Forfatter: Mirthful

June to October

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Dreadful. And now I can hardly remember what I’ve read all summer (and autumn…). I’m bound to leave something out.

Anyway:

The Imperfectly Natural Baby and Toddler – Janey Lee Grace
Interesting and contains lots of tips for things I hadn’t heard about before, but reads a blit like a list of weblinks at times (this is good for usefulness but for readability? Not so good.)

First Among Sequels – Jasper Fforde
Brilliant, but missing something that I can’t put my finger on. Still, definitely brilliant. Just not quite perfect.

A Widow for One Year – John Irving
Yay! I finally got around to finishing a John Irving novel! I brought A Widow for One Year to Austria planning to release it once I’d finished, but somehow didn’t get as much reading done as I’d intended. For a long time I thought I might just leave it even if I didn’t finish, as I didn’t feel compelled to keep reading, even half-way through the book, but that would have entailed having to buy something else to read, and I never found anything I wanted to buy. By the time we were packing our bags to go home I only had a couple of hundred pages left, and found that the story had grown on me and that suddenly I could hardly put it down. Strange stuff. I might just have to buy some more Irving (especially if I find more cheap second-hand copies like this one).

Death at La Fenice – Donna Leon
A bookcrossing copy I picked up in Vienna. Pretty entertaining, I’ll probably read more Leon.

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
On the 1001 books list. I can see why.

Intimacy – Hanif Kureshi
Also on the 1001 books list, which is why I read it. That is, I read the story actually entitled Intimacy, and struggled to get through that, despite its relative briefness and it’s status as a «classic». I’m sure it’s a brilliant portrayal of a middle-aged guy planning to leave his wife, but I just thought it was dreary. I then read the following story in the book, something Night-ish, and found that it was basically about a middle-aged guy who’d left his wife. And then I gave up. I’m sure I’m at fault rather than Kureshi, we all have our hang-ups and one of mine is that my empathy fuse blows when you mix infidelity into the story and so I fail to connect with the characters at all, which takes the fun out of it.

So Many Books, so Little Time – Sarah Nelson
Unfortunately not as good as I’d hoped. As many of the other readers of the bookcrossing-copy I read I would have liked more books and less life, I guess, but my main gripes were with Nelson’s way of presenting herself and her reading. Firstly, she talks about her «discovery» that you really don’t have to finish books you don’t like as if it’s something profound – a rite of passage, «growing up» – which rather irritated me, but then she goes on to say that she doesn’t want to discuss or give her opinion on books she’s given up on. What? You read 200 pages of a 400 page novel and then decide you really can’t be bothered to finish it, but you maintain that you don’t have the «right» to say that the book sucked (or wasn’t quite to your taste) since you didn’t stick with it to the bitter end? Seriously, if a novel doesn’t manage to capture your attention sufficiently to make you finish it has fundamentally failed in its object and you’re entitled to say whatever you like (well, ok, I’d stay away from such statements as «the ending sucked» if you haven’t actually read the ending, but you know what I mean…). It made me suspect that Nelson really hasn’t «grown up» and that she’s still uncomfortable about leaving books unfinished, for all her protestations that this is something she has learned to do. The other is with the project itself: She reads books for a living, for goodness sakes, and still 50 books a year seems to have been a daunting task? Even last year, when I really didn’t read a lot, I read that much, and I’m up to 43 (and two halves) this year, despite giving birth in January (which everyone told me would be the death of reading novels, as I’d never be allowed to, or indeed able to, concentrate for long enough). I’m not impressed.

The World According to Bertie – Alexander McCall Smith
Perfect, as usual.

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

Ordered from Play.com

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The World According to Bertie – Alexander McCall Smith
The Careful Use of Compliments – Alexander McCall Smith
The Bubblegum Three – Alexander McCall Smith
Slam – Nick Hornby
The Complete Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby

I was reading Nick Hornby’s The Complete Polysyllabic Spree when I set up the bookblog in WordPress, and I thought this listing of books bought is actually a pretty good idea, perhaps I should do that. So here it is.

Oops. It’s been a while…

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Ah well.

