Managed Many of the Man Bookers?

I was wondering how I could encorporate Harriet Devines very interesting blog on Man Booker winners into one of my blogs. Then I got a lovely parcel of books through the door yesterday which included Liver by Will Self, The Believers by Zoe Heller and The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. The later was the perfect excuse to talk about Man Booker winners you have managed.

I decided to see how many Man Booker winners I had actually read and even though its only four (one of which I need to re-read) that was two more than I thought I had read. When I started looking at the short lists and the long lists I suddenly felt a little more pleased with my reading efforts. I thought I would share them with you, I have highlighted the ones that I have enjoyed and left the other ones normal, I didnt want to steal Harriets colour co-ordinating idea though I loved it! So the ones I have read are...

Winners
The Line of Beauty – Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
The Life of Pie – Yann Martell (2002)
Amsterdam – Ian McEwan (1998)
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy (1997)

Shortlisted
Darkmans – Nicola Barker (2007)
Mister Pip – Lloyd Jones (2007)
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan (2007)
Animals People – Indra Sinha (2007)
The Night Watch – Sarah Waters (2006)
Arthur & George – Julian Barnes (2005)
On Beauty – Zadie Smith (2005)
The Accidental – Ali Smith (2005)
Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell (2004)
Notes on a Scandal – Zoe Heller (2003)
Atonement – Ian McEwan (2001)
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (1986)
An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro (1986)

Long Listed
What Was Lost – Catherine O’Flynn (2007)
The Testament of Gideon Mack – James Robertson (2006)
A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine – Marina Lewycka (2005)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke (2004)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon (2003)
Spies – Michael Frayn (2002)
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things – Jon McGregor (2002)
Dorian – Will Self (2002)

I have checked in my TBR pile and TBR boxes and I have quite a few winners, short listed and long listed books to go through so as I do I shall keep you posted. The White Tiger will be going straight to the top 5 of my TBR. I just want to read the shortlisted Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry and the longlisted Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. I will add the tag Man Booker to any that have won etc. So have I missed any great ones? Which ones would you recommend I get onto right now and which ones I should possibly avoid?

Hurting Distance - Sophie Hannah

I first found out about Sophie Hannah thanks to Novel Insights who bought her book of short stories The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets which we both read separately and couldn’t stop talking to each other about. We then found out that not only was Sophie a poet but she also wrote crime fiction. Now I can’t speak for Novel Insights (bar I know that she secretly loves Tess Gerritsen novels like I do) but I do like a good crime novel. I like the cosy Marple crimes, the detective series crimes and also the literary crimes by the likes of my favourite author Kate Atkinson (well she is one of my favourite authors). Sophie Hannah falls in to a mixture of all of these, well maybe not the cosy crime so much with subjects like babies being swapped in Little Face, the excellent first novel in the series though they can be read as stand alone novels.

The subject of Hurting Distance is rape, not an easy subject for any author. But then isn’t the whole point of fiction to deal with the good and the bad? At the start of the novel we are shown an email, written by N.J a victim of rape, on the Speak Out and Survive website telling not of her story of rape but of her dislike for people who have been raped speaking out and attention seeking and how she is jealous of the other people on the site with their ‘demanding boyfriends’. Instantly I felt like this could be awkward territory a rape victim who both disliked and was jealous of other rape victims, could Hannah deal with this unusual look at rape in a delicate way and yet make a hard hitting crime story out of it? The answer was of course yes.

N.J it turns out, in the next chapter so I am not spoiling anything, is Naomi Jenkins a sundial maker. From the outside she is a professional successful young business woman deep down she harbours a terrible secret from her past. Every Thursday night like clockwork Naomi meets her married lover Robert Haworth at the Traveltel they check into the same room, number eleven and spend the same amount of hours together and have done so for over a year. One day Robert doesn’t turn up, in fact it appears he has vanished. Naomi reports it to the police but they think she has simply dumped him and ignore her. After going to his house and seeing something so shocking it both scares her and blanks her memory Naomi is sure something dreadful has happened and realises if she wants the police to find him she will have to convince them that he is a dangerous criminal.

