I got a World Book Night book!

Yes, today I got my first WBN book!  And I got it in such a lovely way, I wanted to share...  A very nice lady dressed in bright strawberry red breezed in through the door and straight up to the counter, where she told me that she was 'part of World Book Night' and presented me with a copy of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  She told me a little bit about the book, about how she'd given away all of her copies in an hour, and about what she'd written on her giver application form to get her box of goodies in the first place.  I have to say, I like this year's editions even more than last year's!  They have glossy burgundy spines (last year it was navy), and this one has the posh Penguin cover set into the front, and Shakespeare's Sonnet 34 printed inside the back cover.

 

Now, this was all very nice in itself: my first WBN book - one I really wanted to read - being given to me by someone who evidently adored it and was passionate about passing it on.  But then she told me WHY she was giving me the book.  Apparently she'd been here before while on holiday in the area, and loved our little shop.  Loved it so much, in fact, that knowing she'd be coming again, she'd saved her last copy and brought it all the way from South Wales to give to me!

She looked quite relieved that I'd not read it yet but evidently wanted to - if I'd already been a Two Cities enthusiast she said she'd still have given it to me, to pass it onto someone else here.  Mum will probably read it after me and we'll both leave comments on the website using the book's unique code (the nice lady asked my name so she could look out for me!), then we'll pass it on again - perhaps by leaving it in the coffee shop over the road for the next person to take away...??

How lovely is that, though?  I went all red-faced and told her she'd just made my day, then SHE went red-faced and told me it'd made hers too...  Two happy bunnies, one (apparently) brilliant book.  Champion.  :)

Did you take part in World Book Night 2012?  If you gave a book, which did you choose and how did you give them away?  And if you received one, which one did you get, and how did it fall into your hands?

0.4, by Mike Lancaster

REVIEW: 0.4 (4*)

by Mike Lancaster (Egmont Press, 2011)

'They're gone,' he said. 'Changed. All of them. You hear me? I... I SEE THEM!' 
His words sent a physical chill down my spine.
'See what?' I demanded.  'What can you see?'

This is one of those unassuming books that actually far exceeded my expectations.  Rather overlooked in the current wave of YA paranormal and dystopian fiction, this is the kind of novel that can be enjoyed by the full sweep of the YA target audience, and is a proper little page-turner to boot.

The whole novel is centred around the mysterious event which takes place - unlikely though it may seem - during the local talent show in the little English village of Millgrove.  As part of the show, Kyle and Lilly, along with two adults, Mr Peterson and Mrs O'Donnell, agree to get up on stage and be hypnotised by their madcap friend Danny.  To their horror, when they 'awaken' a few minutes later, everyone in the village is frozen in place where they sit, shocked expressions on their faces.  When they begin to move again, it's clear that something has changed.  Now these four must try to work out what happened - and why - before it's too late...

Lancaster has been especially clever in that the structure of the novel, and even the paper-book format, tie in intrinsically with the plot.  The chapters are written in a normal narrative style, but are divided into tape sides - this is supposed to be a kind of transcript of the testimony of Kyle Straker, which has been recorded onto old audio tapes and discovered later.  Lancaster takes on the role of 'editor' and there are occasional futuristic notes inserted into the text to explain popular culture references and some of our more unusual idioms.

I found it a quick but hard-hitting read, with some deliciously creepy moments along the way, fusing the quiet menace of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the thought-provoking ideas of The Matrix into one exciting premise.  The pithy, amusing and occasionally revelatory text notes are a nice touch.  Between the testimony and the 'editorial input', everything starts to come together, but until the big reveal I still wasn't quite sure what had happened!  One for boys AND girls to enjoy, and I'd say it was suitable for younger YA readers as well, though they might not pick up on some of the references and humour that an older reader would.  Recommended! 

Notable Quotable:

"Not everyone has to fly high to prove they exist; some of us are perfectly happy flying low and enjoying the view."

Source: This book was a Christmas gift.  Thanks Dad! xx

The Silent Land, by Graham Joyce

REVIEW: THE SILENT LAND (3.5*)

by Graham Joyce (Gollancz, 2010)

I had originally intended to read The Silent Land over the winter - it being set amidst the snowy peaks of a ski resort and all - but I'm glad I got to it in the end nevertheless!  It's hard to explain what this book is about.  It opens with a young married couple, Zoe and Jake, out skiing in the early morning.  They are anticipating enjoying the peace and beautiful scenery before the rest of the resort empties onto the slopes for the day - but instead end up getting swept up in an avalanche...

When she comes to, Zoe manages to fight her way out from under the snow and is reunited with Jake, and the two stumble back down to the village to get help and warn the other skiiers.  But when they reach their hotel - the closest to the slopes - there is no one there, and it appears that everyone has left in quite a hurry.  Figuring that perhaps the hotel has been evacuated, they walk into town, only to find it likewise deserted.  At first the couple find this situation quite a romantic novelty, cooking dinner in the hotel kitchen and enjoying the spa and the empty slopes, but then strange things start to happen.  Zoe begins to hallucinate, time seems to speed up and slow down at will, and when they try to leave the village, no matter what they do the roads always bring them back to where they started.  Has the town really been evacuated?  Or has everyone died in the avalanche?  Have THEY died in the avalanche?  And why does it feel like the village itself is trying to manipulate them in some way?

It's a fascinating novel, which really keeps you puzzling and trying to figure out exactly what is going on.  I started to work it all out as the chapters flew by, but even so I wasn't quite sure until all the pieces came together at the end.  Occasionally it got a bit TOO puzzling, and I think I missed a step on a couple of occasions, but that might have been me rather than the book.  I did find that as the situation got more sinister, things started to get a little bit repetitive and once or twice I found myself getting frustrated as a result.  The sex scenes were horrendously clinical, I have to say, and I found some of the coarser moments of dialogue between the couple very jarring, and completely at odds with the thoughtful, almost poetic nature of the themes and setting.  But when push came to shove, it WAS an interesting premise, with some beautifully surreal moments, some genuinely frightening scenes, and a moving message about the nature of life and the power of love which had me tearing up nicely.  Cautiously recommended.  