After American Pastorale, I reread the Aubrey/Maturin series for the umpteenth time, so that accounts for about two months…

Since then I have no excuse, except it’s hard to keep both a baby and a laptop on your knee at the same time. Anyhoo, I’ve been reading:

Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus – not a high point. It’s engaging, but seems rather pointless and left me feeling that it lacked any sort of conclusion.

Nattelangs av Gro Jørstad Nilsen var noe meningsløs. Ingen god reklame for norsk litteratur denne heller. Er det bare jeg som er uheldig eller står det så dårlig til?

Matilda, litt av en robot av Philip Newth. Ny Matilda-bok! Litt skuffende, riktignok. Historien hang litt dårlig sammen, synes jeg, særlig har jeg vanskelig for å godta at robotene skulle kunne ønske seg følelser dersom de ikke har en slags følelser allerede (kan man ønske seg noe hvis man ikke kan føle?). Vanskelig å si om Newth er blitt dårligere eller jeg eldre… Det finner jeg vel ut om noen år når det er på tide å begynne å lese Matilda-bøkene for ungen.

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich – a reread, as it was one of the few books I could find on my shelves with a botanical word in the title and therefore useful for Alvhyttan’s May Flowers / Botanical Challenge 2007. Hence this is going to be bookcrossed shortly, but I wanted to reread it first. As usual with Louise Erdrich this story was magical and down to earth at the same time. Definitely an author to note on your TBR-list if she’s not already there.

Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse – Wodehouse being Wodehouse, this was funny and clever.

I’m sure there’s more… In which case I’ll add them later.

American Pastoral – Philip Roth

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When I was admitted to hospital for observation rather unexpectedly because of high blood pressure in the last week before my due date, Martin had to be sent in to the town centre to provide reading material, as we had both, inadvertently, left home without a book. Philip Roth’s American Pastoral was not a bad choice for an emergency read. The novel is engaging and touches on some profound issues around identity and image. However, I found it ended somewhat prematurely, I would have liked another few chapters to «round off» the narrative. I assume Roth has his reasons for ending the way he does, and I suppose, in retrospect, I can see that it makes sense on some levels. And it should not put you off reading the book.

I finished American Pastoral while waiting for the inducing of the kid’s birth to take effect, and the next book I picked up was Master & Commander. Jupp, I’ve started my – uhm- is it fourth or fifth? – reread of O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, so if I do not update the bookblog for a month or two (what with a newborn baby in the house, there is limited time available for reading) you’ll know why.

Rambling on the Road to Rome – Peter Francis Browne

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Rambling on the Road to Rome is another book I picked up in Hay last year. As travelogues go it’s ok, but that’s about it. It never really caught my interest, and had anything else beckoned, I might easily have put it down and never returned.

For one thing the narration it is far more disjointed than such a linear journey gives any excuse for. In fact, I almost gave up right at the start when on the very first night Browne is waiting outside a hotel that, according to a sign on the door is supposed to open at seven but doesn’t. He is on the point of giving up and finding somewhere to pitch his tent, when a couple arrives who also want to stay in the hotel and the woman – the husband is parking the car or something – says «You wait here, I’ll find a phone and call their number.» What happens next is not clear, as the narrative gets lost in a musing on dreams and dogs, and suddenly it is next morning (that is, I assume it’s next morning, it’s Monday morning, at least, Browne does not actually make it clear whether it is next morning or two months later, but that the hotel debacle took place Sunday evening would tally well with Browne’s statement that Toul «was closed when I arrived»). Not that I expect a painstaking account of every minute of every day of the whole journey, but I do feel that the reader should not be left to assume large parts of the action.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that the book – if not necessarily the journey – seems rather pointless. I have a hard time defining for myself exactly what the point of a travel book should be, but whatever it is, it’s missing from this one. Still, it’s not badly written, and it’s interesting enough in parts. I’m unlikely to ever want to read it again, though, so it’ll be bookcrossed soonish.

