Author: Jackie

Two Historical Fiction Sequels

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 11, 2013
10 Comments on Two Historical Fiction Sequels

Merivel by Rose Tremain

Five words from the blurb: physician, courtier, laughter, King, loyalty

Last year I read and enjoyed Restoration by Rose Tremain in which Robert Merivel found favour with King Charles II. Merivel is the sequel to this 1989 Booker shortlisted novel and it begins in 1683, towards the end of Charles’ reign. Merivel is just as entertaining as Restoration – so if you enjoyed the first book you’ll find the sequel equally satisfying.

The book begins with Merivel heading to Versailles to enjoy the courts of Louis XIV. It follows him to Switzerland and then back to England, covering similar themes to the first book.

The writing is vibrant and it is a wonderful insight into 17th century life!

Recommended to fans of Restoration.

Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville

Five words from the blurb: Australia, histories, relationship, love, stories

I loved The Secret River so was keen to read this sequel. Unfortunately it was written in a different style to the first book and I failed to engage with it.

Sarah Thornhill begins a generation after The Secret River and follows William Thornhill’s daughter, Sarah, as she grows up and falls in love with a mixed-race neighbour. Unfortunately their love affair was unconvincing and all the characters were two-dimensional.

The writing style was lighter and faster paced than that of The Secret River, but I felt it lacked the depth of the first book. I never cared about the characters and found myself losing interest in the plot. After a particularly unconvincing scene about half way through I abandoned it. I’ve heard similar complaints about The Lieutenant. Are any of Grenville’s other books as good as The Secret River?

DNF

The commenting problem on my blog has now been fixed, although all comments left in the last 24 hours have lost. 🙁 Sorry for all inconvenience caused.

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My Favourite Board Games

Over the Christmas period I played a lot of board games with my family. We recently started following the Spiel des Jahres in order to discover more unusual games and so I thought now would be a good time to share my favourites with you.

Go

As a child I was a big fan of the Japanese game Go. I ended up getting very good and toured the country playing tournaments. It is easy to learn, but is said to be one of the trickiest games to master – it is one of the only games in the world where a computer has yet to beat one of the top human players. It has been a long time since I played (mainly due to lack of an opponent!), but I still think of it fondly.

Monopoly

Monopoly has always been a favourite. I remember playing it for days at a time as a teenager. The novelty has worn off a little bit, but I’ll never refuse a game and can’t wait to teach my children how to play (the children’s version just isn’t the same).

Risk

I still haven’t worked out how to beat my husband at Risk, but I love trying! Games can take hours (or even days!) so we often revert to the shorter “missions” version, but this is the perfect introduction to the strategy games I love.

Carc assonne

This was our first introduction to one of the more unusual games and we fell in love. The great thing about it is that you can start off on a really basic level (ignore the farmers and five-year-olds can play) or you can add an increasing number of expansion packs until even the most skillful player is confused!

S ettlers of Catan

This is my favourite game at the moment. It can feel frustratingly slow at the beginning, but I love the way every player is involved in every turn. There is a lot of strategy and the fact that the set up is random means that no two games are ever the same. I bought my husband the Seafarers of Catan expansion for Christmas and it makes the game even better. Recommended to all strategy game fans! Has anyone tried any of the other expansion packs?

Stone Age

Stone Age is similar to Settlers of Catan in that you have to collect resources . It is better in that there are numerous different tactics you can use to win, but the disadvantage is that it can take a while for everyone to have their turn. It is also quite complex to learn so isn’t a good starting point for this type of game. I find it a great alternative for when I’ve played Settlers of Catan too many times in a row!

Hey, That’s My Fish!

Hey, That’s My Fish! is a recent discovery. It is one of those rare gems that children love (even my five-year-old enjoys it) but it also works well for adults. It is a bit fiddly to set up, but requires a great deal of strategic thinking to win.

Balderdash

Balderdash is the perfect game for all word lovers – especially if you have a larger number of people (6-10 works best). We also play our own version which involves picking a book and getting people to guess the first sentence. I haven’t played the expanded version pictured, but the original is a firm favourite.

Pictionary

Pictionary is another good game for a larger group. It is great for both adults and children and is especially amusing as my family aren’t very good at drawing!