Notable Quotables:

• "But it's like life, isn't it?  We know death is coming.  And yet we always see our loved ones as taken away from us, instead of given to us for whatever time we have."
• "Two people in love don't make a hive mind.  Neither should they want to be a hive mind, to think the same, to know the same.  It's about being separate and still loving each other, being distinct from each other.  One is the violin string, one is the bow.

Source: I borrowed this book from my local library.

My World Book Night - and the aftermath!

My World Book Night Day-Off Post-Dewey Book-Themed Read-a-Thon Thingy (But With Sleeping)

7pm:  My night kicks off!  I've got Mike Lancaster's 0.4 to read - a Christmas gift from my dad - and as always, pizza and coffee for sustenance.  Happily I managed to wrestle Mum AWAY from the pizza, but not before she'd taken a huge bite out of one the slices...

8:30pm:  I stop to listen to Mariella Frostrup's Radio 4 WBN documentary from earlier in the day.  It's called One in a Million and explores the effects of WBN on some of LAST year's givers and receivers.  It's only half an hour long - the link takes you to BBC iPlayer if you want to listen!  I found it inspiring and quite moving, and particularly liked these parting words from the end of the programme:

"Amid the hustle and bustle of contemporary society, with work and family, internet, emails, TV and so much else demanding our attention, reading is increasingly an intimate luxury to be sought out and savoured.  Those who haven't had this door opened for them, who for one reason or another have yet to step into the world of books, are missing out on so much...  You never forget it when someone gives you a story that transports you to another world."

9:45pm:  Time for more reading and tea - until I start getting freaked out by my book in a kind of Signs/Cloverfield/Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of way, at which point it's time to stop so I don't give myself nightmares!

10:15pm:  Driving away the freak-out with coffee, a chocolate chip muffin and a dose of the Gilmore Girls.  It's not a very bookish episode, as far as they go - Sherry's extremely annoying baby shower, from season 3 - but hey, it's doing the job!

11pm:  Okay, I give up.  My eyes are tired and I HAVE just done a day at work, so it's time for bed...

4am:  Woken up by Domino, having one of her middle-of-the-night 'OMG I LUVZ U!' purring/paddling sessions on my stomach.  Sit up and read for half an hour before both of us snuggle down and drop off again.

10am:  Well, I didn't have nightmares about aliens - but I DID dream that I was at a WBN event, surrounded by people passing out those distinctive-covered books, laughing and smiling and encouraging people to read.  How appropriate!  Time for breakfast and more Gilmore Girls while I wake up properly and get my focus back. It's one of my favourite episodes - the one with the Dance Marathon, where Lorelai has that fabulous outfit on and Jess and Rory can finally get together, woohoo!

11am:  Breakfast and Viewing Time are over, so it's time for more reading and a nice cup of tea...  Things are getting exciting in 0.4, and I'm puzzling away, trying to work out what on earth's going on in the little village of Millgrove...  Mum is unimpressed to catch me back under the duvet with a large black and white cat asleep on my chest - but hey, it's my day off, and a sleeping cat is a great book rest!

12:30pm:  Snack time!  I'm about ready for a change of scenery, so I'm having a warm fruit scone with butter and jam, and a mug of coffee, and sitting at the kitchen table for a while.  As a bonus, it's easier to wait for our log delivery down here where I can see outside, instead of sitting in my room listening out for every noise on the drive.  My reading takes a small detour into a discussion of new-house options and renovation possibilities, which with our house on the market is Mum's current all-consuming obsession...

2:15pm:  The logs have ARRIVED, so I can head back upstairs and curl up for a few minutes.  Could this possibly be the home stretch of 0.4?

Image via ronyardley.com

2:50pm:  Noooooo!  It's the moment of The Big Revelation in 0.4 - but I've been called to go and help Mum stack that mountain of logs that have just been delivered into our little sheltered woodpile thing.  This could take a while...

5:15pm:  I'm back inside, showered, aching and hopefully with all that wood dust washed out of my hair.  Now I can finally get back to 0.4, with the rest of yesterday's pizza and a fortifying mug of coffee...

6:15pm:  Hooray, I've finished 0.4!  I must say, its format has been well thought out, and it's cleverly put together.  Kinda like The Matrix meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  I recommend it!  Now, time for another dose of Gilmore Girls - an impromptu visit to Yale, and Rory and Jess's first real kiss, awwww... (Yes, I'm Team Jess all the way!  Hot, witty, reads constantly and looks just a little bit like James Dean, my perfect man!)

7:30pm:  Setting up my review post for 0.4.  Just the basics - title, publisher, book cover, labels etc.  I'm two reviews behind now, oops.  Feeling very tired after all that reading and log-stacking.  Think it's the wood dust making my eyes burn, ouch...  Next job: trying to choose something new to read.  Library book?  Review book?  Kinda feeling like something a bit more literary this time, but what?  Hmmmm.

8:15pm:  I've temporarily given up on trying to choose a new book to read.  Sometimes you have to let the end of the last book fade for a few minutes before you can decide what to move onto next.  Instead I'm writing down all of the titles from WBN 2011 and WBN 2012 here in the UK, plus America's 30 WBN titles and Susan Hill's alternative list, just in CASE I want them at some point to satisfy my nerdish love for lists and being able to Tick Stuff Off With Relish.

9:15pm:  Success!  I've tentatively chosen King Solomon's Mines as my next read, which should satisfy my literary craving AND topple Allan Quatermain off my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen challenge (more Stuff To Tick Off With Relish, woohoo!).  Now I think I'll retire with yet more Gilmore Girls, a choc chip muffin, more coffee and some trusty headache tablets - and who knows, I might get in a little more reading before bed, sore eyes/head allowing...  At any rate, this little bookish bonanza will hopefully have kick-started my reading for the rest of the week!

