Kidzdoc's 2009 Goals #3

Part 1

Part 2

Currently reading:
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (UK)
My Men by Malika Mokeddem (Algeria)
Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

Other books I plan to read this month:
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (UK) {Booker Prize shortlist}
Bone People by Keri Hulme (Australia) {Reading Globally August theme read}
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (UK) {Author mini-theme read}

Books Read in 2009:

January:
2666 by Roberto Bolaño (Chile)
The Illusion of Return by Samir El-Youssef (Palestine)
A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo (Kenya)
Mishima's Sword by Christopher Ross (UK)
Patriotism by Yukio Mishima (Japan)
Does Your House Have Lions? by Sonia Sanchez (US)
Mi Revalueshanary Fren by Linton Kwesi Johnson (UK)
The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso (Chile)
Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami (Japan)
Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami
Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra (Chile)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño

February:
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Japan)
Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia)
The Interrogation by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (France)
Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar)
Novel 11, Book 18 by Dag Solstad (Norway)
A Better Angel: Stories by Chris Adrian (US)
The Cobra's Heart by Ryszard Kapuściński (Poland/Africa)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney (US)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Australia)
Travelling with Djinns by Jamal Mahjoub (UK/Sudan)
The Conjure Woman by Charles W. Chesnutt (US)
Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy (Hungary)
A Journey Round My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy (Hungary)
Ül: Four Mapuche Poets (Chile)
The Lemoine Affair by Marcel Proust (France)

March:
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Ethiopia/US)
My Floating Mother, City by Kazuko Shiraishi (Japan)
The Oldest Orphan by Tierno Monénembo (Guinea)
Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, an American Town by Warren St. John (US)
Resistance: The Human Struggle Against Infection by Norbert Gualde, MD (France)
The United States of Africa by Abdourahman A. Waberi (Djibouti)
The Winners by Julio Cortázar (Argentina)
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (US)
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (US)
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (Congo)
The Tango Singer by Tomás Eloy Martinez (Argentina)
Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Julio Cortázar & Carol Dunlop (France)
Golpes Bajos/Low Blows: Instantáneas/Snapshots by Alicia Borinsky (Argentina)
UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo (China)
Shyness & Dignity by Dag Solstad (Denmark)
A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri (India)

April:
Brain Surgeon by Keith Black, MD (US)
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker (The Netherlands)
Cambridge by Caryl Phillips (UK/Caribbean)
Afternoon Raag by Amit Chaudhuri (India/UK)
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (China/UK)
Breath by Tim Winton (Australia)
Books v. Cigarettes by George Orwell(UK)
Rhyming Life & Death by Amos Oz (Israel)
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (Pakistan)
World Ball Notebook by Sesshu Foster (US)
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt (US)
Unlucky Lucky Days by Daniel Grandbois (US)

May:
Five Spice Street by Can Xue (China)
The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch (Poland)
The Fat Man and Infinity by António Lobo Antunes (Portugal)
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (Ireland)
Gimpel the Fool: And Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland)
Flowers of a Moment by Ko Un (Korea)
W, or The Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec (France)
Voice Over by Céline Curiol (France)
C.L.R. James: Cricket's Philosopher King by Dave Renton (Trinidad/UK)
The King's Rifle by Biyi Bandele (Nigeria/UK)
Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (Italy)
Plants Don't Drink Coffee by Unai Elorriaga (Basque/Spain)
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro (UK)
The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
The Armies by Evelio Rosero (Colombia)
The Bathroom by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (France)

June:
Miles From Nowhere by Nami Mun (South Korea/US)
Rose by Li-Young Lee (Indonesia/US)
Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulić (Croatia)
In the Falling Snow by Caryl Phillips (St. Kitts/UK)
The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales (Cuba/US)
How I Became a Nun by César Aira (Argentina)
The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre (France)
Ravel by Jean Echenoz (France)
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Hoppla! 1 2 3 by Gérard Gavarry (France)
Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones (UK)
The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín (Ireland)
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat (Iran)

July:
Ghosts by César Aira (Argentina)
Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures by Richard Barnett (UK)
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (Austria)
The Postman by Antonio Skármeta (Chile)
Nostalgic Views of Atlanta {Atlanta History Center}
Mercury Under My Tongue by Sylvain Trudel (Canada)
The Fête at Coqueville by Émile Zola (France)
Flaw by Magdalena Tulli (Poland)
The Observer by Matt Charman (UK)
Literary Cafés of Paris by Noël Riley Fitch
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi (UK)

August:
Palafox by Eric Chevillard (France)
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (UK)
Literary Paris: A Guide by Jessica Powell
Not Untrue & Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin (Ireland)
Journey into the Past by Stefan Zweig (Austria)
Harare North by Brian Chikwava (UK)
Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein (Pakistan/UK)
Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne (Sri Lanka/UK)
England People Very Nice by Richard Bean (UK)
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (UK)
Derelict London by Paul Taller (UK)
Me Cheeta: The Autobiography by James Lever (UK)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (US)
The Trial of Robert Mugabe by Chielo Zona Eze (Nigeria)
The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Ornela Vorpsi (Albania)
How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall (UK)
Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure by Rachel Fershleiser (US)

September:
Summertime by J.M. Coetzee (South Africa)
Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin (Mexico)
Love and Summer by William Trevor (Ireland)
Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter (UK)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (UK)
Coloured Lights by Leila Aboulela (Sudan)

* Murr faints*

What makes me faint is the list of books I've purchased this year! Let's see...I count roughly 140 books that I've purchased or received. Umm...I don't think this will be the year that I'll read more books than I've bought.

I can't believe my eyes! I feel sooooo ashamed of my poor, limited reading.......:-(

Well, this has been an unusual year for me, I've never read anywhere near this many books in a year. At the end of May last year I had only finished 13 books. This year I've read at least 12 books every month.

Since it is summer I'll now start reading bigger books, including several massive biographies (The World Is What it Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, Frantz Fanon: A Biography, Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century) and hefty novels (Darkmans, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, The Satanic Verses, The Moor's Last Sigh, etc.), so I'm sure that my reading will appear to "slow down".

WOW. That's an amazingly long list. I am in awe!

Well, this has been an unusual year for me, I've never read anywhere near this many books in a year. At the end of May last year I had only finished 13 books. This year I've read at least 12 books every month.

I know the feeling (although I can't keep up with you). All of these challenges and the list of fun books that everyone's reading has spurred me to new reading heights. I've never read more than about 50 books a year, but now it looks as if I'll reach a new yearly reading record (hoping to make it to 75 this year). It's been great fun!!

kidzdoc -- your lists make my eyes tired -- but you do inspire!

Miles From Nowhere by Nami Mun



My rating:

Miles From Nowhere is on the shortlist for this year's Orange Award for New Writers, along with The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber and An Equal Stillness by Francesca Kay. Ms Mun was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved with her parents to the Bronx as a young child. After working a variety of odd jobs from 7th grade on, she moved to SoCal as a teenager, and received degrees from UC Berkeley and the U of Michigan. She currently teaches Creative Writing at Columbia College in Chicago.

Miles From Nowhere is an unblinking, stark and disturbing story of Joon-Mee, a Korean girl who emigrated with her family to the Bronx and ran away at age 12 after her father left her and her mother to fend for themselves. The novel takes place in the late 1970s and early 1980s, at a time when NYC was an especially dangerous and unforgiving place to live. Joon encounters a variety of fellow misfits, who provide her with shelter, support, drugs, and loveless sex, and works as a prostitute, drug dealer, petty thief, and escort girl. Somehow she maintains enough optimism and manages to keep her head barely above water despite her precarious existence, believing that she can "choose my own beginning, one that was scrubbed clean of everything past."

Much of the story is told in a matter of fact fashion, as she describes her life and those around her without much introspection or insight into the pain she must have experienced, which made the novel less depressing and more readable than it could have been. The ending, though, was quite surprising, and the story ends rather abruptly, which was less than satisfying. However, it was a fast paced and captivating read, and is definitely recommended.

Rose: Poems by Li-Young Lee



My rating:

This is Lee's first collection of poetry, which won the New York University's 1986 Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. The poems are delicate and beautiful, yet powerful and deeply emotional, and use imagery to describe the love he has for his parents and his wife. A representative example is The Gift:

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he'd removed
the iron sliver I thought I'd die from.

I can't remember the tale,
but I hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy's palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife's right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he's given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

I'll reread these poems again over the rest of the week, and I may bump my rating to 5 stars.

What a lovely poem -- what a lovely father!

super stuff.

Marilynne Robinson is the unanimous winner of this year's Orange Prize Award for Fiction for Home. Francesca Kay is the winner of the Orange Award for New Writers for An Equal Stillness.

Interestingly, the Orange Prize youth panel selected Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo as their winner for the Orange Prize, which was longlisted but did not make the shortlist for the actual award.