I found Naomi an incredibly complex character. She goes through several different character traits in the book from powerful professional, victim, obsessive lover, jealous lover, calculating liar to vengeful woman. Hannah has created a very unlikely sort of anti-hero, how can I put that better? Though I didn’t really like Naomi or her ethics I couldn’t stop reading her and I also could see why she did what she did even though really it wasn’t right. Puzzled? Read the book and you won’t be.

Amongst the incredibly tight and twist laden story Hannah also continues the story of Detectives Charlie and Simon as Charlie is still fawning over Simon even after he rejected her advances at a party and after the last infatuation he had with the victim of Little Face in the previous novel. So amongst the already complex plotting is another one that adds its own tensions and complexities and you get to know them and their colleagues further.

I had wondered if Hannah would be able to better Little Face as it was just so good. With Hurting Distance she has bettered it (though that doesn’t take anything away from its predecessor) and come up with an incredibly complex plot and some incredibly complex characters. There is suspense and a lot of twists without it being over complicated and though I cottoned on to one of links before it was announced I would never have guessed the four or more twists that then followed on. Superb! 5/5

The Moors of Mitcham

I have dovegreyreader to thank for what has been one of the best, and most needed, days out in ages. Sometimes your head needs a bit of time off. I’ve been having a phase of cabin fever one of the pitfalls of working from home and what’s worse… writers droop and readers block! So rather than do nothing on a Sunday which is usually (and slightly infuriatingly) the case I demanded the Non Reader get up and off we went on a magical mystery tour to Mitcham Common.

I had some slight reservations about what might be lurking there as I know that dovergreyreader has some very fond memories of Mitcham, but it has become renowned for being a bit rough. However I had promised I would visit the area (I certainly wasn’t going alone during the week) and so we got the bus and ended up in what looked like a lane that wouldn’t go amiss in a crime novel as you can see.

I had some slight reservations until we turned the corner and were confronted with One Island Pond which looked like this…

I felt like I had stepped into one of the Moors from Wuthering Heights and yet I was still technically in London. In fact scrap Wuthering Heights I don’t like that novel, it was more a mix of the Moors from Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn or Bronte's Jane Eyre.

It also had the slightly spooky ominous edges of the sort of barren autumnal wasteland that you might get in a Susan Hill crime novel. My readers block vanished; I knew what I would be tucking into before bedtime. I think it’s the trees being so bare that made me think of crime sites, or too much ITV3, what do you think?

We then got lost and it started to rain. I could see the non reader (who forgot their coat) was looking less than happy until we turned another and were greeted by lots and lots of wild rabbits, some of which scarpered their white tails bobbing off in the distance and others who simply looked at us nonchalantly and carried on regardless. It was a delight. Sadly none of them stuck around long enough for a photo as it started to rain hard and they all vanished into their warm warren the lucky things. We then came across this which oddly seemed to enthral the Non Reader more than the rabbits…

Despite getting so completely lost and their being no one around we eventually found a cyclist and some directions though the walk ended up going from four miles to six, we didn’t care as we were completely encapsulated by the area. We ended up finding the Ecology Centre, which was closed and then Seven Islands Pond where we both sat on an old tree trunk by the water skimming stones in one of those delightful comfortable silences. You don’t need to say anything to each other you’re both simply happy in your own thoughts letting you head wind down.

All in all just what the doctor ordered. Or should that be just what the dovegreyreader prescribed without quite knowing it?

A Bit of a Book Bah-Humbug

I don't know whats wrong with me but my reading pace and in fact reading full stop seems to be really love at the moment. Normally I find that I will always choose a book over listening to my iPod, watching a DVD or catching up with The Archers. Of late though it seems to be the other way round, does anyone else get readers block?

