Books I am reading (and what I think)

June 2007

The first of my recent borrows that I am reading from the library is pretty good. It is actually written by a Pauline McLynn who rose to stardom by playing Mrs. Doyle in the (VERY quirky, and almost cult classic) Britcom, “Father Ted“!

I loved the character that she played in that series so was quite interested to see how she wrote . Not disappointed so far!

“Something for the Weekend”, is a mystery (only in that the heroine(Leo Street) is a private investigator), but the story is fast paced and witty. She has to join a cookery course as part of her scheme to spy on a suspect. So far it is hilarious as she gamely tries to make bread. She gets it all over herself and is trying to hide this disaster as she is supposedly adept in the culinary field..lol.

Finished just now(lying enjoyably on the sundeck , head in the shade, legs in the sunshine, listening to the wind-chimes and H’s table saw) ; I recommend this author. I didn’t like a couple of things though. She threw a graphic scene just at the end which sure threw me off. I had forgotten the books’ genre, and rather wondered why she felt it necessary as the book was ,until then, rolling along well. It IS her first work so I will definitely try another later one by her and see what I think.

July 30 I am reading, “No! I don’t want to join a Bookclub!” It is really enjoyable and I have already read about one quarter in the half hour since I began. A winner! * finished* It was a true delight. The blurb said that it was similar to Bridget Jones Diary— I think in a way it was but only because it is a diary. Any book should be assessed on its own merit; nothing will steer me away faster than for the book publisher to assert that a book is just like another .

August 4th

I am now reading Sun at Midnight by Rosie Thomas. It is fabulous and unputdownable! More later!

It was the story of a woman whose mother had been a scientist and who had spent time in the antarctic doing research. This woman is a geologist and agrees to travel there for her mother(who is getting too elderly).
I can’t begin to explain why it was so captivating..the descriptions, the scenery ,the plot ; all SO well done. I could NOT put it down.

From the Author
It is always intriguing to catch a glimpse of another world. I love novels that give me a picture of a place I have never visited, a slice of history or an insight into a different culture – the more exotic the better. For me, it’s a very strong element of the delight that utter immersion in a book can bring.
It works the other way round, too. When I travel it’s always with an eye open for a possible setting, an unfamiliar world I can recreate in fiction, and when I discover one there’s always a distinct shiver of recognition. This is what happened when I first saw Antarctica.
It is so beautiful, with an unearthly and forbidding loveliness to which no photograph or film can do justice. It is the harshest place on earth, and the most seductive to the imagination. Almost my first thought was that I wanted to set a novel there. The memory of the heroic narratives of Mawson, Scott and Shackleton was utterly daunting, but – maybe if I wrote a love story? Antarctica would be much more than just a setting. It would be both the place and the passion that drew my lovers together, forged their bond, and then threatened to destroy them.
My practical problem was how to get back there, not as a tourist but to live and work on the ice, however briefly. It is a difficult place to visit. You can’t just turn up and hope for the best.
In the end, I struck lucky. I was invited to spend a month in a tiny research station, alongside a dozen geologists and biologists. Even though they had satellite communications, hot showers, motorised skidoos, they were still pecariously perched on a promontory between the giant glaciers and the icebergs sailing in the bay. They were not so far removed from the old polar heroes.
I followed the scientists, who became my friends. I watched the ice and the mercurial weather, dreamed and worked and wrote, and out of that experience came Sun at Midnight.
I was in love when I wrote it, with a place and a time.
I hope you will enjoy my lovers’ passion and their adventure – and that the book will also give you that precious glimpse of another world.

August 11

It’s not easy landing unprepared in a country like Japan. The eccentricites of the calendar, the alien alphabet, language and culture have all to be confronted before the disorientated traveller can feel at ease. Trying to ride a bicycle through the streets of one of the most congested cities in the world would seem to compound your problems.

For Josie Dew, few things could be more challenging – or, for the reader of A Ride in the Neon Sun, more entertaining. From Kawasaki to Kagoshima, Odawara to Okinawa, Josie discovered a nation rich in dazzling contrasts. The neon and concrete were there as she imagined, but so too were bottomless baths, love burgers, Long-Tailed Cocks, musical toilet rolls, oriental Elvis’s, cardboard police, sex museums, Coranation Street addicts, and a sense of fun belying the population’s rigorous work ethic.