Books read 2006

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  • Rambling on the Road to Rome – Peter Francis Browne
  • Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation – Lynne Truss
  • Faster, They’re Gaining – Peter Biddlecombe
  • A Good Man in Africa – William Boyd
  • The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Ikoner i et vindu – John Erik Riley
  • The Arm of the Starfish – Madeleine L’Engle
  • No Logo – Naomi Klein (reread)
  • Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman
  • Pappa for første gang – Finn Bjelke
  • ABC for spedbarnsforeldre – Nina Misvær
  • The Baboons Who Went This Way and That – Alexander McCall Smith
  • The Outlaws of Sherwood – Robin McKinley
  • Spindle’s End – Robin McKinley
  • Vita Brevis – Jostein Gaarder
  • False Impression – Jeffrey Archer
  • Tales of a Female Nomad – Rita Golden Delman
  • Misfortune – Wesley Stace
  • Goodnight Mr. Tom – Michelle Magorian
  • Running with Scissors – Augusten Burroghs
  • Dødens drabanter – Gunnar Staalesen
  • Venezia – Kjell Ola Dahl
  • Friends in High Places – Donna Leon
  • I Know You’ve got Soul – Jeremy Clarkson
  • Draogonsinger – Anne McCaffrey (reread)
  • Dragonsong – Anne McCaffrey (reread)
  • Dragonflight – Anne McCaffrey
  • Dragonquest – Anne McCaffrey
  • Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot – Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
  • The Grand Tour: Or the Purloined Coronation Regalia – Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
  • Encounters with Animals – Gerald Durrell
  • The Overloaded Ark – Gerald Durrell (reread)
  • Dope – Sarah Gran
  • Fever Pitch – Nick Hornby (reread)
  • JPod – Douglas Coupland
  • Sudden Wealth – Robert Llewellyn
  • Peat Smoke and Spirit – Andrew Jefford
  • A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian – Marina Lewycka
  • A Piano in the Pyrenees – Tony Hawks
  • One Hit Wonderland – Tony Hawks
  • Assassin trilogy – Robin Hobb (reread)
  • Liveship Trader trilogy – Robin Hobb (reread)
  • Her Mother’s Daughter – Marilyn French
  • Inkspell – Cornelia Funke
  • Love Over Scotland – Alexander McCall Smith
  • Dragondrums – Anne McCaffrey
  • Draogonsinger – Anne McCaffrey
  • Dragonsong – Anne McCaffrey
  • Pappan och havet – Tove Jansson
  • Three Dot-books – Inge Møller
  • The Lighthouse – P. D. James
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
  • My Uncle Oswald – Roald Dahl
  • The Wicked Winter – Kate Sedley
  • Lake Wobegone Days – Garrison Keillor
  • The Fourth Estate – Jeffrey Archer
  • Hver sin verden – Marianne Fredriksson
  • Something Rotten – Jasper Fforde
  • The Well of Lost Plots – Jasper Fforde
  • Lost in a Good Book – Jasper Fforde
  • The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde
  • De fire og han som gjør galt verre: begynnelsen – Hans Frederik Follestad
  • Frelseren – Jo Nesbø
  • Blue Shoes and Happiness – Alexander McCall Smith
  • Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator – Roald Dahl
  • At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels in Paraguay – John Gimlette
  • Inkheart – Cornelia Funke
  • Going Solo – Roald Dahl
  • According to Queeney – Beryl Bainbridge
  • Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse – Brigid Keenan
  • Waltzing Through Flaws – Paula Sharpe (reread)
  • The Last Battle – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • The Silver Chair – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • Prince Caspian – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • The Horse and His Boy – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • The Magician’s Nephew – C. S. Lewis (reread)
  • A Perfect Match – Sinead Moriarty
  • The Baby Trail – Sinead Moriarty
  • 100 Shades of White – Preethi Nair
  • Our Hearts were Young and Gay – Emily Kimbrough and Cornelia Otis Skinner
  • The Business – Iain Banks
  • The Deep Blue Goodbye – Travis McGee (reread)
  • The Chronicles of Robin Hood – Rosemary Sutcliff (reread)
  • Lost for Words – John Humphrys
  • Wedding Season – Darcy Cosper
  • The Crocodile on the Sandbank – Elisabeth Peters
  • English Journey – Beryl Bainbridge
  • Warmly Inscribed – Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (reread)
  • Slightly Chipped – Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (reread)
  • Used and Rare – Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone (reread)
  • 84 Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff
  • (part of) A Game of Thrones – George R. R. Martin
  • Something Muffins – Stewart Clark
  • Broken English Spoken Perfectly – Stewart Clark
  • Typisk norsk – Petter W. Schjerven et. al.