And now, to bring us up to date: I didn't do any more reading before bed, of course...  My eyes just wouldn't stay open any longer!  I'm still owing those two reviews for The Silent Land and 0.4 - and wondering whether to mini-review both in one post, just to get 'em out the way - but I was right about the kick-started reading.  After yesterday's rainy day with no customers, and an evening on my bed with a fat cat across my knees (yup, same one again), I'm now about halfway through King Solomon's Mines and loving it!  Quite verbose, but exciting and evocative, with some deliciously horrific moments and some very funny ones too.  So far so good!  Lots more rain again today so I'm making good progress - though, er, we could probably do with a few people buying books at some point...

Over to you - did you do anything special for World Book Night 2012?  Did you go to a WBN event, or perhaps you were a giver (or receiver) of one of the WBN titles?  Maybe you just went on a book shopping spree or had a night in with a good book instead?

Annexed, by Sharon Dogar

REVIEW: ANNEXED (4*)

by Sharon Dogar (Andersen Press, 2010)

"Will we be imaginary one day? Will we be just like one of Anne's stories? Or worse, will the story that survives be the Nazi one - that we were only ever good enough to be wiped out. How? How could anybody do this?"

I didn't know quite what to expect from this novel.  The Diary of a Young Girl is one of my favourite books of all time, so the idea of a novelisation of the same events was simultaneously exciting and just a little bit worrying.  Happily - and to my great relief - I found that for the most part, Dogar's endeavour manages to walk the fine line between 'respectful tribute' and 'artistic license' quite successfully!

The book is written from the point of view of Peter van Pels, the teenage son of the family in hiding with the Franks.  It begins with Peter watching his (entirely fictional) girlfriend Liese and her family being rounded up and driven away.  He can only stand in the road in despair.  He makes his way reluctantly to the warehouse to join the Frank family - and his first impressions don't exactly fill him with joy...  But slowly he adapts to life in the annexe, finds a new strength he didn't know he had, and begins an odd flirtation with livewire Anne. 

This romantic element seems to be the main issue for many of the novel's detractors, but actually I found it quite subtle and entirely plausible.  In such a confined space, with hormones raging and very little to engage their attention elsewhere, I found it completely believable that precocious young Anne could set her sights on Peter - and that he might feel extremely conflicted about it, but also tempted by her quick wit and cheerful charm.  I occasionally found Peter's narrative a little self-conscious and slow, even manipulative at times, and it didn't have all the little details about daily life that made Anne's journal really come alive, but I still enjoyed it!  I thought Dogar's depiction of the various characters living in the annexe was spot-on, and she captured the experience of a frustrated teenage boy rather well.  

Unlike Anne's iconic diary, which obviously ended just before the annexe's occupants were found and taken away, Dogar extends her novel right through to Auschwitz and beyond - and this is where I thought she really excelled.  Peter's whole narrative is precipitated by his flood of memories as he lies in the sick bay at Mauthausen, deliriously waiting for the call to wake up and start another day in hell.  Between chapters there are occasional interjections from the dying boy to remind the reader that this is not going to end well.  After they are captured Peter describes the horrendous train journey out of Amsterdam, the separation from his mother and the Frank women, how he learned to survive in the camps, and how he lost his father to the gas chambers.  I could barely read the last twenty pages or so, I was crying so hard. 

At the end of the day, it may be uncomfortable reading but I don't think we can ever remind ourselves too often of the evil that humanity has perpetuated in the past, especially when hatred and ignorance are still used as excuses to inflict pain on minority groups today.  It really is well worth a read, whether you're already familiar with The Diary of a Young Girl or not, and I think it would make fantastic supplementary material for a high school project, for example.  Dogar includes a brief epilogue at the end of the book explaining where and how each of the characters died, as well as a short bibliography which includes seminal works of Holocaust literature like Primo Levi's If This is a Man and Elie Wiesel's Night.  Recommended. 

Notable Quotables:

• "I'm in the attic.  The sun shines and I sit in it and read.  The book makes time change.  Stops it hanging.  Somewhere I can hear the breeze in the tree behind me.  I can feel the sun on my back and the pages turn and I forget.  There are only the people on the page and what will happen next.  What will happen to the people in the book, not what will happen to me... I forget everything."
• "It's been snowing.  I stand in the attic, waiting for Anne, and stare at the branches of the chestnut tree all covered in white.  There are stars behind it.  The night is a clear, strange blue.  I know I could paint all my life.  But I could never make a blue that dark.  That deep.  That beautiful.  I could never make stars like little holes of light in the night.  Even van Gogh couldn't do it."
• "Sometimes, in the camp, her words came to me.  Appeared in my head out of nowhere.  They came like a taunt.  A curse.  A dream from another world that has no meaning here.  They made me hope she died quickly.  Quickly.  That she walked into the chambers full of love, courage and hope - and went out like a light.  A bright light.  Not like this.  This living death."
• "'I want people to know, Peter.  I want them to feel what we feel.  What it's like to be scared.  What it's like to look out of the window and see your own people led away whilst you're safe in your bed.  What it's like to eat whilst they starve.  If they know, if they feel it too, then they can never do this again, can they?'  Her eyes are alight.  Blazing.  Burning."
• "'They're fighting for us,' I say, and it feels like a miracle again, that there are people from all over the world, fighting.  Fighting to allow the differences between us.  Living for us.  Dying for us."
• "In those first minutes the seconds fell like hours.  We sat shaved and uniformed and numbered.  Häftlinge now, unable to wake to the shock of that final parting we didn't even know had happened, yet sensed within us - a severing from our women, from ourselves - the first of many to come as we are kicked, or beaten or hanged or shot, or taken into the showers that turn water into gas.  There are so many ways to part with life."

Source: I borrowed this book from my local library.

A Favourite Books A-Z

Well, my review of Annexed is still in the works, but I've not been well for the last couple of days and since review-writing requires actual brainpower I'm going to leave it alone until I'm feeling better.  Most of you will already know that I have quite bad IBS, which I usually keep well and truly under control - but every now and again it manages to flare up and have a little party in my abdomen all by itself.  You know how you feel if you get a stomach bug?  Yeah, that - only it can go on for days.  Today is day 3, so my stomach currently feels like it's been enthusiastically wrung out by a large strong-armed washerwoman, I'm white as a sheet, I keep getting the chills, I have a lovely headache, and my back and side muscles are in need of a good massage. 

