Nothing to Fear - Matthew D'Ancona

‘ ‘How’s your life?’

‘My brain hurts. Been in Oxford swotting and listening to a pair of dykes talk about organic food and sustainable energy.’ '

If you want to make me angry at your book, including a comment like that will absolutely achieve your aim. I understand that in context it was supposed to be quite jocular and an indication that the women talking are modern, straight talking people, who are casually taking back the hate filled words of the past, but it didn’t come off like that at all. I’m interested in the reclamation of words, but this word isn’t mine to reclaim and it didn’t belong to the characters who were saying it and it certainly isn’t a word the male author of this book should be using as an indication of edgy modernity. This passage sounded hateful, was accompanied by the description of one of the lesbian couple as a ‘dour Portuguese postgraduate’, a description presumably intended to show the undesirability of this lesbian relationship. The comment just sits there with no criticism of the word, allowing people to think this is a perfectly fine way for straight characters to talk about lesbian characters. It’s a small part of the ‘Nothing to Fear’ by Matthew D’Ancona, but it’s messed up.

But this socially unconscious misstep is almost slight when compared with the scorn D’Ancona turns upon the rest of the world. The middle classes, the working classes, the young; everyone who fits into these categories in this book is living an unhappy, unfulfilling life according to the author:

‘Like a herd of half-dead livestock, blinking in the unforgiving light of the early morning, they slouched towards the point where they would be picked up and carted off to unhappy destinations.’

There’s no sense that D’Ancona understands the reasons why people take ordinary jobs. It is never questionable whether these people have unfulfilling lives, his prose makes his opinions sound like statements of fact, as he ignores the possibility that ordinary people’s lives might possess some meaning, or happiness. Only the more privileged characters who work in top jobs, creative fields, or academia are able to contemplate meaningful achievement in this book and then they often still find a way to screw up their lives. What this book exhibits more than anything is condemnation of the majority of the human race. The bombastic prose used to describe the human background to the main character’s world sounds smug and knowing:

‘ Beside her stood a young couple, twitching with anticipation at the evening ahead…They would go out and drink heavily, Ginny thought, before going to a party, taking drugs and having sex in somebody else’s bedroom. In the morning, he would be as morose as she was needy.’

Every one of these minute players says or does something which the author indicates as idiotic, or banal, or pathetic, as if D’Ancona is happy to have his views confirmed. It’s such a conventional and lazy way to write people. He may as well just have written ‘Britain is broken’ over and over again, for all the purpose, or literary merit these descriptions had.

The plot of ‘Nothing to Fear’ is simple and sounds like the premise for a terrifying tale. Ginny has just gone through a divorce, with a partner who now alternately rejects and harasses her, so she has bought a run-down house with her divorce settlement. Her next door neighbour is a shy, yet oddly attractive computer programmer named Sean, who works strange hours and is extremely nervous. He intrigues her, they begin to form a friendship and after a protective episode involving Ginny’s ex-husband they become lovers. Then Ginny discovers a locked door in Sean’s house, Sean seems upset after returning from the locked room and Ginny decides to investigate. What she finds in the room causes her to run from the house that night and keep going until she’s safely at her friend, Peter’s house. The novel is heavily involved with the fairytale of Bluebeard’s locked room, a room where his new wife found the bodies of the pirate’s previous wives, so you can guess that running like this is not an overreaction on Ginny’s part.

From this point on Ginny freaks out in a monumental fashion. She’s entitled to go a little insane after uncovering Sean’s creepy secret, but she completely loses any sense of logic, or perspective and starts relating to Sean as a predator, who has set out a deliberate plan to demonstrate his power over her and eventually end her life. This idea is based on absolutely nothing, but self-centred thinking and animal fear, which causes Ginny to force everything Sean has ever done with her through this perspective, in an unthinking manner. Her reaction makes you question how real her academic nature feels; surely such an intelligent character could not be so deliberately unaware. I think the author is making a wider point with this reaction, one which links up with an earlier episode where a young Ginny gets lost in a supermarket and meets a monster. Once the monster is revealed as a friendly shop assistant Ginny believes the monster has disguised itself to fool the adults around her. Perhaps D’Ancona is trying to illustrate how extreme fear renders us all less rational and more childlike, but Ginny’s wilful rewriting of her relationship actually obscures this message with a heavy layer of stupidity. There were a lot of pages where I wanted to tell D’Ancona’s main character to get a grip, I actually found her inner dialogue a little hysterical (not a word I’d use lightly when describing women) despite the fact that what she’s found out would be horrifying to anyone if it happened in real life.

Shall I move on to the good now, because there’s good stuff walled in behind the failings of ‘Nothing to Fear’. Ginny’s working on a book about the meaning and purpose of fairytales, a source of research that seems to connect with Matthew D’Ancona’s personal interests, judging from the thoughtfulness of the arguments he creates for Ginny. Readers can find ideas about why fairytales are created, what part of the adult writer’s consciousness creates them and what they ultimately mean to human beings. Sean’s secret and the way Ginny talks about him ties him in explicitly with the male villains found in fairytales, especially the wolves, found in many fairytales and Bluebeard. Using fairytales as mirrors that reflect real human fear is a fascinating way of exploring the darkness of modern life, while keeping some old fashioned, simple horror in the story.

The atmosphere of the book vacillates between light and darkness, like all good horror films, understanding that the dark looks scarier when it is allowed to infiltrate the world of daylight to begin with, before the author switches all the lights off with one, sudden flick. Sean is a shaded character prompting the reader to wonder about what his intense secrecy conceals, however once Ginny goes into overdrive denying him any possibility of a soul, remorse or humanity I stopped seeing him as a mystery, or as a potential bad guy operating a disguise, instead I felt sorry for him, which is crazy considering what the author indicates he has done, and because I was looking for a way to justify his right to humanity I spotted the final plot twist well ahead of the author’s signals. There were parts of the books where I felt Ginny’s apprehension, as well as parts where I wanted to power through the plot because it was so creepily compelling and well paced, but then the narrative returned to thick passages of smug, social observation and all the tension was squashed out of the story.

There are some interesting secondary characters, like Julie, Ginny’s loyal best friend and honestly I think the author’s strength is in his characterisation of the characters he invests in. When he writes about people who have no place in the main story he is careless with them, but when he crafts characters who stand at the front of his stage he gives them all the motivations and histories a reader could want, even if these characters do still conform to conventional characterisations in part. When Ginny is not avoiding logic, or acting as a mouthpiece for observations on society she is intellectual and warm, attempting to be strong and self-sufficient. She could have been a great heroine, if she had been allowed to be.

Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me, but maybe you enjoyed it and you’d like to tell me why. Leave me a link to your review in the comments if you enjoyed, or didn’t enjoy this book and I’ll link to your review in the post. Otherwise all comments looked forward to very much.

Banned Books Week

Before I went away I spent a couple of hours thinking about how much easier life would be if I was the kind of person who could silence all those people who I didn’t agree with. All those dissenting voices would disappear from my life and I could go around, never hearing another vile opinion like the one I had just read at a friend of a friend of a friend’s blog.

Of course, being of a liberal political persuasion I’m well aware that placing bans on viewpoints, even the most despicable kind, is not the way to go and is really a shortcut that transforms liberal people into the monsters they despise. Knowing this doesn’t stop me hankering for a quick fix (like a full face muzzle) for those people who spout all kinds of hateful rubbish, but I believe it does keep me on the path to eventual decent human beingness.

