The Reading Nook: Bombsites and Lollipops, Morphine and Dolly Mixtures

When I was little there was a bookshelf in the downstairs toilet at my parents house.  It was filled with Debrett's Book of Etiquette (a very old copy), a dog eared copy of The Pillars of the Earth (I now have my own) and the good, but very dated and not so subtly xenophobic Not Without My Daughter.  There were other books there but those ones stood out in my mind.

Occasionally my mum or dad would find me lying on the carpeted floor of the toilet reading one of those books, normally with a cat curled up next to me.  It never occurred to me to remove the book from the room and take it to the decidedly more comfortable sofa.  I was a bright child but distinctly lacking in common sense.

One of those books I don't think I should have been reading at the tender age of 8 was Carol-Ann Coutney's Morphine and Dolly Mixture.  I was drawn to the picture of the girl on the front who looked about my age and her smiling family and over the course of a few months, I read the entire book.  I didn't know what the morphine in the title referred to, but I knew what dolly mixtures were and I assumed that the book would be a variation on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

It wasn't, and I learnt some things that I was probably too young to properly understand, but that book has stuck in my memory ever since.  A little while ago I tracked a copy down and re-read it and it is only now that I realise that not only was the book decidedly unsuitable for children, but that it was a true story, the autobiography of a desperate 11 year old girl left to care for her three younger brothers and baby sister after the death of her mother whilst trying to avoid her drug-addled, violent father in the slums of 1950's London. 

Written in the 1980's, Morphine and Dolly Mixture is the story of a childhood no child should be forced to endure.  Compelled by necessity to grow up quickly after her mother dies, Caroline fights to protect her family from being separated by social services, endures violence at the hands of her father who is addicted to the morphine medication he was prescribed for his lung cancer and suffers continuous guilt at her father's accusation that she murdered her mother when she accidentally bumped her mothers head the day before she died.  This guilt lasts with the author until she is an adult and requests a copy of the coroners report.

You see the effects of drug dependency on a family already struggling and living in poverty, flashes of the man her father used to be when he loved and supported his family before his dependency on morphine, and the desperation in Caroline as she tries to protect her siblings innocence for as long as possible.   The world through Caroline's eyes is a sad and daunting place yet you also feel the love and warmth within the family unit between Caroline and her siblings, and even sometimes her father.

It is a book that not many people have heard of, yet it won the Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year award in 1990 and has been made into a major television film adaptation.  To say I enjoyed it would be a mistake, however it was gripping, moving and difficult to put down.

Bombsites and Lollipops is another memoir set in the slums and hovels of London in the 1950's, yet with a very different tone to it.  Written by Jacky Hyams, I came across this by chance when I was updating my kindle with books for a holiday.  I was struck by the similarity of the title to Morphine and Dolly Mixture (indeed it was that that prompted me to go looking for a copy again) and instantly downloaded it.

Jacky tells the story of her childhood in post-war Hackney.  At a time when poverty and deprivation were rife and community was everything, Jacky lived a life of almost unheard of luxury, provided for by her father's black market deals and illegal betting.  When a lot of people around her have nothing, Jacky has a chauffeur, a cleaner, posh meals and seaside holidays. Not all is as rosy as it seems from the outside as a growing darkness spreads from within and threatens to bring everything tumbling down around them faster than a blitz bombing.

Hyam's has been praised for her honesty and truthfulness in her writing and her attitudes towards her parents can be shocking at times.  I was hoping for more insight into life in post-war London and Jacky's experiences cannot be described as typical of the era, but the book was neverthelss entertaining and moving in places.

I have yet to read the sequel, White Boots and Miniskirts which gives an account of life in London's swinging sixties, but I am eager to.

Both books are recommended, but Morphine and Dolly Mixtures is, for me, a must read.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

The Reading Nook: Their Eyes Were Watching God

"Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.  Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly".

One of the original purposes of establishing The Reading Nook was to get myself to read books that have been sat in my collection for year, including (ahem) a number of books I was supposed to have read for my degree and, well, didn't.  Mainly because at the time I was far too interested in all the other things going on around me that involved interacting with other people, such as my show on the radio station or playing hockey, or producing the pantomime, or working at my part time job in a student bar or running for election, or..ok fine I admit it...drinking.

So it has finally happened, 13 years after making the purchase and 13 years after I was supposed to have read it, I have finally read one of my course books.

I really wish I hadn't waited so long to be honest!  Their Eyes Were Watching God is an American classic.  Written in 1937 in colloquial folk language by Zora Neale Hurston, to say that the book bombed when it was first released would be an understatement.  It was slated by a number of prominent African-American authors involved in the Harlem Renaissance movement who accused Hurston of pandering to stereotypes of language, behaviour and culture.  It was not until the 1970's and 1980's that the book became valued as a work of literary art in its own right as Universities across America started to develop Black Studies programmes which included a focus on art and literature, whilst simultaneously women such as Alice Walker (author of another of my favourites, The Color Purple) and Mary Helen Washington were leading the Black Feminism movement in America, all of which created a culture which allowed for a rediscovery, and a new appreciation for Their Eyes Were Watching God and other forgotten novels of the era. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of those rare stories, a book written in the 1930's that describes a woman who, after suffering two marriages that have stifled her, will not be subjugated any longer, who will not behave in a way expected of her station or gender, and who will follow her own heart, wherever it may lead her.

Warning:  Spoilers ahead - if you don't wish to know the plot, jump ahead to after the next picture!

Janie Crawford sits on her porch with her best friend, Phoeby Watson.  Now in her mid-late forties, Janie tells the story of her life through a series of flashbacks to Phoeby, who, in turn, relates the story to the rest of the nosey residents of the town of Eatonville in Florida.

Janie's story is framed by three distinct chapters and marriages to three very different men, only one of whom has allowed her to be herself. Her first marriage is arranged by her grandmother at the age of 16 to an older man and a farmer.  Janie finds this marriage suffocating as her husband requires a domestic help rather than an equal partner whilst Janie desires love and romance in her life after seeing a bee pollinating a flower in her back garden as a young girl.  One day, whilst working outside the house, she meets the smooth talking and confident Jody Starks who woos her with his dreams of being a 'big man'.  Janie elopes with Jody to Eatonville where the two gradually become prominent figures in the society there; Jody becomes mayor and owner of the village shop and Janie is expected to behave in a way expected of the wife of the mayor.  Throughout the novel Janie's exceptional beauty is emphasised, as is her hair, her crowning glory that attracts admiration and envy from all who see it.  Janie soon realises that Jody is after a trophy wife, he forces her to keep her hair bound and beats Janie when she tries to engage in the social activities and life that Jody enjoys.  Jody eventually sickens and passes away, but not before Janie tries to heal the growing rift between them.

