Author: Jackie

Categories
2009 Mystery

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a delightful cozy mystery. The book is set in a small English village in the 1950s and the story begins with 10-year-old Flavia de Luce finding a dead snipe on her doorstep. The bird has a postage stamp impaled on its beak and her father’s reaction to the discovery implies that this is a warning of worse to come. His fears are confirmed when a man is found dying in a cucumber patch.

Flavia de Luce is a budding chemist with access to a laboratory in her country house. She enjoys learning about poisons and other chemical reactions – I loved her! She was such a wonderful, quirky character and I liked reading about the preparation and effects of various poisons. She wasn’t entirely believable as a ten-year-old, but then much of the plot was a bit far fetched so I don’t think realism is the key aim of this book!

“I wonder, Flavia,” Inspector Hewitt said, stepping gingerly into the cucumbers, “if you might ask someone to organize some tea?”
He must have seen the look on my face.
“We’ve had rather an early start this morning. Do you think you could manage to rustle something up?”
So that was it. As at a birth, so at a death. Without so much as a kiss-me-quick-and-mind-the-marmalade, the only female in sight is enlisted to trot off, and see that the water is boiled. Rustle something up, indeed! What did he take me for, some kind of cowboy?

The plot was fast paced and entertaining. It needed little concentration – I read much of it on a train journey, a time when I find the noise prevents me from reading anything too deep. The ending wasn’t earth-shattering, but the light mystery was well resolved.

Overall I enjoyed my journey back into the charming life of 1950s England and while I won’t be rushing out to buy the next in the series (The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag ) I’m sure I’ll get round to it at some point.

Did you enjoy The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie?

Which is your favourite cozy mystery?

Categories
1980s Classics

Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter

I hadn’t read any Angela Carter, so when I saw that Claire was creating a whole month dedicated to celebrating her work I decided it was time to give Angela Carter a try.

Nights at the Circus centres on Fevvers, an extraordinary character who claims she was hatched from an egg. During an interview she explains that she was a normal child until she hit puberty, when wings grew on her back. Fevvers is a famous circus performer and one of the most vivid characters I have ever read. Raised in a brothel, with a distinctive Cockney accent, her presence just leaps from the page – I loved her!

Her voice. It was as if Walser had become a prisoner of her voice, her cavernous, sombre voice, a voice made for shouting about the tempest, her voice of a celestial fishwife. Musical as it strangely was, yet not a voice for singing with; it comprised discords, her scale contained twelve tones. Her voice, with its warped, homely, Cockney vowels and random aspirates. Her dark, rusty, dipping, swooping voice, imperious as a siren’s.

Unfortunately the rest of the book didn’t capture my imagination in the same way. I’m not a big fan of magical realism and so its heavy presence in the book wasn’t a positive for me.

The book also contained little plot. Lots of things happened, but there was never that forward momentum compelling me to read on – it was more like reading several individual scenes instead of one connected story. I had hoped that everything would be brought together at the end, but instead I found the last page very irriating – I think I just lack Angela Carter’s sense of humor!

I’m really pleased that I read this book, as I think it is an important novel that has influenced many other authors, but I’ll have to leave all the Angela Carter promotion to Claire! 

Highly recommeded to fans of magical realism.

 

Most people seem to love this book, so I’ll leave you to have a look at some wonderful reviews:

 ….a dizzying and magical journey… Things Mean a Lot

Carter’s style is scandalously generous with brilliant descriptions, stunning word portraits that pack every event out with jewel-bright glimpses into the different layers of her fictional world. Tales from the Reading Room

Do you love Angela Carter’s books?

Do you enjoy magical realism?

Categories
Blogging Discussions Other

Can I Review Chocolate?

The title of this post may sound as though it has nothing to do with books, but bear with me, hopefully I’ll manage to get back to them by the end of this post!

A few weeks ago Lee from Chocolate Reviews sent out a message on twitter asking if anyone would like to review some chocolate. I loved the idea of doing this, but said I didn’t feel qualified to review chocolate as I haven’t reviewed any food before. Lee said this wasn’t a problem, as reviewing chocolate is just like reviewing a book:

The book cover makes you want to buy it, just like chocolate packaging; with chocolate its important to have a good beginning, middle and end and if its a good one then you don’t mind telling other people about it.

I’m willing to try anything once, so agreed to see what I could do. I received a beautiful bar of Charbonnel & Walker’s Pink Marc de Champagne chocolate in the post a few days later:

I was immediately impressed by the fancy box. The Royal Crest is like the chocolate equivalent of a book award to me – raising my expectations before I even try it! I have to admit that I’ve I’ve never eaten a bar like this  – I’m more normally found with something cheap from the corner shop!

I opened the box to review a slightly disappointing plastic wrapper, but inside that was the pinkest chocolate I’ve ever seen:

The pink chocolate was much softer than the bars I’m used to – I could easily cut it with a blunt knife. I wasn’t sure about the colour of it – the pink was too dark to appeal to me.

It almost melted in the mouth, having a rich creamy taste. The chocolate truffle centre had a slight alcoholic taste, but I wouldn’t associate it with champagne, as the flavour was too delicate for me to be able to pin-point it’s origin.

Overall, I found it to be a delicious treat, but I don’t think I’d buy a bar myself. I’d prefer to have 8 bars of cheap chocolate than 1 bar of this!

I don’t think I did the chocolate bar justice. I love chocolate, but I haven’t eaten enough bars of a similar standard to be able to compare them properly. I can tell you that I liked it, but not why. I have found a similar thing with reviewing books. Five years ago I’d have been able to tell you which books I loved and which I didn’t, but I wouldn’t have been able to give you any reasons for my choices.

