1st library Books of 2010

Well my first library visit of 2010 was successful, depending on your point of view! I had sort of decided to try and read more of the books I already own this year rather than library books, so from that point of view this trip may not have been such a good move, but I am looking forward to reading all these books.

The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

Millennium by Tom Holland

The Herring Seller's Apprentice by Glen David Gold

Sunnyside by Glen David Gold

Esther's Inheritance by Sandor Marai

The Gates by John Connolly

East Lynne by Ellen Wood

Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux

The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer

The Republic of Trees by Sam Taylor

This was a strange book, both similar to things I've read before, but also very different. I read The Republic of Trees because I read The Island at the End of the World last year and really enjoyed it. Although this is a very different, and altogether more disturbing story, it has the same elements of playing with language that the author's later book did, which I found just as interesting here as I did in the later novel.

The book starts with a small child, Michael, describing his father's death by electrocution by a lawnmower when he was a small child. His mother then moves him and his brother to France to live with their Aunt Celine, and then promptly dies herself, leaving Michael and his brother in the care of their Aunt Celine. They are lonely, but this loneliness is appeased when another English family move in close by and they become close to the two children in this family, Alex and Isobel. During one summer the four children set out to spend the summer in a local forest, taking with them only bare minimum supplies, intending to hunt and forage for food. It starts out as an idyllic, blissful society but this is where the story, to me, becomes slightly familiar. The children become less concerned about living a subsistence life, and more concerned with society, rules and revolution, even acting out history plays based on events during the french revolution. As a fifth person joins the group, the society becomes more rigid, and develops rules and punishments. They have raids on local villages for food, leaving their calling card wherever they go, and even have a minister of propaganda. The society takes its inspiration from Rousseau's Social Contract (the ideas that inspired The French Revolution), and Rousseau himself actually makes an appearance, at least to those who believe.

Well so far I'm thinking Lord of the Flies, 1984, and Animal farm. It gets even more similar to all of these books as the story progresses but was done well. The ending was possibly the most shocking I've ever read, and will stay with me for a very long time. Its a horrific portrayal of how people can be corrupted in trying to create ideals, then trying to enforce them on others, with disastrous consequences. Towards the end, the children are even starting to make up their own language as they say they need a new language for a new republic.

I think the difference between this book and those mentioned above is some of the ideas expressed by the children, that then come back into force at the end of the book, and have a dramatic effect on the conclusion of the story. The following passage, spoken by Michael, struck me, both for it's beauty and the ideas expressed in it

"I had always found it odd how people took this moment for granted-the moment of waking when your mind quickly reassembles all the feelings, ideas, memories, hopes and fears of the day before, pulling them from an alien world of dreams that you can never quite remember. Sleepily I wondered: What if there are two souls in each of us, leading parallel lives, working shifts inside the same head and body? The dayself and the nightself. The sleepself and the wakeself. The dreamself and the realself. And what if each of these souls did not believe in the existence of the other, but regarded the life that happened when it was off duty as a kind of imaginary netherworld? What if I were to my dreamself, only a series of fragmentary images, dismissed on waking as the mind's waste matter?"

In fact this theme, expressed throughout the novel becomes vitally important at the end, When he is unable to remember a lot of what he has done, said and written and relies heavily on other people to tell him what happened. As he says

"It was odd: when I read it, it had been as though I were experiencing it for the first time. Yet know, having been through it, I felt like it was part of me. It was a memory-as real, as substantial as any of my other memories"

This aspect to me is where the book differs from others that have a similar story, addressing issues of consciousness, memory and truth. It makes the reader question who exactly is driving the events, at least until Michael's last words, which could be seen to turn the whole thing on it's head, depending on how you read them.

I did have some slight plausibility issues with this book though. I know the situation is very extreme and is not something you would expect to happen, but I would question whether five children could run off to a forest, leave notices of their presence at each robbery they enact but still not be found by their parents or authorities. We are not told how old the children are, but they are all still at school, and Michael is substantially younger than the others. But other than this, I enjoyed this. Not quite as good as The Island at the End of the World, but good all the same.