As tempting as it sounds to place a ban on the freedom of speech that all bigots are entitled to I know that’s a pact only a big, scary devil would endorse. Everyone gets freedom of speech, otherwise we become equivalent to the censors we hate and we risk creating precedents for people to ban our own freedom of speech. Plus we all need to be open to the idea that our opinions may not be as absolute and right as we think (although I hope we can agree there are some things we are right about and others are really, really wrong about, even if we can understand that their own internally logical reasons have led to them developing those views – fyi if you think homosexuality is wrong you will not find that idea supported here and I am still mad boiling every time I think about that post I saw before I went on holiday, so while I respect your right to have an opinion I can never respect your opinion) or we risk becoming tyrannical and unbending.

Really I know we have to look for the reasons behind people’s hate, try to understand it, re-educate and push forward with positivity, but finding out someone I thought was decent and tolerant actually has some extremely objectionable views and is in a position to influence future generations placed yet another tiring weight on me, and for a few hours I was tempted by the warmth of the big, black capes you get when you join the dark side. How much easier must it be to be on the side that preserves their own liberties and their own peace of mind, by denying other people their own liberties and speech platforms? How light must your step be when you know you’ve managed to silence the views you hate to have to hear?

And so we come to Banned Book Week, where people who believe in freedom of speech react against people who don’t. It is that simple. Where you stand on banned books should not come down to whether you agree with the existence of books about single parent families, or gay relationships, or teenage sex, or any number of subjects (although personally I hope people do think these are all acceptable and important subjects to find in fiction and non-fiction), it should and does essentially come down to whether you believe everyone should be allowed to speak freely, or not. It should not be liberals against everyone else, it should be everyone else against bigots. If you disagree with what someone else is saying, write a letter to them, start a blog, get a television chat show, join a protest march, find a way and express your views, but do not attempt to make it illegal for them to say what they think, or for other people to hear what they say. Banning a book says that you don’t believe in free speech, in anyone’s right to say whatever they want and anyone else’s right to listen to them. Opposing book bans means you believe in free speech, it demonstrates that you have enough respect for people to allow them to make up their own minds and make their own choices.

Sometimes the choices they make won’t be so good in your opinion, sometimes the choices they make will suck when compared to basic human decency and sometimes those choices will need to be reacted against as they cause harm, but we will all be able to speak freely, we will all be able to explore ourselves and others, none of us will see our voices cut off. Hopefully we will grow out of any small, petty beliefs and become better beings, as we are allowed to explore, reject and embrace different ideas. Hopefully before my life span is up.

Back and Blogging

It has been both relaxing and manic and I am now returned. Thanks everyone who wished me a good holiday, Nice was so lovely, with the food, the sun, the sea, the apartment, the tourism and especially the 100 flavours ice cream shop (beer ice cream, rhubarb, lavender – take lots of people with you if you go so you can try all different flavours). I went from the plane back from Nice into a French restaurant in Birmingham (because my mum could not quite cope with leaving, or with the idea of cooking again). Then Friday I was at work and Saturday morning I travelled down to Plymouth to see a friend from college I hadn’t seen in about a year (again wonderful sea, sun, food, best cocktail bar ever and ooing over gorgeous house renovations). Also was really excited to hear that she enjoyed ‘Magyk’ which I sent down a month ago for her to read and she’s bought the whole series. Got home about ten last night and have spent the day fighting the urge to sleep on my desk.

I feel like I have not written a review in weeks, but I have three books I’m ready to rave about (Sherri L Smith’s ‘Flygirl’, the opening book of Michelle Paver’s ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ and ‘The Post Office Girl’ by Stefan Zweig )so just hang on a bit and I’ll get the critical cogs going round and review some notes I made.

Until then please enjoy the picture of the book pile I came home to on Friday:

I talked about buying most of these in previous posts. However you can see a couple of fantastical romances that I scored off Bookmooch at the top, ‘Sleeping with the Fishes’ and ‘Garden Spells’. I almost never check my email in time to pick up books offered there, so two novels is a really satisfying haul for me.

This group of books pretty much illustrates my random book tastes. At the bottom are some serious literary contenders; Booker nominees and a prize winning non-fiction book, then there are young adult novels whose subjects range from ice hockey to gay school clubs, above them are literary books that are a little bit older, a selection from a fantasy series, a French classic (in English unless anyone should get the idea that my French extends beyond the ‘ca va’ conversation) and then some romances top the pile.

My taste is not at all focused and specialised like the bookshelves of my friend in Plymouth, whose boyfriend (navy man, with a war studies degree) is working his way through books about war from the Peloponnesian conflict to Afghanistan. It must be wonderful to have so much focus and his bookshelves are fascinating to look at, you just want to dive in even if you’ve never found the history of war interesting before. I’m never going to master that much discipline, I like to flit too much, but I would miss my random book piles if I had more concentrated interests.

I hope you’ve all been having wonderful times, can’t wait to hear how Kathleen’s time in France was especially (I hope you weren’t caught in the storms parts of France had) and I’ll be catching up on everyone’s blogs throughout the week.

What's in the Fridge?

Last night we had the most wonderful burgers from M&S, Mediterranean burgers with tomatoes and green veg mixed into the burgers. I honestly never knew such a things existed, but I’m itching to try making some of my own now.

By the way is anyone else watching Nigel Slater’s ‘Simple Suppers’ thinking:

a.) You’re assuming every household has space for a garden/greenhouse (maybe if you live in London you could grow your veg in a corner of Hyde Park)

b.) How come you always have all these wonderful leftovers? Do you cook too much to start off with (who has left over mashed potatoe?) and if you do why don’t you learn to cook less? Who in the real world has a leftover parmesan rind in their fridge to cook with?

c.) Where has your Wolverhampton accent gone? (no that’s probably just me)

d.) You really only have one recipe don’t you? Step one: throw quantities of thing into a big pan, tip: for different dishes use different ingredients (actually that’s the thing I like most about his program, no measuring)

Perhaps I’m a little obsessed with food at the moment because tomorrow I’ll be in France, the home of much delicious gastronomy. I’ll be taking a short break with my parents to go to Nice, a city my mum loves (we’ve been three times so far). I am very much looking forward to eating, drinking and doing a little more sightseeing – I think some of our plans are to visit a historical site in the hills and see a museum that’s been closed every time we’ve visited so far. Perhaps we might stretch to a drink in the famous Hotel Negresco this time...

So I’ll say bon voyage now (although it’s me going off on the trip so technically that’s not right). There might be a couple of things posting while I’m away and I’ll be checking in on the mountains of great posts you’ll all manage to produce, when I get back.

Ban the Buy!

You may remember that I went on a book buying ban as part of Chris’s Eco Reading Challenge. That ban finished at the beginning of September and I was so unbelievably excited to be able to buy books again, that perhaps a few of you will be surprised to hear I’m instituting another self-imposed ban almost straight away. Hear me out, before you start calling me crazy, or disowning me as a disloyal book lover.