Shortly later, Janie, now a wealthy widow in her mid-thirties with hordes of suitors, meets a young vagabond and gambler called Tea Cake.  Tea Cake is the complete antithesis of Jodie; young, vibrant, free from restraints and restrictions and he draws the initially reluctant Janie out of her shell and the two fall deeply in love.  They move to Jacksonville where they marry and work side by side in the Everglades with the other itinerant workers.  The life Janie has now is one of friendship and laughter; night after night the workers gather at Tea Cake and Janie's house where Janie cooks for them and Tea Cake plays the guitar or they gamble.  This period of bliss cannot last though, and the entire area is hit by the Okeechobee hurricane.  As the workers try to flee and gain higher ground, Tea Cake, unbeknownst to Janie, is bitten by a rabid dog whilst saving her.  Within a few days Tea Cake has contracted the disease and by the time he is able to see a doctor, it is too late.  He gradually starts raving, becoming increasingly jealous and eventually pulls a gun on Janie.  She grabs a rifle to defend herself and as both guns go off, hers kills Tea Cake.

Janie finds herself in front of the magistrate for the murder of her husband; the all-white court rule in her favour though, recognising the desperate nature of her situation and, as everyone comments, the fact that Janie's love for Tea Cake was legendary in the neighbourhood.  Despite the requests of the people of Jacksonville, Janie decides to return to Eatonville and live alone, content and at peace with herself, and the story finishes where it started.

The book covers themes of gender, religion, fate and free will, romance vs reality, society and class, race, jealously, appearance and, above all, the importance of dreams.  Modern day readers may well find some of the attitudes hard to stomach; wife beating is prevalent, women are seen, particularly by some of the more traditional individuals, as second class citizens who are unable to think for themselves (Jody, at one particularly memorable moment, comments that 'somebody got to think for women and chillun and chickens and cows. I god, they sho don’t think none theirselves.") and the book was written at a time when class and race divides were still deeply entrenched in society.

There are two references to watching God in the book; the first is from Janie as she stares peacefully up at the sky.  Tea Cake approaches her and asks 'Watcha doin' Janie?'.  'I'm watching God' she replies.  The second comes where the refugees are huddled in shanties, waiting for the hurricane to subside.  "The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God."  This final reference is commonly though to summarise the central conflict of the novel; humans against God, humans against nature, fate against free will.  The bonds of human interaction and intimacy provide refuge against the forces of nature. Tea Cake and Janie share an intimacy that allows them to struggle and survive these forces, and even when she is left alone, Janie continues to survive everything that is thrown against her.

I struggled with this book when I first sat down with it, and I have tried to read it on numerous occasions since.  I don't think that this should be a required curriculum reading; it is one that younger people are likely to struggle with as the language can be quite challenging, and the story line probably isn't all that exciting for people looking for adventure and drama.  It is only with age that I think I can appreciate the novel as a work of art in its own right, and as story of a women finding out about life, love and who she is though, it is beautiful.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

The Reading Nook: Caitlin Moran

The first time I picked up and started reading How To Be A Woman, I got a bit of a girl crush.  I'm sure I'm not the only one either.  Caitlin Moran, part of the influential twitterati who occasionally, nervously, lets her 11 year old daughter take control of her feed, is the voice of a generation of women who aren't exactly your 1950's housewife women, but also are not the stereotypical man-hating, bra burning militant feminists of the 1960's and 70's.  She represents a middle ground, women who just wanted to be treated with the same amount of respect that men, for the most part, are automatically granted, without having to jump through hoops of fire.  She is the voice of women who quite like being able to vote, be a CEO and also secretly dream of baking the perfect loaf of bread (Bake-Off has a lot to answer for).  She gives life to all those thoughts and insecurities that women have about work, family, looks, weight, sex, alcohol, drugs, clothes, abortion, boyfriends, music, periods, fashion, pea-cocking and the quagmire that is adolescence at a time in your life when all you want to do is scream 'look at me, I'm important' and the rest of the world says 'that's nice dear' and returns to its adult conversation.

Not only that, the woman is astoundingly funny.  Laugh out loud, 'Steve you've got to let me read this section to you' funny.  It's described as the book that every woman should read, won the Galaxy Book of the Year Award and tipped the best seller lists.  I think part of that is due to Moran's signature, chatty, girls over a glass of wine writing style. Her command of the English language is masterful - she can be as flowery as a meadow in summer when she wants to be and is not afraid to swear like a docker.  Her descriptions can be graphic - the accounts on her giving birth and her abortion are particularly moving and had me squirming uncomfortably in my seat.  Her complete bafflement with expensive handbags and thongs had me nodding in agreement.  Her awkwardness at her first real job had me howling with laughter.

Is How To Be A Woman a feminist book? Well, yes, of course it is, but only in so much as explores what it means to be female in modern day Britain and then challenges that.

Should all women read this book? Yes. Should all men?  Hell yes. If anything, it may give you a bit more of an understanding as to why we flip out when we have nothing to wear.

I loved How To Be A Woman.  I couldn't wait to read Moranthology.  If How To Be A Woman is Moran's humorous mantra, then Moranthology are her sermons.  A collection of her best columns from The Times, sandwiched together with musings over topics that didn't quite fit into the How To Be A Woman structure (like the conversations with her husband Pete, who is drifting off to sleep moments before Moran gets her newest bolt of lighting, need to discuss it right now moment).  The problem with Moranthology is that you are reminded on a regular basis just how extraordinary a life Moran has led thus far.  A published writer, TV presenter and music critic whilst still in her teens, she has interviewed (and partied) with music's royalty, been late to interview the PM and downed gin with the poster children of TV and film.  She is still only in her 30's.  Makes you a bit sick.  

David Ellis

All through Moranthology though, you get a much stronger feel for who she is as a person and how she is as part of a strong family unit.  You get the feeling that, no matter who you are, she will quite happily plant down, spark up, pour out two large glasses and natter away with you until the small hours.  She is endearingly human and you get a sense of that no matter if she is talking about Lady Gaga lying down drunk with her head in Moran's lap in a sex club in Germany or playing with her kids on a beach in Wales before going for a picnic. 