She found a stunningly mountainous land and a people who revealed extraordinary generosity that had her cramming the cascades of gifts onto her bike (anything from teddy bear-shaped glass chopsticks stands to giant two-foot long radishes and copious pairs of Hello Kitty socks). Far from being the reserved race that she had heard about, the Japanese welcomed her into their homes with bountiful smiles and bows, and skin-scorching baths.

‘Her painstaking efforts pay off, enabling you to freewheel effortlessly through this riveting country’ Time Out
‘The perfect read for potential backpackers… detailed, insightful and often downright hilarious’ Sunday Tribune
‘A female Bill Bryson… A Ride in the Neon Sun is full of delights’ Times Literary Supplement

She is a chatty and informative narrator; plunging straight into the countries’ culture. She arrives after having been terribly sick on the plane trip over(a result of travel sickness; not an auspicious beginning!) .

The difference in culture is apparent from the very start; even to the myriad of vending machines which seem to be ubiquitous. She describes how it is possible to get any kind of food or drink from the roadside;

“thirty different coffees, and at least forty different kinds of teas ; green, brown,black, sweet, bitter, weed, oolong, hot, iced, this,that, any. Don’t fancy tea? Don’t fancy coffee? How about fifty different pops and sodas and vegetable juices….or maybe just a jar of sake or bottle of wine or litre of beer?”

She also is constantly running into such nice people who WILL insist on giving her things; food, shelter, kindnesses…Sometimes she says that she is a wee bit embarrassed and when she sees someone waving or calling out to her(even tapping on her tent top ,AT NIGHT) she would like to pretend not to see or hear them. THIS simply as it is almost TOO much .She goes down the road at one point feeling like a grocery store, with her panniers bursting with food and things..

I keep forgetting to update..lol.

Sept 2

I have just finished an enjoyable book by Joanna Trollope. She had gone through a rather, “dark” phase, and as a consequence I had been avoiding her books. This one was a tiny bit sad but very well written and engrossing. She is a very skilled writer and pulls the reader in, making one feel as though one knows the characters in real life. It is basically the story of a couple whose last child has finally left home, and just when they are adjusting to that, the children’s various lives start to unravel and they all want to move back. This happens right at the time when the mother, Edie is starting to rediscover her acting talents.

If you haven’t read anything by this excellent writer, you are in for a treat. Get one of her first books like The Choir, or The Vicar’s Wife to start.

January 27, 2008

I HAVE been reading but KEEP forgetting to post about it..lol.

I just finished a very winning book by

Jane Green

Swapping Lives is a riotous and poignant look at what happens when two women, both of whom think their bliss lies elsewhere, walk in each other’s shoes for a month only to discover that happiness is closer than they’d ever thought. A rich, clever, and sharply observed chronicle of the true lives of women, Swapping Lives is a must read for the modern mademoiselle that will again squarely position Jane Green in a preeminent place in women’s fiction.

I guess they are categorizing this book as a romance, but I dislike that generalization as these types of books are NOT like the harlequin romance. I really enjoyed this book and found myself reading and reading just to find out what happened, which is fun!

February 05/08

The book that I am currently reading is called;

Becoming Finola .

This was hard to get into at first but once one does, it is VERY enjoyable. I started it later last night and was still reading at 1130pm..lol I love any narrative about people experiencing new countries and/ or cultures.

If you ever felt like you wanted to get away from it all and even take on another’s persona(hey I seem to have had 2 books like this!) and who of us hasn’t , then this book is for you.

It is VERY thoughtfully written about a young woman who finds herself in Ireland(through a series of events); not as a tourist but as someone who belonged to that place and culture. It is not a “light” read, but requires some introspective thinking as the issues about relationships and knowledge of ones’ own, “self”, that are discussed are universal.

February 2008

I am currently reading a wonderful book by Doris Lessing; The Golden Notebook.