I know that Cornflower has been having a slight issue with her reading pace of late so I know I am not alone in this. Has it ever actually gone completely for you for a while? I dont think times are that bad but they are not that good as even my guilty reads (Tess Gerritsen, M.C. Beaton) which are normally the prefect antidote for a drop in reading speed simply arent making my book interest rise. I am reading one of my favourite authors Sophie Hannah at the moment and while the book is brilliant I thought I would have easily finished it by now, having planned to start something new on Friday. I have another hundred pages to go still, its most unlike me.

I am also feeling guilty that as I sit and cant read more and more lovely books from lovely publishers are coming through my postbox (not today as its Sunday) and I feel really bad. I must snap out of this... but how!?! HELP!!!!!

Books on Love I Have Loved

As its Valentines Day I have decided that I shall get into the spirit of all things loving and lovely and give you my Top 5 Books of Love. It was going to be a top ten and then I realised I didnt have ten which then worried me. Why do I not read books about love?

I dont actually have an answer for that as I dont go out of my way to avoid books about love. I will admit it everything sounds a bit 'soft focus' on a books blurb then in all honesty it might get put further down the TBR, that is if it gets bought at all. I think maybe I should add love stories to books that I must read more fo this year. Another slightly belated New Years Resolution to add to the many I made.

But for now here are my top 5 books for Valentines...

Rapunzel - Brothers Grimm
I had to put Rapunzel at the top as this was probably the first ever tale of love that I read and re-read from the age that I could read properly. I have sadly lost the edition shown but might treat myself to a copy for my birthday next month. For me this beat Cinderella hands down, it was darker and true love wasnt about a nice fancy castle, well not totally, it could make blind men see and something in that really made me think when I was little. I didnt believe in pumpkins becoming carridges but I did believe love could heal the sick.

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
I think this is quite possibly in most peoples 'love books' of all time in all honesty. I think its amazingly well written with some of the best characters in fiction (I always loved the Mother and her hysterics, Lady Catherine De Burgh for just being vile, and Mr Collins for being Mr Collins) and a timeless love story.

Atonement - Ian McEwan
I was going to put On Chesil Beach which I think is heartbreaking but deep down their is a wonderful love story. I changed my mind because of how epic Atonement is, and its easily as heartbreaking. Never has a book drawn me so close to tears in all honesty.

The Time Travellers Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
This book blew me away. I reaqd it quite a few years ago now and couldnt put it down. Some people (my Gran included) thought that this book had a slightly worrying side to it in the sense of a naked man appearing in front of a child. I didnt think of that until after and still dont because it wasnt like that at all. I think actually this should be my number one!

The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson
I only read this last week so being so fresh in my mind might possibly have put it higher up my list but I dont think so. I found this quite a quirky compelling tale of love that might or might not (I cant give anything away) have lasted over 1000 years! The heroine of this novel is wonderful and the story is so bonkers and addictive you'll be speeding through the pages. Wonderful.

So what are your favourite romantic novels of all time that you could recommend for me? Please help!

Friday the 13th

Yes it is that day, the unlucky day and I have to say I don’t like Friday the 13th I am a bit superstitious (some people may think that’s mad) and in if it was possible on these days you wouldn’t see me getting out of bed. However that isn’t the real world. I thought that as it’s a special certain date, and as I am coming to the end of Sophie Hannah’s Hurting Distance, that I would find a short quick themed read before I start something bigger. I had a look through my TBR (as I have read most of my spooky or horror/unlucky based books) and found that it was seriously lacking in contenders. I could only find five and one of them technically doesn’t count other than having Demon in the title. Please find below a collage (thanks to Picasa 3 – which Simon Stuck in a Book is so much better at than me) of the contenders…



In the end I am plumping for Tess Gerritsen’s Vanish, partly because I am in need of a delightful quick Thriller and she is just the woman for the job, I just know I will whizz through any of her works. It does sound like it will be horror filled as it starts with a body in the morgue waking up on the table ready to be... well you know. I find the whole idea that Gerritsen has actually seen that happen (as she bases her books on her work) quite horrific, can you imagine waking up and everyone thinking you were dead or someone you think is dead waking up? What a horrible thought, let’s not dwell on it shall we?