I've had to come to work every day, of course. This is one of the really, REALLY bad bits about running your own shop (without staff) - common sense would tell you to stay at home wearing pyjamas and snuggling under a duvet with the cat/a book/the telly/a cup of tea, but what you're ACTUALLY doing is sitting behind a shop counter looking like you've been recently exhumed, smiling painfully at the customers, writhing around a little bit when no one's looking, and trying not to fall off your chair.  I've spent quite a bit of time desperately trying to get comfy in the office, snuggling under a fleece jacket with a hot water bottle and nibbling arrowroot biscuits, and yesterday we closed an hour early because Mum had had enough, oops!
 

Anyway, today I'm feeling (mercifully) a tad less like death, but still fuzzy and sore, so I'm back on the counter and distracting myself a little bit with Blogger and some fun Tumblr sites.  And I'm still trying to read in between bad spells, of course - because what is life without a book to while away a few unpleasant hours when you need it most?!

Sooooo, Matthew at A Guy's Moleskin Notebook posted this meme in which you name your favorite book that starts with each letter in the alphabet.  I reckon this is one of those memes that would be really fun to do every year or two, see what amazing books you've read since that could topple your old answers off the pile...  I saw it yesterday over at Caroline Bookbinder and like her, I couldn't resist, so here we go!

0-9  84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff

A  Atonement - Ian McEwan

B  Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs: The Left Bank World of Shakespeare and Co. - Jeremy Mercer
C  The Cat Who Came In From the Cold - Deric Longden
D  The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
E  Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table - Nigel Slater 

F  Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallander 1) - Henning Mankell

G  Gold - Dan Rhodes

H  The Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

I  I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

J  Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

K  Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell*

L  Lorna Doone - R.D. Blackmore

M  Matilda - Roald Dahl

N  Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson 

O  The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

P  The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Q  Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime - Joe Moran

R  Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

S  The Secret History - Donna Tartt

T  This Book Will Save Your Life - A.M. Homes

U  The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

V  Virals - Kathy Reichs

W  Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

X - No title

Y  Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks

Z - No title

* I haven't actually read Keep the Aspidistra Flying yet, but I didn't have anything else to fill that slot and I DO love the movie, so I'm expecting great things from the book!

Hmmm, very interesting.  Many of the books listed here are amongst my absolute favourites of all time; a couple are just decent reads that were pushed up onto the platform because their letters didn't yield many choices (at least not yet - I've got so many unread books I'm sure a few of them will be easily replaced!).  Some of my favourite books were pushed out of the running because they were from letters with LOADS of choices!  Still fun though - and coasting through my LibraryThing catalogue for something like this also serves the delightful purpose of reminding me of all the wonderful books awaiting me on my shelves.  It's easy to forget sometimes, especially now I'm living down in the family house with most of my books still shelved or boxed in the flat!

If you decide to nab this meme for your own amusement, do drop by and leave the link in the comments so I can come have a wander through all the titles that made it onto YOUR list.  Have fun!

More rampant liberrying for me!

Soooo, guess who's been a-liberrying again?  No, that's not a dirty sex word you just haven't heard about yet.  (Mum actually told me off for keep calling it a liberry - but it sounds so much TASTIER than 'library', doesn't it?)  I had to make some tough decisions about what to keep and what to take back, but it had to be done because The Big Library is an absolute treasure trove compared to The Little Local One and I don't get over there that often!  I took back two that I only just checked out, and a couple of others, but since most of them came from The Little Local One anyway I reckoned I could just pick them back up again at this end when I take my next couple back!  I haz a PLAN, peoples!

I have to say, I'm really getting back into this liberrying thing.  I mean, in some ways it's BAD because I'm always prioritising liberry books over the thousand or so unread books on my OWN shelves.  But in other ways it's GOOD because I'm Supporting My Liberry and taking a chance on new authors and Exploring New Stuff, and I actually have a sort-of mental deadline to get them read by, AND even if I reserve stuff (which I haven't needed to do yet) it means getting a book for the tiny tiny price of 80p instead of buying it. 

Soooo, my current complete library haul of 16 now stands like this:

1. Hell's Angels - Hunter S. Thompson

2. The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists - Gideon Defoe

3. Annexed - Sharon Dogar

4. Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet - Barry Miles

5. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe

6. The Silent Land - Graham Joyce

7. Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan

8. Rant - Chuck Palahniuk

9. A big Penguin volume of the Collected Poems of Allen Ginsberg

10. Tattoos and Tequila - Vince Neil

11. Hospital Babylon - Imogen Edwards-Jones and Anon.

12. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

13. There Is No Dog - Meg Rosoff

14. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

15. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore

16. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden

I'm well chuffed because I think I'm the first person to get the shiny new copy of Hell's Angels (a cute little Penguin Essentials edition, I LOVE IT!), and only the second to get hold of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  Lucky, lucky girl, I bet they won't see the library shelves very much.  I also *cough* sneaked to Waterstones *cough* (What? Mum wasn't ready yet and I had LOADS of time!) and bought Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (because I took the other one back to the library already, to make room for MORE BOOKS!) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (because that's what I was looking for at the other bookshop last week!).  And I found St. Elmo's Fire in a charity shop en route back to the car park for a miniscule £1.99, so I came home happy!  Especially because I bought cookies from the petrol station too.  Mmmm, cookies...

Sooooo, I finished Annexed BEFORE we went to the library yesterday morning, but when I'd finally stopped sobbing I realised I couldn't possibly do the book justice without having it in front of me when I reviewed it, so I kept it for now.  That'll be COMING SOON.  And I started The Silent Land when we got home from shopping/house viewing and to my surprise, was actually halfway through it by the time I went to bed.  I'm glad it survived the Library Book Massacre yesterday morning, because it's been a really absorbing read so far!

