Grace

StuckinaBook All , 8 Comments

I’m getting lazy in my old age, and always on the look out for friends to write guest posts here – especially when it means getting down my piles of review copies. A while ago I mentioned Grace by Alex Pheby in one of Stuck-in-a-Book Weekend Miscellanies (which never happened at the weekend when I remembered it was my Blog Birthday, sorry!) – well, it sounded like it would suit my housemate Mel, who has written a great review, below… (Oh, and do comment and say whether or not you’re intrigued, because I definitely am!)

I’m not really sure how to review a book, so I’m tempted to say: ‘it was good’ and leave it there. But I think Simon will give me a withering stare.

So…. Grace tells the story of Mr Peterman (his first name has become irrelevant), who has been in a secure psychiatric hospital for a long, long time. He escapes, is badly injured, and is nursed back to health (and sanity?) by the reclusive occupants of a weird, filthy little house in the middle of a forest, full of animals, dirt, and the clothes of dead Nazis. They are ‘Granny’, an old lady of ninety-nine who is a no-nonsense communist philosopher:

“I see you are shocked,” the old woman smirked, “but I will not apologise for the squalor. I have long since passed the age when I had energy to waste maintaining an illusion of cleanliness, if indeed I ever had it. Even the most pristine home is, in truth, a swarming mire of microscopic filth… The body must acclimatise to this fact, not deny it. Do you agree?”

Peterman clutched his leg defensively.

“I don’t know.”

…and her nameless twelve year-old ‘granddaughter’.

Being treated like a normal person in their house, away from his medication, Peterman becomes quite sane, recovers his character, and begins to tell them his story in return for theirs. I don’t want to ruin the whole thing for you. But the distrustful old woman and the innocent girl come to trust him, believe he is sane, and believe he is innocent, and eventually he starts to agree with their opinion. And most importantly, love comes back into his life.

I love books about crazy people. Let’s put that another way: I love books that deal with the issue of whether or not somebody is sane, where you can never quite be sure whether to trust the narrator and what is true and what is imagined. Maybe it’s the psychologist in me. Anyway, this is one of those stories, skilfully done.

‘Part Two’ of the book was my favourite – it’s a graphic portrayal of life in the secure hospital, and so well written that you start to doubt Peterman’s sanity yourself, even though for the first half of the book you have been totally convinced that he’s okay. Everything you’ve just read is thrown into question. These chapters made me worry that a sane person really could end up trapped in a world that believes they’re crazy. Once Peterman is inside and everyone believes he’s delusional, there’s no getting out by telling the truth…

Or IS it the truth?!

At this point, the book was so good that I almost missed my stop on the train.

So, my only slight reservation about this novel is that I was a bit disappointed by the ending. I’m not going to give it away. Upon reflection, this must have been a pretty difficult novel to end – Pheby was left with a choice between twee and unbelievable, devastatingly tragic, or some ambiguous third way. I won’t tell you which he chose. But I’m not sure what else he could have done. Oh, and I was also irritated by not being able to work out which country it’s set in. The UK, I think, but there seems to be way too much snow. I probably needed to just let that go… The ending aside, this is still a book that will really stick with you for a while… I am still thinking about it and it paints some vivid pictures you won’t forget in a hurry.

It’s a bit depressing when someone write a first novel this good. Basically, read it, it’ll be a worthwhile use of your time.

Creatures Great and Small

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Thank you so much, everyone, for your lovely and wise comments yesterday. I’m glad quite a few of us are in the same boat, and found all your comments reassuring and generally lovely. Thanks!

In amongst all the blogging chat, I was interested to hear your favourite woodland creatures… mine (and I have given this some thought, you can tell) oscillates between red squirrel, badger, and deer. Today it’s the badger – you and me, Bloomsbury Bell, we know where it’s at.

If any of you are ever in the North of England, you must pay a visit to Freshfield – we used to go there sometimes as children. It’s a forest filled with red squirrels! Not sure how they’ve managed to keep the grey squirrels away, but it’s quite a wonderful place – in my memory anyway. One of the few places I would sit quietly, apparently… these squirrels will come towards you, and eat food from your hand – oh I *need* to go on another visit there. Do you think a 24 year old would be out of place there?

Anyway. I do feel a little sorry for grey squirrels, because everyone now hates them for killing off red squirrels. Hence the sketch today (hope you like).

My housemate Mel is sitting next to me at the mo, and has plumped for the bat as her favourite woodland creature. We look for different things in animals… fluffy cuteness vs. ‘mad skillz’.

I realise that today’s post has had absolutely nothing to do with books… but after yesterday’s intense thinking, we needed a bit of light-heartedness didn’t we? If you’re *desperate* to be bookish, you can think of book with a squirrel in the title. Good luck… back tomorrow with proper literature and whatnot.

