issues and crying scenes, instead of genuinely observed emotion. When Laura started screaming at her reception and Kate got a slap from her own mum I felt like I’d stumbled into Dallas country.

The teenage cast of ‘Dedication’ lacks character development. There are quite a few female teenage characters that seem to have been included for little reason and make no impact on the story. Apart from Kate the teenage characters’ voices are generic and blank, which makes them fade into the background in the presence of the potent relationship between Jake and Kate. Even Laura is only included as Kate’s best friend. Her own motivations are never examined, her relationship with Sam just happens conveniently so that her and Kate can double date. This trend is continued in the Vermont sections, where Kate and Jake go out to find the old members of his band. Their characters are shallowly drawn and the purpose of the reunion, which I assume is to make us care about the people Jake has robbed of royalties, is lost. By the end of the novel still didn't know much about the secondary characters.

The most positive feature of this novel is the character of the heroine, Kate. While still not fully developed, despite being the focus of the novel (everything we learn about her is basic surface material: she loves Jake, she’s angry, she works hard) Kate is forthright, strong and principled. Although she’s still drawn to Jake she won’t compromise when it comes to seeing his fellow band mates get the recognition they deserve. She makes mistakes, big mistakes, but she has the sense to know and admit when things aren’t right. Her developing teenage friendship with Laura is portrayed in a way which makes sense, with small, clear details, for example in one episode Laura chooses to hang out with Kate rather than run off with a popular girl who is exerting peer pressure. These details show how a lifelong bond is formed between the two girls. If their friendship had been explored with a little more subtlety and depth I’d have felt much more generously towards ‘Dedication’, because chick-lit novels about true female friendship are hard to find. Sadly big declarations of friendship are too often substituted for these smaller, enlightening details and when Kate returns to Vermont their relationship feels a little lifeless.

‘Dedication’ has an interesting premise, but ultimately the execution disappointed me. Can anyone tell me if The Nanny Diaries’, another collaboration between these authors, is any good?

Challenge Update

The last few months have not been great for challenges. I think I finished two books for challenges in July, both for the Diversity Rocks challenge (‘Bitter Sweets’ and ‘The Pirates Daughter’). Even the YA challenge stalled as I read a bunch of young adult books but nothing from THE LIST. As this is proving the easiest challenge to complete I’ve stopped letting myself include YA books that are not from THE LIST to make it a bit more challenging. Although the ‘I Suck at Challenges’ challenge is over I thought I could do with a bit of a challenge boost, so here’s the positive info on the challenges that I’m making progress in:

Victorian - completed
Once Upon a Time – completed
What’s In a Name – 3/6
Reading Dewey’s Books – 3/6
Art History – 2/6
Eco – 2/4
Diversity – 2/4
9 for 09 – 3/4
Non-fiction Five – 1 begun and motoring along

I started ‘Brick Lane’ because it was such a good challenge crossover book as it’s a selection for ‘Diversity Rocks’ and ‘9 for 09’, but I wasn’t in the mood so despite reaching page 170 I’ve put it aside for later in the year. I am having such a hard time with the ‘Diversity Rocks’ challenge because none of the books on my list seem to work as lunch time reading books and I get most of my weekday reading done in my lunch hour. I think ‘Zorro’ may have to go back on the shelves until I can make it a weekend read. Maybe ‘The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers’ might prove a bit easier to pay attention to…

In other news I think I’m ready to again accept that I am not a multiple book girl. I’ve tried to be free and easy about reading a selection of books at the same time, but really I’m anal and need to keep the same book with me until I’m done. That hasn’t really been possible of late because some books I’ve been reading at home have been big hardbacks and while my work back is a big black, relaxed leather handbag it’s not big enough or strong enough to carry lunch, phone, makeup, junk, purse and oversized hardback.