Yikes!

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It’s been so long (12 November?!) that I’m not even sure I can remember everything, never mind which order…

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss – while I agree with the zero tolerance approach, this book didn’t quite do it for me. Not quite funny enough, and not quite extreme enough. Or something.

Faster, They’re Gaining by Peter Biddlecombe – entertaining enough, but that’s about it (will be bookcrossed).

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd – received as a RABCK. I loved the film when I saw it years back, I struggled somewhat with the book, though. I think it’s probably just my old problem of needing to empathise with the main protagonist and, frankly, Morgan Leafy is not the most appealing of characters… However, as Morgan «grows» as a character, I get more caught up in the story, so that by the end I’m beginning to forget about the struggle with the first half (or so). Still, not, I think, Boyd’s best (and I’ve only read two).

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne – Uhm. Yeah. Classic, you say? Why? Not my cup of tea. For one thing I find it hard to believe that ANYONE (let alone a seven-year-old child) ever spoke like that.

Ikoner i et vindu av John Erik Riley – Tja. Ikke dårlig, bare ikke særlig bra. Hovedproblemet, kanskje, er at de forskjellige fortellerstemmene lignet alt for mye på hverandre til å være særlig overbevisende som forskjellige fortellere. (Blir bookcrosset.)

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle – another RABCK. Pretty enjoyable, this, but I agree with rednumbertwo who sent it to me that the religious/spiritual overtones were a little hard to swallow. Not giving up on L’Engle, though.

No Logo by Naomi Klein – a reread prompted by the Husband reading it for the first time. Somehow it’s stayed with me for longer and been more fundamentally upsetting this time round, probably because of the pregnancy. It seems worse, somehow, to contemplate the baby wearing clothes sewn by children or even adults in sweatshops than wearing such clothes myself (though I hardly like the latter thought). I suppose it’s a good thing to become more «hung up» on such issues, but it’s certainly made shopping a lot more difficult…

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman – clever and entertaining, and a quick read as it was quite difficult to put down for any amount of time.

Pappa for første gang av Finn Bjelke – kjøpt til mannen i julepresang (kjempeoppfinnsomt, sant?). Lettlest (vi hadde begge lest den innen utgangen av 2. juledag) og underholdende, men med noen gode poenger (tror jeg da – vi får se hvordan realiteten blir…).

ABC for spedbarnsforeldre av Nina Misvær – sikkert nyttig…

The Baboons Who Went This Way and That by Alexander McCall Smith – another collection of folk tales from Africa.

The Outlaws of Sherwood and Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley – McKinley was a pleasant discovery. The Robin Hood version caught my eye, as I collect Robin Hood versions, and since they were both on sale and Spindle’s End looked intriguing, I bought both. In The Outlaws of Sherwood we meet a Robin Hood like no other Robin Hood I’ve ever come across. It’s a more realistic novel than any other Robin Hood novel I’ve ever read, and the characters are all more human and fallible. Much as I love the legend of the (almost) invincible outlaw, I hugely enjoyed this fresh take. Spindle’s End is Sleeping Beauty retold, with surprising twists to the tale, and rather a lot of «embroidery», seeing as filling a novel with just the basic tale would be rather difficult. It’s pretty and competent embroidery, however, and is to be recommended. I’ll be looking for more McKinleys – and not just on sale, either.

Vita Brevis av Jostein Gaarder – jeg nærmest skummet gjennom denne. Kanskje fortjener den mer oppmerksomhet, men jeg er ikke så sikker (nok en bookcrossing-bok).