I might get that review of Annexed done today, since it's basically given rain, rain and more rain, with a side helping of hail, thunderbolts and lightning (very very frightening, Galileo) - though part of me thinks it would the PERFECT time to get stuck into my book while there's no one around.  Someone brought a load of books already, though since she was very friendly we didn't mind the Lack Of A Book Bringing Appointment too much, even though she is obviously MAD for thinking, "Hey, a torrential downpour!  What a perfect opportunity to carry some boxes of books into town!."  PLUS Mum left me to it so I managed to squirrel away The Last of the Mohicans and The Bonfire of the Vanities under the counter already. It's a sickness, it really is.  People think books are so benign, but they're just as capable of creating a vicious circle as alcohol, say. Or sharks.

OK, onwards and upwards! I am on a READING ROLL!  I'll leave you with this, which my sister just sent me and which took me a minute to, y'know, get, but when I did, O HOW WE LAUGHED!

IMM: I never come home empty-handed!

Yes, my friends, once again I have been allowed out unsupervised!  This is quite surprising since the book-acquisition situation in our house is currently at breaking point again (oops) - so much so that when I mentioned my little excursion to my sister on MSN yesterday morning, her first reaction was, "Does Mum know?"  Which sums it up fairly succinctly, I think.  :)

First up, let me say that I did REMOVE six books from the house on the same day, so this isn't all a one-sided story.  I took four library books back, for a start.  One was finished and reviewed (The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman), and three were rapidly approaching their Final Deadline and just wouldn't have been read in time.  I brought Karin Slaughter's Skin Privilege back to the shop, and also Belle de Jour's Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, which I'd been reading sporadically over the last couple of months and was starting to become a bit much of a muchness.  Done, gone, better things to read...

Like my NEW batch of library books, for example!  (How was that for a segue?!)  I wasn't actually anticipating getting quite so many, mostly because I've still got a few at home anyway AND we're going to town (where THE BIG LIBRARY is) on Tuesday, so I was planning on keeping more spaces free on my card.  Sooooo, I reckoned I'd try and finish ONE of my current check-outs by then (probably Annexed), go through the library catalogue and my wishlist on Tuesday morning to see what they've got on the shelves, then decide what I want most and juggle them around accordingly.  Yes, I run my library trips like a military campaign, but it gets RESULTS, people!  :)

Anyway, what was I saying?  Oh yes!  Library books!  (Not such a great segue...)  I got six out yesterday - which was probably about four more than Mum hoped, but she didn't mind too much!  (Well, they don't clog up the house the same, do they?  They have to go back eventually!)  First up, a rather offbeat duo, Kurt Vonnegut's Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction and Chuck Palahniuk's Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (which has a truly horrible cover, by the way).  I've never read Vonnegut OR Palahniuk - though I have a book by each on my shelves - but I thought I'd take a leap into the unknown.  As an added bonus, I won't be starting with their most obvious titles - Slaughterhouse Five and Fight Club - which I find curiously satisfying!

To my delight, I FINALLY managed to put my hands on a copy of Alan Moore's V for Vendetta (and at our little local library, no less!  I tried that big library three or four times and came up empty-handed!).  It'll be my first ever graphic novel, but I had a flick through it sitting on the library floor and I think I'm going to enjoy it.  It'll be another completed category for my Mixing It Up Challenge too, which is good, and I'll be able to watch the movie at last.  I also found John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began.  I hadn't even heard of it until the movie came out (I haven't seen it) but the reviews are pretty overwhelmingly positive, so I'm looking forward to it.   

         

And last but not least, a couple of non-fiction books to round out the bunch.  I've enjoyed Hotel Babylon and Beach Babylon already, and have Fashion Babylon and Wedding Babylon on my shelves (each written by Imogen Edwards-Jones and an anonymous industry insider), so I've been rather looking forward to the latest addition to the series, Hospital Babylon.  Should be an interesting - if alarming - read!  My last choice was Joshua Foer's runaway hit Moonwalking with Einstein, which my sister's already read, loved and fervently recommended.  She has a copy somewhere, but I couldn't remember if she'd taken it to Liverpool with her so I grabbed it anyway!

And then I was a little bit naughty...  I sneaked along to the bookshop along the road to look at their very awesome Beats/Bob Dylan/Counterculture section. It's basically a narrow bookcase tucked in a corner, crammed with all sorts of cool stuff.  As you may remember, I bought a bunch of books off there after my birthday last year so I reckoned it was about time for another look!  There were three biographies and a huge book of Bukowski's poetry that I drooled over, but I didn't buy any of them this time.  I was just about to walk away (shock!) when I noticed a cute little pocket edition of Naked Lunch for only £5, so I bought that instead. And the best thing about it? It was the perfect size to slip into the back pocket of my jeans, under my coat, so that when Mum 'frisked me' (ie. rifled through my bag) when I got back, I came up squeaky clean and smelling of roses! Haha, sometimes I scare myself with my own evil genius. :D

As a little footnote to this story, I SAY evil genius, but evidently I still have room left for improvement, as I made the schoolboy error of leaving the draft of this post up on the screen while I went to fill up the shelves - and Mum read it.  Dammit!  Haha, at least she was SMILING when she called me a 'lying little toerag', so I reckon my book babies are safe for another day. *sighs with relief*

That's all, folks!  (For now, at least!)  Have you read any of these already?  More importantly, what's in YOUR mailbox this week?  Leave me a comment and tell me aaaaaall about it!

Karin Slaughter, Jack Kerouac, Bernard Black and a bit of rambling

It's nearly the end of the Easter Holidays - and wow, it couldn't come soon enough...  No matter how bouncy and optimistic we are at the start of a school break, we're always glad when it's over!  The headaches increase in number (and severity), we fall into bed earlier and earlier every night, and my inner Bernard Black needs less and less provocation to emerge fighting.  So a little quiet time is very welcome at the end of it all!  It may not last long, but we should at least get a SMALL reprieve before the summer holidays, particularly during the week.  The tourists are still around, especially at weekends, but at least we don't have to defend our stock from small marauders and sticky hands to quite the same extent, ha!