The Woman In Black by Susan Hill

I intended to read this over Christmas, but since reading didn't happen much at all over Christmas, I settled down and read The Woman in Black on New Year's day instead. This is a story narrated by Arthur Kipps, about an event that happened to him at some point in his past. Although actually he is not narrating, he is writing it down, as he cannot bring himself to speak of the events. He is writing at a time in his life when he is happy with his wife and step children all gathered together for Christmas. As his family are amusing themselves telling fanciful ghost stories around the fire, he slopes off to remember his own, very real ghost story, which is the story told in this book.

Working in a solicitors firm, Arthur Kipps is sent north to deal with the affairs of a long standing client of the firm and attend the funeral. When he arrives in the town, he discovers that no-one else will be attending the funeral and no-one is willing to speak to him about the lady, or the property he has to visit to recover papers. As this is a ghost story, it is obvious that all is not going to go well, and the chain of events are kicked off with Arthur's sighting of a mysterious, sick looking woman in black at the funeral.

Arthur soon learns that the people in the town are frightened of this woman, and are not willing to talk to him about the family, so it is left to him to piece together the facts from his sojourn out at the dead woman's house. It is a creepy atmospheric tale, complete with swirling fog, ghostly noises and a gothic house that can only be reached at certain times of day due to the tide covering the route in and out. The atmosphere is built up slowly and expertly, with Arthur starting out quite blase about the whole affair, but gradually becoming convinced of the malevolent nature of the place. It is not just the actual presence that is responsible for the haunting, it seems as if the house and the land it stands on is malevolent as the actual ghost.

Arthur becomes more and more convinced of the supernatural elements of the place as he experiences more, and his investigations into the paperwork reveal more and more about the family history of the family that lived in the house. I think I liked the mystery element of this book as much as I liked the Ghost story element. Obviously, the two are intertwined, as the mystery itself is the mystery of who the house is haunted by, and why. And the ending comes very suddenly and shocked me, even though I have spoken to a few people who said they saw it coming.

I really enjoyed this. It was short and quick to read, but good spooky fare for new years day.

Reading Challenges

I'm a bit late posting these, they were supposed to go up over Christmas but I took a couple of weeks off so they have had to wait until now. This is just the list of challenges, the actual lists of books as I read them will be posted here.

• The Pub Challenge
• Bibliophilic Books Challenge
• Take Another Chance
• 451 Challenge
• Whats in a name
• Support your local library challenge
• Twenty Ten Challenge
• World Religion Challenge
• A-Z Challenge

An Honest Scrap Meme

I was tagged for this by Anothercookiecrumbles. I've been thinking about this for days, trying to think of things that nobody else knows was hard, especially when they really should be book related. But here goes!

a. ‘The Honest Scrap Blogger Award’ must be shared.



b. The recipient has to tell 10 (true) things about themselves that no one else knows


c. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.


d. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded

1. When I was a child, and reading in bed, I would only stop reading on a page number divisible by 10.
2. Aswell as the above, I would only stop reading on the hour, or half past. And it had to be dead on! If I missed it, I would continue for another half hour.
3. The above two rules only applied in bed, and don't apply anymore!
4. I frequently read online summaries of books my sister pushes me to read because she's very easily offended if I say it's not my thing! (she doesn't read this)
5. I categorise my TBR into daytime and evening books. Daytimes ones tend to have shorter chapters, and therefore are easier to read in short spurts. Some people do know this, but they all think I'm strange. Seems normal to me though!
6. I went through a four(ish) year period in my twenties where I hardly read anything! Shocks me now when I think about it! I don't know how I coped. People don't know because anyone who knows me now wouldn't believe it!
7. I own three copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar because I didn't want to share mine with Dylan when he was born, and then he refused to let me pass his copy on to his sister (how could I force him to when I wouldn't do it)!
8. I HATE CHARLES DICKENS
9. I have bought four copies of English Passengers by Matthew Kneale because I keep lending it out and not getting it back. I should stop doing it, but I love it so much I want other people to read it!
10. The first 'grown up' authors I can remember reading are embarrassing now. Jilly Cooper and Jeffrey Archer. I really think that should have stayed a secret, but I needed a number 10!

