Category: 2009

Categories
2009 Historical Fiction

Kill-Grief – Caroline Rance

This book transports you straight into the horrors of an 18th century English hospital. The problem was that I’m not sure it is a place I ever want to witness! The squalor was vividly described, and I don’t think I have ever read a book which conveys the smells of the scene so convincingly. It was disgusting!

The book has clearly been meticulously researched and contains many interesting snippets about the medical practices of the time, but the majority of the time I didn’t really want to read about them: 

He pressed his thumb into the inflamed skin and a thicker bead of pus exuded from the cut, retreating like a wary maggot when he let go.

I was alternately absorbed and revolted!

The book follows Mary, a reluctant nurse, who has to deal with the all the bodily functions thrown at her, on top of the secrets she is hiding. Mary is struggling to become independent and is initially over-whelmed by her new  life in Chester, as she is used to a very different life by the sea. As the book progresses she gains in confidence and her hidden past is gradually revealed. The book is very well paced and the plot, although quite simple, is compelling.

If I had to make one criticism it would be that the male characters in the book did not stand out for me. Mary was such an amazing character that all the men in the book seemed to pale into insignificance beside her. I didn’t really mind this though – it is good to see such a strong female character, particularly in historical fiction, every once in a while.

Recommended to historical fiction fans with a stomach of steel!

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Are you squeamish?

Can you read gory scenes easily?

Categories
2009 Historical Fiction

Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel

 

I have seen several people tip this book for the Booker prize this year, and so decided to give it a try. Unfortunately this book was even more disappointing than The Children’s Book, which I think will win this year’s prize despite the fact it wasn’t for me.

Wolf Hall is set in Tudor England and tells the story of Thomas Cromwell, one of the lesser known people from this period in history, but a man with huge influence over Henry VIII. The book concentrates on the time around Henry’s divorce to Catherine of Arragon and his marriage to Anne Boleyn, a period in history which has been covered many times before, most successfully in The Other Boleyn Girl.

A book has to be outstanding to grab my attention when I know the story already and I’m afraid this book wasn’t. The writing was very clunky and didn’t flow smoothly. I found that I had to keep re-reading sections in order to work out the intended meaning.

One day my brother Tom goes out fighting. As punishment, his father creeps up behind him with a whatever, but heavy, and probably sharp, and then, when he falls down, almost takes out his eye, exerts himself to kick in his ribs, beats him with a plank of wood that stands ready to hand, knocks in his face so that if I were not his own sister I’d barely recognise him: and my husband says, the answer to this, Thomas, is go for a soldier, go and find somebody you don’t know take out his eye and kick in his ribs, actually kill him, I suppose, and get paid for it. 

I also found repetition, which I found irritating:

He hopes you are well. Hopes I am well. Hopes his lovely sisters Anne and little Grace are well. He himself is well. 

and descriptions which didn’t make any sense to me:

A wash of sunlight lies over the river, pale as the flesh of a lemon.

I never think of lemons as being pale. Is it just me?

The more I read, the more I disliked this book. It was getting to the stage where I wanted to throw it across the room, and as this book is 650 pages long that would be a dangerous thing to do. For the safety of my household I decided to stop reading the book after about 120 pages – I just couldn’t face 500+ more pages of it.

I skim read the rest and had a quick look at the ending, but nothing I saw made me regret putting it down.

Recommended to anyone with a Tudor obsession, but I think the writing style and the length of this book will be off-putting to some people.

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Hilary Mantel has written several other books, including Beyond Black, which was short listed for the Orange prize in 2006.

Have you read any of her books? What did you think of them?

Categories
2009

Lanterns on Their Horns – Radhika Jha

Lanterns On Their Horns is a gentle story about life in rural India. Ramu and Laxmi live in a village which has turned it’s back on modern society, but the couple are ostracised from village life because of the shame of Laxmi’s father’s suicide. They struggle to get by until one day their lives are changed by the discovery of a stray cow in the forest.

Manoj and Pratima live a very different life. Manoj works on a new project to artificially inseminate Indian cattle with European sperm, with the aim of increasing milk yield. Rural farmers do not understand the concept of cows becoming pregnant without a bull being present, and so are deeply mistrusting of him. The book highlights the conflict between modernisation and traditional rural life.

Lanterns On Their Horns isn’t like your typical Western novel, it has a distinctive Indian feel and some unique attributes. Whole sections are written from the perspective of a cow. It sounds really weird, but it actually works:

Being alone was new. From the time she was born, creatures similar to her had surrounded her. Now a nameless dread loosened her bowels. It was of a place to which cows went alone. It made her want to run, but she didn’t know where.

I loved being inside a cow’s mind and as with the amazing mouse scene in The End of Mr. Y I now have a renewed empathy for these animals. The pace of the book is quite slow, but I loved learning about Indian culture and traditions so much that I didn’t mind. This book gets deep into Indian life without the depressing violence of A Fine Balance, but it feels much more realistic than Q and A . I think it is a great average of the two.