Marilynne Robinson wins Orange prize

Frida's Bed by Slavenka Drakulic



My rating:

I learned about this book from SqueakyChu, who read it earlier this year. I was especially interested in the novel, based on the life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, as I was enthralled by the Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art last year.

This was a brilliant and enlightening story, in which Kahlo is an occasional narrator. She was born with spina bifida, developed polio at a young age, which caused extreme pain and atrophy of her right leg, and barely survived a horrible accident aboard a streetcar as a young woman, which led to chronic debilitating pain and disability throughout the rest of her life. Her mother gave her supplies to paint during her convalescence from the accident, and she turned to painting to take her mind off of the pain, and as a mode of self expression.

She boldly took several of her works to the famed muralist Diego Rivera, referred to as "the Maestro" throughout the book, who almost immediately recognized her talent and her beauty, leaving his wife to marry the much younger Kahlo. Their marriage was a necessary but not happy one, as her art flourished with his support but his wanton infidelities took an emotional toll on her.

Drakulic does a masterful job in unveiling Kahlo, and Frida's Bed feels less like a novel than a short autobiography. The author includes several descriptions of Kahlo's portraits within the story, but prints are not included. I had the catalogue from the museum exhibit, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera, and could quickly refer to these prints. However, someone reading this novel without access to these prints, whether online or on paper, would not gain the same experience and understanding of her work.

The last 30-40 pages were somewhat tedious and repetitive, but Frida's Bed was a fascinating psychological, medical and historical analysis of the life and work of Frida Kahlo, and is highly recommended.

Frida called Diego "the Frog," and her parents categorized their marriage as a union between "the elephant and the dove." And although Rivera was probably unfaithful before Frida was, she did have affairs with Leon Trotsky, the artist, Isamu Noguchi; the photographer Nicholas Muray; and probably a number of women as well, among them, Tina Modotti. They divorced and remarried and were each other's best friends and critics. And she had a wildly wonderful sense of humor until nearly the end when pain and the drugs and alcohol to soothe it pretty much did her in. Hayden Herrera's biography Frida; A Biography and her collection of the paintings, Frida Kahlo: The Paintings remain the definitive works on Kahlo -- the latter is the best source to view her paintings outside an exhibit.

Thanks, Jane. Frida's Bed does mention her affair with Trotsky, and the effect it had on his wife, but none of her other affairs are included.

Darryl,

once again copious thanks.

I LOVE the father poem by Li-Young Lee, whom I must now go in search of.

And Frida Kahlo holds enormous fascination for me. I have read the Herrera book and seen and enjoyed the film based on it, with Selma Hayek. I also attended a very very odd exhibit some years ago which combined the works of three women artists, who had little in common other than being women and artists: Kahlo, Emily Carr and and Georgia O'Keeffe, with the argument being that all three were greatly influenced by native values (????). But I certainly enjoy her art, and the Drakulic book sounds good.

In the Falling Snow by Caryl Phillips



My rating:

Keith Gordon is a second-generation black Briton in his late 40s whose previously staid life as a social worker in the Race Equality unit is slowly spiraling downward. His wife divorced him three years earlier, after he confessed to having a brief sexual encounter with a colleague at work. Their teenaged son is getting into more and more trouble in and outside of school, which threatens to derail his plans to attend university, as his parents seem unable to get through to him. He breaks off an affair with a younger woman who works for him, and she distributes their steamy e-mails to everyone in his department. And his father, who came to Britain during the large influx of West Indians in the early 1960s, is in failing health.

I found this novel of the experiences of three generations of black British men mildly interesting and well-written, but ultimately disappointing. Keith is an unsympathetic and irritating character, who is self-centered, immature and quite clueless in his relationships with his colleagues, family and his ex-lover. The book ended abruptly and incompletely, as if Phillips himself was fed up with Keith and wanted to be done with him.

The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales



My rating:

I read a review of this book on the Three Percent web site here, and bought it from BookCourt in Brooklyn yesterday.

Guillermo Rosales (1946-1993) was a Cuban novelist and journalist, who has been characterized as a "misfit", as he opposed the positions of both the Castro government and the Cuban exiles living in America, and because he suffered from mental illness throughout his adult life. He emigrated to the United States in 1979, where he was diagnosed as being schizophrenic. He lived much of the remainder of his life in a variety of halfway houses and mental hospitals, and ultimately committed suicide in Miami. He published four novels, but he destroyed all but this one, and El Juego de la Vbiola, which is currently being translated into English.

Like the author, the narrator of The Halfway House, William Figueras, is a Cuban writer who emigrates to Miami, and meets his expatriated relatives, who are disappointed to learn that the "future winner" they were expecting is, instead, a "crazy, nearly toothless, skinny, frightened guy who had to be admitted to a psychiatric ward that very day because he eyed everyone in the family with suspicion and, instead of hugging and kissing them, insulted them." After he spends six months in and out of psychiatric wards, his aunt drops him off at a halfway house that caters to Latinos, telling him that "nothing more can be done."

William very quickly learns that he has landed in Hell. His housemates are all demented, stuffing toilets with clothes and relieving themselves all over the house. The owner, Mr. Curbelo, steals their Social Security checks, and provides them with less amenities than the worst jail. Order is kept by several "employees", especially Arsenio, who steals from and beats the male residents, and rapes the female ones. Out of anger and frustration, William also begins to physically and sexually abuse his housemates, earning him the respect of Arsenio.

One day a young, innocent and disturbed woman, Frances, becomes a resident. William immediately takes to her, and the two create a plan to escape from the halfway house and build a life together. However, Mr. Curbelo and Arsenio have a plan for them.

This novella, although quite sad, was not morbidly depressing, as it is infused with warmth and humor, and the narrator does not descend into madness or despair despite his obvious pain and anguish.

How I Became a Nun by César Aira



My rating:

A surreal story of a 6 year old boy (or girl) who eats a small amount of cyanide laced ice cream. Then things get really wacky.

Due to the late hour, I'll submit a (weak) haiku review now, and a more meaningful review later in the week.

(S)he couldn't have known
Poisoned strawberry ice cream
Would be (her) demise

Edited to downgrade rating from 4 to 3-1/2 stars

kiz!!!!! Are you awake!!!!! Where's the Haldol??????? Where's the Hospital?????? Haven't you heard about the hordes descending on me tomorrow. I need an excuse. I need a place to hide. EOS isn't enough. Haldol please. Now!!!!!!!!!

So I know I fell off the face of the Earth for a while, but it is now summer vacation, and I am back among the living and book discussing (and officially a SECOND year medical student.)

Allow me to say again that your SHOCKINGLY long reading list gives me hope for a future life.

I just read Cutting For Stone for the AMSA book discussion group. I really adored it, and it seems it might be up your alley. I hadn't heard of it before AMSA directed me, but it really was well worth the read, and I'd love to hear what you think.

#21: Uh oh...I was working late last night in hospital, and missed your urgent request. My Georgia medical license does not permit me to prescribe meds out of state. However, I have dispatched my faithful assistant, Igor, with five straitjackets and mouth gags, along with nasogastric tubes. He has been instructed to restrain and gag your house guests, insert the NG tubes, and give continuous NG feedings of pablum. After 24 hours of feedings, he will permit them to leave, if they so desire, or stay for the remainder of the week to receive more pablum. I hope that this helps.

#22: Hi pursuitofsanity! It's good to see you back, and congratulations on completing first year. Enjoy your summer vacation!

That's great to hear that AMSA has a book discussion group; was it the chapter at your med school or the national chapter that decided to do this? If the group read other books, which were they?

I did read Cutting for Stone, and posted a review. It is definitely one of the top two or three books that I've read this year. Two of my partners at work have also read it, and loved it, and I recommended it to a nurse at the hospital I work at, and her book club (mainly other hopsital nurses) is also reading it now.

A couple of my partners and I have talked about providing the residents with copies of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and discuss it with them near the end of their rotation with us.

I and a good friend of mine co-wrote a chapter on seizures for a new textbook, Now What? Pediatrics, which is designed for medical students on their inpatient pediatrics rotation. The book hasn't been published yet, but I'll certainly let you know when it is available.

BTW, if you think my list is long, check out kiwidoc's thread (she mainly posts on the 75 Books thread). She's probably read 90 or more books since January, and I think that she has a much tougher work schedule than I do!

The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre



My rating:

Dominique Fabre (1960-) is one of the leading contemporary French novelists, whose work primarily focuses on "the lives of individuals on the margins of society." He has published nine works of fiction, including The Waitress Was New, which is his first novel that has been translated into English. It was published by Archipelago Books in 2008, and was listed as one of the Best Translated Books of 2008 by Three Percent.