I was very tempted by M.R. James short stories or Frankenstein for a classic read and I haven’t read a Susan Hill in ages and I love her ghost stories but am holding out on her until I am ready for either Mrs De Winter or one of her crime novels. As I have heard Dovegreyreader mention a few times before everything needs to be aligned when you choose a book and that seemed just so with Vanish.

So is there anything that you could recommend me for a good scary read as we have another Friday the 13th coming up in March. Please do let me know as I am stumped on this one it has to be said. I am coming up with ideas for Valentines Day reads for tomorrow as well at the moment, so if you have anything you can suggest for that too I would be most grateful.

When Will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson

I know its Booking Through Thursday day today but as I wrote about it before here (and I don’t mean that in a off way) I thought I would pop a link to it and mention it before discussing the latest Richard and Judy choice that is the superb and frankly brilliant When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson.

Firstly if you haven’t read ‘Case Histories’ and ‘One Good Turn’ then frankly shame on you. Kate Atkinson has created something wonderful in fusing crime and mystery with literature without it being pigeonholed into either. She also has a fantastic plotting ability which deals with some very complex coincidences in fact coincidence has been the theme throughout these three Jackson Brodie novels however I think with ‘When Will There Be Good News’ she has surpassed the previous two, though they are both must reads. This book safely furthered Atkinson as one of my all time favourite authors. Now for me to describe it to without giving anything away from this book and the ones that came before it. I have to say that this is the darkest of the series and yet has an incredible humour to it too.

Jackson Brodie is a former detective and private investigator he carries a lot of baggage but is an absolutely brilliant and complex character though actually he isn’t in this book as much as in the later so if you become a fan you’ll want to read the others. Plug, plug, plug. Brodie is investigating something personal as we meet him, that ends in him getting lost in the Yorkshire moors and then on a train the wrong way which ends in a crash. Detective Louise Monroe has history with Brodie and is currently looking into a case of a man. In Scotland Louise Monroe is dealing with a missing homicidal manic, her new marriage and a convict fresh out of jail. Reggie is a sixteen year old nanny who has reported her employer Dr Hunter missing when no one else cares? How do their paths cross, how do they intertwine with the 30 year old case of Joanna Mason.

The start of the book centres on Joanna Mason and the horrific (and for the reader incredibly chilling I actually got frightened along with those involved) murder of her family on a walk in the countryside, she was the only survivor. It was shocking upsetting and also you wondered how it could affect the characters of the rest of the book. How does this link with all the characters above? You will have to read the book to find out… Speaking of characters though I must mention Reggie who I think is an amazing character, its very rare you find such a gem in a novel (though I mentioned Marianne Engel from The Gargoyle last week) and Reggie is a character I could read at least a dozen books about and I really hope that she is brought back at some point.

This has to be Kate Atkinson’s masterpiece to date (I never managed to finish Behind The Scenes at the Museum and must try to one day) and with each in the series she gets better and better, you begin to wonder how she can top this with the next one – she is actually giving the characters a rest for a while.

Pilcrow - Adam Mars-Jones

I would normally do my Richard and Judy review on a wednesday as I take part in the challenge I have set myself but I might start doing these on Thursdays from now on, mind you then I would miss Booking Through Thursdays which in itself would be problematic... well will work that out tomorrow. Finally for today here is the review of Pilcrow which I have been mentioning to everyone I have been reading for ages!

I had to give myself a little break from Pilcrow (I finished it on Sunday) before I could review it so that I could take it all in and let it digest. Adam Mars-Jones has been heralded for some time as one of the best writers by Granta and other such places… before he had even written his first novel, so Pilcrow had a lot to live up to before it was even published and released, it manages to live up to and beyond expectations. The book deals with so much its difficult to sum it up in a review of any length but I shall do my best for you all.