Some really sensible people have been outlining their reasons for cutting back their own book buying recently and I’ve been listening. Their arguments make sense to me: I do already have plenty of books waiting to be read, I could use the extra cash to put in my house deposit fund (this month has been an especially bad month for saving, what with having to buy warm clothes for winter as well as breaking ending my book buying ban and having to pay out the stupid yearly membership fee to keep my marketing qualification valid) and I do want to try become more environmentally responsible by reducing the amount of virgin paper I use (this is related to a new project I’m thinking of participating in called ‘Living Your Five’ - more on this later).

So the ban is coming back, with a few exceptions to keep me on track. Like the other bloggers trying to keep down their book purchases I know I’m not going to be able to make it cold turkey, I need incentives to keep me going. So the exceptions:

I let myself have a final splurge last night before cutting myself off (more on this below).

I’m allowing myself to buy one new book after I finish fifteen books I currently own (on average it takes me three to four months to finish this many books).

I can buy books I decided to include in challenges I’ve already signed up for, if I don’t already have them. However I can only buy them if I’ve tried every other available source of books and come up empty.

I can get books from Bookmooch, but I cannot randomly browse for book there. I can only get books that I’m alerted about because they’re on my wishlist. What with themajority of listings coming from outside the UK and the time differences it’s quite rare I snag a book from my wishlist.

The one rule:

If I break down and buy something before I should I have to make some kind of charity donation related to reading (send on a copy of ‘Little Brother’ to a needy school, donate a Bookmooch point to charity etc). That almost makes me feel like I should break the ban though...

Now on to the splurge.

I was lazy last night and just used Amazon again, because it was late and I didn’t want to spend time on setting up a new account somewhere else, but my love for it has officially died now, partly because of the news about the way Amazon has changed its terms and the way this affect sites like Bookmooch, which use its data. I think I’ll try the Book Depository as my first new online source, because Waterstones keeps letting me order things and then tells me they are not in stock.

Anyway I picked up:

'Twenty Miles' – Care Hedley: women, team sports, friendship, hard hockey tackles and it all comes recommended by Chasing Ray

'The Folded Leaf' – William Maxwell: because Danielle is always helping to decrease my housing savings pot ;)

'Dance Night' – Dawn Powell: highly recommended by various Slaves of Golconda participants

'The Little Lady Agency and the Prince' – Hester Browne: to find out who wins Honey’s heart, the impossible Jonathan, the best friend or the new, mysterious prince

'Leviathan' – Philip Hoare: it cost £4 from my bookclub and I really admire an author who can sound so obsessed with one subject, without appearing creepy

'Throne of Jade' – Naomi Novick: Elena said she’d have kept this book in the basket when I mentioned kicking it out to save money on my last book buying spree, so I am going to use peer pressure as a very flimsy excuse for putting it in this time ;)

'Wolf Hall' – Hilary Mantel: I’m wary of the Booker, luckily there are bloggers weeding through the shortlist and after hearing happy excitement from Eve’s Alexandria about this one I decided to give it a go

'The Children’s Book' – A S Byatt: so far all I know of A S Byatt comes from the press. I’m not sure we’d get along, but I also think George Elliot would have despised me if we’d lived at the same time and that didn’t stop me from admiring chunks of ‘Daniel Deronda’. Eve’s Alexandria has a really great review of this book and the fact that it references the craft movement is enough to warm the heart of a girl from the historical home of UK glass production.

Is anyone else contemplating cutting down their book purchases, or are you all splurging? Share whichever way!

The Tudors - Series Two

Is anyone else out there watching the second series of ‘The Tudors’? Would you like to discuss it? Well this is the post for you then.

I missed the first series, because I always seemed to be out when it was on but my mum assured me I would know what was going on, Henry and his wives stories are legendary in England after all. I’ve seen the first six episodes and I have the mixed feelings about this adaptation – let’s examine them shall we?

Firstly I love, love, love the casting. I’m only going to say this once and I expect the BBC to take note, Jonathan Rhys Mears is not on television enough at all. I’m considering a protest. Cromwell is easily my favourite character. Ah, James Frain, a most unlikely heartthrob, but as a historical villain with a sympathetic edge he is unsurpassable. I am sad I missed many hours of Jeremy Northam, as he’s killed off in the first series. Oh and Mary, penitent, beautiful and full of strength – wonderful.

The Catholics seem to be getting a very sympathetic hearing in this series, while Cromwell and his ministers are getting the manipulative advisor treatment. That’s interesting considering how the persecution impulse swung relentlessly back and forth between the Protestants and Catholics, depending on who was in power. I would have expected to see a more even handed approach, with both sides having good and bad characters, who take religion seriously. However Cromwell is becoming more sympathetic as Henry crushes his hopes for reformation, making what is essentially a Catholic church without divorce.

Sometimes the dialogue takes an odd turn. There are parts where it’s clear portions of primary sources have been inserted into the script, as the dialogue becomes less natural and people recite as if they are reading from a page. I think what makes these parts sound so odd is that the phrasing and the grammar are much more formal than the rest of the character’s speech. I guess it’s a stab at establishing historical legitimacy, but I think they might have done better masking their scholarship in their own words.

Love the choice to cast Henry as a psychopathic, power mad, angry young man. His character feels like a historically accurate, rich, male personality and little has been done to make the character sympathetic to a modern audience (although there’s still a lot that will probably resonate with male members of a modern audience, like the man’s longing for a son). When he tells his wife he is upset because she is ‘not yet with child’, to her face, in front of people and then displays so much more affection for her once she is pregnant a chill went through me as the reality of the indignities women put up with appeared so starkly.

Does anyone know much about the idea that Henry’s bad leg is caused by syphilis? It seems likely that Henry contracted syphilis, considering how many partners he had, but as far as I understand the boils manifests over a person’s whole body, not just in one spot. And the madness the disease brings isn’t fleeting, its permanent. Can anyone who knows more about it than me tell me if the scholars support the idea that his leg injury was caused by syphilis?

If you’re watching ‘The Tudors’ do you have your own issues with the program and what are you loving? How do you think this series compares with the first and do you think it’s worth me buying the box set? Did you have to hide during the hanging of Mr Ask? What are your feelings about the family of the challenger for the throne, who were executed last week?

Let’s talk Tudors!

Thanks for Introducing Me to This Book!

You might have noticed how many young adult novels I’ve read this year. This is a new and exciting reading development for me, which would not have developed without the helpful recommendations of other book bloggers. As my contribution to the Thursday task for BBAW (talk about a book you found via another blogger) I’d like to showcase those bloggers who provided me with fantastic fodder for my young adult reading list:

Coleen of Chasing Ray is the first blogger I turn to for great young adult picks. I’d hung around her Bookslut column for a while, appreciating her critical reviewing skills that managed to be thoughtful and still make every book she talked about sound like a winner. Then one day I decided I needed to actually try the kind of books she was so passionate about, created a humungous list based on her back issue columns and added a ton of books to my Amazon basket (then took out some because I need money for saving, then added some back in because I couldn’t resist). She’s the reason I picked up ‘Empress of the World’, which you may remember went down a treat with me. In the last couple of months I’ve branched out into reading her main blog and dang if there aren’t books she talks about there that spin their siren song around my head ( ‘Funny How Things Change’ has just arrived).

I’ve been reading Bookshelves of Doom for years and quite a few of the books she reviewed went into that first Amazon basket of young adult books. ‘The President’s Daughter’ is probably the book Leila reviewed, that I’ve liked the most so far. Her feelings about the rest of the series keep me really excited about the books to come. Oh and duh she is the reason why I will die with a copy of ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ in my bookshelves. I could have lived my whole life without that book if she hadn’t kept bringing it and the progress of its movie adaptation up.