Pierre is a bartender in a busy neighborhood café just outside of Paris, who lives a mundane but peaceful life as he nears the end of his work career. He has experienced the ups and downs of life, but has no regrets about what has happened to him. He has only a few more trimesters of work before he can draw a full pension, and plans to work at the café until that time, as he has established a comfortable relationship with the owner and his wife. He lives alone, having no relationship with his ex-wife or past lovers, and his days are largely taken up with work.

Sabrina, the regular waitress, calls in sick, and a new waitress takes her place, without disrupting the tenor of the café. A few days later, the owner calls Pierre to inform him that he will not be working at the café that day; however, the owner's wife has no idea where he is, but suspects that he is having an affair with Sabrina. As the days progress, the owner continues to remain missing, and the operation of the café begins to slowly unravel.

This is a simple, quiet, and beautiful story of an ordinary man, which is infused with emotional depth and wisdom.

Ravel by Jean Echenoz



My rating:

This novel by the award winning French author was shortlisted for this year's IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It consists of nine snapshots of the composer Maurice Ravel during the last 10 years of his life. In the first chapter we find Ravel reclining in his bathtub on the day he is set to embark on a four month tour of the United States, in 1927. He is contemplative and quite reluctant to leave his aqueous cocoon:

'Leaving the bathtub is sometimes quite annoying. First of all, it's a shame to abandon the soapy lukewarm water, where stray hairs wind around bubbles among the scrubbed-off skin cells, for the chill atmosphere of a poorly heated house. Then, if one is the least bit short, and the side of that claw-footed tub the least bit high, it's always a challenge to swing a leg over the edge to feel around, with a hesitant toe, for the slippery tile floor. Caution is advised, to avoid bumping one's crotch or risking a nasty fall. The solution to this predicament would be of course to order a custom-made bathtub, but that entails expenses, perhaps even exceeding the cost of the recently installed but still inadequate cnetral heating. Better to remain submerged up to the neck for hours, if not forever, using one's right foot to periodically manipulate the hot-water faucet, thus adjusting the thermostat to maintain a comfortable amniotic ambience.'

Subsequent chapters describe the creation of Boléro and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand for Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm during World War I and earned the wrath of Ravel by embellishing the concerto, and Ravel's rapid decline before his premature death.

Despite the book's small size, Echenoz provides fascinating and exquisite detail into the life and mind of Ravel, with rich descriptions of the luxury liner that carries him to America and the cross-country trains that take him from one city to the next on his tour, and the despair he experiences toward the end of his life.

This is a book that begs to be reread, and I would imagine that the reader would glean greater insight and enjoyment on repeated readings, similar to repeated listening to a fine piece of music.

I just learned that Black Oak Books in Berkeley, my favorite West Coast used book store, closed on May 31st. I went there on my last trip to San Francisco last month, and thought I overheard a conversation about its possible closure. Its other location, on Irving Street in the Sunset District of SF, near the UCSF campus, closed a couple of years ago. Sadly, Bay Area bookstore closures are becoming quite common.

I'm almost halfway through Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa, which is very good so far. Thanks to lriley for his glowing recommendation!

Love the haiku in #20. I'm horribly behind in my Club Read reading but it is nice to know that your great reading (and reviewing) continues. There's a bit of comfort in your consistency!

I think I saw a few more new translations of Aira possibly from the same publisher who did How I Became a Nun...

I have another book by Aira, An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, that I'm considering reading next because it's short, before I start on something longer, possibly Conversation in the Cathedral, although I will never be able to read it as fast as you are, Darryl.

You're right, Lois. The publisher is New Directions Publishing, which is based in NYC. In addition to the book that Rebecca mentioned, New Directions has also published Ghosts by Mr Aira, which looks good. I'm curious to get your thoughts on the other book, Rebecca.

I have a few New Directions books, but never looked at the online catalog until now. Wow; I see well over a dozen books that look very enticing. Must resist...

I finished Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa, which was absolutely brilliant, easily 5 stars. I agree with LT member lriley, it is the best book about 20th century South America that I've read. I'll submit a review tomorrow; my head is still spinning at the moment! I need to read something lighthearted and entertaining, and Harry Pearson's A Tall Man in a Low Land: Some Time Among the Belgians should fit the bill.

Wow! Now I guess I really will have to read it, tome that it is or not!

How many pages must a book be to be considered a tome? Or is that one of those unanswerable questions, like 'How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?'

In the case of my copy, 601 pages hard cover.

My softcover copy is also 601 pages.

I propose that a book must be at least 500 pages long to be considered a tome (no biting!).

Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa



My rating:

Conversation in the Cathedral was originally published in 1969, while Mr Llosa was living in Europe, and was translated into English in 1975.

I'd like to say in advance that this review cannot possibly do justice to this book. It is absolutely brilliant, the best book I've read this year, and, as I mentioned previously, the best novel about Latin America that I've read so far.

Santiago Zavala is the 30 year old son of a powerful Peruvian senator, who is estranged from his upper middle class family and eking out a meager existence as a investigational journalist in Lima. One day during an afternoon siesta his wife tells him that two black men snatched her beloved dog out of her arms, and he goes to the nearest pound to look for the animal. He finds the dog, and one of the men who took it is also there. Santiago quickly recognizes this man as his father's former chauffeur Ambrosio, who has obviously fallen on hard times. Ambrosio takes him to a local dive, La Catedral, where they reminisce about their former lives over the remainder of the afternoon.

The conversation is interspersed with other conversations that take place a few years before, during the dictatorial presidency of Manuel Odría (1948-56). Ambrosio was also formerly employed by the despicable and cunning Don Cayo Bermúdez, who was Odría's Director of Security and Minister for Public Order and the enemy of the senator. Santiago had previously learned that Ambrosio had been accused of the brutal murder of Bermúdez's mistress while he worked for Senatory Zavala, but Ambrosio reveals much more unsavory information about himself, the senator and Bermúdez, and the extent of the depravity of the Odría regime.

Llosa gives us an unsettling and unforgettable view of the effect of dictatorship and corruption on individuals of all levels of Peruvian society during and after Odría. All are adversely affected, even Bermúdez, who profits more than anyone from the regime.

This book was not an easy read, particularly in its first half, as the different conversations are woven together at times, which requires close attention and occasional review of previous pages or chapters. I'd encourage anyone who reads this book to be aware of this in advance, as lriley did in his review, and to stick with it, as most of the latter half in the book does not use this technique, making for a faster read.

I would also highly recommend one of Mr Llosa's later books, The Feast of the Goat, a novel about the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic, one of the few books that left me with sweaty palms and a rapidly palpating heart at the end.

I posted this message on the What Are You Reading Now? group's What are you reading the week of June 13 2009? thread, and thought I would post these links here, as well.

I agree with Richard. Most of the translated literature available in the US comes from smaller publishing houses, and most of these books are not available in the major chain bookstores or general stores. So, average US readers wouldn't know about most of these books unless they receive some additional recognition, such as a book review or a major literary award.

Here are some US publishing houses that focus on international literature:
Archipelago Books
Open Letter Books at the University of Rochester
David R. Godine, Publisher
Dalkey Archive Press at the University of Illinois
Seven Stories Press
New Directions Publishing

You can sign up for e-mail newsletters for these publishers to get information about current and forthcoming books.

Here are some helpful web sites about literature in translation:
Words Without Borders
Rainmaker Translations
Three Percent
World Literature Today
World Literature Forum

Thanks, kidzdoc -- these are very useful lists. Actually, I'm finding LT's groups, esp. Reading Globally -- an amazing source of information about international literature -- as is the Club Read group -- and especially your thread! ;-}

Hoppla! 1 2 3 by Gerard Gavarry (160 pp)



My rating:

This French novel is set in a contemporary Parisian suburb, which is populated by troubled and unemployed immigrant youth. The protagonist, Ti-Jus, is one of these youths, an aggressive and sexually magnetic young man, whose mother works at a nearby supermarket. His mother, who also works as a seamstress at home, asks him to deliver a dress to the manager of the supermarket she works at. Ti-Jus and a friend go to the manager's apartment, and while she is trying on the dress, he enters her bedroom, then rapes and kills her. The two young men then casually leave the apartment; end of story.

The same story is told in three different modes, each about 50 pages in length. IMO, the author was more concerned with stylistic technique than he was with telling the story of troubled immigrant youth in France, which was what I was hoping to read about. I quit the novel after 75 pages out of sheer boredom.

Many Thanks, kidzdoc, for the great links in post #36! I'm already enjoying them and finding more books to read.

To add to your list of publishers:

Heinemann
Pantheon/Knopf/Anchor (Random House imprints)
Grove Press/Black Cat/Canongate (same catalog)
Europa Editions
Serpents Tail (UK)
Kodansha (Japanese books in English)

If three percent of books are translations, what percent of that do you think is the work of women authors?

Thanks for those additional links, avaland. We should also add New York Review Books.