Anyway, this is my review of the book that got me through the Easter weekend, Karin Slaughter's Skin Privilege, which proved to be wonderfully diverting when the shop got busy and I started to feel a bit flustered!   I've moved on to one of my much-anticipated library books now - Annexed by Sharon Dogar, which is very interesting so far - and I've been to the library AGAIN this morning, so I'll do an IMM post tomorrow to show off my little haul.  On Tuesday we'll be popping across to the big town half an hour away - the cause of my bookish downfall on several occasions, as you may remember - en route to a house viewing, so I'd better get reading so I can make the most of our brief stay to go library/Waterstones stalking yet again...  Hey, you can't keep an avid reader down!  :)

REVIEW: SKIN PRIVILEGE (4*)

by Karin Slaughter (Arrow Books, 2008)

Also published as Beyond Reach, this is the sixth of Slaughter's Sara Linton novels - though it's the first I've ever read.  Happily, I didn't find that my lack of Slaughter experience hindered my enjoyment of the book in the slightest!  It is a fantastic piece of storytelling that weaves a complex and all-too-believable plot around a compelling group of flawed, feisty but very likeable characters.

When Jeffrey Tolliver, Chief of Police in Granta County, gets a phone call to say that his detective Lena Adams has been arrested at a crime scene in her home town, on suspicion of arson and murder, he and his coroner wife Sara immediately drive out to Reece to investigate.  There they uncover a terrifying web of meth trafficking and corruption, with rival neo-Nazi gangs keeping the townspeople in fear, greedy eyes on everyone and everything.  With this claustrophobic atmosphere slowing their progress, will they manage to piece together what really happened the night Lena was arrested?  Can they find out who was condemned to die in the burning car?  And as the body count rises, will they be the next target?

Skin Privilege didn't pull me in headfirst, dragging me breathlessly through the pages; instead it builds slowly, layering up our knowledge of the characters, the town, the background, playing around with little details that may or may not be important.  Slaughter doesn't shy away from the realities of Sara's work in the mortuary, or from the more graphic elements of her victims' fates, but it never feels gratuitous and like Sara, we are encouraged to detach a little and read with interest rather than revulsion.  I also appreciated how she explores the endless ways - both good and bad - that people can be tied to each other, whether they are friends, family, colleagues, partners, neighbours or even complete strangers.  There were a few sections that seemed a bit slow, and a couple of slightly confusing moments where I felt like I'd missed something along the way, but there were other parts that had me glued to the page, including one big shock where I least expected it that nearly had me weeping on the shop counter!  All in all, a very enjoyable first foray into Karin Slaughter's writing - and I'll be keeping an eye out for more of the Sara Linton titles!

And now: an impromptu JACK KEROUAC quote. Just because.

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

Isn't that wonderful?  THAT, ladies and gents, is why I can't wait to read On the Road.  Onwards!

The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman

Aaaah, Easter weekend... how I hate you.  Not only am I still calorie counting, so I can't just sit stuffing my face with Easter eggs like I normally do (it is a truth universally acknowledged that chocolate in an egg shape tastes 50% yummier than chocolate in a bar), but it means BANK HOLIDAY CROWDS flooding the shop.  Bank Holiday Crowds, in case you were wondering, are often large family groups with twelve children (who split off in different directions the second they're through the door, rendering them impossible to control) who will spend £3 after 45 minutes destroying the shop; tourists who can't buy anything because they've already exceeded their baggage allowance for their flight home, and bored couples filling up time between tea and scones at the cafe and lunch at the chip shop.  Many of these people have never been in a bookshop before, and will duly end up on my Twitter feed when they say something ridiculous.  (Hey, you gotta take your pleasures where you find 'em!) 

Fortunately my reading mojo is strong right now, so I am determined to read through my pain (ie. hide behind a book until we close on Monday) and have plucked down a couple of suitably lightweight titles to tide me over.  First up is Skin Privilege by Karin Slaughter (never read her before, how exciting), then I might move onto a YA novel or perhaps Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.  Then on Tuesday, everybody's raging colds allowing, my sister and I will be off to celebrate surviving the bank holiday (and break our diets) in glorious style by going to see The Hunger Games.  Popcorn and hot chocolate, and a Maccy D's for lunch.... ohhhh, I can't wait!  :)

REVIEW: THE IMPERFECTIONISTS (3*)

by Tom Rachman (Quercus, 2010)

Rachman's debut novel has been lauded as a funny, intelligent and quirky look at the inner workings of a failing international newspaper, so I picked it up hoping for great things.  Sadly, I didn't find them.  It is certainly an ambitious book, but for me Rachman just didn't live up to expectations. 

Each chapter in the book is heralded by a headline from the newspaper, and dedicated to one of its contributing characters, including the financial officer, the Paris correspondent and the editor-in-chief.  In between these chapters are short italicised segments tracing the history of the paper - how it was founded in Rome by successful businessman Cyril Ott, and the rise and fall of his creation through the decades, as editors come and go and the world changes.  It's a really interesting format, and I enjoyed those parts.  However, the main chapters themselves fell very flat for me.  Clearly Rachman succeeds in his intention to peek into his characters' lives and motivations, slowly building up an interconnected web of people with the news office at its centre.  But lordy, they're an odd bunch.  I don't think there was even ONE character I really liked or related to, and the theme of 'endings' - the end of lives, relationships, eras, attitudes, and ultimately, the paper itself - meant that every vignette seemed to fixate on the most sad, unpleasant or strange elements of humanity.

There WERE some funny moments - the aspiring Cairo stringer's dreadful flight of description in his first piece was a particular highlight - and even occasional glimpses of optimism, but these were quickly dampened back down again by the big black cloud seemingly hanging over the entire novel.  I certainly wouldn't have called it a humorous book - even a darkly humorous one - despite reading several reviews describing it that way.  These characters are damaged, every last one of them.   Whether they're achingly lonely or pathological hoarders or just despise their work, calling any of them 'average' seems horribly pessimistic.  So... no.  Maybe it was the depressing tone of the book, maybe it's because I've never worked in a newspaper office myself (some of the best reviews came from journalists who would know that environment inside out), maybe it was the vignette format that never allowed me to get attached to any of the characters.  Whatever it was, I'm quite glad I gave it a try, but it just didn't do it for me!