[Edit: I’ve just remembered something! When I was searching for ‘Simon Thomas’ in the title-search on the Oxford Library catalogue, the nearest result was ‘Simon The Squirrel Who Wouldn’t Wash’…!!]

Blogging…

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I don’t usually do these sorts of blog posts, worrying that they’ll turn into the stereotype of blogging which I never actually see in book blog circles, but which hover on the horizon of my mind like a cautionary tale (y’know, the ‘why does nobody sit next to me on the bus?’ type blogs)… but I’ve seen quite a few posts about blogging recently, like Eva’s and Simon S’s and I thought maybe you’d indulge me, just one time…

Eva started off her (very lovely and affirming) post by mentioning that quite a few bloggers have decided to stop blogging of late. I hadn’t actually noticed this, perhaps because none of my favourite bloggers *have* decided to do this, but I’m sad to hear it. It’s a funny old world, this blogosphere, and I certainly went through a stage where I couldn’t really think of anything to write, and did it partly out of obligation… but that was a long time ago now, and thankfully I’m enjoying it as much as ever now! I think I’m enjoying it mostly because I’ve realised there is no pressure for me to make my blog anything other than what I feel like it being. I don’t have to review all the latest books, I don’t have to accept all the review copies that I’m offered, I don’t have to post everyday if I’m too sleepy – and also I can write about funny little books that nobody else will know about, or even want to know about, because *starts singing tunelessly* “it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to!” No, wait, that’s the wrong message…

I suppose every blogger has moments of thinking ‘why is that blog more popular than mine?’ or ‘why did I get no comments on that post?’ – it’s just a side-effect of putting yourself out on a stage of any variety, and waiting to see what people’s response is. I happen to think that the people who read this blog are the nicest people in the whole wide world, so I’ve been very fortunate in that respect – it’s only occasional that I try to look at my blog with an objective eye, and wonder… ‘is it looking a bit tired?’ or ‘Am I the only person who hasn’t moved to WordPress?!’ I try and change things around every now and then, but let’s face it… I’m old!

Yes, my third birthday party seems to be akin to a 80th in terms of blogging. I try to keep up, but my joints just don’t work like they used to… just kidding, of course, but I do feel a bit of an old-timer around the blogosphere now. Which is lovely in one way, but rather odd in another. I see all these wonderful blogs start up, make those hesitant first posts, then find their voice, and then get dozens of comments on all their posts and write the most wonderful reviews – aren’t I sounding more and more like a great-grandparent every moment?

I’m not even sure where this blog post is heading, and I’m sure it isn’t coherent. I suppose I want to say how much I enjoy blogging, how many wonderful people I’ve met (either in person or virtually), how many wonderful books I’ve found out about, and how great in general the experience has been. And is continuing to be, don’t worry, I’m not stopping! But I also wanted to see if other people find the whole thing a little odd sometimes, and a little self-exposing… bloggers are often shy people, and sometimes it does feel out of character to put oneself ‘out there’ for anyone to read, and then wait to see who *does* read it…

Someone asked me at the Sceptre event whether I was ‘ambitious’ for my blog. And my instinctive answer was a definite ‘no’. I don’t want it to be my whole life, I don’t even want it to dictate my whole reading life – I’ve found my level, my niche, my lovely readership and I’m happy to stay where I am. But someone else there also said that it must be a lonely experience – and it really is the opposite of that. I’ve met more like-minded people through blogging than I could ever have imagined, and hopefully you’re like-minded enough not to mind this sort of splurgy-post… promise it won’t happen again! But I would be interested to hear your feedback on any or all of it, if you can make head or tail of what I’ve been trying to say…

Yes, this shouldn’t just be a ramble. I’d love to know:
Your experiences with blogging – do you go through peaks and troughs of enthusiasm?Does the stuff I’ve written strike a chord?
Do you secretly wonder why your stats fluctuate, and what’s affecting them??More positively – what’s your favourite thing about blogging?And… what’s your favourite woodland creature ;-)

Take care, folks, and thanks again for making the blogging experience so great – often quite unexpected and surreal, but definitely great.

The Haunted Bridge

StuckinaBook All , 3 Comments

First things first, thank you for all your lovely birthday wishes! And now onto another review…

Despite having a card index system of all my books (yes, sorry, I do) I am usually a disorganised person. Just ask my family, who claim to love me, disorganisation and all. Some bloggers have very complex systems with the books they receive for reviewing – shelved in date order, say, or kept in a separate part of the house from their other books. I sort of have a shelf for them, but the shelf was filled about a year ago, and the rest get put wherever I can find some space. And so, of course, I often forget I have them. Ironically, something placed on my ‘must read very soon’ shelf (only it’s not a shelf, it’s a bit of my desk next to a CD player and a mug-in-a-jumper of pens) is likely to be overlooked for a long time.