Good question about the percentage of women authors. From what I've seen, it's a pretty small number, I'd guess around 15-20%, but it seems that NYRB has a higher percentage of women authors, but nowhere near 50%.

I think generally you are right. Just looking at the fall '09 Europa editions catalog, of 7 featured forthcoming titles, 4 are by women! (1 French, 2 Italian, 1 from the UK) In the summer catalog it was 2 of 6.

Apologies, I didn't actually make links out of that list.

Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones (524 pp)



My rating:

This novel was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2008.

The narrator, John Cromer, is the first born son of a mildly eccentric Royal Air Force pilot and his neurotic and socially obsessed wife, who is such a beautiful baby that he appears on a magazine cover in post-war Britain. A couple of years later he is tormented by severe joint pains and fever, and is diagnosed with acute rheumatic fever. He is condemned to bed rest, on the advice of his physicians, as no medications are effective in treating this disorder. This inactivity, however, causes his joints to become stiff and immobile, as he actually has Still's disease, a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which leaves him unable to walk, stand or even sit upright.

His parents arrange for him to attend a converted hospital for children with Still's disease, where he encounters a stern but loving matron, and several sadistic physiotherapists and nurses. The other patients, mainly girls, appear to be more fortunate than he, as they were diagnosed earlier and given corticosteroids, a new and potentially revolutionary therapy. The long-term effects of treatment later become tragically apparent; despite his greater immobility, John is actually the most fortunate of the group.

In later childhood, he is transferred to a school for chronically ill boys, where he undergoes an intellectual and sexual awakening as he enters his pre-teen years.

The first 2/3 of this work was elegantly written and a joy to read, with rich descriptions of the life of a chronic child in mid-20th century institutions that were frequently harmful and repressive. Despite these conditions, John manages to get as much fun out of life as he possibly can, and is as mischievous as one would expect from a boy in his situation. For me, the wheels fell off the story after he moved to the new school, and his sexual experiences with his fellow students and his male teachers overshadowed everything else. The story also ended abruptly, as it is supposedly the first book in a trilogy about John Cromer.

I'd give 5 stars to the first 1/3 of the book, 4 stars to the middle 1/3, and 2 stars for the last portion.

I've just finished The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Tóibín, which was absolutely wonderful, at least 4-1/2 stars. I'll post a review later this week.

I so much enjoyed The Blackwater Lightship, which I read years ago with an Irish woman, who was able to shed quite a bit of light on the dynamics of the Irish family. I have The Gathering on my TBR pile, and am hoping it's equally good.

On a more frivolous note, Soho Press (sometimes called Soho Crime) publishes translations of foreign crime/mystery novels.

Popping by to see what you are reading, and very impressed. Such a lot of great reading. I am inspired. This Toibin guy is making the rounds on LT at the moment!!

Thanks for the links re. translated works - I have subsribed to Archipelago Books. It is so true what you say about the unavailablity of such titles in the bookshops.

The Blind Owl by Ṣādiq Hidāyat

My rating:

According to the back cover, this is supposed to be "the most important work of modern Iranian literature." I have tried reading this twice, and couldn't get past page 50 either time. The novella is about a young man quite fond of wine and opium, who sees a beautiful but mysterious woman through a ventilation hole in his closet. He goes back to the closet three days later to look for her, but there is no such aperture there. He is in despair over "losing" her, but several weeks later she shows up outside of his front door. He invites her in, and she lies on his bed. He touches her, and realizes she is dead. From there on, the story is more morbid and surreal, and he eventually descends into madness.

If you like Edgar Allan Poe, you'll probably like this novella. If not, I wouldn't recommend it.

Ha! I read The Blind Owl in 2006 and loved that book. I do like weird, though.

This was my BookCrossing journal entry for that book:

"Wow! What an experience it was to read this book. I love this kind of writing...although I must admit that the many layers of the novel had me wildly groping for some kind of understanding.

Reading this book I can only compare to seeing jigsaw puzzle pieces in a box. In both, you can see pieces of it clearly, but are not really sure where they fit.

The book could have used some editing for language and spelling, but I forgive that piece of it because it was a copy printed in English in Tehran!"

>47 kidzdoc: and 48, I am really grooving on negative reviews today - The Blind Owl sounds great to me!

Mine was a positive review!!

#45: Thanks for the info about Soho Press, RidgewayGirl; I was unaware of this publisher.

#46: I'm glad to hear that you've also subscribed to Archipelago Books, kiwidoc. I've only read three of the books I've received so far this year; I think I'll start Wonder (De verwondering) by Hugo Claus next.

#48-50: Ha ha! Good to know that even negative reviews are useful.

>50 SqueakyChu:, Sorry, that was badly worded. I read another negative review of a different book elsewhere on the site & wanted to read that one too! That's what I meant.

>47 kidzdoc: Kidzdoc, a couple of months ago I read another book the cover of which proclaimed it to be the most important Iranian novel of all time - My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad, the very funny story of one family as narrated by a child. (Just in case you haven't given up on Iranian literature altogether ;-) )

One of the fun things about The Blind Owl was that the copy of the book that I read was printed in and started its travels from Iran. In this age of our two countries being so wary of each other, I was happy to be able to connect with someone from Iran in a positive way via, of all things, a novel.

I also started The Blind Owl more than once in the past based on the amazing blurbs on the cover - and put it aside after a bit each time. Just couldn't get into it. Interesting how books either grab you, or they don't!

Theatre review!

God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza



My review: (with apology to the San Francisco Chronicle)

Yasmina Reza's latest play opened in Zurich at the end of 2006, moved to London in March 2008, where it won the 2009 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, and opened on Broadway in March 2009, where it won three Tony Awards, including the Best Play of the year and Best Actress award (Marcia Gay Harden). It will be playing at the Bernard Jacobs Theater on W 45th St until mid-November, with a hiatus from late July until early September.

The action takes place at the home of an upper-middle class couple in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn. There they meet with another couple, whose 11 year old son has assaulted their boy with a stick, and they intend to civilly discuss how to handle the matter. The couple that hosts the meeting consists of a seller of household fixtures (James Gandolfini, who starred in "The Sopranos" (and a fellow Rutgers alumnus)) and a writer (Marcia Gay Harden) who is completing a book about Darfur. Their guests are a corporate lawyer/shark (Jeff Daniels) and a wealth management consultant (Hope Davis).

Initially the meeting is quite amiable, as the guests dine on espresso and clafouti. However, comments from the high-minded and morally superior writer played by Harden irritate the lawyer, and he attacks her while simultaneously devouring all of the clafouti and engaging in cell phone conversations every two minutes. The couples viciously attack each other verbally, and absolute chaos ensues, particularly after the salesman treats everyone to way too much rum.

The writing is wittily sharp and sarcastic, and the actors are all excellent, particularly Harden and Daniels. There is nothing to be learned from this play, but it was the most hilarious play I have ever seen, and is highly recommended.

It is 90 minutes in length, with no interruptions.

Another book not on Kindle :-( To what is the world coming?

Not knowing anything about Kindles or other e-readers, I would guess that only the most popular books are available in electronic format. With your Kindle, can you download electronic books from other booksellers?

They have to be either in Kindle format, non-dram mobi, txt, or doc. Books sold on Sony sites do not transfer well if at all because of their technological condoms.

We're heading to NYC in September to visit oldest son, and I'll keep God of Carnage in mind--it sounds like it makes for good theater. We usually spend most of our NYC times at art museums, and don't usually get to the theater.

Glad to hear that, aruba; if one LTer sees the play because of my post it will have been doubly worthwhile. I assume you know about TKTS on Times Square (half price same day tickets; I paid full price, because I didn't want to miss it).

Another NYC play I plan to see later this summer is Ruined by Lynn Nottage at New York City Center, which is about women caught up in the violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Play this year. It closes on Sep 6, and I'm planning to take my parents to see it during its last week.

I didn't make it to any museum exhibits on this trip, but I do want to go to the Yinka Shonibare MBE exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in September.

* sigh* all this culture you guys get to enjoy...

I had never heard of Yinka Shonibare, so I googled him, and he is a very interesting artist. I'd particularly like to explore his works using African fabrics in more depth, since I dabble in fiber art myself. We'll try to get to the MBE exhibit if the timing works out. Thanks for introducing us to another worthwhile experience.

The Brooklyn Museum is easy to get to by subway; I think that the 2 and the 5 trains both go there from Manhattan.

Am I the only one who gets the impression that our fellow readers have fled to forums unknown?

No, they are still here, methinks.

Are you stalking me Paola ;-)

I've been (gasp!) reading!

I guess I am!

#70 - Stalking or reading?

Right now stalking, eventually reading.