Notable Quotables:

• "Arthur's cubicle used to be near the watercooler, but the bosses tired of having to chat with him each time they got thirsty.  So the watercooler stayed and he was moved.  Now his desk is in a distant corner, as far from the locus of power as possible but nearer the cupboard of pens, which is a consolation."
• "The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss.  It is no loss at all.  To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.  From one's own perspective, experience simply halts.  From one's own perspective, there is no loss.  You see?  Yet maybe this is a game of words, too, because it doesn't make it any less frightening, does it."
• "Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition.  Whatever its ills, nothing has created more.  Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life.  But the love of man to be worshipped by man."

Moon Pie, by Simon Mason

Wow, I'm doing quite well with this 'regular posting' thing recently!  Long may it continue...  We had two days off again this week, despite it being the Easter holidays, because yesterday April decided that the whole sunbathing thing March pulled off was a bit rubbish, and threw a nice blizzard at us instead.  Whirling snowflakes, heavy white skies, gales, flickering lights, the whole works.  Thank YOU, April.  So we stayed at home.  I read a big chunk of Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists, which is great because I'd come to a bit of standstill with it, and I finished off my rewatch of season 1 of Gilmore Girls and broke into season 2.  AND I drank a LOT of coffee, and didn't have a nap ONCE even though I wanted to...  *pats self heartily on back*  Now, a review!

REVIEW: MOON PIE (4.5*)

by Simon Mason (David Fickling Books, 2011)

This book was a little 'younger' than I would normally venture into with my reading, but actually I'm really glad I did because it was fantastic!  It is a sweet story about eleven year-old Martha, who looks after her house and her little brother Tug every day because her dad is never at home.  Meanwhile HE is becoming more and more 'strange', doing reckless things and being silly all the time, to the point where even Tug is unimpressed.  As it turns out, he has been steadily descending into alcoholism since their mother died - and things are about to reach crisis point... 

It's certainly a serious subject, but as in Jacqueline Wilson's books, it is woven together with cheerier subplots (mostly about filmmaking - the children make their own movies with their friends), and it is handled with a lightness of touch that saves it ever getting too much for a young reader to handle.  Things DO get bad - their lives are turned upside down by their father's illness - and there are some terribly poignant moments, but the novel shows the whole family working through their issues and ultimately reaching a happy ending.  There is a truckload of wonderful humour to temper even the darkest of moments, and I have to say, the children are a delight: Mason nails their voices and little quirks so precisely, it's a joy to read.   I particularly liked little Tug (who is always hungry, especially for pies) and Martha's flamboyant diva friend Marcus!  And Martha is such a wonderful character to root for.  She's like all my favourite young literary heroines rolled into one - a little Matilda, a little Jo March, a little Anne Shirley, a little Sara Crewe...

I think this would be a great book for older children and tweenage readers, and while I was reading it I was also struck by how good it would be for reading aloud in the classroom.  There's plenty to discuss in terms of the more mature themes, but also plenty of giggle-out-loud crowd-pleasing moments as well (Tug is one of the funniest characters I've come across in AGES!).  All in all, I'd highly recommend it - though parents might want to read it first to be sure their kids will be able to comprehend and handle the more graphic elements of the alcoholism storyline.

Note: Many thanks to the lovely ladies at Random House Children's Books, who sent me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

A mammoth shopping spree, wheeeeee!

Aaaaaah, nothing soothes the Shopgirl Holiday Blues quite like a little bout of book shopping in OTHER PEOPLE'S stores.  I didn't go as far as the indie bookshop on the other side of town, but I DID raid the four closest charity shops, the library and a conveniently placed stall...  And yes, I DID get THE LOOK from my mother when I returned with a heaving canvas bag.  She was 'very disappointed' because 'we'll be moving soon'... however, since this may not be for another 18 months for all we know, I'm not too worried!  At least, I'm not too worried now that she's stepped AWAY from the carrier bag and stopped looking quite so threatening.  :)

Sooo, what did I buy, I hear you ask?  Well, my little sunflowers, pull up a chair, because I have plenty to report!  First up, the delights of our local Air Ambulance shop...  This shop is very new in town, but I already love it.  Upstairs they have a wall of bookshelves, two narrow shelves of DVDs and two big comfy leather sofas, which is AWESOMENESS especially when I have too many books to look through and need somewhere to perch.  They obviously have some regular patrons who donate shiny new fiction, good non-fiction and a healthy dose of YA alongside the usual charity shop fare, so I've never left empty-handed yet.  Far from it, in fact!  I only went in last week so not much had changed, but I DID buy two things.  I bought Lost in Translation on DVD for a very reasonable £1.95, and an unread copy of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby for a delicious 95p.  Yes, I already HAVE a copy of High Fidelity - but this one is so much PRETTIER and has rock posters on the front and I love it, and did I mention it was only 95p?

Our local hospice shop was a dud - all granny fiction and cheap thrillers - so my next stop was Age UK, which is usually so-so for books.  Sometimes I find something awesome (like the last couple of times), sometimes I walk away without succumbing to anything.  Happily, on this occasion not only did they have some BRILLIANT titles, but they also had an ALL PAPERBACK BOOKS 49 PENCE SALE!  Aaaargh!  Such beautiful, beautiful words.  So, for the bargain price of £2.45, I got five lovely shiny books.  Snowdrops by A.D. Miller is one I've been after from the library/Amazon anyway, because it was on the Man Booker shortlist.  A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has been on my wishlist since it appeared on the TV Book Club last summer.  Chuck Palahniuk is one of those cult authors that always seems to be checked out of the library, no matter how long you wait, so I snatched up a copy of Fight Club.  There was a practically unread copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I've never had the urge to read but have heard great things about - for 49p, I wasn't arguing!  And finally, I just had to buy Craig Revel Horwood's autobiography All Balls and Glitter, because he's kinda grown on me and now I think he's pretty FAB-YOU-LOUS, dahling...