I know Guys Lit Wire is a collaborative blog (that both the women above are involved with) but I have to mention it. Not only is it constantly adding to my growing reading list, but it’s already pointed me in the direction of some cool reading experiences. I know they were the reason I decided to pick up ‘Saints of Augustine’, which was one enjoyable ride and I think they may have talked me into finally buying ‘Slam’ (although that one was a mixed bag for me it is a really well written book, with a convincing British, male character).

Finally Renay from YA Fabulous deserves a mention. She’s the joint reason I put ‘Dooley Takes the Fall’ into that initial basket, that began my whole infatuation with YA. I read her enthusiastic review of the book and then read the compelling first line at Guys Lit Wire. She is the reason I’m restlessly waiting for the second book in the trilogy to be released and why I want some darker young adult fare to read (could ‘Gentlemen’ be the answer?). She has wonderful recommendations as well (must get 'Graceling' because of her analysis of its feminist aspects).
Now if only I could remember where I first saw ‘Flygirl’ mentioned, so I could lavish some love on that blogger (it was so good, review soon hopefully).

Quick note: Congratulations to everyone who has picked up an award so far at BBAW! I’m nervously waiting to see if my nomination for best book of 09 makes the grade. Good luck to all of you still waiting to hear, thanks for the guest post content at the site dedicated guest posters and big hugs to Amy and her helpers for working so hard.

Women Who Work

Way back in time I read one of the first articles that really convinced me I needed to lavish some devotion on Bookslut. Jill Bailosky talks about creating a modern female character who is able to follow her passions without sacrificing her life, as in the olden days of tragic female heroines. Back in the day, female characters who hoped and dreamed of something beyond what they had tended to be cut down by their creators, on the understanding that the public wouldn’t tolerate women who had stepped outside the boundaries living to a happy, ripe old age. To summarize – they were not good girls.

I feel that woman who follow their passions are still not characterised as not ‘the kind of girls we like to see’ in contemporary writing. There are now plenty of books where female characters are able to follow their romantic passions, without getting a ‘mysterious cough’, or finding themselves shunted off their feet by a careless driver. Women escape unfulfilling relationships, have life changing affairs, meet prince charming on a regular basis and live to see another day in today’s fiction. However, when it comes to the world of work women plus job still seems to equal a barrier to true passion (read romantic passion) rather than a successful realisation of long held desires, when it comes to fiction.

Female characters who are professionally driven are more often portrayed as being unhealthily obsessed with their work, rather than healthily dedicated to their professional development. At the beginning of a book where a woman is pursuing a career in a traditional business setting she will almost never be in a happy, fulfilling relationship. In order to maintain a successful love affair these female characters are required to realise that work isn’t everything and either scale down their involvement at the office, or realise that the job they are in is not really their passion, in fact their passion lies somewhere more traditionally female.

Now I’m not saying these aren’t good ideas to find in a novel (work to the exclusion of all else is unhealthy, sometimes a creative path is more rewarding than a traditional office based job) but it seems that they mostly crop up in novels with female main characters. As far as I can see, there is no comparable message to be found in books with career focused male characters, even though warnings about work taking over your life are surely just as relevant to men. I don’t see slews of books about men meeting women, realising what life is all about and ditching their careers to set up a small stand selling their wood carvings. It seems like male characters are allowed to develop, change and earn the reader’s support without giving up or changing their careers. Often a female character’s progression from nasty, hard and unfriendly characters to sympathetic, friendly and loving personalities the reader can cheer for, is accompanied by a woman’s realisation that her job is the route of her problems.

Subjects men are allowed to claim as a passion (career, art, sport) are quickly shown to be obsessions, that need to be reigned in when a woman becomes heavily involved with the same subjects, yet hundreds of books are sold where romantic obsession consumes women to the point where they ignore everything else (not to keep banging on, but Twilight I’m looking straight at you, you know what you did) and that is deemed perfectly acceptable. Characters outside of the romance will actively encourage this kind of behaviour and many women overwhelmed by romantic passions/obsession go on to have wonderful happy, uncomplicated endings. When a woman is passionate about something other than romance her story always seems to involve much more strife, much more qualification (yes she was fabulous marathon runner, but she never truly found her soul mate) and comes with a bittersweet ending.

Am I surprised that women who follow their romantic passion still get top billing over women who have other paths to follow? Our survey says, no. Is this a big disappointment to me, well it’s a more mixed answer. I’m a big fan of romance, especially when women successfully fight for the partner of their dreams and achieve their heart’s desire. I just wish we could start to see more diversity in the goals and passions that female characters pursue in novels. I wish having a successful career didn’t have to be matched up with being an emotionally lacking women. I wish women’s deep interests in solitary, consuming preoccupations could be taken seriously and judged just as valuable and personally fulfilling as romance is. Are we close, can you pass me examples of female characters whose personalities develop, without them giving up ties to an enterprise they love and are good at?

There’s more of this stuff to follow, so you may want to run for the hills now. If not stick around for the opportunity to discuss and probe female stuff in literature. Comments and thoughts appreciated as always.

BBAW - Interview with Necromancy Never Pays

As part of BBAW some of us signed up to interview other bloggers. We learn a little, the people who read our blogs meet a new person - it's all part of the celebration of book blogging. My interview partner was Jeanne from 'Necromancy Never Pays' and below she talks about poetry, libraries and the impact blogging has made on her life:

How long have you been blogging?

About a year and a half now. I started one winter while I was sitting around recovering from a knee replacement.

Can you explain how you came up with the name for your blog ‘Necromancy Never Pays’?

It’s an odd name, isn’t it? The name actually inspired me to start the blog; I keep a brief version of the story up on my sidebar, right underneath the title.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced while blogging and what’s the best way it’s affected your life?

The biggest challenge for me is finding the time to write at least 2-3 times each week, and to get around to visiting other book blogs at least once a month. I have a husband with a very full-time job, two part-time jobs of my own (one requiring a two-hour commute twice a week), two busy teenagers, and a house full of animals. But the best way blogging and visiting have affected my life is that I’ve become at least a peripheral part of some interesting conversations; part-time jobs can be very isolating, so the book blog world has become a part of my intellectual community. Also I got better classes this year because last fall I sent my department head a link to my post about what it’s like to leave a class of first-year students with no real prospects of ever seeing them again, and he took special pains to work out a year-long schedule for me with some upper-level courses!

How technological are you and what’s your favourite piece of technology/techy tool (apart from blogs but including domestic appliances)?

I have very little technical expertise, and don’t even like kitchen gadgets much. I like ipods; does that count?

Do you have a favourite community building event or group in the book blogging world?

No because I’ve been too cautious about committing my time and energy so far. I like reading responses to the Weekly Geeks question the best of anything. Do you have a suggestion—because that might help! I feel a bit like the character of Will Barrett in Walker Percy’s novel The Last Gentleman, who was paralyzed by too much possibility.

You seem like a pretty big poetry fan – what do you like best about poetry?

I like that moment when you read a line or two and think “I’ve felt that, but couldn’t articulate it until now…”

Who is your all time favourite author, the one you’d queue all night to talk to for five minutes?