(yawn) I was sleeping. I'm working nights this weekend (8 pm to 8 am Saturday and Sunday) in the hospital. After tonight's shift I'm off for the rest of the week, so I'll have time to get back to Independent People and An African in Greenland, my current books. It's been a slow reading month so far.

Murr, do you visit other Far Eastern cities? One of these days I'd like to visit Taipei or Shanghai, as two of my close friends grew up in those cities. An old friend of mine from grad school is from Osaka, and if I can get back in touch with him I'd like to visit him there.

Finally...a book review!

Book #86: Medical London: City of Diseases, City of Cures by Richard Barnett and Mike Jay



My rating:

This is one of the most unique items in my library, and is now one of my favorites, as well. Medical London was published by the Wellcome Collection, which includes the famous Wellcome Library of Medicine, and it consists of three parts: "Sick City", a book of essays by Richard Barnett about the medical history of London over two millenia; "Anatomy of the City", a guide to the past and current sites of medical importance in the capital; and six elegantly designed pamphlets that serve as walking guides.

The six essays in "Sick City" provide fascinating and graphic accounts of the health and daily lives of Londoners, including the squalor that characterized the medieval and Victorian eras. We learn about the history and development of hospitals and mental institutions, how physicians were able to distinguish themselves from barber-surgeons and apothecaries to become respected professionals, the birth of public health with the linkage of fetid pump water to mid-19th century cholera epidemics in the capital, and other equally intriguing stories.

"Anatomy of the City" is closely linked with the walking guides, which focus on the Thames in medieval times; the plague in Daniel DeFoe's time; the life of an 18th century medical student; tropical diseases in the British Empire; STDs and other infectious diseases in shady Soho; and Bohemian medicine in Chelsea ("From homeopaths to psychopaths").

Barnett is a gifted and enthusiastic historian, and Medical London was clearly a labor of love. There is also a website, http://www.medicallondon.org, that includes further information about the collection, including videos from the six walks.

I would highly recommend Medical London to anyone interested in the history of the capital, the development of Western medicine and public health, or anyone looking for a captivating historical read. I will bring "Anatomy of the City" and the pamphlets with me next week and post information about the walks, with selected photos, over the next few weeks.

That sounds really very interesting, even to someone - such as myself - who knows nothing about medicine.
It might be worth acquiring it just because of the historical info on London. Thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Medical London sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm going to mention it to a friend of mine who is a blue badge tour guide in London as I'm sure it will have lots of info that she'll be interested in I add my thanks for bringing it to our attention!

This all sounds really good! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I hope it will be readily available to the average reader/book buyer.

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig



My rating:

The action in this novella takes place during World War II, on a cruise ship heading from NYC to Buenos Aires. On board is the world chess champion Mirko Czentovic, who is on tour to play the best chessmasters of South America. The nameless narrator is intrigued by Czentovic, a monomaniac whose aloof manner hides the fact that he is an otherwise ignorant and uneducated peasant. In an effort to meet Czentovic, the narrator plays chess with an arrogant and wealthy businessman, who ultimately persuades Czentovic to play him for money. The game is witnessed by many of the passengers, and Czentovic handily trounces the businessman in several games. However, a stranger provides tactical advice to the businessman, who manages to battle the champion to a draw. Czentovic challenges the stranger, Dr. B., to a game the following day, and the narrator is able to learn more about Dr. B's dark secret, and how he was able to match the champion even though he had not played chess in over two decades. The battle royale takes place the next afternoon, and is both a tactical and psychological battle of wills.

Unfortunately this was the last published complete work by Zweig, a Jew who fled his native Austria before the Nazi occupation, and committed suicide with his wife in 1942, due to his despair with the demise of European culture under the Nazis. It is a brilliant work, and is highly recommended.

The Postman (Il Postino) by Antonio Skármeta



My rating:

Ugh. A very superficial story about a young postman whose only customer is the poet Pablo Neruda, who falls in love with a young girl and enlists the poet to help him win the girl's heart. I stopped reading it after 60 pages.

I found the book and movie equally boring!

Medical London is readily accessible, in that it is written for a lay audience, and is available for purchase on Amazon (US) or The Book Depository (US, Canada, and Europe; I'm not sure how available it is outside of those areas).

I hadn't seen the movie, but I had heard good things about it, and thought that the book would be good. Wrong!

Have you read Zweig's Beware of Pity? I certainly recommend it, especially since you are so enthusiastic about Chess Story.

I haven't read Beware of Pity, Rebecca. Chess Story was the first book by Zweig that I've read, so I'll be on the lookout for more of his works. Thanks for the recommendation!

I'll certainly pass on Medical London info to the group of epidemiologists I work with. My dissertation was somewhat related - dealt w/ the perceived and real relationships between health/disease and the landscape that influenced the settlement of the N. America, the SE in particular. Sounds very much like something my "real" advisor, John Crellin who worked for the Wellcome Inst. before professing in the US and then Canada would have written.

Very cool.

Yes, I agree, that sounds very interesting, especially the walks. When I was living in London, I used to take my students on the London walks, and they were always very interesting. A medical one would be a great addition.

Doc, to answer your question in >74 kidzdoc:, I do sometimes visit other Asian cities: Bangkok I go to very regularly, Singapore and Hong Kong also. I haven't been to any Chinese cities as getting a visa is extraodinarily hassellsome and expensive. South Japan and of course the Philippines are very easy to get to from here. If you're coming to TPE, you must let me know so I can be your guide!

the online video snippets are v. good on their own.

Plenty of culture there, Murr, much more than my limited experiences! I'm curious; what languages do you speak?

I'll definitely look at the videos, Bob, but I think I'll wait until I take my first walk in the capital in a couple of weeks.

I speak English (of course), French, German (both terribly rusty now from lack of use), and Mandarin Chinese, and a very small smattering of Taiwanese, insignificant, but which nonetheless amuses the taxi drivers highly. I'm from London originally but I have lived here in Taiwan for 11 years.

Yes, you're right, there is lots of culture in those/these places, and fascinating and lovely it is too. But I miss museums and exhibitions in the West, a sense of being in touch with the main thrust of Western culture.

When you're in London, in addition to all the usual places (National Gallery, British Museum etc), you should check out the National Portrait Gallery, and the Wallace Collection in Hertford House, Manchester Square. These museums are often overlooked by tourists, and they are full of fabulous things.

I would like a full report when you return. Over herring and vodka of course.

;-)

There is, somewhere across the river from the tower, an intact 18th century (or early 19th) operating theatre. If it's not mentioned in the walking tour part of Medical London, I will hunt down its exact location for you.

Are you referring to the Old Operating Theatre, near St. Thomas's Hospital and the London Bridge tube station? If so, it is on Walk One of Medical London, and is mentioned in "Sick City" and "Anatomy of a City".

Yep, that's it. I heard about it in a book about early medical techniques optimistically called The Age of Agony. Fun stuff.

It's easy to look back now and see how barbaric and ill-informed medicine was then (16th & 17th century), with purging, bloodletting, and surgery without anesthesia. However, I suspect that the current age will also look barbaric and ill-informed in a couple of centuries, if not sooner!

Ridgewaygirl, don't you mean the Chamber of Horrors?

http://www.mtparty.com/chamber.htm

I haven't been to Madam Tussaud's yet, Murr, and now you've given me a reason to go; thanks!

The Chamber of Horrors looks almost as scary as riding MARTA (the Atlanta subway system) late at night.

Mercury Under My Tongue by Sylvain Trudel



My rating:

Frederic is a 16 year old boy who has end-stage bone cancer, and he spends his last days in his "bachelor pad" on the hematology/oncology ward of a hospital in Montreal. He is frequently in pain, and the few friends he has on the wards are too consumed with their own morbidity to provide him with much solace or understanding. Frederick's poetry does provide an escape, and it links him to a beautiful girl there who is battling leukemia. His family visits him infrequently, as he simultaneously seeks their comfort and pushes them away. His aloof manner hides a fear of the death he knows will come soon.

He is filled with angst, and his irrational rants followed by brilliant insights into himself and others rings true. His prose flows poetically, although it is frequently searing and acerbic:

"I haven't said anything about the most hideous days, the days when the pain rips me open and leave my eyes scalding and glassy, my face decomposed, my bones bare and my forehead greasy and my dirty hair clings to it like seaweed and my damp pajamas stink of sweat. When the nurses come to turn my bed upside down so they can bleach the sheets in which I've sweated blood and lymph, I'm always afraid they'll discover a Turin Shroud that would dehumanize me, like some kind of Easter Sunday, like the resurrection of Christ who spoiled everything by easing the pain of the Passion, by canceling the sacrifice of Good Friday."

This was an tough but honest look into the mind of a teenager who realizes that his life will end before it has begun, and is highly recommended.