Do you enjoy playing any of these?

What is your favourite board game?

2012 Books in Translation Other Prizes

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 7, 2013
17 Comments on The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

Winner of the 2010 Kenzaburo Oe Prize

Translated from the Japanese by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates

Five words from the blurb: pickpocket, strangers, past, tangle, escape

The Thief is a short, engaging book about a pickpocket who targets rich people on the streets of Tokyo. It vividly captures the roller-coaster of emotion that the pickpocket goes through as he searches for a victim and then skillfully relieves them of their wallet.

I breathed in gently and held it, pinched the corner of the wallet and pulled it out. A quiver ran from my fingertips to my shoulder and a warm sensation gradually spread throughout my body. I felt like I was standing in a void, as though with the countless intersecting lines of vision of all those people, not one was directed at me. Maintaining the fragile contact between my fingers and the wallet, I sandwiched it in the folded newspaper.

Very little actually happens in this short book. The plot is quite simple and revolves around the return of someone from the pickpocket’s past.

The writing quality was excellent and I was gripped to the story throughout, but on reaching the end I was slightly disappointed. Everything was too brief for me and, although I liked the ambiguous ending, a lot of the power was lost due to the subtlety of the writing. The use of symbolism and other literary devices meant that this book will reveal more on a second reading, but I found the number of unanswered questions a little frustrating.

This isn’t a crime novel in the traditional sense, but instead uses members of the criminal underworld to explore issues of loneliness and belonging. It is a lot more conventional than many Japanese crime novels and actually shares many similarities with last year’s Booker shortlistee, The Lighthouse.

The Thief is a well structured piece of observational literature, but it isn’t for anyone who likes everything to be tied up nicely at the end. Recommended to those who enjoy shorter stories that require a bit of thought to fully appreciate them.

The thoughts of other bloggers:

It’s sparsely written, just like its narrator, and it’s rather beautiful. Chasing Bawa

While the crime elements are all neatly in place in this book, it works on a deeper level as well, touching on the notions of psychological and social isolation, as well as the machinations of power and fate. The Crime Segments

This is a powerful, powerful novel. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time… Dolce Bellezza

To find more Japanese literature reviews head over to Tony’s January in Japan blog.

Tags Japanese

1930s Books in Translation Classics

War with the Newts by Karel Capek

Post author By Jackie
Post date January 5, 2013
11 Comments on War with the Newts by Karel Capek

Translated from the Czech by M and R Weatherall

Five words from the blurb: humorous, newts, trade, exploitation, fight

War with the Newts was one of the titles that caught my eye when I was browsing 1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I love dystopian fiction and because the intelligent, talking newts sounded so different from anything I’d read before I ordered a copy from my library immediately. I’m so pleased that I discovered this Central European classic – it was original, entertaining and carried many important messages about our society.

The book begins with the discovery of a colony of newts in Sumatra and it is obvious that these animals are special. At first they are trained to bring up oysters; the humans taking the pearls, whilst the animals are rewarded with the shellfish. It seems like a good relationship, with both parties benefiting from the other, but mankind quickly realises that the newts can be exploited to a far greater extent. They are soon trained to build underwater structures and it isn’t long before they are being bred, sold and shipped around the world.

It formed a mass of black, squirming, confused and croaking flesh on which dull thuds kept falling. Then a gap opened between two oars; one Newt slipped away and was stunned with a blow on its neck; after it another and another, till about twenty were lying there. ‘Stop it,’ shouted our leader, and the gap between the oars closed up again. Bully Beach and the half-bread Dingo snatched up in each hand the leg of one of the senseless Newts and dragged them over the sand to the boats like lifeless logs. Sometimes the stupefied body stuck fast between the rocks; then the sailor would give a sharp and savage jerk, and the leg would come off. ‘that’s noting,’ murmured old Mike, who stood beside me. ‘Why, man, he’ll grow another one.’

This book was easy and entertaining to read, but contained important messages about human greed. The blurb states that it is an allegory of early twentieth-century Czech politics, but I think the message is far broader than that. I can see similarities with many other governments and I think the moral problems introduced are universal.

War with the Newts was originally published in 1936 and I found it interesting to see how a Czech viewed the different countries of the world at this time. Stereotypes were used continually and it was amusing to see Capek’s opinion of how each country would treat the arrival of newts.