Hmm, this question assumes a live author. I guess it would have to be Jasper Fforde, who wrote The Eyre Affair. I thought about Barbara Kingsolver, but she comes across as very earnest. I once met Ruth Ozeki and felt that she summarily dismissed me as an interesting person because of the way I make jokes when nervous. I can’t see Fforde doing that—or if he wasn’t as fascinating in person as he is in print, we could always have a game of croquet.

You read around quite a bit, just wondering if you have a favourite genre or if you don’t why you enjoy reading a little bit of everything.

My favorite genre is satire, especially 18th-century ironic personal panegyric (blame by praise of an individual). But I aspire to be a Renaissance woman. The only genre I really don’t care for is horror. I don’t like to be scared, especially not by made-up stories.

Can you speak a little bit about why you’re so passionate about public libraries in Ohio?

Because I’m an American, and free public libraries are one of the foundations of our system of democracy. As John Adams said: “LIBERTY CANNOT BE PRESERVED WITHOUT A GENERAL KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE PEOPLE.” This is carved above the door of my local library.

Finally what book/s do you wish more people were reading right now? If you were in charge of the world for an hour what piece of literature would you make it law to read because you think it would do the world good?

I’m willing to wish that more people would read Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or The Year of the Flood (which is being published this month) because I think more of us should think about the dangers she exaggerates for effect. (Also I worry that some of the dangers we thought were exaggerated in The Handmaid’s Tale have come perilously close to true.) But I’d never be willing to make a law about reading. You can’t force someone to learn; most people just resist more stubbornly if you try.

My answers to Jeannes questions are now up at her blog and she goe sinto my bloglines list so we can keep in touch!

Work Bookshelves

Is this not the saddest bookshelf you've ever seen?

It just appeared one day on the top floor of the shared building I work in. I think someone dumped it out of their office and ever since it turned up people have been leaving their out of date computer books and management manuals on the shelves. Look how empty it is, the books look so lonely, swamped by all that space. Books are social creatures, they need to be with big heards of their own kind!

I keep wanting to perform an intervention and put some novels on its shelves but sadly our building is the kind of establishment where 50% of the people eat their lunch in front of their computers every day (and really it's a good thing they do because there are about three tables to sit at in the communal areas and people who want to hold meetings outside of their offices scowl at you if they can't find a seat).

Does anyone else slightly wince looking at this picture, or am I just over-reacting?

Guest Post: Stuart Sharp

Hi, I’m Stuart Sharp. Amongst other things, I’m the author of the urban fantasy book Searching, and Jodie has kindly agreed to let me post here as part of my promotion for it. No, please don’t run off. I promise I’m not going to spend all my time going on about how great the book is (well, maybe briefly). Instead, this being a blog dedicated to reading, what I thought I’d do was talk briefly about what I was reading as I wrote Searching, and the influence those books had on me at the time.

Jodie has also suggested that I might like to mention a few of my current favourite authors, so I’ve picked five of each. First though, it occurs to me that I’d probably better tell you something about this novel that you’ve never heard of. Time for a blurb, I think:

Searching tells the story of Stephen Neilson, a shape-shifter and one of those who police the supernatural world that exists hidden from most people. He’s grown to worry that he is becoming nothing more than a killer, and that belief is tested to the limit when a young woman shows up on his doorstep asking for help to find her sister. The problem: her sister is Amy Winter, and she definitely is a killer. Worse, she’s one who specialises in the supernatural.

Neilson’s search takes him to York, where he runs into egotistical vampires, bad tempered witches, and werewolves who seem to have violence in mind. Pretty soon, he finds himself embroiled in a plot that threatens the whole supernatural world with revelation, and war. Somewhere in this, Neilson must work out who to trust, save a woman who would normally want him dead, and maybe just save himself.

It’s an odd sort of book in its way. I won’t pretend otherwise. There are some very dark moments in it, coupled with what is generally quite a light tone. There’s a lot of action, but I’d like to think that the moments that matter in it are the ones that hinge on the more human elements. I’d like to think that it’s a combination of elements that adds up to a good book. I definitely think that it’s a combination of elements that makes a lot more sense once you see whose work I was reading at the time. Obviously, since this was a couple of years ago, there’s a chance I might have misremembered, but by and large I think this list is right.

1- Kelly Armstrong: In particular those books featuring the Stonehaven werewolves- Bitten, Stolen, and Broken. I think it was those that convinced me that if I was going to try urban fantasy, I should try to steer clear of werewolves for the main characters, since they had already been done so brilliantly. It didn’t stop a few creeping into Searching, lying down, and declaring that they weren’t going to move, though. I think Kelly Armstrong’s work was also vital in convincing me both that the characters were more important than simple plot, and that the darker elements of urban fantasy weren’t something to shy away from.

2- Kim Harrison: That said, I much prefer the fantasy I read to have a lighter thread running through it, and when it comes to urban fantasy, Kim Harrison probably does that the best. I was briefly put off by the film puns titles of her early novels, but I’m very glad I got over it, because she’s now probably the urban fantasy author I still read most. The Hollows has got to be the most inventive urban fantasy world going, and the whole series is great fun.

3- Jim Butcher: Talking of great fun, the Harry Dresden series probably had a huge influence at the time. It certainly seems to be the closest in tone to the sort of thing I tried to do with Searching, and I must admit that the sight of a male author and main character succeeding in the largely female-dominated genre was a considerable encouragement.

4- Douglas Adams. The last two choices veer away from urban fantasy a little, if only to make the point that I was also reading other things. I’ve read the more comedic end of the fantasy and sci-fi spectrum for as long as I can remember, but it is probably important that I happened to read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency at just the point where Searching began. It convinced me that I would never be able to “do” funny quite that well, and so sent me more down the track of “serious” fantasy.

5- Assorted medievalists. David Crouch’s William Marshall is a surprisingly good read, as is the book Fullford: The Forgotten Battle of 1066. But I suppose the point I’m making here is not about the books so much as what I was doing, which was a PhD in medieval history. Writing Searching was as much a means of procrastination from that as anything, and some small influences seem to have crept in. The medieval minster of York makes a quick appearance, thanks to the research, as indeed does the city. I wanted somewhere with a sense of history lurking in the background, without it being too obtrusive, and York just happened to be perfect. It was that or Hull, really.

If we contrast that with what I’m reading now, the differences should become apparent pretty quickly:

1- Neil Gaiman: Probably my favourite author. I suppose what he does connects vaguely to urban fantasy, in the sense that his work integrates the modern with the fantastic. Then again, by that definition, the Harry Potter series fits. My standard advice here is that if you haven’t read everything he’s ever written, you should do so at once. In particular, those people who only know him from Coraline or The Graveyard Book should read one of his novels aimed at adults with all due speed. I’d recommend starting with Neverwhere, though Anansi Boys is also a great place to begin. Stardust possibly bridges the gap best of all, even if it perhaps lacks that little bit of edge and depth that the others have. American Gods is my favourite, but I know better than to recommend beginning with it. It’s one of those “marmite” books (that you either love or hate). Actually, given Gaiman’s general popularity, I suspect you already know this.