Her observations are not just over the convoluted and sometimes ridiculous plot lines of Downton Abbey (the ability of a maid to kill the unborn Earl of Downton with a bar of lilac soap was a particular favourite of hers) or which Ghostbuster you should dress up as, but also offer a compassionate and frankly much more honest look at the some of the more serious issues facing society, such as the real life implications of benefits cuts on those families who truly need them (from the voice of someone whose family relied on those benefits when her father was unable to work) and her strident belief in the value of our public libraries 'a library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead'.  You can read her full libraries column here. 

Levon Biss for The New York Times

If you are a regular reader of Moran's columns, a lot of the material in Moranthology will be old hat to you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get a copy.  Hell, the Keith Richards interview is worth the purchase price of the book alone (currently £6.29 on amazon, or about £4 for a kindle copy).  If you love How To Be A Woman, you should also read Moranthology, although it is very different, and not as strong as her brilliant debut, it will still have you laughing out loud.

Her latest offering, the semi-autobiographical How To Build A Girl is now out as well.  I'm off to get a copy.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

The Reading Nook: Duncton Wood

One day about a month ago I was hit with an overwhelming urge to re-read my beaten up old copy of Watership Down.  I went to the bookcases and did a quick search, then frowned and went back through all my books meticulously searching for it.  I messaged my sister (she has a bad habit of claiming books she stole from my room during her early teenage years whilst I was at University were hers all along - I've lost many a treasured classic through that particular little foible) but she claimed ignorance.

There was only one place left it could be - in my parents attic in storage.  Not the easiest place to get to at that particular moment in time.

Instead, my eye landed upon a book that I have owned for about 20 years but have never read.  It was originally my mothers, and handed down to me along with my copies of Watership Down, The Plague Dogs and Shardik.  She had a fondness for anthropomorphic animal tales where the animals still behave as they do in reality (unlike, for example the Redwall chronicles or the Deptford Mice Trilogy).

This book was beaten and battered but still in the same vein as Watership Down, and indeed has a better reputation.  It was Duncton Wood, by William Horwood.

I picked it up and struggled my way through the first two chapters, then became utterly immersed.  This book is nothing short of beautiful.  I think my mother may have been slightly over optimistic giving it to me when I was 12 (I was a precocious reader, but this would have been a stretch) but as an adult I am fully able to appreciate the sheer poetry of Horwood's writing.

Duncton Wood, written in 1980, is the first in a series of books that explores the society and trials of a community of moles living in Duncton Wood in Oxfordshire.  The  moles have their own society, religion and hierarchy and laws.  The story in particular follows the tale of Bracken and Rebecca, two moles who are fated to pass into mole legend for their exploits.  Indeed, Duncton Wood starts with their story as it is recorded in the moles holy books by their friend, Boswell the Scribe.

The moles central religion is based around the Standing Stones and Stone Circles of the United Kingdom, with the seven ancient mole systems each based around one of the major standing stone circles (such as Stonehenge or the Rollright Stones).  At the start of Duncton Wood, the moles faith and belief in the power of the Stones has much diminished under the leadership of the tyrannical and fearsome Mandrake and his bullish henchmen moles, one of whom is Bracken's father.  Mandrake himself is the father of Rebecca, a mole with a purity of spirit and joy for life that infects all around her. 

Through Bracken and Rebecca, the runt and the tyrants daughter, the Duncton Moles face plague and fire, despair and hope, love and faith and finally rediscover their spirit and their faith in the Sone.  Bracken himself is forced to make life and death decisions, to abandon everything he holds dear and make a perilous quest that will take him many moleyears away from Duncton into the Welsh wilds.

From the inside cover of the hardback version of Duncton Wood

Horwood's ability to create an entire world, with history and government, rituals and rules, legendary figures and day to day survival rivals that of Tolkein.  Every aspect of mole society has been considered, from the concept of a mole year (approximately one human month) to the fighting rights for territory and mates.  The books are filled with nature, with vivid descriptions of the flowers, the woods, the other animals, even the 'roaring owls' whose behaviour the moles cannot understand (cars).  You see the world through the eyes of a creature who is basically blind, who relies on touch and taste and scent and sound to make sense of the environment around him.  If you read this book, you will never look at a molehill quite the same way again.  Their world is beautiful and brutal, death is violent and painful and often inflicted by another mole.

There are two more books in the original Duncton Chronicles, written almost ten years after the original.  Duncton Quest follows the journey of Rebecca and Bracken's son, Tryfan whilst Duncton Found follows the Stone Mole.  The three books of The Book of Silence follow the community years later, as a new, rival religion rises to threaten everything that the Stone, and Moledom, stands for.  I will be reading the rest of the books, the story is too engrossing not to.

Oh, and back onto Watership Down?  If you haven't read it, please, please do.  It is so much more complex and richer than the animated film.  

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

The Reading Nook: David Eddings

I've taken a little bit of time off my reading targets over the last couple of months.  I've got a hell of a lot going on at the moment with work, rehearsals after work three nights a week, workouts in the morning three mornings a week and packed out weekends.  In all honesty, I'm starting to feel quite burnt out, and the last thing I want to do when I feel like that is dive into a book that requires significant levels of concentration.  Quite frankly, right now I don't even want to be reading a book where I don't already know the storyline!

This is where David Eddings comes in.  The late author is an old favourite of mine - returning to his works is the equivalent for me of curling up on the sofa in two-sizes-too-large pajama's, cashmere sleeping socks and a giant mug of hot chocolate with 6 marshmallows bobbing in the top.  It's my reading equivalent of a comfort blanket.

I guess the reason for this association with me is the fact that Eddings was my first ever introduction to adult (as opposed to teen) fantasy literature.  I was 13 years old and packing a bag ready for a school trip to Germany and moaning to my mother that I didn't have time to go and buy some new books (I was a terrible bookworm as a child, it was fabulous).  My dad overheard me, and a few minutes later came into my room with five small paperbacks in his hand.  He laid them down on my bed, picked one out, and told me to take it with me and give it a go.

The book he had given me was Pawn of Prophecy, the first book in Eddings' original fantasy series The Belgariad, and from the moment I finished the first chapter, I was hooked.

I spent that German school trip reading the first three books and devoured the final two when I got home.  I then worked my way through the sequel series, the Mallorean, and when I ran out of books there I moved onto The Elenium and The Tamuli series, both set in a different fantasy Universe to the Belgariad and the Mallorean.  I bought The Redemption of Althalus (a stand alone fantasy novel) the minute it hit Waterstones' shelves, and then returned to the world of the Belgariad by getting stuck into Polgara the Sorceress and Belgarath the Sorcerer, which he co-wrote with his wife, Leigh.  My cracked, beaten, falling apart and held together by sellotape copy of Polgara the Sorceress is currently resting on my bedside table as I write, being the latest marshmallow in my month long dive into comfort reading.