However my bag situation is now all change, thanks to my mum. I’ve just received a massive shiny blue patent bag (it’s big, it’s the kind of bag they warn women not to fill to the brim because of possible injuries) which she was considering casting off in the last charity bag (don’t worry I put lots of nice swag in to replace it, including two small handbags). It is big enough for maybe three hardbacks; although I still have to examine the lining and see what kind of weight is might comfortably take. So now ‘England’s Mistress’ can come to work with me!

Not to make you nervous, but it’s long past the half way point of the year now. How are your own challenges going?

Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins - Colin Dann

I finished reading a second book for the ‘Eco Reading Challenge’ last week, Colin Dann’s ‘Farthing Wood: The Adventure Begins’. This book is a prequel to the ‘Farthing Wood’ series, which follows a group of animals, who put aside their natural enmity and band together to find a new home when Farthing Wood is redeveloped by humans. In the prequel we see the chain of events that ultimately allows property developers to build on Farthing Wood.

The Farthing Wood otters are a nuisance, they don’t take life as seriously as the other animals think they should and they’re always boasting about how their presence keeps the wood safe from humans. When the fish from the river become scarce the otters start hunting in the woods, eventually attempting to snatch prey right from the jaws of other animals. The hunting animals decide they’ve had enough and begin a campaign to drive the otters from the wood, scaring them and poisoning them by rounding up sick shrews for the otters to hunt. The otters take flight, hoping to find a new, safe home, but unlike the animals that will later set out from Farthing Wood the otters all meet unfortunate fates. Slowly the animals left in the wood begin to realise that without the otters, the woods have lost their special status with the humans and soon their homes will be destroyed.

For all the otter’s antics human intervention is what causes the main disruption within the woods. The otters begin to hunt in the woods because they cannot find fish, and while it’s never obviously stated in the book I assumed that this was due to human overfishing or pollution. Humans may not force the otters from the woods, but as soon as the otters leave the rest of the wildlife becomes irrelevant and the wood is up for development. Even the humans who try to help the otters return to the woods end up causing their deaths, by frightening them into more dangerous situations.

By the end of the book the grisly animals deaths are mounting and the ending is quite distressing, even though anyone who has read the ‘Farthing Wood’ series knows the animal’s salvation has arrived when a baby fox is born. Colin Dann was writing in the ‘Watership Down’ tradition, where the brutal realities of nature were portrayed freely. I think it’s important that children know about the less pretty side of nature, so they can appreciate the vital struggles that create a balanced ecosystem. Hopefully an understanding of the daily fight for survival will engender a feeling of deeper connection with wildlife and a greater desire to protect it, as children come to see the varied levels of interest that the animal kingdom has to offer. Dann’s creation of animals that exhibit motivations we associate closely with humans, like jealously and pride, may also help readers to feel connected to animals, even if some argue that anthropomorphising animals creates another set of unhelpful issues.

So, to sum up this novel has a cracking plot and provides a useful commentary on human intervention in nature but is not the best book Dann ever produced. I’d suggest starting at the beginning of the series and saving the prequel for later. If you’re in the mood for some ‘Farthing Wood’ adventures but don’t have the books why not check out the first episode of the BBC cartoon series.

Past, Present, Future

Past

Last weekend I used what was possibly the last of the British summer sun to take a trip to Stratford on Avon, which is about an hour and a half away on the train. I had a bit of a boozy lunch with a mate at ‘The Parchment and Pen’, ate icecream, took a river cruise, convinced my friend to buy uber-cute shoes for work during a drunken shopping trip and sat watching swans with a pint at the only pub directly on the river Avon. Oh and managed to get out of Stratford alive after my friend said quite loudly ‘I hate William Shakespeare,’ as we walked past his birthplace, on the way to the train. If only every day could be as lovely (apart from that last bit).

I saw ‘Dreamgirls’ on Sunday – weak, I thought. There’s a little hint at some political substance, when the film displays the girls managers’ co-operation with the racism of the white music industry, but I thought the actors and the subject matter was let down in several significant ways (not least that sappy ending and the fact that the film couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be a musical or a film that just featured The Supremes’ songs). Jennifer Hudson’s version of ‘One Night Only’ is worthwhile, but other film’s based on the lives of musicians like ‘Ray’ and ‘Walk the Line’ easily out class ‘Dreamgirls’.