This is all a long run-up to saying that, somehow, it took me ages to read Jane Gordon-Cumming’s The Haunted Bridge and Other Strange Tales of the Oxford Canal, despite the fact that it appealed as soon as it dropped through the letterbox. Jane G-C, you may remember, wrote the funtastic [spelling error deliberate on my part, in an attempt to be youthful and hip] A Proper Family Christmas, which I reviewed back here. This time she has turned her attentions to ghost stories…

Now, if your first response to the words ‘ghost stories’ is – like me – to curl up under a duvet and repeat happy thoughts to yourself over and over again, then fear not. The stories in this collection – well, except ‘Landscape of Ghosts’, the final one in the book – aren’t scary. They’re interesting and fun and send a tiny little shiver down your spine, but not in a hide-behind-the-curtains way. This coming from a man who was incapable of watching Scream 2 – and, indeed, the spookier episodes of Doctor Who. So, fear not… and read on, as Mr. Bennet would say.

Each story is nice and short, quick impact, and takes place along the Oxford canal. There is a nice touch (suggested by Colin Dexter, no less) of a map in the front, indicating where each story takes place, and the collection is organised geographically – moving up the river.

My favourite story is ‘Flying With The Angels’, which takes place at Shipton-on-Cherwell (drove past there today on a return visit to Jane’s Teas) which has parallel stories of a Victorian girl and a modern woman travelling along the same track on Christmas Eve in 1874 and ‘today’ respectively. I wanted to type out a section for you, but I think any chunk would actually spoil the impact, so I shan’t…

All in all, this is a fun little book – especially for anybody who knows the canal or Oxford, it would make a great gift or souvenir. And Jane Gordon-Cumming is a natural storyteller who, thankfully, cannot resist a light and humorous touch even when she’s writing scary stories. Take note, Stephen King, take note.

(If you want to hunt down a copy, try Amazon or, even better, Jane G-C’s website directly…)

Happy Birthday Moi! And other celebrations…

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I never remember the exact date I started this blog, but when I checked yesterday I discovered… it’s today! Three years old today – that calls for a stock picture of balloons, wouldn’t you say?


Agreed. As always on celebratory blog occasions, I want to go all mushy and say thank you to everyone who reads Stuck-in-a-Book, for all the wonderful bloggers making the Blogosphere such a fun and rewarding place to be, and especial thanks to those lovely people who have sent me emails over the years filled with general niceness. Always a highlight for me. Oh, and thank you authors and publishers for keeping me stocked up on books! Thanks all round, basically. Oh, and UK Bloggers – there’s still time to join us on the 8th May for a UK Bloggers Meet Up (and to tell your friends to email me about it) – final details will be going out sooooon.

So, 795 posts later (which is actually only 265 a year, by my quick calculation, which means I have a hundred idle days each year) I’m enjoying blogging more than ever, and especially – check out this seamless link – events like yesterday’s Sceptre Bloggers Event.

I read enviously of all the bloggers heading off to the Headline event, so was delighted to be invited by one run by Sceptre – where I had the pleasure of seeing Karen/Cornflower and Claire/Paperback Reader again, as well as meeting other bloggers, several authors, and the lovely people who work at Sceptre (who, like the good people of Bloomsbury, made me realise I will never be stylish enough to work in publishing. Or perhaps even to live in London.) They were all very welcoming, friendly, AND gave me a goody bag of books – they know the way to a blogger’s heart. Oh, and I share my blog birthday with little Scarlet and Stanley, twin son and daughter of Jocasta, Sceptre’s deputy publisher. Happy birthday, S & S, hope it’s as sunny in London as it is in Oxford! Cue another (rather sweet) free stock image:


The authors in attendance were Emma Henderson, Natasha Solomons, and Ned Beauman – whose respective books Grace Williams Says It Loud, Mr. Rosenblum’s List, and Boxer Beetle are all coming out this year. The only one I’ve had to read so far is Ned Beauman’s Boxer Beetle – completely not my sort of book, and yet I thought it was brilliant. It’s not out til August, so I’ll write more about it later in the year, and I’m hoping to snare an interview with Ned B before he becomes too rich and famous to appear on a humble blog… I predict big things!

So, more thank yous to the lovely people at Sceptre – and for Claire for rescuing me when I got lost wandering around London. I’m off to enjoy the sunshine…

Coincidences

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A quick post today, because inspiration is not hitting… on the topic of reading coincidences (with a completely unrelated picture of a pretty building I saw in Paris). I’ve just started a novel where a woman lives in a hut in the wood. And I’ve also lent my housemate a different novel where a woman lives in a hut in the wood. It’s probably not the most important aspect of either novel, but it comes to the fore because of this coincidence.