I will always have a softer spot for the world of Polgara and Belgarath than I will for Sparhawk, mainly as I came to The Elenium and The Tamuli much later than the Belgarian and the Mallorean.  There are other reasons as well, for example The Belgariad is a coming of age story for Garion, whereas Sparhawk is an adult male and so their motives and world views are rather different.  At the time of my first reading, I was about the same age as Garion and Ce'Nedra are supposed to be in the Belgariad, so I could relate easily to those characters.

However, I'm not completely blindsided by Eddings, and there are some negatives to his work!  Eddings has a major tendency to repeat most of his ideas and tropes- the stone with a soul, the god disguised as a mortal (or a cat), the female magic user and so on, and so there was a definite sense of déjà-vu reading all his works. The thing is though, Eddings has never claimed to be original.  He always stated he wanted to create stories for the modern audience that echoed the old myths and legends which is why so many of his plots are familiar to us.  He also uses the handy (and a bit lazy) 'prophecy' trope to full effect to explain why events appear to be ridiculously predictable.

His writing is not overly complex, the political systems are simplistic at best and he loves to racially stereotype his fictional races (Sendars are practical, Thulls are slow of mind, Algars love horses; a questionable idea when the trait supposedly shared by all members of a race is not a particularly pleasant one).  There is also a very definite good vs evil, with no one hovering in that untidy grey area in the middle.  It's all very neat and convenient.  The plots are fairly straightforward and predictable - good guys realise that something has gone wrong and they have to fight a world-threatening evil.  They travel all around the map, collecting people who join their cause as they go and inevitably thwart the baddies, normally without losing a single member of their party on the way.

Despite this perceived lack of imagination, it is Eddings' lack of flowery, descriptive language that pulls you into his worlds (you won't find three paragraphs dedicated to the description of the embroidery on a jacket here!).  He focuses on the easy, humourous, witty conversational dialogue you would find in everyday life between friends and it makes his characters instantly likeable, even if they appear blind to the events so obviously occurring around them.

This dialogue, much of which I can now quote verbatim, is probably why I read all of his books, back to back, without fail, at least once every 2-3 years.

If you are looking for deep and meaningful, gritty and powerful writing, Eddings is not going to deliver the goods for you.

If, however, you are looking for pure entertainment and a light hearted romp through fantasy, no-one, and I mean no-one does it better.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

The Reading Nook: A childhood, a dog and a trauma

Look at this.  3 books.  3 WHOLE BOOKS!!!!

I haven't really been doing anything else in the evenings it has to be said, but I have read 3 books.  Every page, didn't skip ahead, absorbed it all.

Are you proud of me?

OK, so they aren't exactly the longest books in the world (one happens to be a children's book which I read in 45 minutes, we'll come back to that in a minute), but the fact remains that in one month I read 3 books.

Hah!

I had a rather specific reason for selecting the first of my trio of literary lovelies.  As the whole world knows, Maya Angelou, an amazing woman and writer, sadly passed away in May of this year.  As a personal tribute to her, I picked up the first of her autobiographies; a book that I had only read snippets of before.

I was first introduced to her writing when I was about 14.  I was sat in my English Literature class in secondary school.  Our teacher had just handed us all extracts from a book of poems to study and analyse, and preceding each poem was a sample of writing from "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings".  I have no idea why all the poems were preceded by these extracts, I can't even remember what the poems were or who they were by (they weren't by Angelou, I know that much).  What I can remember is being more fascinated by the extracts from this book with an intriguing title than I was by the poems themselves.

Thus began a lifelong love of American Literature.  I went on to study it alongside my Classics at University (thank heavens for Joint Honours degrees) and dove into a world filled with Toni Morrison, Harper Lee, Norman Maclean, Donna Tartt, Don Delillo and Alice Walker.  "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" had always been on that list of books that I would eventually read and it was just waiting for me on my bookshelf.  When the story of Angelou's passing appeared on my news feed, I knew that the time was right to read it.

It was worth the wait.

Written in 1969, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" charts the life of the young Angelou from the age of 3 when her and her older brother go to live with her grandmother in the sleepy and racially segregated town of Stamps in Arkansas.  The book describes the general store in Stamps that her grandmother ran with her Uncle, her meetings with her father who is a stranger to her in her early years, school, examinations and her first best friend, weddings and funerals and the acceptance of death.  It covers the childhood struggle to find your own identity and a critique of the racism that permeated the everyday life around her, a racism that she refused to accept, a racism that she witnessed forcing her Uncle to contort his body for hours hiding in a barrel to escape the KKK, having her own name changed from Marguerite to Mary as it was more acceptable for her white employer and the refusal of a white dentist to remove a rotten tooth from Maya's mouth, despite the agony she was in.  It showcases powerhouse female role models, the idolisation of her Momma (her grandmother) and her mother, the trauma of her rape at 8 by her mother's boyfriend and the refuge she finds in books.

Written in conversational prose, we see the thoughts, ideas and dreams of the young Maya come to life before our eyes as she tries to work though complex situations in her mind and make sense of the environment around her.  We see her progress into her teenage years, rebel against the role of the housemaid that she is forced into and her growth and development into a self-assured young woman when she stays with her mother in San Francisco and becomes the first black female street conductor on the trams.  She stays with her father in California and goes with him to Mexico.  She later runs away from him and his new wife and lives in a car scrap yard with other children for a short period of time.

The book finishes with Angelou at the age of 16 giving birth to her son, having concealed her pregnancy- caused by her fear that she may be a lesbian or a hermaphrodite (the same thing to her confused and ill-educated about these matters teenaged mind) - from her family for 8 months so that she could graduate from high school.  

"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" is the first in a series of 7 autobiographical books written by Angelou which have been described as some of the most powerful books by women ever written.  It was nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, topped the New York Bestseller list for 2 years and has been studied in schools and universities ever since (although some places, including libraries, have banned it).

For me, it was hypnotic.  I loved how Angelou recreated the world of her childhood for me, and whilst I could never relate to the struggles she went though as a black child in the deep south of 1930's America, I could still relate to her as a child struggling to come to terms with who she is and her place in the world.

Everyone needs to read this book.

After immersing myself in Angelou's world, I needed something a bit lighter.  When I was little, my step-grandmother had a wonderful tradition of buying me books with characters called Becky or Rebecca in them, so that I could feel like I was part of the story.  She was always very discerning about the books though and would only do so if she felt that they were well-written, had a lesson I could learn or would interest me.