John Cromer is the unusual and fantastic narrator starting around the age of five when doctors diagnose him with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis leading to him having several years of bed rest. From there we are given the often hilarious thoughts and theories that John has as a young boy growing up in the 1950’s. From what he thinks happens in the outside world which he hasn’t seen much of to his mother’s obsession with breeding budgies and cockatiels. It also gives us the underlying insight into marriages and society in that period from things that Johns mother (who is a brilliant gossip) says that we the reader can understand and piece together even if the narrator is too young and doesn’t himself. It also looks at a child’s idea of what life is like to be stuck in that environment in that time and how he feels at the prospect of it being forever.

However it isn’t forever as during a visit to the dentists his mother reads a piece on the misdiagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and Still’s disease of which John is discovered to have the latter and the one thing you should have if you have Stills disease is bed rest leaving him with lasting disabilities. This part of the book is quite heart breaking as the family cope with the fact what they have been doing is wrong and that now more damage to John has been done to him physically when he and his family believed he was being made better. This then becomes some of the most interesting part of the book as he learns to deal with unsympathetic nurses, other children (two girls of which are hilarious evil tyrants), the workings of his ‘taily’, a murderess on the loose, and the fact that he likes boys. All these subjects are discussed through a child’s eyes which I don’t always like in novels, however here it works as the reader you can draw more adult connotations and hints from everything John sees and tells you. I just loved the black and white view of a child’s and particularly in the circumstances and era that this novel is set, and also in terms of discussing growing up, sexuality and disability.

Adam Mars-Jones has done something quite magnificent with this novel. Every character has depth even if they only appear very briefly, be they a concerned doctor, interfering Grandmother, abusive nurse or 6 year old tyrant and child eater they are dealt with in a real way. He also writes with humour this could easily have been a very heavy and hard going novel. Through Johns observations, bluntness and the scenarios he gets himself into there is tragedy but also some incredibly funny scenes.

The hardest aspect of the book, which isn’t actually that difficult, is the fact it isn’t totally linear and can sometimes jump a long way forward or not too far back, you never loose where you are though and by the end I was slowing down not wanting the final page to be turned. The good news is that this is the first in a trilogy, so I will be getting to hear more about John and his life in the future. That is where the book and its author have triumphed I think John is one of the best characters I have read in a very long time and like the blurb says ‘He’s the weakest hero in fiction – unless he is one of the strongest’. This is a must read book and I hope will get a nod in some of the awards as they come. I think everyone should give this a go as its remarkable and extremely individual. I can’t imagine anyone disliking this book as its so rewarding in so many ways. 5/5.

Breakfast At Tiffany's - Truman Capote

I haven’t read any Capote before but have always wanted to, so when the lovely people at penguin sent me a few as part of their gorgeous new modern classics range I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep myself away from them for long, but which one should I read first? I plumped for Breakfast at Tiffany’s because I had seen the movie, which is the opposite way to how I normally do the whole book to film routine, but with a new author as Capote was to me I thought that it might actually help with the reading and in some ways it did.

The story itself is much darker than the one in which Audrey Hepburn starred. Holly Golightly (which I think is a fantastic name) is a much darker and more ruthless and naughty character than the one in the film. I could instantly see how the narrator of the tale was drawn to her, her first scene is arriving a little drunk with a gentleman caller waking the neighbours by forgetting her keys, and she then causes quite a scene on the stairwell. I knew from then on I was going to enjoy the book a lot. She is ‘irresistibly top banana in the shock department’. I also didn’t realise how tragic she is in her own way. Once again the book is better than the movie which is of course a classic.

I found the way Truman uses her to describe people and social etiquette and climbing in New York in the 1940’s really insightful. You can of course see that in people today, I just wasn’t expecting it to be so dark, and I like a novel with dark parts mingled amongst cocktails parties and wonderful characters. There is no doubt in my mind that if you haven’t read the novel then you should and you should get this one.