2- Tom Holt, on the other hand, never seems to attract as much attention as you’d think he should. A friend of mine tried to explain her refusal to read his work by suggesting that he does nothing Pratchett doesn’t, but what sort of argument is that? Surely you can have Soul Music in one hand and > May Contain Traces of Magic in the other? (and possibly, eventually, my comic fantasy novel Court of Dreams in the… no, hang on, that won’t work, will it? I don’t suppose anyone fancies running round quickly and giving everyone an extra hand, do they?)

3- Jasper Fforde: Despite the mess that is First Among Sequels, I’m still a huge fan. Just read The Fourth Bear instead.

4- Rachel Green: Who I really must credit indirectly with most of this list, since it was getting hold of her marvellous debut An Ungodly Child that turned me back onto the funny stuff. Yes, as she freely admits, it probably needed another round of copy-editing. Yes, the ending is a bit odd. But it’s an amazingly fun, and indeed funny, book that deserves to be read.

5- Richelle Mead: Just to make the point that I haven’t stopped reading this genre entirely. I’d recommend most of her books, and especially enjoy the humour and wit of her Georgina Kincaid series.

Right, I think I’ve probably kept you reading long enough (you are still reading aren’t you? If you’ve wandered off to make a cup of tea, I’d quite like one too, just pour it in the vents). I suppose the point I’m making here is that while my general reading tastes have stayed the same, they’ve also changed quite a bit in the tone. In that, I think they’ve reflected a change in my writing, from the serious-ish fantasy of Searching to the unmitigated silliness of my current work. In that, I suspect I’m trying to suggest that with both reading and writing, the choices you make reflect you at a particular moment. I’d like to think that Searching does a pretty good job of reflecting me a couple of years ago.

I’d like to thank Jodie again for hosting this post, and if anyone wants to leave any questions or thoughts in the comments I’ll try to keep up with them.

Thanks so much to Stuart for dropping by, if you want to keep up with what he's doing you can rock up at his blog.

Baking Cakes in Kigali - Gaile Parkin

‘Baking Cakes in Kigali’ is probably the best book I can recommend to anyone who understands the importance of reading about the brutal side of African life, but is scared away by the lasting impression that vivid descriptions of violence can leave on the imagination. The novel follows an African businesswoman called Angel, who bakes elaborate cakes and lives with her large family, in the midst of a friendly, welcoming community. It feels cosy, safe and in general the characters are nice people the reader can enjoy spending time with. However Gaile Parkin is sure to show the uncomfortable realities that will inevitably butt up against contented, everyday lives when people live in Rwanda. So the reader is ushered in with promises of safety, of cheerful storylines involving cake and no extreme visualisations of violence and then gently introduced to real characters whose lives have been affected by the war in Rwanda and the AIDs crisis. This proves to be an effective way of disseminating information and humanising the country’s problems.

Angel and her husband Pius moved from their home country of Tanzania to Rwanda, so that Angels’ husband could take a higher paying job. Angel takes care of her five grandchildren, as both her own children have died. Her HIV positive son was shot by robbers and Angel is told that her daughter was killed by stress after her husband left her, although readers are left initially uncertain if this is true. To remain independent and earn a little extra cash for her family Angel designs cakes for special occasions. The descriptions of the cakes are one of my favourite things about the book, each one is individual and in some way reflects Angel’s knowledge of the person who will receive the cake. They all sound like the kind of centrepieces you would gasp at if they were revealed at your party.

Through her cake business Angel meets a range of characters and hears many stories that show how the effects of British control and the genocide in Rawanda, continue to have a devastating effect on the lives of Africans. Angel meets a man who has just found his brother after being separated from his family during the genocide killings, her friend who owns a bar recounts the story of her husband’s killing and the compound’s prostitute explains that she sells herself because she is responsible for keeping her sisters and another child fed, after their parents were murdered in the genocide attacks. Through these stories, told in Angel’s comfortable house with a slice of cake, the reader is instructed in the history and the effects of the Rwandan conflict by characters who tell their stories with quiet, straightforward sadness, which means that readers who might run from painful, violent images are able to absorb what happened and begin to learn more about an important subject.

Angel’s interactions with her customers also reveal Angel’s determined feminism. I’m really chuffed that just as I was offering up my two pence about using strong, feminist women in books to qualify realistic portrayals of sexism an example of how that might work in practise appeared in Gaile Parkin’s novel. Male customers often come to Angel with some strange views on women, for example one customers tries to order a christening cake with the name ‘Goodenough’ iced on top. It turns out that the baby has received this name because it was born a girl, not a boy. By the time the cake is actually created Angel has convinced the family to change the baby’s name to ‘Perfect’.

‘ "Goodenough? Goodenough? What kind of name is Goodenough?”

“It’s because they wanted a boy, very, very much, but the baby is a girl. She’s not what they wanted, but she’s good enough.”

Angel removed her glasses and began to polish the lenses with the corner of her kanga. “Do you think that is a good name for a girl to have, Bosco?”

“It is not a bad name, Auntie.”

Angel was silent for a while as she polished her glasses vigorously. Then she said, “Do you know what, Bosco? I think perhaps it is not you who should choose the cake for Goodenough…Do you think it will be possible for you to take me with my photo album to meet Mama Goodenough?” '

That’s just one example of Angel’s discreet feminist criticism of the way men living in Rawanda view women, but there are many more episodes where realistic, traditional male views are expressed and then corrected by Angel. This clearly explains to the reader that while men may hold sexist views, these views are not acceptable. I loved that Parkins found a way to integrate feminism and realistic sexist views, found in Rawandan society.

Unfortunately Angel’s feminist principles do seem to desert her whenever one of her friends engages in activities that are anti-feminist. When this occurs she lets some women and the men they are associated with get away with anti-feminist practises without trying to correct their behaviour, perhaps out of tact, perhaps out of a belief in practicality. A young shopkeeper Leocadie waits for her boyfriend’s other girlfriend to have a baby and prays that it’s a girl so that her boyfriend, Modeste will marry her (her own baby by him is a boy). Angel does not heavily censure the man’s behaviour, or talk about how sad it is that he will choose a boy child over a girl child. Possibly she does not comment because she knows that Modeste’s support will enable Leocadie’s son to have a better life, but it seems unfortunate that she only spares a fleeting thought for the other woman and her daughter.

There is also a strange episode where Angel finds herself about to attend a female circumcision at her neighbour’s house. Angel is asked to make a cake for the cutting ceremony and though she is aware of the many problems this can cause for female children she does not interfere out of respect for her friend’s culture. She also admits that she is curious about the procedure. Now the cutting doesn’t go ahead because the girl’s mother doesn’t want her daughter cut and has devised a clever plan to fool her husband into thinking his daughter has been cut. However Angel was still willing to attend, without trying to intervene, although she knew what was going to happen would be wrong. While the idea of female circumcision is clearly shown to be wrong, and Angel clearly struggles with her decision to attend the ceremony readers may wonder at Angel’s acquiescing behaviour before she finds out that the girl will not actually be cut.

There’s lots more I could talk about, both positive and negative things (oh bloggers we can never get it all into one review can we, we need big long chats about these books which I suppose is why Google docs and book clubs and things are such a good idea), for the sensitive way that Parkin deals with grief acknowledging all the different forms it can take, without overflowing the book and making it unbearably sad. The details of the individual characters stories about their particular loss will stay with readers far longer than a news report can, yet the book ends on a simple note that suggests healing and reconciliation, which is as affecting as all the tales of death and trouble Angel has heard:

‘ Sitting in the cool Rwandan night, the quiet of the city interrupted by song and laughter, they sipped their tea together.’