"Shiloh", by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, was one of these books.  The copy I have is a first edition from 1991 (sadly minus the dust cover, that got relegated to the sands of time somewhere over the years) and the story is still as beautiful today as it was then for me.  It isn't exactly long - I re-read it in about 45 minutes, but for those 45 minutes I was immersed in the love of a boy for a mistreated and abused beagle that he takes in and protects.

The book is narrated from the point of view of Marty, the 11 year old protagonist who lives in the poverty stricken and country town of Friendly in West Virginia.  One day, whilst out walking, he comes across a terrified Beagle dog who follows him home.  Marty quickly falls for the dog, whom he names Shiloh, but knows that he his parents would never allow him to keep him as they can't afford pets.  The Beagle also belongs to his neighbour, Judd Travers, a brutal man who hunts when it is illegal to do so, and whom Marty suspects shot one of his own dogs that was misbehaving.  Marty keeps Shiloh tied up and hidden away, and manages to keep the secret from his mum, dad and his two younger sisters (one of whom is called Becky) for a couple of days.  Eventually though the secret is revealed when Shiloh is attacked and injured by another dog.  Marty's family agrees to care for the dog until his leg is better, at which point he will go back to Judd.

Desperate to save and protect Shiloh, Marty, with his parents permission, offers to buy him from Judd by working for him for a week.  Judd, surprisingly, agrees and Marty is put through a series of brutal and hard tasks on Judd's land over the course of the week.  He does them tirelessly, and without complaining and by the end of the week there is a mutual respect between Marty and Judd.  Judd agrees that the debt has been paid and Shiloh returns to live with Marty.

Written in colloquial first person narrative, the book is incredibly easy to read.  It is really a coming of age story, a message about the need to work and fight for the things we believe in and just a brilliant children's book.  I'm not the only one who thinks so; it has won numerous awards over the years, including the Newbury Medal and has since been adapted into a film (which I have never seen) and is apparently taught as part of the curriculum in the US.

For me though, it will always be one of the novels I loved that Colleen bought for me because one of the characters  is named Becky.

The final book I whizzed through this month is "And Now You Can Go", the debut novel from Vendela Vida (and, coincidentally another book that Colleen bought for me.  She knows me far too well!).  Published in 2003, this is a very different style of book to the previous two.  It deals with the aftermath of a traumatising encounter that the protagonist, Ellis, had with an armed gunman in her local park in New York as she was walking one day.  After talking him down and trying to connect with him through reciting poetry to him, she escapes physically unharmed but emotionally and mentally traumatised by the ordeal.

The rest of the novel deals with her unravelling relationships, the romance that collapses, the university therapist she is referred to who hints at victim blaming, her friends and relatives who just want her to open up.  She bounces from man to man and friend to friend, searching for something that she isn't sure can be found, and finally agrees to assist her mother on a medical aid mission to the Philippines.  Once there, she finds that no matter what, life will still progress and she begins to confront her own insecurities about the father that abandoned her mother for a few years and then returned with no explanation or apology.

I loved this book in places and absolutely hated it in others.  One of my biggest peeves was the lack of chapters - it is instead divided into about 5 segments and as a result is quite choppy and the flow is difficult to follow.  I also found that because Ellis is written as utterly numb to everything around her as a result of the trauma she experienced (and the fact that this means that she is numb from about 10 pages in) I found it incredibly difficult to relate to her, or even feel any form of emotional attachment to her.

On the positive side, the book is beautifully written with sweeping descriptions and it moves quickly.  It was smart and funny, although the humour has an edge of pathos winding through it the entire time.  It is not an easy book to read and you need to expect that the book doesn't really go anywhere - there is no closure to be found.  It just stops.

Maybe, ultimately, that's why I found it so unsatisfying to read.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

The Reading Nook: The Wheel Of Time

I've fallen back into bad habits it seems.  Well, maybe not bad habits but definitely old habits.  I was trying so hard to break my cycle of fantasy reading and then I stumbled across these two books, The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, the first of the Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan.  This was a huge error as when I started to read them I didn't realise that there were 14 volumes in total. 

14. 

One is taking me a good three weeks to read at the moment (I haven't actually finished the Great Hunt yet - I'm about a third from the end, but I've read enough to include it in this post).  I just know that my sense of order and neatness is going to end up kicking in and I will be compelled to read all 14 as once you start a series, you have to finish it, whether you want to or not.

And that's my major problem with these books; I'm not sure I want to.  The premise of them is relatively fresh - a bit Tolkien-esq but most epic fantasy novels these days are; Tolkien managed to cover basically ever major fantasy trope in existence so it's a little hard to get away from him.  The story line is a bit basic on the surface but gets more complicated when you weave in the magic system, world history and political structures- a young man and his friends from a small village are whisked away in the dead of night by a strange woman with magical powers who is part of a highly feared order of women as they are being hounded by evil creatures who basically, and for no apparent reason, want to stick them all in a cooking pot.  All three of the young men are ta'veren, people at the centre of the Wheel of Time (fate or destiny to us), for whom the Wheel specifically weaves the Pattern and as such all three are hounded by various factions that desire to use them for their own ends.  As they run they encounter all sorts of dangers and near misses including a haunted city and a cursed dagger, end up traversing The Ways with an Ogier whilst chased by a Black Wind that sends you mad, get separated, get injured and start to realise all sorts of unpleasant truths about who they may really be. 

There is a rich background history to this world; thousands of years ago certain men and women could 'channel', tapping into the One Power, (said'in and sai'dar, male and female halves of the True Source, the creator of all life).  However, whilst the female source, sai'dar is still pure, sai'din has been tainted by the Dark One during the Age of Legends when The Dragon, Lews Therin attempted to contain the Dark One.  The taint left by the Dark One on the male half of the One Power is foul, driving all male users eventually to madness.  After the madness led the Dragon and his male followers to Break The World, leading to an Age of Madness, certain female members of the order of the Aes Sedai (women who could channel) swore to 'gentle' all men who are born with the ability; driving the power out of them, an act which is as good as a death sentence.

At the time of The Eye of the World, Aes Sedai are thin on the ground due to the lack of male channellers able to pass the ability on and are also widely distrusted and feared.  People fear the coming of The Dragon Reborn as this will herald the start of the Last Battle against the Dark One and spring is very late coming.  Rand al'Thor, his best friends Mat and Perrin, the Wisdom from his village Nynaeve and the girl he always thought he would marry, Egwene, find themselves caught up in a chain of events that is spiraling around them.