The Fête at Coqueville by Émile Zola



My rating:

I wanted a light and quick read to finish the weekend, and this fit the bill perfectly. It is a humorous novella about a small fishing town, which is dominated by the descendants of two families that have been warring for centuries but live together under an uneasy truce, and what happens to the townspeople after an amazing and unexpected discovery is made at sea. To say anything more would give away too much of the story, but it was quite enjoyable, and is definitely recommended.

The Fête at Coqueville is available for purchase on Amazon, or it can be downloaded for free at http://manybooks.net.

>89 tomcatMurr:: Murr, somehow I missed this post. Thanks for your museum recommendations. I know exactly where the National Portrait Gallery is, as I frequently took the bus from Victoria Station to Charing Cross Road (Foyles, etc.) when I was there in '07. I had not heard of the Wallace Collection, though. My guidebook indicates that it is close to my hotel, which is on Sussex Place near Paddington Station, so I'll add a trip there to my list of things to do.

I'll post on LT on a semi-regular basis, as I'll use my new netbook (mini-laptop) in London & Paris, which I'm using now. I have an account with T-Mobile's WiFi service, which I can also use at selected hot spots in both cities.

I should bring something to add to the herring and vodka. Crumpets? Yorkshire pudding? I did get addicted to Cornish pasties during my last visit to the capital, but didn't eat much authentic British food, and never went to a pub, which I will do on this visit.

Re. pubs, I'd suggest trying to find one that isn't in Leicester Square etc and that does proper ale. You definitely need to try real ale.

This website is useful: www.fancyapint.com

I'd recommend the Jerusalem Tavern near Farringdon station. Apparently it has a 'sausage Tuesday'!

97> I had no idea that Zola ever wrote anything humorous -- all I've read by him is Germinal which as I remember is far, far from funny. Must keep an eye out for The Fete at Coqueville.

Fanny Burney underwent a full breast removal (successful - she lived for 20 yrs more) by the pre-eminent French military surgeon of the early 19thC w/out anesthesia - and then was able - eventually - to describe the experience in a long letter to her sister. Pretty gruesome. But getting a battlefield surgeon who could cut quickly was probably key to her survival.

You may already have it on your list, but don't overlook the Victoria & Albert - my favourite museum in London, and always good for an afternoon's wandering. With your medical interests also, do you know about the Wellcome Collection? The events are worth checking out.

>99 charbutton:: Thanks for those recommendations, Charlotte. BTW, what is sausage Tuesday?

>100 janeajones:: I stumbled upon The Fête at Coqueville; I didn't think he had written anything humorous, either.

>101 bobmcconnaughey:: WOW. This surgeon probably also had good antiseptic technique. I'll bet the mortality for operations like this was very high. BTW, have you read The Doctors' Plague by Sherwin Nuland?

>102 wandering_star:: Yes, going to the Wellcome Collection is at the top of the list of things I plan to do. Medical London was created by the Wellcome Collection, BTW.

I think Sausage Tuesday is a day that they serve sausages for lunch.

>75 kidzdoc:, wow, Medical London sounds fascinating.

Darryl, you have glowingly recommended Book Court in Brooklyn and here is an article from the New York Times real estate section about the people who own it and live above the store.

Thanks, Rebecca! That was a great article, and the photos of the house were just as good.

I enjoyed it too, and sent it on to my son who lives in Brooklyn and surprisingly--'cas he's such an avid reader--hadn't checked out that book store yet.

Also I wanted to thank you for (some time ago) recommending Archipelago Books. I signed up for their e-mails at the time and recently got one about a subscription offer to get their next 10 titles plus one backlist title for $135, so I'm now a subscriber (as I think you are). Of course, I have no idea when I'll read all these books.

I am lobbying for a subscription offer to Archipelago Books as a Christmas present - a difficult proposition since Beloved and I have made a pact to keep Christmas presents to $40.00 or to give each other a joint present like a trip or season's tickets to the opera.

Glad to hear that you're also an Archipelago Books subscriber, Rebecca. Unfortunately, the publisher is not doing well this year, according to this recent article in Publishers Weekly.
After reading this and a letter from Dave Lievens in its publishing department, I bought four more books that were on my wish list. I'll read & review over the next couple of weeks, in hopes that others will buy them.

Urania, maybe Beloved can get you $40 worth of Archipelago Books? BTW, five Archipelago e-books are now available for purchase on Amazon:

Archipelago E-Books are now available

What Christmas already? Christ, that was quick!

It's never too early to think about Christmas.

A creeping sense of dread, like death, or indigestion.....

Doc, are you home or still in London?

I'm in London, arrived here Monday morning. I'll be going to Paris on Tuesday, returning to London the following Friday, and back to Atlanta (ick) on Aug 13.

The Booker Prize longlist was announced yesterday, and I picked up four of the 13 books from Foyles on Charing Cross Road this morning:

How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
Not Untrue and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

I already own three of the longlisted books:

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (read)
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Two others haven't been published yet:

Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
Love and Summer by William Trevor

The other four are:

Me Cheeta by James Lever
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
Heliopolis by James Scudamore

Last year I read 10 of the 13 longlisted books. I'd like to read all 13, if possible, but I'm not sure I'll get to all of them by Oct 6, when the prize will be awarded. At the moment, only the Harvey, Lever, Tóibín and Waters are available in the US.

I REALLY envy you for two things. First, the fact you are in London, a city I love, and second because you have a copy of The Children's Book, which I have been coveting forever!
Enjoy your trip.

Aghhh Rebecca - your post re Archipelago books has just left me short $200 as I also subscribed (it is more expensive to ship to Canada).

Darryl - no complaining allowed - jeez, three weeks in Londan and Paris, and a pile of books. Too bad!!

Me? Complaining? If you mean the post in #117, that came from kiwidoc, not me.

I am very happy and grateful to have the opportunity to take this trip, especially in the current economy.

This was a good week for reading; I finished six books:

Flaw by Magdalena Tulli
The Observer by Matt Charman
Literary Cafés of Paris by Noël Riley Fitch
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi
Palafox by Eric Chevillard
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds

Since it's almost midnight, I'll submit reviews for these in the next couple of days.

I'm currently reading How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall, a Booker Prize longlisted book (as is The Quickening Maze), and Harare North by Brian Chikwava.

I saw Brian Ckiwava read from and talk about Harare North a few weeks ago. He's such a lovely man!

The Observer by Matt Charman



My rating:

The Observer is currently playing at the Cottesloe Theatre, National Theatre, London until Sep 3. I saw the play last Thursday afternoon, and read the script that evening.

A team of international observers goes to an unnamed West African country to oversee its first democratic election. The current presidentis n ot well liked by Western governments, who want to do business in the region, and by many of his countryment, due to the corrupt nature of his regime. Despite this, he is expected to win the election without difficulty. The first round of voting is close, and his main rival is able to force a run off, due to the support of villagers in the rural and mountainous areas of the country.

Fiona Russell is the deputy chief of the international observation committee, a Briton from who quit her job as a local election official in Leeds due to the complacency of voters there. She is idealistic and passionate about her job, and wants to see democracy instilled in the countries that she oversees. She is deeply opposed to the current president, and sees the run off as an opportunity for the country to "take a huge step forward" by electing the challenger. Her main ally is Daniel, a local student who serves as her translator and confident.

Fiona gets approval for a campaign to register voters in rural and mountainous areas, those who have supported the challenger. Despite mild opposition from her ineffective boss, Daniel, and others, and despite increasing violence inflicted upon supporters of the challenger, she doggedly pursues her goal. The winner is announced...but, as a key character declares in the midst of a near civil war, "What happens now?"

The Observer was a powerful statement and performance about the deleterious effect that well meaning outsiders can have on developing countries and their people. Anna Chancellor (Fiona) and Chuk Iwuji (Daniel) were fabulous in their roles, and the supporting cast was also strong. I would highly recommend this play for anyone who can attend it in London before it closes next month.

Literary Cafés of Paris by Noël Riley Fitch



My rating:

This is a nice guide to roughly 30 of the most famous cafés frequented by famous writers in Paris. It includes a good amount of detail, but not too much, and maps to the cafés. At 80 pp in length it is the perfect size to fit in a pocket or purse, and is highly recommended.

Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi


My rating:

This was a tough book for me to rate, due to its subject matter. The narrator was a repulsive character, and the topic is supposedly semi-autobiographical; however, the writing is quite good.

Jay, like the author, is a London playwright who has decided to leave his partner, who he has never married, and their two young sons, who he loves dearly. However, he is bored in this loveless relationship, and sees no hope that it can be salvaged. He is most happy when he is with his current girlfriend, a young woman who excites and challenges him sexually, though she is not his social or intellectual equal.

This short novel, set in London in the early 1990s, describes the mind set of one restless but decent urban professional approaching middle age, who is not ready to settle into a monogamous, steady relationship. I found Jay to be quite superficial, self-absorbed and immature; however, his desires and attitudes remind me of those of a cousin of mine, and couple of former acquaintances, and are spot on with their views. This book may not be for everyone, but it is a well-written, accurate work.