Not only does it have possibly the best ‘film cover’ I have seen on a book, as most of them lets be honest can be pretty horrid, but there are three more stories there two of which I was completely taken with. My least favourite was ‘The Diamond Guitar’, I kept thinking of Fitzgerald’s story ‘A Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ for some reason. Though it wasn’t a bad story and the relationship and friendship between two prisoners was impeccably written it didn’t get into my head as much as the title story or the other two.

‘A Christmas Memory’ is delightful told from the eyes of an unnamed seven year old who bakes cakes every year with his sixty plus year old cousin and sends them to various people including the president. It is as it says simply a memory but one that made me think of all the special times I have had with different members of my family. However the gem hidden away (again bar the title story) for me was the story ‘House of Flowers’ which tells of another lady of the night like Holly called Ottilie.

Ottilie, who despite her job in a house of ill famed repute, desperately wants to fall in love. She is told that when she does she will know because she will be able to pick up a Bee and it won’t sting her, for a while she gets stung until she meets the unlikely love of her life Royal. She leaves the brothel to move in with him where she meets his bitter mother. I won’t say anymore than that – oh apart from the fact that it’s like a dark modern fairy tale. It’s brilliant as is the collection and I know I will be revisiting this collection again and again.

The S-ing Game: Results

So after the post I did on the challenge of finding my top ten things beginning with S below here are the answers;

Savidge’s
Yes of course my delightful if slightly mad family, though the photo I uploaded I realised was also including a lot of my friends as this was taken on a very special day in my life when they were all together, my wedding last year. So those of you who guessed Siblings and social events… good guess but no. My siblings are on their as are my very little cousins, in fact if you saw them close up you would wonder which are siblings and which are cousins or aunts. My mother is 42 and the eldest of four and it regularly happens that we are confused for siblings and my actual little sister (aged 9) and my brother (aged 7) are confused as nephews and nieces.

Seaside
I am particular about seasides though. Firstly they can’t be sandy as I have a slight phobia of sand which I blame on moment in Tynemouth when I lived in Newcastle aged about 6. I don’t like to talk about it but Polly was there only it didn’t scar her for life. Since then sand makes me panicky and sick. So I like pebbled beaches as a rule and they MUST HAVE rock pools. I am off on holiday to Whitby soon and am wondering what sort of beach that is?

Sweets
In particular Jelly Belly as pictured, the tutti fruitti flavour is amazing!

Scribing
Everyone thought this was swearing which is actually more appropriate so maybe I should change it as I love a good swear even if it is ‘lazy language’ its bloody descriptive. As I like writing I thought scribing would be good, I was going to put an image of scribbles as I do that all day too.

Stately Homes
I believed Sunbury in Matlock Bath where I grew up was one of them, it was more Mansion sized, and spent a lot of time as a youth in Derbyshire going around Chatsworth. My Gran and Bong also took me to endless stately homes and castles as a kid; my favourite of all is Hardwick Hall.

Spies
If you though Spooks then that’s also correct as its one of my favourite shows. I wanted to be a spy for ages after my great Uncle Derek read me many spy stories as a youth on our ten mile daily hikes (we went on lots of walking holidays) and I have always liked a good Bond.

Swimming
I just put the cat on there to confuse. I do love big cats though but Snow Leopards aren’t my fav’s and didn’t think to find a picture of a sabre toothed tiger. Love swimming is a current favourite past time in my new gym routine.

Sushi
I could live on Sushi (and curry) as it is one of my favourite foods. I used to think the whole idea of it was wrong on every level and once I tried it I was caught by the bug… no not a tummy bug. The best place to have it was Gili Gulu near Seven Dials in London as you could get all you could eat for £13. It’s now closed down and there is an empty space in my heart… and my gut!