I found the books cumbersome and very slow to start with - a significant amount of time is spent with characters conversing and uncovering the history of the world  (there is enough there for a WoT wiki which can be helpful) and there are a huge number of character names, terms and places to remember.  Thankfully there is an index in the back with name pronunciation included as I was really struggling to remember what the difference was between the One Power and The True Source and Sai'dar as opposed to Ta'veren.  This is the other problem - the names are so unfamiliar to a native English speaker and the pronunciation is more Celtic than Ango-Saxon that this was also a bit of a headache for me!  However, once you got used to the flow of the story and the characters settled down a bit (about halfway through the first book) it did become easier to read, and once that happened the story did become engrossing.

I am however a bit daunted at the fact that I am only halfway through Book 2 (and it has taken me a month to get this far) and there are 12 books ahead of me.  I'm also aware of the fact that Robert Jordan died before finishing the series and another author, Brandon Sanderson took up the reigns at Book 12 and according to a lot of WoT fans, managed to resurrect a series that had started to flag around Book 6. 

I'm wondering if my need to work out what the hell is going on is actually worth ploughing though the rest of the series for.  Book 2, The Great Hunt, is better than Book 1 as the characters are far more established. I felt a lot more confident in what they were trying to achieve and the intrigue and political shifting was starting to come into play.  There was still a lot of running and hiding in dark streets and self-tormented inner reflections which got a bit tedious.  However watching the characters trying to deal with multiple political agenda's and trying to remain true to their own needs and desires is one of the strengths of this book.  I am feeling like Mat and Perrin are becoming a bit one dimensional though - a lot of attention is focused on Rand as the protagonist and the other characters suffer as a result in my opinion.

You can probably tell I am utterly conflicted over these books.  I normally love a good fantasy novel, and there is no doubt that these are good fantasy novels; they have been around for long enough to have gathered quite a cult following, but I just can't work out why! In my opinion there are better writers out there who can give you the same sense of epic fantasy scale without dedicating paragraphs to the description of a coat, no matter how nice the silver herons lining the collar and sleeves are.

I'll finish Book 2 and give Book 3 a go - then I may call it a day on The Wheel Of Time.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

The Reading Nook: Purple Hibiscus

I've read Half of A Yellow Sun.  I loved Half of A Yellow Sun.  I think I love Purple Hibiscus even more! 

The debut novel and baby sister of the aforementioned novel by author Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus draws you into the world of Kambili, a privileged girl in postcolonial Nigeria whose life is dominated by her devoutly Catholic father, Eugene.  Her life is one of routine and rigid timetables, contemplation and prayer in shadowed rooms, academic discipline and vicious physical violence initated as punishment for any small misdemeanor by the father she adores.

Kambili and her brother, Jaja have their lives regimented by their father's timetable.  They know when they are studying and when they are reading, when they are eating and when they are travelling to school.  They are banned from spending time with their grandfather who still observes the old gods and is kept away from anything that their father perceives as a corrupting influence.  Kambili is a quiet, considered, withdrawn girl who shares a close relationship with her brother.

When a military coup breaks out and their father's editor at his underground human rights newspaper goes missing, Kambili and her brother are sent to their aunts cramped, hot apartment for safety, against the wishes of their father.  Whilst there their eyes are opened to a world of light and laughter. Catholic as well, her cousins Catholicism allows for laughter and debate, humour and love and gradually Kambili learns that there is more to life than her timetabled existance.

As Kambili matures she falls in love with a young local priest.  At the same time her family disintegrates around her, mirroring the disintegration of her community as rebellions spark at the University her aunt works at, framing the unraveling of her world.

Purple Hibiscus is a stunning debut novel.  The characters are engaging and multidimensional and the relationships between them, particularly between Kambili and her aunt and cousins, are mesmerizing.  Eugene is never presented as a tyrannical monster, but rather as someone who is devoted to his family and his community, caring for the sheep in his flock and not realising that the physical and psychological abuse he subjects his children and wife to is ripping his family apart. Whilst not a sympathetic character, the love that Kambili carries for him shines through her narrative and challenges the readers perceptions.

The world that Adichie creates is one that is unfamiliar to most Westerners.  I am a very visual reader; I like to be able to imagine the places being described so I read most of this novel with my phone in my hand, searching for the meaning of various Igbo phrases which are scattered throughout the book and woven into the majority of conversation and also looking up the  foodstuffs mentioned.  Food and drink play a huge part in this story with meal times often being the focal point for family relationships to progress and develop. 

Purple Hibiscus is a story of conflict vs love, noise vs silence, the old religion vs the new and, most of all, oppression vs freedom.  Utterly breathtaking. 

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

The Reading Nook: Some Kind Of Fairy Tale

I know, I know, I'm cutting it a bit fine with this month's Reading Nook but at least I'm getting it out before the month is officially over!  This month has felt incredibly long, I think it was the bank holiday weekend which always makes me feel as though I have had an entire week off - simply bliss.  I love the idea of constantly having three day weekends, but I'm not sure my bank balance could handle it...

This month's book felt suitably apt for spring time.  It's a familiar theme, and like most of my reading decisions, was influenced purely by the title (and the cover).  It's so pretty!  It also looks fairly spring time like, so when I felt the first hints of soft spring breezes and cherry blossom I picked this up off the shelf.  It's been there since Christmas when I was gifted it by my mother, so it's about time I read it.

I must admit I'm not familiar with the author, although I am keen now to sample more of his work.

Some Kind Of Fairy Tale is the story of a lost childhood, a found runaway and the damage caused when a broken family tries to heal itself.  In many ways it was very similar in style to one of my favourite books, The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Miller.  In both of these books fairies are not cute, not good (although possibly more misguided and drunk in New York than in Joyce's work), and you most certainly don't want your paths to cross with them.

In Joyce's world, the fairies are not little, don't have wings and can be mistaken for any ordinary person.  They also travel on horseback, crossing the borders between our world and theirs on specific nights of the year, live in 1970 style communes with no electricity or telephones, are constantly on heat and are fairly non-descript about who they satisfy that urge with and also bathe in a sentient lake that can can hear and understand you, and has the ability to orgasm.  There are living flowers that are disguised as bugs and living bugs that are disguised as flowers.   They fight to the death only to resurrect themselves a few days later and glory in the blood lust.  They appear wild and primitive to us but scorn humans for their abuse of nature and inability to live in harmony with the world around them.  They have no concept of the notion of time, apart from when it is possible to cross the border. 

It is this last fact that is so crucial to the story.