Last on my charity shop list was Mind, which again, can be a fruit-laden tree of bookish delights... or a bit of a dead shrub.  Once again I was in luck, and came away with another three bargainous books!  I snatched up E.M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady, which has been on my wishlist for YEARS (even the first PAGE makes me laugh), for a miniscule £2.50.  Simon Napier-Bell's Black Vinyl, White Powder was a fortuitous find at £2 - I picked it up because the title was cool and whaddya know?  Turns out it's a fifty-year history of the British music business!  Great!  And lastly, I threw in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for £1, just because I'm SURE someone wrote about it the other day, and I haven't read it yet, so what the heck...

Only a couple left now, I swearz.  I was returning a handful of books to the library - the 'YOU CANNOT RENEW THIS BOOK ANY MORE, SLOWPOKE!' date is rapidly approaching and there was no way I was going to finish 'em all, so I'm PRIORITISING - thus providing another prime book-searching opportunity.  The interwebs faithfully promised me that The Forest of Hands and Teeth was on the shelf, but I couldn't find it anywhere, not in adult fiction or fantasy fiction or teen fiction. Lying interwebs.  I DID find Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding but it was BLOODY ENORMOUS so I thought I'd wait for the paperback.  Or another time when I haven't just bought a million books already.  So the only book I got back OUT of the library was Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which was rather fascinatingly shelved on the 'True Crime' section alongside a book called Murder and Mayhem in the Peak District (pffft, the closest we get to mayhem is the queues at the fish and chip shop come lunchtime) and the worryingly titled How to Kill.  Good job that one wasn't checked out, really.  And LASTLY, just as I thought I was safe, I passed a Rotary Club stall and spotted a heaving box of books and THERE, crumpled and battered, was a copy of Jemima J by Jane Green, which the lovely Miss Jess recommended ages ago and which I've been looking out for ever since.  Happy days!

Aaaah, what a delight it is to pop out to return library books and buy a bottle of milk, only to return with eleven books, a DVD, milk and two intriguing new 'fajita chicken pizzas'.  This rampant book buying all ties in very nicely with this article I read today, which is by Tom Cox and is loosely about bookshelf reorganisation but also contains this wonderful paragraph that I TOTALLY GET:

"Of course, some of these excesses are simply a by-product of that elastic thing that can happen to time when we are in a bookshop, where our sheer good intentions and excitement overrule everything we have previously learned about how many hours there are in a day. Just as I keep on subscribing to the New Yorker magazine in the expectation of a lengthy, debilitating illness that will allow me to catch up on 15 years' worth of issues I have hardly skimmed, I'm keeping The Golden Bough in preparation for the non-fatal heart attack that will ultimately enable me to read it. That's a lot of sickness in my future, but I'm embracing it. I suppose that's the joy of a proper, unexpurgated book reorganising session: it makes you look forward to the good times, and the bad."

Can't we all relate to that a tiny bit?  It may be knackering, but I get a bit of a kick out of reorganising my bookshelves, or even just combing through them all looking for a particular volume.  I forget what I have, hidden away on the back rows or on the top shelves, and finding them all again is like burrowing into a treasure chest.  And I quite frequently catch myself thinking things like "Huh, a little bout of flu wouldn't be SO bad, would it?  I mean, not so I get really really sick or anything... but just think how much I could read, sitting in bed drinking tea for a week!"  Come on, 'fess up, we've all been there.

Okay, well, today is my DAY OFF, so I'm going to go make some more coffee and sit and read Simon Mason's Moon Pie.  No, it's not a library book, and yes, it's a tad 'younger' than I would normally read, but I think it's going to be AWESOME.  It's about eleven year-old Martha, who is caring for her brother as her father descends into alcoholism after her mum's death.  Not the cheeriest of subjects, but I have to say that despite the underlying sadness it is SO FUNNY!  The characters are wonderful - Mason's really got a child's voice down - and Martha's little brother Tug is just the cutest jellybean...  So, onwards!  Many books to read!  And I want to enjoy today because after this it's six days of Easter in TouristTown, otherwise known as HELL ON EARTH, and I need as much R&R as I can get beforehand to save my already tenuous grasp on sanity.  Laters, all!

If you like this blog, you'll love this book...

Especially since I'm in it!  You may already be familiar with my fellow bookseller Jen Campbell and her blog, This is Not the Six Word Novel - but have you seen her Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops posts?  They're hilarious - and tragically familiar to anyone working in the book business - and now they've been made into a book!

I've already read my copy cover to cover, and it is simultaneously hilarious and a little bit tragic.  The illustrations, by The Brothers McLeod, are the icing on the cake!  Split into three sections, Jen has covered her time at the Edinburgh Bookshop and Ripping Yarns in London (where she currently works), as well as collecting crackers from other booksellers all over the world for the third section, 'Weird Things Customers Say in Other Bookshops'.  Which is where our little Derbyshire bookshop comes in!  I sent Jen a handful of the pearlers we've had thrown our way over the last couple of years, and was well chuffed when one of my own favourites was chosen, haha!

You definitely don't need to be a bookseller to appreciate the humour - just a love of books, I think!  A couple of my favourite gems from the book, just to give you a flavour:

~  CUSTOMER: Do you have any books by Jane Eyre?

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~  CUSTOMER: Doesn't it bother you, being surrounded by books all day?  I think I'd be paranoid they were all going to jump off the shelves and kill me.
BOOKSELLER: . . .

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~  CUSTOMER: Do you stock Nigella Lawson under 'Sex' or 'Cookery'?

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~  CHILD: Mum, look, it's the book of A Hundred and One Dalmatians.  Can I get a hundred and one puppies?
CHILD'S MOTHER: No, dear, you've already got a hamster.  That's quite enough.

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Are you smiling already?  Well, good!  Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops is published by Constable & Robinson, and is hitting shop shelves near you round about NOW!  And remember - be nice to your friendly local bookseller.  You never know who's listening...  ; )