Summarily, “The Golden Notebook” is a work of fiction about the erratic process of writing fiction, and it problematically attempts to intertwine several novels into one. The main story is that of Lessing’s alter ego Anna Wulf, who compiles her memoirs, blending the real with the fictional, into four color-coded notebooks of which the contents are revealed in an alternating fashion. Anna, a rising literary star who has published an acclaimed novel called “Frontiers of War” based loosely on her experiences and her circle of friends in Rhodesia where she lived during World War II, now resides in England with her young daughter Janet, drawing income from gradually dwindling royalties while being courted by philistine film producers who propose to adapt and warp her novel for the screen.

I read this back when I was pretty young. It is amazing how different the book seems now..quite interesting , as obviously I have changed..

April 2008

I got a whole whack of books at the library the other day and they all look really good.

Right now I am reading one about a Japanese woman who meets a Caucasian fellow to whom she becomes engaged. She then goes with him to the US and finds out the next morning after her engagement party at his parents house that he is still in love with his old girlfriend!

After the horrendously embarrassing events that quickly follow, she finds a place to live and indeed work(but under the table) She is an intelligent woman (this is no harlequin romance) and it is interesting to see her observations of American culture. It is quirky and funny and I have found it a enjoyable read!

June 14th

Slow to update again; yet I HAVE been reading !

I am now  reading an interesting, funny, intriguing, and yet sometimes intimidating book called:

The Last Samurai

(from this site)

The story goes like this: Single Mom tries to buy some time for herself (or, more precisely, her work) by having her toddler son colour words in foreign language books; son becomes a genius and learns a number of lanugages, plus maths, plus sciences, before even seeing a school from the inside; son wants to know who his father is but mother is ashamed to tell him; son finds out but is unhappy with the outcome and looks for ersatz fathers.

Oh, and the book’s title stems from the fact that she tries to supply her boy with male role models by repeatedly showing him Akira Kurosawa’s “The Seven Samurai”.

I am loving it…

June 22

I have just finished a great book by one of my favourite light authors, Catherine Alliot. It is called Rosie Meadows regrets…

As usual Alliot writes wittily(which is a TOTAL plus for me) and has characters which are SO well developed that one really thinks of them as real. This makes one really care what happens and as the plots are so delicious it makes a very happy combination!

Rosie Meadows seems to suddenly wake up one day and assess her marriage and life. It is quite shocking and painful for her to realise that for one, her marriage is a total travesty. Although her subsequent journey towards independance is very difficult,  it is tempered by the humour with which she meets most situations.

If you haven’t read anything by this author, do..you are in for a treat!

July 28

One of my very favourite british series is being shown here.

It is called,The Darling Buds of May and is quite famous in the UK as not only was it a good series but it launched the career of one the actors, Catherine Zeta Jones.

I am re reading the book(s)  upon which the series is based. The author is H.E. Bates. and the books are totally delightful.

“Pop” is a real character and totally lovable as is “Ma” Larkin and all their brood. Some of the ideas might seemed old fashioned or maybe I mean stereotypical but remember, this was written in 1958.

I highly recommend this author, he writes smoothly and humourously. Sometimes outrageous, sometimes ridiculous, his narratives are always entertaining…

May 14, 2009

I still read every day but have been quite remiss in documenting my fav reads. I am resolving to amend this TODAY(LOL!)

I am currently GRIPPED by a collection of short stories (The Penguin Book of Summer Stories) gathered by a genius of an editor(and writer in his own right); Alberto Manguel.

I started with a tale(Death by Landscape) by Margaret Atwood and all I can say is ,” read  this author“. I studied her in university but THINK that I was far too young to appreciate her genius. The story is calm and factual and charming; the recounting of a young girl’s summer times spent in camp; but it has dark overtones and ends up being VERY haunting. I always read before I sleep and I am sure that I dreamt all night of this tale….

The next story I picked was by Anita Desai. I adore this author and have read many of her works. WELL worth reading; it is a simple tale that depeicts so finely the strange ambience of childhood; the fears and emotions that run so close to the surface of normal seeming activities..

EVERY story is similarly compelling, and I have to force myself to only read one each night or else I would be up ALL night..lol

I wish this Penguin book was in my own collection. I am going to search our local used bookstores(can’t buy books at this time..)

If YOU are wanting a good book get this…..