15 year old Tara Martin has an argument with her boyfriend, Richie, and storms away from him in the woods near her home somewhere in the heart of England in the 1980's.  She rests for a while in a patch of bluebells, and meets a stranger on a white horse.  Within moments she is hypnotised by this stranger and agrees almost instantly when he offers her a ride on his horse.  They talk and travel and he brings her to his home.  Once there she becomes uncomfortable and asks to go back as her parents will be worrying.  The stranger, Hiero (pronouced 'yarrow'), after being horrified when finding out how old she is, regretfully explains that this will be impossible for 6 months, until the border opens again.   Tara scorns this idea and spends the next few months attempting to find her way home, only to be foiled again and again.  She reluctantly serves her time, witnessing many strange things amongst the people she is staying with.  When Hiero finally returns her, six months later, she is shocked to discover that things have changed more than she expected when she comes back.

For everyone else she loves, 20 years have passed.

The story starts with Tara arriving on her parents doorstep on Christmas day, filthy, exhausted and seemingly not a day older than she left.  Her mother faints, her father calls her older brother, Peter, the town blacksmith, who now has a family of his own.  Tara's story about where she has been only incites anger and confusion in her family, who have mourned her murder for 20 years and blamed her then boyfriend and Peter's best friend for her death.   Tara's family is not the only one to have been affected.  Richie's life was effectively ruined by her disappearance as well, his music career failed and his friendship with Peter was destroyed.

Tara is sticking to her story, but finally agrees to see a psychiatrist.  We see her sessions with him through the psychiatrists eyes, including his notes on her behaviour and possible explanations for her amnesia and the world she has created.  By the end of her sessions we are no longer sure what is truth and what is fabrication as the psychiatrist maps out explanations for every story Tara tells.  The only thing that is harder to explain is Tara's unchanged appearance.  We are left questioning as to whether Tara is telling the truth, or whether her own subconscious is protecting her from a horrific trauma.

All we do know is that no family can just pick up where they left off 20 years ago.

There is a sub plot running through the book as well about Peter's son, the lady next door and a dead cat but in all honesty I found these sections much less engrossing than the main story line.

Prefacing each chapter were quotes from poetry, stories and folklore, including books I am familiar with from my degree such as Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (a wonderfully dark and macabre retelling of familiar stories) and Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment, a psychoanalysis of fairy tales (ever wonder why Little Red Riding Hood's cape is red, instead of blue or green?) and a transcript from an trial in the 1800's where a man murdered his wife, believing her to be a changeling.

This story is familiar territory.  Changelings and stolen children have hovered on our consciousness for ages untold and is still as terrifying today as it was then.  Only a few weeks ago I saw a new production by the children of the Can On A String Theatre Company exploring this exact same fear.   Joyce also treats his fairies with the same level of respect as they were afforded prior to Disneyfication.  Another author who does this well is Raymond E Feist in his book Faerie Tale.  They are dangerous and menacing, not through what they will do through hate or malice, but through the concept that to love someone means to own and posses them.  They are greedy, selfish and perilously alluring.  There is a reason our ancestors were told not to play in the woods, not to enter a fairy ring and always carry an adder stone.

Tara should have remembered her lessons.


If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!

The Reading Nook: My Notorious Life by Madame X

I'm a sucker for a good title, and even worse for packaging.  It's one of the reason's I'm very careful to avoid Paperchase if I can help it - you would never get me out.

It was the title and the cover that first drew me to this book - it's not one that I would normally go for (although I do like fictional autobiographies; Memoirs of a Geisha, Empress Orchid, The Help etc) as the first person narrative really immerses you in the story.

The cover endorsements also helped me decide to pick it up, although I am wary of anything on a dust jacket these days after chatting with a lady who's job in publishing used to be how to take mediocre and lack lustre comments from reviewers and present them in such a way as to make the book sound like the greatest work of art ever created.  Don't trust a dust jacket - it lies!

In this case though it happened to be telling the truth.

My Notorious Life is a work of fiction, very loosely based on the life of Ann Trow, otherwise known as Madame Restell, an abortionist working in New York in the mid-late 1880's.  Manning's heroine is a rapscallion urchin, foul mouthed and impoverished, scampering around the streets of New York in the mud and waste, caring for her younger brother and sister whilst her mother lies ill in bed after an accident in the factory where she works.  Her name is Ann (Axie) Muldoon, a fire cracker with a deep sense of Irish identity and familial loyalty.

Axie and her brother (Joe) and sister (Dutch)  have a chance encounter with a children's aid worker who sends them on a train to the countryside with other orphans (despite Axie's protestations).  On the journey they meet Charlie, a boorish yet charming orphan boy who has a tempestuous relationship with Axie.  To Axie's horror, once they reach the countryside she is forcibly sepearated from her siblings and when no suitable adoptive parents can be found for her, sent back to New York with Charlie.

Once there events rapidly escalate for Axie until she finds herself apprenticed to a female midwife and learning all the tricks of the trade for female health, fertility, and the occassional removal of an 'obstruction'.  Years pass, she meets Charlie again, they court and marry.  She writes on a regular basis to her sister, hearing stories back about Dutch's good fortune, the balls she is attending, the French she is learning and the dresses she is wearing.  There is no word of her brother.

After the death of her mentor and teacher, Axie and her husband live in poverty with no source of income.  In desperation, Axie makes up 6 bottles of women's remedy (not to be taken when pregnant as it may cause the woman to loose the child) and sells them on the streets.  She makes a small profit and gradually she and Charlie build up an huge enterprise.  Axie, under the alias Madame DeBeausacq becomes a midwife, seller of female remedies, educator for women on the secrets of their bodies and occasional abortionist at a time when often another child meant a death sentence for the mother and hunger for the family.  However, a midwife as successful as Axie, who resides in grandeur and wealth, could not remain completely unnoticed by the authorities.  Dubbed Madame X by the newspaper, the vilest and most corrupt woman in New York, all too soon she finds herself hounded by the man who has vowed to destroy her, Anthony Comstock, the founder of the Society for the Suppression of Vice.

Written in beautiful, dramatic prose, this book just draws you into Axie's world.  The book is unabashedly feminist about a time when women's rights were non-existant, when distributing knowledge and education about the 'female complaint' was dubbed as heresy, when publishing pamphlets about female medication was enough to get you thrown in jail for 6 months, and when practicing abortion was seen as the worse sin.  Axie is a woman who does not fit into this world - she is defiant, outspoken and swears like a gutter snipe.  She enjoys a fiery, intense love with her husband and will not suffer fools gladly but is kind, considerate and caring with the frightened women who come to her for help.  She knows that what she is doing is the right thing for people with nowhere else to turn, and despite the dangers and risks to her and her family, continues.  She also never gives up on her siblings and is hellbent on reuniting a family torn apart by a meddling but well-meaning aid worker.