If you like to be immersed in different cultures or have always wanted to know more about cows then this book is for you.

Recommended.

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Lanterns on Their Horns was released in the UK today. It isn’t available in the US at the moment, but you can buy it with free international delivery from The Book Depository.

About the author

Radhika Jha is a best selling author in India. Her debut novel Smell, won the French Prix Guerlain and has been translated into sixteen different languages. This is her second novel.

What is your favourite book with an Indian setting?

Have you read any great books which allow you to get inside the mind of an animal?

Categories
2009 Chick Lit

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx – Sally Koslow

The Late, Lamented Molly Marx is a light, but enjoyable chick lit novel, with a difference. The difference is that Molly is dead, and the book begins with her observing her own funeral.

Molly finds herself being able to watch her loved ones as they go about their lives without her and is also able to tune into their thoughts. We quickly realise that Molly’s life wasn’t straight forward and we are left trying to work out the cause of her death, which isn’t revealed until the end.

The book was too fluffy to be profound or thought provoking, so should be viewed as entertainment rather than giving any insight into the after-life or how to cope with the loss of a loved one.

I found the characters to be quite shallow and I didn’t like any of them, but strangely this didn’t really matter. I was pulled along by the mystery and found the ending to be both unpredictable and satisfying.

Overall, I found this to be a nice distraction from some of the deeper books I’ve been reading recently, but I don’t think I’ll remember much about it in a year’s time.

Recommended to chick lit fans who are looking for something slightly different.

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Categories
2009 Historical Fiction

The Lost Book of Salem – Katherine Howe

 

Note: This book is called The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane in America

I heard a real buzz about this book before it’s release. I saw a few people state it was their favourite book of the year, and they mentioned how much they were looking forward to publishing their review after it’s release date. I wanted to get in on the action, so it arrived through my letter box on it’s release date a few weeks ago.

I can see why people love it, but although I enjoyed reading it, it won’t make it on to my list of favourite reads in 2009.

The Lost Book of Salem is set during the Salem witch trials of the 17th century Massachusetts, and also in 1991, where Connie, a history graduate is studying the trials. Connie finds a parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane in an old cottage that belonged to her grandmother, and begins to investigate the secrets hidden in the cottage and in her family history.

The book is packed with 17th century atmosphere, and there are some really good spooky scenes – I especially loved the discovery of the mandrake! The historical sections were well written and had obviously been meticulously researched.

Unfortunately not everything was amazing. I found the central modern character, Connie, very irritating. She is supposed to be a history graduate (22-years-old?) but she behaved more like a 14-year-old. She just seemed slow. I don’t think there was a single mystery in the book which she managed to solve before me, and some of them were so straight forward I don’t know why they were mentioned. Here is an example of one of the worst offenders:

Connie raised her head, thinking. What was a ‘witch-bottel’? Bottel. A phonetic spelling of ‘bottle’. A witch bottle.

Overall, it was a gripping read, full of interesting facts about the history of witches, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype.

 

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Have you heard the hype about this book?

Did it make you want to rush out and buy it?

Is this your favourite book of the year?

Categories
2008 2009 Thriller

Six Suspects – Vikas Swarup

I loved Q&A (the book the film Slumdog Millionaire is based on) and so was excited to find Vikas Swarup’s latest book in the library. Unfortunately Six Suspects isn’t quite as good as Q&A.

The title refers to the six people who are all discovered carrying a gun at a party in which Vicky Rai, the son of a high-profile Indian Minister, is shot. Through a series of short stories we see into the lives of these people, and their motives for killing Vicky Rai are revealed.

Some sections were really good, especially the story of the mobile phone thief who found a briefcase full of money, but this seemed too similar to the central character in Q&A, who also suddenly comes into a lot of money. It felt like the best sections from Q&A had been condensed and then repeated here.

There were many sections of the book which seemed unlikely, and it didn’t have to charm be able to pull it off. One of the characters gets kidnapped and this section in particular seemed very unrealistic. The book touches on some very difficult subjects, including suicide bombings and poverty, but I felt these were rushed over and so I failed to get an insight into the minds of these people.  The fact that there were six central characters also meant that I didn’t really bond with them that well, as by the time I was getting to know them they were replaced with the next suspect. The sights and sounds of India were also not as present in this book as they should have been.

It is a light, easy read, and it’s 560 pages fly by, but I was disappointed by the ending, as although it is quite clever, it isn’t possible to work out who the murderer is, and that is what I love most about thrillers.

Overall, it was OK, but I recommend you read Q&A instead.

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Did you enjoy reading Q&A?

I haven’t seen the film Q&A yet? Which did you prefer – the book or the film?