Palafox by Eric Chevillard



My rating:

This is the first Archipelago book I didn't like, and I stopped reading it after 60-65 pp. It was about a mysterious creature (bird? reptile? animal? insect?) who is transferred from the care of a family to four scientists of different backgrounds, who cannot seem to categorize the creature, named Palafox. Initially the concept was interesting, but for me it became repetitive and tedious.

Hmm...I've noticed that several of the books I haven't enjoyed and haven't finished this year have been by contemporary French authors.

Thanks to your mentioning Harare North and charbutton's comment, I've just ordered it from the Book Depository (for which I also have to thank you!).

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds



My rating:

The Quickening Maze, the second novel by Mr Foulds, was selected for the 2009 Booker Prize longlist last week.

The setting for this historical novel is Epping Forest, just outside of London, in the 1840s. Dr. Matthew Allen, an apothecary and polymath with a checkered past, runs an institution for the mentally ill based on Christian reformist teachings. The asylum is highly regarded, but Allen and his family live beyond their means. The most famous patient at the High Beach Private Asylum is John Clare, the "peasant poet", who is battling alcoholism, melancholia and probably schizophrenia.

Dr. Allen’s newest patient, Septimus Tennyson, arrives at the asylum, accompanied by his brother and emerging poet, Alfred. Hannah Allen’s teenaged daughter, falls in love with Alfred, and seeks to win his attention in order to escape from the boredom and confinement at the asylum. Dr. Allen needs to be able to pay for his eldest daughter’s wedding, and with the financial support of the Tennysons, designs a mass production engine that will make him a rich man -- or send him back to the poor house.

The action in this novel starts slowly, as Foulds introduces a number of major and minor characters that seem to be initially unnecessary, but their importance to the novel becomes apparent as the novel progresses. The loosely interwoven stories come together nicely in the second half of the book; I read the last 2/3 of the book at a single sitting, and was captivated until the final page. I thought I would like this book, since it dealt with mental illness and concepts about its treatment in the mid-19th century. These topics were not heavily discussed, but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and its diverse set of characters.

Rebecca, I put down Harare North for the moment. Yesterday wasn't a good reading day, as I kept re-reading the same pages of it and How to Paint a Dead Man over and over. I decided to pick up another Booker Prize longlisted book, Not True and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin, and once I finish it, I'll go back to Harare North.

Literary Paris: A Guide by Jessica Powell



My rating:

This book features brief summaries of the lives of about two dozen famous authors that spent significant periods of their writing careers in Paris, starting with Molière and ending with James Baldwin. Included are links to homes owned by the authors, restaurants and hotels they frequented, and other related sites of interest.

The author is a journalist, and the stories about the authors focus more on their scandalous behaviors more than the literary merit of their works. Thus, for me, it was not as interesting a read as it could have been.

Not Untrue and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin



My rating:

This novel is also on the current Booker Prize longlist.

Owen Simmons is a writer and copy editor for a major international newspaper, who is selected to become an editor after the sudden death of Cartwright, a colleague and nemesis. In preparation for his new position, and a degree of curiosity about the man he is replacing, he reviews Cartwright’s folder. In it he finds a magazine photo that he had taken ten years earlier, when he worked as a freelance journalist in some of the most dangerous places in Africa. In the photograph are several of his former colleagues, most of whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in years. As he remembers his time in Africa, we learn more about these colleagues, and about the dangers they faced, the petty squabbles and competitions they have with each other, and the stressors that make their lives both exhilarating and mundane. A slightly older female journalist becomes a valued confidant and lover, as well.

O’Loughlin, who worked as a reporter in Africa for The Irish Times, gives us a stark and unsentimental look into the lives of foreign journalists in war-torn countries. Simmons and his colleagues are cynical and unlikable characters, which made this book a bit of a challenge to read, as I skimmed over the last 100 pages. The book discusses the townspeople, government officials and military leaders only tangentially, in keeping with its focus on the journalists. Because I gained a greater insight into and appreciation of these journalists, and the hardships they face, I would recommend this book primarily for those interested in an inside look into the lives of foreign journalists.

Journey into the Past by Stephan Zweig



My rating:

This novella was a perfect book to hit the century mark on; I loved it! After reading this and Chess Story earlier this year, I am adding Zweig to my favorite authors list.

Ludwig is a self-made man, who was born in poverty, put himself through university at night while working during the day, and rose to become the trusted right-hand man of a wealthy German industrialist in the years before the Great War. The industrialist is in failing health, and asks Ludwig to move into his vast estate. He initially refuses, but finally agrees. Upon his arrival, he meets the industrialist's beautiful young wife, who makes him feel immediately at home, and he soon falls madly in love with her.

Two years later he is sent to Central America by the company, and the trip is to last two years. He is initially reluctant to leave, due to his previously unexpressed feelings for his unnamed love. Once she finds out he is leaving, she admits that she fell in love with him from the moment she first met him, and they agree to consummate their smoldering love on his return. The meeting is delayed due to the onset of the Great War, but eventually he is able to return to Germany, and the two agree to meet. He feels the same passion for her that he had on his departure, but wonders if she will still agree to her promise.

Journey into the Past is a complex, passionate tale of love and how it can grow or wither with time and hardship. The story had me on edge for its short length, and is one of the best novellas I've ever read. This is easily one of my favorite reads of the year.

#121: char, I started reading Harare North yesterday, and am enjoying it so far. Have you read it?

I haven't read it yet. I might try and fit in at the end of this month as I finish my summer of African reading. I'm glad you're enjoying it - how are you getting on with the colloquial language?

Harare North by Brian Chikwava



My rating:

The unnamed narrator of this debut novel emigrates to London, or Harare North, from Zimbabwe, where he served as one of President Mugabe's Green Bombers, the youth attack squads that terrorized the regime's opponents. He needs US$5000 to buy back his freedom from local officials, after he is caught beating up an opposition party official.

Upon his arrival in London, he is granted temporary asylum, but does not have working papers. After staying with a cousin and his wife, he moves in with a childhood friend living in an abandoned house in Brixton, along with several other countrymen trying to make it. He eventually obtains work in the underground industry, where the best paying jobs are held by BBCs, or British Buttock Cleaners, who look after "old people that poo their pants every hour". The daily internal and external stressors on the narrator and his housemates take a large toll on their physical and mental health, and each one is ultimately left to rely on himself to survive and to avoid descending into crime or madness.

Harare North is a dark comedy that becomes a suffocating and dizzying ride that the reader takes along with the narrator, which gives an instructive glimpse into the lives of illegal immigrants living under the radar of the average city resident, whether in London or any other international city.

I didn't have any problems with the colloqualisms in Harare North, Char. Um...did you mean the Zimbabwean ones, or the British ones? ;-)

My copy of Harare North should be winging its way to me from The Book Depository, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading it.

Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein



My rating: 3 stars

This was a marginally interesting love story of a British woman who meets a Pakistani man while he is working as a journalist in London, who follows him to Karachi after she divorces her husband and his wife dies. The book begins with several short and interconnected tales, which I found more enjoyable that the narrative of the lovers. This was a quick and not unpleasant read, but not one I would strongly recommend.

Hey doc,
about your 2009 Booker read: very appreciate your efforts (as they say here) to review all these books and keep us abreast of what's going on. I would be interested to hear your comments as you go on who the likely shortlist winners are, and ultimately, of course, who the winner is. Hilary Mantel is the hot favourite this year:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/aug/03/booker-prize

And here is Sam Jordison's blog on all the previous Booker winners:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog+series/bookerclub

I'm currently rereading Midnight's Children which won in 1981 and then won the Booker of Bookers on the 40 anniversary of the prize. It is an exceptionally interesting and remarkable book. I wonder if you have read it and how this year's longlist matches up to it if you have?

Murr, I'll ask FlossieT (Rachael) about this while I'm here. As you mentioned, there has been a lot of speculation about the Mantel...then again, there has been a lot of speculation about several of the books. Two of them, the Coetzee and the Trevor, aren't out yet, one of them (the Scudamore) is out of print, and another (the Mawer) was out of print, but I found a copy at Foyles yesterday.

Rachael lent me her proof of the Trevor, and I'll start it either later today or tomorrow.

Oof, I'm not feeling as energetic today as I was yesterday. I'm relaxing after lunch and coffee at Ray's Jazz Cafe in the Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road, but I don't feel like doing anything...other than taking a nap.

>135 kidzdoc: - both!

Okay, I'm a bit more awake now after a nice two hour nap.