Do you find this? Something in a novel will call out, because it also happened in another novel? Small details cross over… I remember reading Late and Soon by EM Delafield quite soon after Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton – both of them feature a woman whose Chinese shawl is repeatedly caught in her chair. I thought perhaps this nuisance plagued the first half of the twentieth century, but I haven’t come across it again… More bizarrely, a couple of years ago I read two books close to each other where women killed themselves by deliberately driving their cars into trees. Shan’t tell you which ones, as it would rather spoil them…

Has this happened to you? Details please! Or am I alone in these strange criss-crossings and overlappings between books? Surely not…

Identity

StuckinaBook All , 4 Comments

When I reviewed (and reviewed enthusiastically) Immortality by Milan Kundera earlier in the year, I suggested that I wouldn’t read another for a while. Much as I admired and liked the novel (if a novel it can be called), I was left a little exhausted, and fancied a five year break before I returned to Kundera…

…but then I discovered that he wrote short books too! And you know how I love a short book. Identity has enormous font and wide margins too… But, before you think me a complete imbecile, this is the jacket blurb which persuaded me:
Sometimes – perhaps only for an instant – we fail to recognise a companion. When this happens to lovers, the effect is acute: for a moment the identity of the loved one ceases to exist, and we come to doubt our own.Doesn’t that sound an intriguing starting point for a novel?

Identity isn’t as postmodern as Immortality (those titles are so similar, I’m bound to get them mixed up at some point in this blog post… hopefully we’re on the same page so far). While Immortality really seemed to reinvent the novel structure, Kundera sticks more closely to a conventional form with Identity, despite being published eight years later (1998, compared to Immortality’s 1990). There is the odd dabble in unusual images and abstract thought (cue quotation…)

Friendship is indispensable to man for the proper function of his memory. Remembering our past, carrying it with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To ensure that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, friends.
…but, in amongst Kundera’s very individual – and to my mind, very good – writing style, there is a surprisingly traditional romance. But very nuanced, and very subtle.

He reflected that she was his sole emotional link to the world. People talk to him about prisoners, about the persecuted, about the hungry? He knows the only was he feels personally, painfully touched by their misfortune: he imagines Chantal in their place. People tell him about women raped in some civil war? He sees Chantal there, raped. She and she alone releases him from his apathy. Only through her can he feel compassion.
I think that’s quite a brilliant way to describe the closeness of a relationship, romantic or otherwise. Chantal and Jean-Marc are the couple in question – and it is Chantal whom Jean-Marc fails to recognise (or, rather, he thinks somebody else is her, until he gets closer to them). She, in turn, thinks that men have stopped finding her attractive – which shakes the identity she has formed for herself. And so it is with a mixture of pleasure and displeasure that she receives a letter saying that someone is watching her. These letters grow more complimentary, and instead of throwing them away, she keeps the letters in her underwear drawer – and starts trying to work out who is sending them.

Such is the plot – but Kundera weaves far more around this simple premise. All sorts of interesting musings about a myriad of topics, and (like Immortality) exceptional insight into the interaction of people, with all the subtlety and complexity of real emotions. How he does it is beyond me…

And then the narrative does get a bit more postmodern, dabbling between fantasy and reality without telling you quite where the line is. It feels just a little bit thrown in, and I’d have liked it to be a bit more developed, but it’s also an interesting touch… and obviously done because Kundera can’t help himself, rather than for any big effect.

Second Kundera, and I’m still very impressed – I still admire him more than I love him (and isn’t there sometimes a big difference!) but that isn’t to say reading him is a struggle, because it isn’t. Just – as, indeed, I finished my last Kundera review – not one to curl up with in front of the fire. And no, that delightfully bizarre cover never makes sense.

Easter Goodies

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It has not been a barren Easter, book-wise. My friend Lucy and I (she is also on Project24) exchanged books as Easter presents (admittedly picking from each other’s Amazon wishlists) and I was also lucky enough to win a prize draw of Agatha Raisin books from Simon S. What bounty!


There they are – except for A Spy in the Bookshop, which Luce also got me and which is still in Oxford. I mentioned it on here a while ago, bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have it, and now I do – aren’t blogs useful?

So, those in the picture – Winifred Holtby’s 1936 memoir of Virginia Woolf (which I am really glad Lucy chose, as it’s the one I secretly wanted most) and four Agatha Raisin books – Agatha Raisin and… the Walkers of Dembley; the Quiche of Death; the Vicious Vet, and the Potted Gardener. I’ve just spotted that the series also has Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham. Since I went to school in Evesham, I should check that one out too…

Hope you all had a lovely Easter – and if you got books instead of chocolate, or even as well as chocolate, let me know what you got!