The language style is engrossing and once I was 50 pages in, I could not put this book down.  Manning immerses you completely in this period in history, the sights, sounds and smells of the streets, the midwifery clinic, the back parlour where Axie and Charlie sell their Women's Lunar Remedy in the early days of their marriage surround you.  It is all the more engrossing as many of the characters are based on real people, and the situations and circumstances they find themselves which makes it all the more fascinating.  I finished it in a few days, muttering 'Just one more chapter' late at night as poor Steve was trying to sleep, unwilling to put the book down as I travelled with Axie on her journey from 13 year old untamed wild creature to 33 year old infamous female medical practitioner.

Highly recommended.

The Reading Nook: The Knitting Circle and When God Was A Rabbit

I'm currently in another play.  A Victorian play to be exact and at the very first rehearsal the Director came bounding up to me in a manner reminiscent of an overexcited Labrador puppy (she was adorable with it), thrust some knitting needles and wool into my hand and said " I want your character to be knitting throughout Act 1".  I must have looked utterly terrified as she then went on to ask me if I knew how to knit.

No.  No I did not.  Let me tell you, the very first time you run an Act and you are trying to figure out lines, movements, reactions, read from your book, turn pages and make notes, working out how to knit after a hasty lesson from the actress playing your big sister is not the easiest thing to do.  However I mastered it* (after a lot of practice - it was a good excuse to watch Happy Feet 2) and now am knitting merrily away whilst talking, moving and acting.  Howzat for multitasking?

*by mastering it I mean I can do lots and lots of straight lines.  That's it.  Don't ask me to turn a corner.

The Knitting Circle

Anyway all that knitting made me return to a book I had read a while ago but hadn't picked up again since.  The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood is a gentle, melancholic and quite emotional tale of a woman who has just lost her only child to meningitis.  Her marriage is breaking down, she is bitter towards her distant mother and she is on the verge of losing her job as a writer for the local paper.  In a desperate bid to try and find some structure and support in her life she joins a knitting circle.  The women welcome her in and gradually open up to her, each with their individual own tales of grief and woe, their talk accompanied by the clack of knitting needles as they each work through their own private stages of grief and healing.

The novel has a poignancy about it, made even more so when you realise that the author, Hood, is writing this from a semi-autobiographical viewpoint as she lost her daughter to an aggressive form of strep five years earlier.  I found it to be a beautiful read, and not one that you need to be familiar with knitting terminology or process to enjoy.  It is incredibly raw and powerful and the author gives an intense portrayal of grief and the loss of self that comes along with it. If you are still going through a grieving process yourself though, you may wish to wait awhile before picking this book up.

When God Was A Rabbit

This glorious novel chronicles the life of the precocious Elly Maud as she moves from child to womanhood and her observations about life and family around her.

Elly is from a loving, stable, if slightly unconventional family and enjoys a close relationship with her older brother, Joe, who buys her a pet rabbit she names god (small 'g')after her family moves to a picturesque cottage in Cornwall which they turn into a B&B, attracting eccentric guests in the late 1960's.  Despite her idyllic environment and family, Elly still sees the darker sides of life; from death and loss to her brother's difficulties in fitting in with his peers, her mother's bouts of depression and darker hints at abuse by a neighbour.  Then there is Jenny Penny, Elly's best friend and pen pal who is from a home that is a lot lonelier and more dangerous than Elly's own and who is often an outsider, gazing in wistfully at Elly's life.  As the book progresses we shift to the 1990's.  Joe has moved to New York, Elly is a journalist and Jenny Penny is in prison.  The prose here also grows up, it doesn't have that misty, magical hue over it anymore and this helps to see the transition in Elly from observant yet idealistic young girl to fairly cynical young woman.

There is a beautiful mix of humour, whimsy and sadness throughout the book; the nativity scene in particular is hilarious and the commentary on real world events (the description of the events of 9/11 in particular is incredibly gritty) has a grounding effect for the reader.  There are some extremely powerful narratives as well; Alfie sitting in his car having quit as a lawyer is notably moving.  You get a real feel for the characters as they explore their worlds and their relationships, mixed with a pathos for a time of lost innocence and youth, when God Was A Rabbit.

The Reading Nook: Watching the English by Kate Fox

Only 1 book this month.  To be fair it was 400 pages long, and I am currently learning a script as well, plus Christmas in the mix.  

Oh alright, I just haven't read as much as I wanted to and will try and do better next month!

There is something almost perverse about looking at yourself culturally through an anthropologist eyes, seeing that your little quirks and foibles aren't actually as unique to yourself as you had originally thought, or hoped, but are rather more symptomatic of your cultural upbringing and identity and yet this is exactly what I love about Kate Fox's humorous and insouciant examination of the hidden rules of English behaviour.

Fox's book looks at the English (and yes it is the English, she explains very early on that to examine the Welsh, Irish, Northern Irish and Scottish would simply be too big an undertaking) in terms of the unsaid laws that govern our behaviour and looks at what actually forms our national character, from the laws of weather-speak and the reflex-apology to class indicators and class anxiety and that most mysterious of rules in the strangest of environments, the law of queuing at a pub bar.  She tests what happens if she bumps into someone in a busy train station and doesn't apologise or cuts the queue at a bakery.   I laughed out loud (oh god I do that) and I cringed inside (oh god I do that) at every chapter which is conveniently broken down into specific sections (tea, clothing, boasting, weather and so on).  It is particularly entertaining reading about how the poor foreigners cope who attempt to understand some of our most baffling customs and mannerisms and our very own social dis-ease.  It is an insider joke - the way we behave makes perfect sense to us but perplexes anyone not raised in England. 

There were sections I got fed up with - she hammers some points home and the constant revisiting of some rules of behaviour became trying after a while, as were the chapter summaries which had all the grace of an A-Level English essay in places.  There is also some academic terminology that I just skipped over as, for me, it added little to the book.  I must admit as well that I did not agree with some of her observations and I do wonder if they are regional rather than national.

I would imagine that this book has a marmite effect on people.  Read it with a pinch of salt and a willingness to laugh at yourself, your friends, your family and everyone you have every met who is English or aspires to Englishness and you will enjoy it.  If you also want to understand the English a little better then this book will help you realise what is going on the next time an English person shakes your hand and discusses the weather with you rather than tell you their name or suddenly mid-game switches their allegiance to the underdog.