The more books I read, the more fussy I become, but I also start to work out why certain books appeal and others don’t. I think this is a reason I struggle to review graphic novels – perhaps once I’ve read a few more I’ll be able to do a better job of it.

Do you think it is possible to review anything, or do you need to have experienced a large number of similar things to write a proper review?

How many graphic novels do you think I have to read before I can write a useful review for one?

Categories
2008 Memoirs

My Father’s Paradise – Ariel Sabar

Winner of National Book Critics Circle Award: Best Biography 2008

I bought this book after reading Violet’s review. I don’t read much non-fiction, but this one sounded too good to miss! 

My Father’s Paradise is written by journalist, Ariel Sabar, who decides to use his investigative skills to trace the history of his father, a man born in a remote part of Kurdish Iraq. His father is one of the last native speakers of neo-aramaic, an ancient language which has almost disappeared due to population migration. Ariel Sabar decides to do everything he can to record the language and traditions of his ancestors, before they are lost forever.

The start of the book reads almost like fiction, telling the story of his father’s life growing up in a small village. I loved this section! In many ways I wish the whole book had continued in this style (perhaps because I prefer to read fiction), but also because I found the sense of community in the village heart warming. I could feel Ariel’s love for the traditions shining through the text.

As time passes the book starts to bring in more historical facts, explaining the political situation in Iraq and why his father, a Kurdish Jew, had to flee to Israel. Some parts of the book book felt a bit dry, but in reality I needed these facts to fully understand what was happening.

The book then went on to describe their life in America and how they set to work recording the language and folklore of the Kurdish Jews. His father became a famous professor, internationally renowned for his work on aramaic text. It was amazing to see how much one man’s life had changed, but I found I was far more interested in his early life than his work in the University. I think this is summed up nicely by the words of Ariel’s father:

The more a society advances in a technical and material way, the more its people grow complicated and distant from one another.

Overall, this was a fascinating book but I wish Ariel Sabar would write another one, focusing only on life in 1930s Iraq.

If you’d like to learn more about this book then I recommend that you watch this Interview with Ariel Sabar.

Categories
2010 Historical Fiction Orange Prize

The Long Song – Andrea Levy

 Long listed for Orange Prize 2010 

The Long Song is set on Jamaica and follows July, a young slave girl, during the last few years of slavery and after she is granted freedom. 

The book is very different in style to Andrea Levy’s last book, Orange Prize winning Small Island, but I think they are both good in their own way. 

Much of the speech in The Long Song is written in Jamaican dialect, which adds atmosphere to the book. I think this would be even better on audio, as I’m sure my inner mind doesn’t quite do it justice! It isn’t hard to understand the dialect, in fact the whole book is quick and easy to read. I felt that this was actually one of the negatives of the book – it was so light that it seemed to skim over some very important scenes. The plot was quite simple, but the book covered a reasonably large chunk of time. This speed of events meant that I didn’t fully connect with July or understand which emotions she was experiencing. 

The narrator, July, frequently addresses the reader of the book, adding references to her present day life. 

Reader, my son tells me that this is too indelicate a commencement of any tale. Please pardon me, but your storyteller is a woman possessed of a forthright tongue and a little ink. 

Having read a few other reviews I’ve discovered that this style seems to annoy some people, but I found it a refreshing change to the similarity of many books. 

Overall, it was a light, entertaining read, but I have heard the amazing way Andrea Levy narrates her books and so I recommend getting the audio version of The Long Song.

Did you enjoy The Long Song?

Do you think it will make it onto the Orange short list tomorrow?

Categories
Other Other Prizes

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

A few commenters on my post yesterday hadn’t heard of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, so I thought I’d give you a brief introduction. It is one of my favourite book awards, as I have loved all the winning books I’ve read.

The prize is awarded annually to the best book written by an author from one of the 53 countries of the Commonwealth. The judging is initially divided into four regions:  Africa, Europe and South Asia, The Caribbean and Canada, and South East Asia and the South Pacific. with a long list and then a short list being announced before the winner is finally revealed.

The 2010 short lists were:

Note: Book short listed for Best Book is on the left; Best First Book on the right.

Africa

Canada and the Caribbean


Europe and South Asia

South East Asia and South Pacific

Overall Winners 2010

Best Book:

 

Best First Book:

I have a copy of Under this Unbroken Sky here and hope to read it at sometime soon. The rest of the books appeal to me too, so as soon as I spot copies in my local library I’ll be checking them out.

Previous winners of Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

1987 – Olive Senior, Summer Lightning

1988 – Festus Iyayi, Heroes

1989 – Janet Frame, The Carpathians

1990 – Mordecai Richler, Solomon Gursky Was Here

1991 – David Malouf, The Great World

1992 – Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey

1993 – Alex Miller, The Ancestor Game

1994 – Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

1995 – Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

1996 – Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

1997 – Earl Lovelace, Salt

1998 – Peter Carey, Jack Maggs

1999 – Murray Bail, Eucalyptus

2000 – John Maxwell Coetzee, Disgrace

2001 – Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

2002 – Richard Flanagan, Gould’s Book of Fish  

2003 – Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe

2004 – Caryl Phillips, A Distant Shore

2005 – Andrea Levy, Small Island stars4

2006 – Kate Grenville, The Secret River 

2007 – Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip  

2008 – Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes 

2009 – Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap stars4

2010 – Rana Dasgupta, Solo stars4

I have read seven CWP winning books and loved them all. Creating this list made me realise how much I have enjoyed books from this prize and so I’m going to try to read a few more in the future. I already have a copy of The Book of Negroes, so will try to fit it in next month.

Do you follow the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize?

Are there any books that you particularly recommend?