Lovely.

If you've reviewed this book please leave a link in the comments and I'll link to your review in my post.

Other Reviews

Zenleaf

Arrived!

Yay 'Flygirl' here! And it's accompanied by 'Cycler'.

Gotta say I'm a little sorry I cheaped out and got the paperback copy of 'Cycler' because it is just not as cute as the hardcover copy.

I think I'm officially over Amazon.co.uk. I'm not a fan of all my books being split up into smaller packages when they all come from one main seller, there's too much packaging that is hard to recycle in my area and their 1-2 business day service does not do what it promises at all (I have paid for the extra service occassionally and still waited a week for a package to arrive). Does anyone know of any alternative good online UK resellers?

Evil - You're doing it wrong

sarahtales wrote this post about how female villain are often very sexy and how this means that evil gets all tangled up in sexuality and femininity so that a particular kind of highly sexualised beauty becomes associated with evil (please go read it, she puts it so much better). And it got me thinking about how difficult it is for women to write female villains that don’t make them go ‘ew look what I did to my gender’.

If your female villain is of the incredibly hot persuasion she’s reinforcing the idea that women who are too beautiful are evil temptresses, bent on destroying our virulent hero’s morals.

If you go the other way and make your female villain ugly then you’re backing up the witch stereotype, where ugly, odd or unusual women were suspected of nefarious pacts with the devil.

How about if your villain is plain, that should be fine right? No, no, because then you bring everything back to the mirror idea to the ‘hot women are evil’ thought by showing that plain girls are (as men have always suspected) bitter and unfulfilled because of their inferior looks.

So my question for you guys is how might a female author create a female villain without making her a stereotype that reinforces traditional ideas about beauty and evil? Does anyone have some examples of this kind of fictional female villain?

BBAW - Everybody Deserves a Cheer

The Book Blogger Appreciation Week voting is officially open now. I’ve voted my little heart out for all the categories of blogs I read and like Amy have realised just how impossible it would be for me to follow every book blog in existence (but y'know let's give it a good go shall we). I was uber-happy to see some of the people I nominated make it through to the shortlists (although most of them were not in the categories I nominated them for).

Nymeth especially should be doing a little happy dance, because I think she may just be the blogger who made the most shortlists.

However while tons of bloggers went through, I can quickly see that not every blogger I nominated made it this year. In an effort to really celebrate everyone the first BBAW mass post is about giving a cheer for all those book bloggers you love who didn’t make a shortlist. Oh gawd this is going to involve a lot of thinking and a lot of linking:

Estellas Revenge – Andi is about to launch a new business and begin the (not always pleasant because of sickiness) task of bringing new life into the world, while helping to raise her boyfriends two kids and finding time to read. Awesome is not quite the word.

Eves Alexandria – This blog was one of my first experiences of British book blogging. Four years later I’m still reading the posts of these women with stupendous brains. They're especially good company when it’s Orange prize time.

Classical bookworm – Sylvia is a fellow participant in the ‘Year of Readers’ who posts the best bookish picture stories I’ve ever come across.

Of Books and Bicycles – Dorothy and her husband Hobgoblin undertake book related trips that I love to read about. She has a light touch and an eclectic taste in books.

Worducopia – Ali is just so cool. She’s open minded and strives to bring change about in the world.

Bookgirl’s nightstand – Illiana is another blogger I’ve been following for a few years. She makes the cutest book journals (my mum has one) and is an avid crafter, and one of my favourite pick me ups are her posts about what she’s been doing recently.

Care’s Bookclub – Care is genuinely nice. She’s always commenting here and her rating system is cute as a button (she uses pie pieces).

Fledgling – I just recently found out about Zetta Elliott’s blog and I love it. Favourite post here . She also led me to the ‘Writer’s Against Racism’ series which I’m starting to get into.

Readergrlz – If you don’t know of readergrlz you must go over there now. They’re a teen book group, which interacts with teens in the real world. Right now they’re discussing Graceling and they just snagged a famous author to be their writer in residence.

Reviewer X – Steph has been busy lately with school, but I look forward to seeing her come back soon with more publication stories and opinions (and I see from Twitter she may be back real soon so yay!).

Reading in colour – Miss Attitude’s regular feature is ‘Male Monday’, where she features YA books with black male protagonists, which is such a nice addition to all the great recommendations offered at GuysLitWire. I think she’s going to be a blogging force in years to come.

Yannabe – Kelly was a great judge during Nerds Heart YA, loved reading her posts. I think it’s great that she lets other people pick which book she will read sometimes and then follows through.

The Bookling – Peta is recreating a real life version of ‘Alphabet Weekends’ and she’s taking part in my poetry challenge, what’s not to like?

Litlove – You will have heard me go on and on about how much I admire this blogger before. So let me just say she is educated, knowledgable and not above amusing us all with funny stories about her family.

I was going to mention maree from justaddbooks as well, but I kind of think she made a shortlist...Anyway maree is a regular participant in Weekly Geeks and use the deeply dorkified Spock button, which I love. Oh and sometimes I think our reading tastes were seperated at birth.

Oh and just to say how did I suddenly get up to 20 followers? Hi new followers, hope you’re enjoying my blog and I’ll be checking in with you all soon. Now quick, shoot off and vote in BBAW.

Zombie Chickens Attack

I’ve been slack about mentioning the awards people have been nice enough to give me, maybe that’s because they’ve been causing me so much trouble ;)

Ali at worducopia recently gave me the job of supervising a flock of zombie chickens, obsessed with running a successful lemonade stand. Now chickens are in my opinion some of the most annoying animals on the planet, when they are normal chickens, never mind when their early morning squawking is replaced by a chorus of 'Brains, chickens want brains'.

I’ve tried everything I can think of to make their lemonade stand flourish and to stop them smelling of rot quite so much (zombie tip: Febreeze makes no difference), but all my efforts have been in vain so I’ve decided to shunt them along to other deserving bloggers. Let’s see how you get on explaining away the occasional eyeball at the bottom of a customer’s lemonade glass. The chickens will be pushing their lemonade cart up the driveway to meet:

Renay (because I imagine the chickens will help strengthen her blogs defences)

Stuart (because I kind of think if anyone can train zombie chickens to give correct change it’s him)

Carl (because zombie chickens will make an excellent addition to the RIP line up)

And before these chickens even arrived Care had sent another pack on their way to me. These guys came without a lemonade stand, so I set them to work making chocolate covered popcorn (zombie tip: count your chickens eyes daily if you try this because it’s hard to tell a chicken eyeball from a delicious piece of popcorn once it’s covered in chocolate). Fully competent in a trade I’m sending them to earn their keep with:

Reading in Colour

Paperback Reader

anothercookiecrumbles (do not tell them this is your blog name, they will try to eat you!)

My Friend Amy

Yannabe

Please can someone invent the zombie polar bear award, I want my own army of crazily moulting zombie bears so bad it hurts!

Nerds Heart YA - Winner!

Remember a while ago I was involved in a YA judging contest called Nerds Heart YA? Well the final decision has been made about which under represented YA book, published in 2008 has won our bright and shiny trophy.

But I need to catch you guys up before you find out which book has won. Last time we spoke the second round decisions had just been made.

