For the last two days I have been glued to the TV and Internet, watching the horrific events unfolding in Japan. It doesn’t feel right to let the situation pass without mention, but I don’t feel I can add much to the extensive media coverage that is already out there. Instead I’ll briefly explain why I love Japan and introduce you to a few of my favourite Japanese things.
I have been to Japan three times and so have spent a reasonable amount of time in the country. I love it there! The scenery is beautiful, the culture is fascinating and the food is delicious. Basically it has everything you could ever want in a holiday. I can only begin to imagine the suffering that is taking place there now. It is all so sad.
It will be a long time before I stop thinking about Japan so I thought I’d try to add some positivity to the situation and highlight a few things from the country that you can enjoy without going there:
Out by Natsuo Kirino
This is the best thriller I’ve ever read. It contains numerous moral conundrums on top of vivid characters and a compelling plot. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Sesame Sauce
I used to bulk buy bottles of this sesame sauce whenever I went to Japan, but I have now discovered that I can buy it at The Japan Centre in Piccadilly. This means I always have some available and can spread it all over my salads without fear of running out.
Kodamas
I love Japanese mythology – their stories always seem so much more exciting than ours. Kodamas are tree spirits and they are so cute! Here is a short video explaining a bit about them.
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
This was my first introduction to the bizarre world of Murakami. Weird and wonderful. Everyone should experience Murakami.
The Films of Miyazaki
The above kodama clip comes from Princess Mononoke, but I have loved every Miyazaki film that I’ve seen. You never know what will happen next and the stories are so different from anything I’ve watched before. Highly recommended.
When I began blogging I never dreamt that it would lead to the events I’ve been lucky enough to experience recently. The past few weeks have been particularly exciting and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to let you know what I’ve been up to.
A Celebration of Women’s Fiction
Pan Macmillan invited me to attend an evening celebrating women’s fiction.
I'm in green, at the back, in the middle of the photo.
I felt a little out of place as the event focused on chick lit, but I met up with Elle from Trashionista and I enjoyed learning about the world of UK Romance blogging. I hadn’t heard of her blog before, but it made me realise how little interaction I have with bloggers from different genres. I’m going to make the effort to familiarise myself with a wider range of bloggers (especially on Twitter) as we all share that passion for books and have many of the same issues with blogging, reading and balancing the two.
The night was very glamourous and several celebrities were in attendance. Unfortunately I’m very unobservant and so failed to spot any!
I came away with copies of two books:
Emma Donoghue’s Room was also being promoted that night and so I was able to let people know how wonderful it was. I don’t think that was necessary though – copies of her book were flying off the shelves and lots of other people were raving about it too!
It was a lovely evening and I felt very spoilt.
Author Speed Dating
You may have already seen thatChris Cleave mentioned this event on the Guardian blog. Sceptre invited several bloggers to meet a wonderful group of authors in central London. I was particularly excited to meet Andrew Miller and Chris Cleave, two authors I love (if you haven’t read their books then you really should). I was also introduced to many new-to-me authors including Jenn Ashworth, Jill Dawson and Giles Milton.
Me with Andrew Miller Me with Chris Cleave
I got to talk to a group of three or four authors for 20 minutes before moving on to another set. They let us know about their new books and I explained a little about my life as a blogger. I have never felt more like a celebrity and was embarrassed by the attention lavished on us. Time flew past and the whole day was very special. I’m looking forward to reading the books written by these authors when they are released later this year.
An Evening with Jean Auel
Last Monday I headed to The Natural History Museum in London to hear Jean Auel talk about her Earth’s Children series. I found her fascinating. She was in conversation with palaeoanthropologist, Professor Chris Stringer, and I was impressed by how knowlegable Jean Auel was about the life of early humans. She has been deeply involved in archaeological research since she began writing the series 30-years-ago and seemed to have a close relationship with those in the field.