Tales of a Female Nomad – Rita Golden Gelman

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Tales of a Female Nomad – Living at Large in the World came to me through bookcrossing. First someone on the book talk forums mentioned the book and I put it on my wishlist. A while later, I got a PM asking if I wanted to be in a bookring for it, to which I obviously replied in the affirmative. And on Monday it arrived.

The short story: Rita (it feels unnatural to use anything but her first name once you’ve read the book) leads a so-called priveleged life in Los Angeles, dining with celebrities and attending all sorts of glamorous events. When her marriage falters at a point where the kids have moved away from home, she realises that there is finally nothing stopping her doing what she’s really wanted to do all along; travel, meet people in foreign places and share their lives for shorter or longer periods.

The book is a well-written account of her development into a female nomad and of the places and people she meets along the way. For anyone with a case of wanderlust, this is a book to lose oneself in, imagining getting away from it all and doing exactly what Rita is doing. As for copying her in real life, not everyone could. She has a steady income of 10-15 thousand dollars a year from her children’s books, not enough to live on in the states, but more than enough to provide a sound base when travelling in developing countries. I imagine the book may therefore be frustrating if you really want to do what Rita is doing. However, I know myself well enough to realise it’s not just money stopping me. Yes, I do love to travel, but I also love being «at home». I need a base, and I like my packrat possessions, I would feel frustrated living out of a suitcase for more than a few weeks, never mind years and years.

And how wonderful, then, that such books as these let me experience some of the thrill of discovery while I sit at home in my favourite chair.

I can’t help but think that Rita would appreciate her book becoming as well-travelled as she is through bookcrossing. It certainly seems appropriate to me. Rita has her own webpage here (with deleted scenes!), and this copy’s bookcrossing journal is here.

Misfortune – Wesley Stace

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Misfortune by Wesley Stace is just a really weird book. It’s certainly not a bad book, but I failed to be overwhelmed.

The basis for the plot is interesting enough: A baby is abandoned to die on a rubbish heap in early 19th century London, but is rescued by Lord Loveall who is in need of an heir. He brings the baby home and contrives a marriage and birth to make the outside world believe the child, named Rose after his dead sister Dolores, is really his. The problem is that Rose is undisputably male, not female, however, he is brought up believing himself to be a girl and much hoo-ha ensues once the truth is discovered.

Just after his discovery, Lord Loveall dies, and Lord Rose inherits, but in true victorian style, Rose’s right to inherit is contested by «the other side» of the family, but this conflict drowns somewhat in Rose’s breakdown following his discovery of his maleness. This is one of the novel’s weaknesses, Rose himself ceases to care what happens to his estate and fortune and as he is the narrator at this point (and through most of the novel) I, as the reader, also failed to care much, while the tension in the plot – the «what happens next?» – hinges at least partly on just what happens to the family inheritance.

Another weakness centers on the characters themselves, to a large extent they remain two-dimensional and to me, certainly, none of them really come alive. This makes it difficult to care overly much one way or another about anything that happens in the book. And though Rose’s journey to find him-/herself is actually the most original and in some ways the most convincing part of the plot, it loses most of its power when the reader doesn’t really care.

I also found the resolution of the inheritance plot somewhat contrived (though predictable). This is perhaps excusable, as it is the genre norm that such things be contrived. Less excusable is the downright dreariness and sillyness of the final confrontation between the two conflicting sides of the family, this failed to engage me on any level whatsoever other than «oh, get on with it!».

The strength of the novel, such as it is, lies in the use of historic materials and settings. A lot of research has obviously gone into making the plot and backdrop believeable, and this is largely successful. Apparently, some of the ballads used are available on CD, The Love Hall Tryst: Songs of Misfortune, recorded by the author under his other name of John Wesley Harding (what’s the story there, I wonder) and some fellow musicians.

So: Was it worthwhile? I’m not entirely sure what the answer is just now, I’ll have to get back to you on that.

(I still feel an O’Brian reread coming on, and such half-maddening reading experiences as this one are only likely to hasten that as they leave me with a need to read something I know to be worthwhile.)