Supernatural
With a picture of the Most Haunted crew which is my guilty pleasure on the TV. I geekily own every DVD and am quite a believer. I had the pleasure of a ghost hunt with ex Most Haunted member Phil Whyman and my mate Michelle last year and something very, very, very odd happened. Sadly nothing happened when we spent the night locked in the London Tombs for charity last year, maybe on the next one?

Second-Hand Bookshops
I cannot help but be pulled in. I think it is a defect somewhere deep in my psyche. It is also what my study and lounge are slowly but surely beginning to look like. You could also see this as Stories, as you may have guessed I love a good tale/novel/book so it’s a multiple answer.

The S-ing Game...

I have been challenged by Cornflower to do a list of my top ten favourite things beginning with the letter 'S' as pulled out of her scrabble letters bag after a shake and a rummage (I love the word rummage) and so my gauntlet has been laid down. I loved what Harriet has done which is to leave you guessing a while so I will do the same and put the results up tomorrow or Monday!

Can you guess what my top ten favourite things beginning with S are?

I am mulling over prize ideas... anyone else wanna go? Let me know and will give you a letter!

The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

So this was the third of the Richard & Judy choices and after the first two brilliant reads plus knowing that some of them to come are fantastic I was slightly worried that this one could be a complete dud. From the blurb of the novel I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this. “A young man is fighting for his life. Into his room walks a bewitching woman who believes she can save him. Their journey will have you believing in the impossible.” It sounded like it might be a bit of a clichéd romance novel. The book looks stunning by the way, you can see the cover in the picture what you cant see is the black edges of the pages which Canongate also did with ‘The End of Mr Y’ which I sadly didn’t get on with.

This book isn’t a cliché in the slightest. At the start of the novel we meet our ‘unnamed’ hero, and what an unlikely hero he is a drug taking, vain porn star. I didn’t want to like him but you simply cannot help yourself with all he goes through. The book starts instantly with action as we find him driving drunk and drugged when he suddenly sees a set of arrows flying through the sky. Unsure whether he is hallucinating from the drugs or seeing the real thing he swerves to avoid it crashing the car which soon sets alight.

In hospital he has no one (as you will learn through his back story) so when Marianne Engel turns up at his bedside telling him she knows him he doesn’t know what’s going on, he wonders if it’s the effects of morphine. When she returns and announces that she has known him since the year 1300 simply adds to his thoughts that she is in fact crazy. Plus the issue that she is also in the psychiatric ward occasionally as a patient doesn’t help. However being alone with no other visitors and so he decides to humour her and listen to the story of her life over 700 years and the story of how they might have met, if he decides to believe her that is.

I loved the character of Marianne Engel, I think that she is one of the most unusual and wonderful heroine I have read in a long time. I did sit in wonderment at where Davidson had created such an amazing woman from and where did he get the idea of a job as a gargoyle sculptor from? I think I will be hard pushed to find such an original character again this year and we are only in February. The history with the two of them if fascinating and takes you on a real adventure and adds an extra something to the novel. It added something different and some of the stories you heard Marianne tell our burn victim, dark fairy tales and fables.

Davidson’s writing is vivid, direct and punchy. It is literary without being flowery or over done, he doesn’t need to describe everything and at the same time he still does. That will make sense more when you read it, which of course you will do. There were only two things that put me off a little bit with this book and this is me being objective and not just raving about the book. Occasionally the unnamed narrator talks directly to the reader and will say things like ‘I am only telling you this because…’ and it slightly bothered me as it was inconsistent as it only happened every so often and also a lot of the book was narrated by Marianne. There was also the reference to the snake in his spine which I understood as a metaphor but didn’t feel needed to be in there.