I loved hearing her talk about her trips around the world to visit important archaeological sites and was impressed to learn that she has tried most of the techniques mentioned in the books herself. She didn’t stop at making snow caves and starting fires, but even went as far as tanning leather using the brain of the animal. It is always nice to know that the facts in books like these are based on thorough research, but I’m glad she is the one squashing brains and I only have to read about them! If you ever get the chance to listen to Jean Auel talk then I highly recommend that you go.
World Book Night
For World Book Night I gave away copies of A Fine Balance at my son’s school. It was a wonderful experience! I was worried that people wouldn’t be interested in a literary chunkster, but they seemed genuinely delighted to receive a copy. The great thing was that it became a catalyst for conversation about books. By the time I’d finished giving away my copies all the little groups of parents/teachers were talking about books. I could hear people recommending a whole range of different genres to each other and I think that this conversation about books was the most important aspect of World Book Night. I’m sure that many people will read books based on the recommendations they received and if that is the case then WBN can be declared a success.
A Fine Balance is my favourite book. It is set in India in the mid-1970 and shows how the lives of four ordinary people are overturned by the Emergency, a period of political turmoil and violence.
It brings the country to life, enabling you to feel what it was like to live in the slums, struggling to survive each day.
Photo credit: Ben Garrison, Flickr
But it also shows life in the beautiful, rural areas.
Photo credit: Shayon Ghosh, Flickr
There is violence and death, but there is also love and an endless feeling of hope that warms my heart.
Photo credit: Sistak, Flickr
A Fine Balance has everything that you could ever want in a book:
fantastic characters
an exciting plot
vivid descriptions of a different way of life
fascinating facts
an array of human emotion
I’m going to be giving out copies of A Fine Balance in my local community for World Book Night. I really hope that I can help to bring the magic of this book to a few people who wouldn’t otherwise have come across it.
If you’d like to know more about the book then please take a look at the profile I created on Book Drum.
My New Year’s Resolution is to give up on books that aren’t outstanding. I don’t want to miss out on a gem that happens to have a poor beginning, so I hope that you can help me sort the wheat from the chaff.
I foolishly allowed myself to run out of audio books and so grabbed this one from the shelf without doing any research. I hadn’t read any Ngaio Marsh before, but wanted to experience one of her classic crime books. This one is a murder mystery set on a ship. It struggled to hold my attention from the beginning, but I can’t decide if this is due its unsuitability as an audio book or whether I’d have the same issues with the print version. It was slow, felt very dated and the characters were quite irritating. Do you think the print version would be any better?
I ordered this book from my library after seeing several people raving about it on the Booker forum. It had been described as a Russian thriller similar to Child 44, but apart from the fact they are both set in Russia I couldn’t see any similarities. Snowdrops has a strange writing style where things are written in Russian (and then translated into English in brackets). It had a very slow pace and nothing had happened when I gave up at about the 80 page mark. My problems with the book probably only indicate its suitability for the Booker. Perhaps I’ll re-read it when it makes the shortlist?
I know that a lot of people really loved this one and so I’m quite sad to be going against the grain. It started off well, but after a gripping first chapter I began to lose interest. I failed to warm to the characters and the plot didn’t do enough to grab my attention. I’m afraid this is another victim of my harsh new rejection policy.
The quality of the books I’m reading is continuing to improve. I’m giving up on an increasing amount of books and finding that I’m putting them down much earlier than before – some are hitting the library return pile after just a few pages. I’ll have another Read or Reject post up soon, but I think I’ll have to avoid mentioning books I gave up on quickly as otherwise that post would be enormous!!
I don’t think I’ve read three 4.5 star books in one month before! These three books are very different, but all have that special magic that makes them memorable. I highly recommend that you give them a try.
The Orange Prize long list will be announced on 15th March and so the second half of the month will involve my investigations into the list. I’m hoping that I’ll already have read many of them (otherwise my Orange longlist prediction post will make me look silly!), but I’m also hoping to be introduced to a few wonderful new authors.
The above kodama clip comes from Princess Mononoke