Present

The week of doom has passed and while it’s left me with a totally annoying version of Office (which has argh just frustrated me by making me spend an hour trying to download a new compatibility pack on my laptop) I feel a bit freer at work, if still confused by some changes taking place.

Some books have appeared, but they are not mine! Free books to borrow are one of the advantages of returning home in your twenties. Among others my mum has picked up ‘The Girl Who Played With Fire' (the second book in Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy), '84 Charing Cross Road’ (which she has devoured and I must read next) and ‘The Hearts of Horses’.

Right now I’m alternating between ‘ England’s Mistress’, Kate Hamilton’s entertaining biography of Emma Hamilton and ‘Zorro’ by Isabelle Allende. Kate Hamilton is certainly aware of the many things that may stall the average reader, attempting a work of non-fiction (long chapters, ponderous language etc) and is combining scholarship with the flair of a novel writer. I may actually finish a non-fiction book this year!

By the time you read this I'll have watched a new trashy episode of 'Dangerous Romantics', BBC2's fun drama about the rebellious young men of the pre-Raphelite Brotherhood, dedicated to changing the world forever (and getting their end away as often as possible) which will make me very happy. Right now you have 21 days to watch all the episodes for free on the BBC's iplayer (just follow the link above)!

Future

I am resisting buying books, but I’m lusting after quite a few, such as:
Dance Night - Dawn Powell
Twenty Miles - Cara Hedley
Chameleon - Charles R Smith
Leviathan - Philip Hoare
The Girl with Glass Feet - Ali Shaw
The Folded Leaf - William Maxwell
TThe Caligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim
Tokyo, Year Zero and Occupied City - David Peace
What I Saw and How I Lied - Judy Blundell
Fade to Blue - Sean Beaudoin

and Doret left me a list of chick-lit with black main characters after I requested on at another site. Eep more books:

Sex Murder Double Latte - Kyra Davis
Nappily Ever After by Trisha Thomas
The Accidental Diva by Tia Williams
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila Williams
The Chocolate Ship by Marrissa Monteilh
Mr. Right Now by Monica Jackson

I’m also resisting buying shoes. It’s more important to save, right? (I may crumble about the shoes though). I'm also considering a subscription to 'Solander' - historical novels reviewed aplenty. It seems almost ridiculously cheap at £25 for a year's subscription.

Brain Fudge = Not so tasty

You may have noticed a dearth of book reviews, even though I have four books I want to talk about. My brain is like fudge guys, fudge you buy for a treat, which then melts because you leave it on your dashboard in the sun. My office is too hot (it is raining outside and it’s still hot, that’s how hot) and I can just about cope with lying down and watching tv once I get back from the doomalicious days of this week. Last night I watched Midsummer Murders and made enough pasta salad to get me through today. Oh and had a disturbing dream about how highlighting my hair made me a highly visible victim to a psychopathic stalker who was riding a black horse, while wearing a crash helmet. That’s weekday life right now - party!

So instead of listening to me witter on about doom (the fans are too noisy, the office is too hot, bullet points! – this is the kind of thing you’re escaping) why don’t you read two posts that other bloggers wrote. I really enjoyed these posts this week – the memory of them helped me negotiate the doom.

Dorothy followed a bookstore walking trail last Saturday. I want to go!

Carl talks about another graphic discovery he’s made and shows pictures from the fictional biography of an actress famous for playing a femme superspy. I also want ‘Seductive Espionage’ now.

In other news the summer sale book catalogue from my book club has arrived, which means I’m having a hard time staying strong and keeping to the book buying ban. I could have ‘Leviathan’ for £3, never mind that I probably won’t read it until 2011! And I'll be in Stratford this weekend, where there are many books. Eeep! Encouragement would be welcome.