The mixture of romance and horror with history weaved in reminded me in some ways of Chuck Palahniuk, I have only read Haunted by him but have always wanted to give him another go. This book isn’t for the faint hearted and that is a slight warning. The description of being burnt is incredibly vivid and could possibly put of some readers, I advise you to read on even if it isn’t comfortable and can be quite graphic and not just in terms of the burns. As the story goes on we learn a lot about the characters. I couldn’t quite imagine Richard and Judy reading this over their cocoa in bed of an evening. I think this is a sign that they are taking more risks with some books and the more their book group goes on the better I think they get and will get in the future. I really enjoyed this book and possibly wouldn’t have read it without it being part of my Richard and Judy challenge.

My Back Pages

Before the snow hit London and everything came to a complete and utter standstill I took a trip down to one of my favourite independent book stores in London ‘My Back Pages’ and thought I should share the little book world gem with you. I am a huge fan of independent book shops the do have to be a bit of a jumble though. I know that’s a bit of an odd expression but when I go to an independent book store what I want when I open the door is the smell of used books to hit me straight in the face. I think what I love about these books is that you can get completely lost and immersed in them. It also seeps back to my childhood.

Growing up in Matlock in Derbyshire one of my treats used to be going to Scarthin Books in neighbouring Cromford. I was allowed to occasionally spend £5 in there and they had the most amazing children’s book selection. My Gran now knows that when I go up to Matlock for a visit that a trip to Scarthin has to be on the agenda somewhere. Anyway back to My Back Pages…

I found this store about a year or so ago completely by accident after one in Merton Abbey Mills (which is down the road in the other direction) closed down. I love book stores with character, my other favourite that I will cover when next pop and visit it is Copperfield’s in Wimbledon. My Back Pages is simply steeped in character. It’s a maze of books with avenues and dead end shoot offs of all sorts of books. The fiction section (pictured) is fabulous and though it looks a jumble, which I think, is part of its charm, and there are books behind books there is a system and fiction is actually sorted into where it originated. You have ‘American Greats’, ‘African Fiction’, ‘Latin Fiction’ frankly I could go on and on and on. Not content with that you have cubby holed shelves of horror, science fiction, crime and that’s just the fiction sections which seem never ending. If you are a Non-Fiction fan then there is a mass of delights which seems never ending. It seriously it’s a book lovers paradise.

I of course was there on a fiction hunt and after a good 45 minute rummage came away with two gems which were Fearney by James Long which I was thrilled to find after missing out on it a few weeks ago, the other was Strangers by Antonia White which I have bought unashamedly for the cover. Yes I do give in to that sometimes, does anyone else? I saw it on Stuck In A Book when he was celebrating Virago green covers of old. Which leads me onto something very special and that from reading the other book blogs I think you all might like… The Virago Shelves. I actually couldn’t fit them all in on the picture as there is a huge selection but you get the gist.

So do you all have little dens of delight for the book lover near you? If so tell me where and I will stop by on my travels… well once the snow allows life to carry on as normal that is!

The Perfect Weather To Curl Up & Read In...

Yes so London is almost at a standstill and so most of us are snowed in as you can see from the picture from my window...

The perfect weather to curl up on the sofa, forget about the cares of the world, or the fact there are no buses, Tesco is empty of foods and we have no post (more delightful books are due) and just get on with a fabulous cracking read! I think that is what most of the street will be doing, as you can see below! I am going to hopefuly finish 'Pilcrow' and get a good move on with 'The Gargoyle'.

Is this what you will al be doing and if so what will you be reading? Let me know and enjoy the snow!

Some More Incoming...

If I have missed any then I apologise to the publishers I have just been swamped with new books but here are the most reecent, I won't put the blurb of everyone as I think that might make for dull reading! But heres whats come of late...

Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
The Stone Gods - Jeanette Winterson
The Confessions of Max Tivoli - Andrew Sean Greer
State of Happiness - Stella Duffy
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
The Swimming Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst
Death in Venice & Other Stories - Thomas Mann
The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
Hotel de Dream - Edmund White
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
Breakfast At Tiffany's - Truman Capote
The Indian Clerk - David Leavitt

How should I order them on my TBR, which ones can you recommend? Actually I should really concentrate on getting my current reads all finished.