Well, thats it! That really was harder than I thought it would be! And I'm not going to tag anyone, just do it if you feel like it!

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

Who could not read a book titled The Bookshop? And more importantly, who could imagine the people of a town not actually wanting a bookshop in their town? But that is what happens in this short novel. Florence Green buys up property in a small East Anglian town with the intention of turning it into a bookshop, which she does succeed in achieving. But she is challenged at every step by the inhabitants of the town, the main mover of which suddenly decides she would like the building to be an arts centre for the town, even though the building has been empty for a long time.

And that really is as much as I think I can say about the story. Any more would ruin the story, and leave nothing for anyone to find out for themselves. But it wouldn't really matter because the book is more about the atmosphere and mood created by the author, and the characters in the story. The closed minded population of Hardborough are brilliantly evoked, even though they are only really sketched out. The novel is not long enough for them to be fully fleshed out characters, but by the descriptions of their actions, and the words they use their characteristics become obvious.

All throughout the novel, Florence's attempts to make the bookshop successful are thwarted by these people, who all in their very different ways, conspire against her to ensure her venture is doomed to failure. This failure is an ominous presence throughout the story, and the ultimate betrayal inflicted upon her is connected to her biggest success with her bookshop (a highly controversial novel).

I really enjoyed this book. It was a interesting portrayal of the damage a closed community can do to an outsider, or someone who wants to change things in their staid little town. And the tragic ending was poingnant and sad, but it really couldn't have ended any other way. I will be reading more by this author in the near future.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked this up. The Red Tent was recommended to me by my mother, which doesn't usually happen because we don't read the same things, but more concerning than that, she recommended it because one of the inmates at the prison library she works in thought I would like it! He was right, I did enjoy it, but I didn't realise she talked about me enough for the inmates to be able to recommend books for me!

The story in The Red Tent is narrated by Dinah, the unheard of sister of Joseph (of dreamcoat fame), and his brothers, and daughter of Leah, Jacob's first wife. In the biblical story, Dinah only gets a brief mention when she is raped and her brothers exact a bloodthirsty revenge. What the author does in this story is flesh out her story from her birth to her death, totally fictionalised of course, but interesting all the same. As well as putting the so called rape in context, which in itself casts a very dubious shadow over Jacob and his sons, Dinah tells the story of her upbringing with four mothers and the very different lives men and women led in biblical times.

The cover of this book quotes this as 'The oldest love story never told', and this is true of this book in two very different ways. It is a love story between men and women, most notably Leah and Jacob and Rachel and Jacob, as well as the love affairs that Dinah herself is involved in, although these do not occur until fairly late in the book. However it is also a story of the love,protection and solidarity of women and the lengths they will go to to protect and look out for each other, in a society when men an women essentially lead separate lives.

It was the solidarity and community spirit of the women in this story that I found most interesting. The Red tent of the title actually refers to the tent (coloured red) where the women of the clan retired to for three days during their menstruation. But far from being seen as a stigma, they use this time to celebrate their womanhood and impart knowledge and comfort to each other. In most biblical stories, women are in the background, if they are present at all, but in this story, it is the women who keep the family/society running and they see themselves in this role.

Still running with the theme of bonding and solidarity between women, it was also interesting for me to read the author's viewpoint on how they felt about and dealt with sharing husbands, and in some cases, losing responsibility for their own children. The rivalry between Leah and Rachel is shown in a different light in this story, and the lesser known wives/handmaids who also bore children to Jacob felt very differently about childbirth, although Dinah has equal praise for all four of her mothers. Dinah herself has a child she is not mother too as a result of her husband being murdered, and her pain is heartfelt and desperate at times.

In brief, this book manages to detail both the pain and unfairness that women suffered, but also the solidarity and bonding that got them through life and also shows their absolute necessity in supporting each other through the hardships they suffer, both mental and physical.