Then the semis got underway at ‘Linus’ Blanket’. ‘Stop Me if You’ve heard This One Before’ departed and ‘My Most Excellent Year’ moved on.

In the second semi Renay and Michelle wrote a mammoth co-review for their books. It was the battle of the dudes between the protagonists Charlie and Dylan. After much deliberation ‘The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second’ went to duke it out in the final round.

So then it was all down to Nymeth and Chris. Not to be outdone by the previous humungous review they settled down to thoughtfully weigh their opinions in a big, super entertaining co-review.

AND THE WINNER IS…. ‘My Most Excellent Year’ by Steve Kluger! Congratulations to the author and his book :)

I’ve had such a great time being part of this project and I really hope we get to judge some 2009 books (I actually have a little list going in my head already). Most of all I really, really hope this contest has shone a little sparkly spotlight on some books that maybe didn’t get the biggest share of the publicity budget. If you’re planning to read any of the books we talked about please leave a comment and let me know.

Book Buying - Mini Spree

Glorious book buying, how I’ve missed you! I was very restrained on my first spree after the ban and kicked a bunch of books out of my shopping basket before paying (because I went away this weekend and shopping was involved quite a lot and I need to buy new winter clothes this month). The package I’m waiting for will contain:

Chameleon – This is a GuysLitWire recommendation (so many more books on my list since I started listening to the contributors there). Described as a basketball buddy novel set in Compton, an area patrolled by two rival gangs.

Cycler – When I was a teenager ‘Just 17’ ran a feature about how classic novels might be reinvented as teen movies. One book they dealt with was ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf and I’ve pretty much been waiting since then for someone to write that book. Cycler sounds about as close as any author has ever come to that idea: a female competitive cycler who transforms into a boy for four days every month. I want!

Funny How Things Change – A Chasing Ray rec which I’ve been wanting almost as long as ‘Flygirl’. All about the pressures on teens to leave their home town, even when their best path may lie where they already are.

Flygirl – Yes! A story of racial disguise and tension in the life of one young woman who wants to fly planes in WWII. And it will soon be mine *beams*.

The Mariposa Club – Four gay teens, already used to being outsiders, try to set up their school’s first gay club. I know I’m not officially signed up to the challenge that dare not speak its name, but I would like to read 10 YA books featuring gay or lesbian relationships by the end of the year (I think I’m on 4 so far).

Books that didn’t quite make the cut were:

Gentlemen – Awesome cover, awesome story behind the cover, awesome review at GuysLitWire. Wait why isn’t this in my basket again...

The Legend of Colton H Bryant – I have so much non-fiction I probably wouldn’t get around to this for ages. But cowboys... Can anyone recommend some cowboy fiction (and yes I’ve already read and loved ‘Brokeback Mountain’).

The Girl With Glass Feet – Still only in hardback. Also if I’d bought this one I might have also added ‘The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart’ and ‘Rain Village’ for a fairytale spree, which would hav been disastrous.

Throne of Jade – I love Temeraire and Laurence, but I’m not sure I need this book right now. Right?

Whitehouse Autumn – Again I love Meg but I know this book isn’t going to drop out of print or my memory so it’s ok to wait a while to get it.

White is for Witching – Still only in hardback at Amazon.co.uk – still!

The Jewel Box – Still. Only. In. Hardback. Come on!

The Rules for Hearts – There are only two Sara Ryan novels in existence and my reaction to this shortage is the same as my reaction to the fact that there are only six Jane Austen novels – run away from the situation and pretend it is not real. When she wirtes another book I’ll pick this up.

Sad for them, but maybe I’ll get a couple of these books next month (or maybe the end of this month if my willpower gives out). All the adult books seemed to get knocked out but maybe that’s because a couple were still, still, only in hardback at Amazon! Where is the promised paperback version of ‘White is for Witching’?

You know you have to spill now, right? What books have you bought this week and what have you economised on to increase your book buying budget?

Oh and did I mention I picked up the complete Moomin comics while I was away? Eeeh! I’ve read the first two pages and I’d forgotten how trippy they are. Moomin Papa has built a time machine!

The Mist in the Mirror - Susan Hill

My first RIP selection was Susan Hill’s slim ghost story ‘The Mist in the Mirror’. I saw ‘The Woman in Black’ preformed on stage a couple of year ago and honestly didn’t want to close my eyes that night in case when I opened them the ghost woman was standing in front of me. It was creepy!

In ‘the Mist in the Mirror’ James Monmouth arrives back in England after years of travelling. He is determined to settle down and write a biography of the great traveller Conrad Vane, but soon finds that his interest in Vane may not be as organic as he believed. His family appears to be linked with the explorer and everywhere Monmouth enquires people throw veiled hints about the evil nature of Vane.

Sadly I didn’t really click with ‘The Mist in the Mirror’. The book is well written, it’s atmosphere and scenery are skilfully crafted to excite your fears. It would be a fantastic book to adapt for film or stage because Hill’s writing style is very descriptive, which would translate into an effective visual representation. It’s a successful imitation of the gothic style of Victorian ghost stories and at times it did hit my scare spot (there’s a sad little boy ghost and I am exceptionally afraid of creepy kids).

Encounters with the object of the main character’s fear were rationed throughout the book, as they should be, because half the scare factor of old style ghost stories is the anticipation of fear. However I felt that for such a small book there was a lot of atmospheric filler, as if the main plot was not enough to sustain the book. It seemed like the author was very focused on matching the style of the genre perfectly and the story of ghosts and why they were appearing got a little lost in amongst the descriptions. Maybe that was just a bit of a mismatch between me and the book, I don’t have a very visual imagination and I have to sort of squint my mind to picture things vividly. It’s not a problem with all descriptive books, but maybe it got in the way with ‘The Mist in the Mirror’.

When I reached the drama of the climax I felt like the ending was quickly wrapped up, with no real explanation. There are vague mentions of a curse and a gypsy woman but the conclusion felt rushed, as if now that the creepy happenings were over and the atmosphere/nature in sympathy/landscape descriptions wouldn’t be at the forefront of the story the book needed to conclude as fast as possible. Very little is made of the phenomenon of the mist in the mirror, which seems odd because it’s mentioned in the title.

THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT. BE WARNED.

Finally I just couldn’t believe that no one would specifically tell James Monmouth why he shouldn’t pursue the connection between his family and Vane. It seemed plausible at the beginning of the book, when no one wants to seem mad by voicing the idea that Monmouth’s family is followed by ghosts and it followed the genre conventions of heightening the tension by including a secret. Once Monmouth tracks down his last relative and decides to move into his family home it’s completely ridiculous that no one would say ‘Well I wouldn’t if I was you, all your male relatives have been killed by an evil ghost compelled by a curse’ when they all clearly know about it. His last relative is female and dies before he arrives, but she leaves him a note that hints at the idea that men may not be safe in the house. If you know you’re sick and you know your relative has been away from England, away from the entire family since he was young and so will not be aware of the family stories you would leave more than a hint of the danger behind.

So, yes a book that knows how to use the conventions of genre well, but not a book that made the hairs on my neck stand up. If only I had ‘The Woman in Black’ to compare it with.

I'm pretty sure 'Lonely Werewolf Girl' is going to leapfrog over all the other books to become my next RIP pick. I read the first page yesterday and was instantly in puppy love with it (why puppy what big teeth you argagagahhh noooooooo!).