Part of me wished that the book had been more realistic. I think the story might have had more impact if the newts had remained well-trained animals instead of a special species that learned to talk overnight, but this is a minor quibble and I can see that much of the newt-based humour would have been lost if they hadn’t had the ability to communicate.

My only real issue with the book was the footnotes – they increased as the book progressed and seemed to get longer all the time. At some points the story in the footnote was longer than the actual scene in the book. It was distracting and ruined the narrative flow.

Although this book isn’t perfect it is an important book that deserves a wider audience. Recommended.

Tags Czeh, Dystopian Fiction

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope that you’ve had a good start to 2013 and have had a nice few weeks with your friends and family.

I’ve had a good Christmas and loved seeing my boys enjoy the excitement of it all. They got lots of toys, lego, books and games, but their favourite present appears to be a light saber torch that they enjoy “zapping” each other with.

I didn’t get any books for Christmas (everyone thinks I have too many already!) but I got a big fluffy dressing gown, a warm jumper, lots of chocolate and my husband bought me a Sonos Wireless Hi-Fi so that I can listen to my music (and audiobooks) in different rooms of the house.

I bought my husband a tow bar and a cycle rack so that we can now fit all four bikes onto the back of our car. We’re all looking forward to travelling further afield with our bikes.

We also got (and played) lots of board games over the holidays. I was going to tell you all about them, but ended up writing so much that I thought they deserved a post of their own. I’ll expand it and let you know all about my favourite board games next week.

I haven’t read much over the last few weeks, but I am now 300 pages into A Suitable Boy. I found it difficult to get into as there were so many different characters – it probably took about 150 pages for me to be fully engaged. But now I’m loving it all – even the political bits! I can see it becoming an all-time favourite. The only problem was the weight of the book, but I solved that by chopping it into manageable pieces – the greatest book vandalism I’ve ever been guilty of. I don’t regret it, there is no way my wrists could cope with the entire 1500 pages. Have you ever chopped a large book into pieces?

I also started Parallel Stories but abandoned it as there was no special spark to justify dedicating that much time to it. There was nothing wrong with the writing and I could see myself picking it up again at some point in the future – perhaps as a read-along?

I also abandoned Canada by Richard Ford as the characters were flat and I failed to empathise with any of them. I was expecting a deep literary tome and so was surprised by how light the tone of it all was.

On a more positive note I finished War with the Newts and A Trick I Learned from Dead Men; two wonderful books that I’ll tell you about soon.

Enjoy the rest of the week! I’ll be back soon with some book reviews.

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Farm Lane Book Awards 2012

Post author By Jackie
Post date December 22, 2012
27 Comments on Farm Lane Book Awards 2012

I’ve already listed the best books published in 2012 and my favourite reads of the last year, but there were many other books that stood out for different reasons. Here are the other books that deserve a special mention:

Best treatment of a difficult subject: The Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
This book looks at the way sex offenders are treated in American society. It is eye opening and thought provoking. Just a shame the ending wasn’t very good.

Author I’m most excited about discovering: Melvyn Bragg

Most Memorable Scene: The one with the cat and the piano in Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

Most surprising book: Bi rdsong by Sebastian Faulks
I thought this book would be really dull, but it captivated me.

Best premise: The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf

Best ending: The Cook by Wayne Macauley

Most memorable character: June from Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Best audio book: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green

Worst book: Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis

Best writing: A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Most thought provoking book: It’s a tie! T he Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman and HHhH by Laurent Binet
These books both deal with a similar subject matter. Both will make you think about the way history is recorded and what it is important to remember. They are my favourite books of the year and I highly recommend them.

Most gruesome scenes: The Cow by Beat Sterchi

Book which has improved the most since reading: The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
I wasn’t that impressed with this book when I was reading it, but on completion everything slotted into place and it went up in my estimation. Several months down the line my appreciation of this book continues to grow.

Book of the year: HHhH by Laurent Binet

HHhH is one of those rare, faultless books. It is thought provoking, ground breaking and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Do you agree with my choices?

Would you like to suggest any more categories for me to place books in?

This will be my last post of the year as I’m taking a short blogging break to celebrate Christmas/New Year.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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