Murr, I loved Midnight's Children. Rushdie bashing seems to be a popular sport on both sides of the pond, but I happen to like his books. So far I've read three of the current longlisted books: Brooklyn, Not Untrue and Not Unkind and The Quickening Maze, none of which come close to the Rushdie. Later today I'll start Love and Summer, which I'd like to finish by Tuesday. I have the Mawer, Byatt, and Hall with me, the Harvey and Waters are in Atlanta, and the Mantel will probably arrive there before I do (on Thursday).

Back to Rushdie: after seeing the play The Black Album at the National Theatre last weekend, I want to read The Satanic Verses ASAP, which is one of the major topics of the play, which was based on Kureishi's novel. For that matter, I want to read the Kureishi ASAP as well; it is also in Atlanta.

I saw my third NT performance of this trip yesterday, England People Very Nice, which was a irreverent and hilarious look at several waves of immigration to London, from the Hugenots in the 16th century to the recent immigration of Somalis. All groups, including the Anglo-Saxons, were equally skewered, and there were dozens of hilarious lines. I forgot to pick up the script as I left yesterday, as I was in a rush to get to Ray's Jazz Cafe in Foyles Bookshop to see a jazz concert there; however, I'll be going back one last time on Wednesday, to see All's Well That Ends Well, and I'll pick up a script and review it and the play properly later this week.

Darryl:

I just came across this. No doubt you know about it, but just in case:

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders

by Emmanuel Guibert

WP Review
In 1986, the French photojournalist Didier Lefevre joined a Doctors Without Borders mission to Afghanistan. It was a dangerous place even then -- a country where the Cold War had turned viciously hot after the Soviet invasion of 1979. Lefevre stayed only a few months, but beset by disease, brutal weather and extortionist police, he barely survived the experience. Still, he brought back 4,000 photographs from his trip and returned to Afghanistan seven more times before his death in 2007.

Originally published in three French volumes between 2003 and 2006, "The Photographer" is a riveting account of Lefevre's first journey and his experiences in Zaragandara, the Afghan town where Doctors Without Borders set up a makeshift hospital. Lefevre's blisteringly forceful black-and-white photographs, and sometimes his contact sheets, appear on nearly every page of the book. So does Emmanuel Guibert's artwork. The cartoonist adapted his friend's memories of the trip into comics form, filling in the spaces between photos with sequences that bind the story together (and providing, understandably, almost every image we see of Lefevre himself) and explain what was happening at less photogenic moments.

Guibert develops a new visual style for each project he draws: He's also the artist behind last year's "Alan's War," another superb piece of oral history in comics form. Here his approach is rough and blobby, clearly modeled on the contours of photographs but sparely rendered and showing spatters of ink. Seen next to Lefevre's finely shaded photos, Guibert's idiomatic line work emphasizes that what we're seeing in the comics sections of "The Photographer" isn't quite real: It's history recollected and reconstructed.

That's the formal paradox that drives the book. Lefevre came along on the mission so that he could bring back images that would bear witness to what was happening in Afghanistan, but the photographs that he published immediately afterward couldn't say nearly as much as does the combination of his work and the approximations and memories Guibert has woven around and through it. A cartoonist has more power over narrative than a photographer, and some of Lefevre's pictures make more sense in the context of a narrative, including a haunting shot of a horse groom who'd accidentally gotten separated from a caravan and survived to tell his story: The scene's pacing and text deepen its meaning by making evident exactly how close he'd come to doom.

Much of "The Photographer" is fascinating on the strength of Lefevre's experiences alone. He recounts learning to pack perfectly stuffed, watertight boxes, getting outfitted for Afghan-style clothing (and buying a woman's chadri) to avoid arousing suspicion, crossing the border into Afghanistan by a hazardous off-road path to avoid the Russian military. The middle section of the book depicts the work the doctors had come to do, but also Lefevre's discovery of the bizarre cultural and economic realities of war zones -- including the fact that the Afghan medical team could occasionally arrange for assistance from Russian doctors.

Sometimes, the precision and emotional wallop of Lefevre's photographs cut more deeply than words or drawings could: There's a nearly unbearable sequence of a wounded child having her burn cleaned, and remarkable images of a couple of Afghan soldiers laughing about their injuries and of a local chief posing with a gun and some plastic flowers.

But this is as much the show of Guibert and colorist/designer Frederic Lemercier as it is Lefevre's, particularly in the book's final third, which concerns the photographer's disastrous solo journey back from Zaragandara as he was running out of film. The artists take over altogether for a long, dramatic sequence in which Lefevre and his horse, abandoned by their escorts, struggle up a mountain in a blizzard as the sky darkens. For a few pages, Guibert's scratchy renderings are half-obliterated by patches of white; then all we see are spotty silhouettes against a darkening green background for a few pages, until Lefevre abandons hope and pulls out his camera. At last, we see what he feared would be his final photographs: a series of harrowing, low-angle shots of the exhausted horse; and the largest image in the book, a two-page spread of the gorgeous, murderous Afghan landscape, its foreground a blur and its background receding into the weather.

Douglas Wolk is the author of "Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. "

Reviewed by Douglas Wolk, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)

I had not heard about The Photographer Andrew, but I'll definitely look for it. Thanks!

Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne



My rating:

Roma Tearne is an acclaimed artist and author who was born in Sri Lanka, then emigrated with her family from Colombo to London in 1964 after violent clashes between the Sinhalese and the Tamil populations began to spiral out of control. Tearne, who was born to a Tamil father and a Sinhalese mother, is the author of Mosquito and Bone China; Brixton Beach is her latest novel, which was published in the UK in May of this year.

I finished this book Wednesday night, and left it in my London hotel room, to make room for other books. So, I apologize in advance if certain details (especially names of characters) are in error.

The novel begins on the day of the terrorist bombings on three Underground trains and a Transport for London bus in London on July 7, 2005. Simon Swann is a physician who comes upon the carnage outside of the Edgware Road tube station minutes after the bombing. He begins to aid the wounded passengers, but is mainly interested in locating Alice Fonseka, a woman he has recently met; however, we are not given any more information about the relationship until much later.

The action then shifts to Sri Lanka, with Alice's birth to Sita, a feisty and independent Sinhalese woman, and (name?), her restless and sullen Tamil father. Although her parents' marriage is without love and is doomed to failure, Alice's early life is rich and rewarding, as she is nurtured and inspired by Sita's father Bee, a respected painter and sculptor, and his wife.

As the Sinhalese-Tamil conflict deepens, Alice experiences ostracism and hostility from her teachers and former friends at school due to her mixed background, and her family and neighbors fall victim to violence at the hands of Sinhalese mobs, police and other government officials. Alice's father realizes that there is no future for him in Sri Lanka, and makes plans to emigrate to London, where his brother is currently living. Sita reluctantly agree to follow him there, after she experiences a tragic personal loss and falls deeply in love with another man. Alice does not want to leave her beloved grandfather, who has encouraged her to become an artist as well.

The family experiences hardship, discrimination and strife in London, and the troubled marriage soon falls apart. With her grandfather's words and the help of a teacher, Alice develops into a fine but troubled and lonely artist, as she is torn between her lives in Sri Lanka and London. She eventually becomes married, moves into a house in Brixton which she paints in the vivid colors of her homeland and names Brixton Beach. She has a child, and finds success in her work after several years of struggle, although her insensitive husband ultimately leaves her. Years later she meets Swann, who is about to leave his wife, at a party celebrating her work, and the two fall in love.

On the morning of the bombing, we are brought back to the beginning of the novel, as Alice takes the Underground and Swann is at work at St. Thomas' Hospital.

This was a tragic, beautiful, and disturbing novel about the daily struggle of assimilation, in one's own country and abroad, the search for love and acceptance, and the importance of family in nurturing a vulnerable young person in dire straits. The portrayal of the beauty of Sri Lanka is in stark contrast with the violence there and the depressing climate in London, and is very well done. The first 300 pages were near perfect; however, the action in the last 100 pages seems rushed; we are introduced to Alice's husband, who she meets on the street, and within two or three pages they are married, without understanding what attracted her to him or learning much about him. Despite this, Brixton Beach was an unforgettable read, and is highly recommended.

England People Very Nice by Richard Bean



My rating: (4 stars for the text)

England People Very Nice opened at the National Theatre in London in February 2009, and apparently closed within the past few days. I saw it last Saturday, and read the script yesterday, which was helpful, as I missed a number of jokes in the performance due to the heaviness of the actors' accents (cockney, Irish, and Bangladeshi).

The setting for the play is a UK immigration detention centre, which is filled with migrants and asylum seekers hoping to obtain leave to remain status there. While waiting there, the inmates decide to write and perform a play, based on four waves of immigration to Bethnal Green, a neighborhood in the East End of London, starting with the French Hugenots in the 16th century, followed by the Irish, Jews, and Bangladeshis. At the beginning of England People Very Nice, the actors and director go through their final rehearsal, and the play as performed by the actors takes up all but a few minutes at the beginning and end of the two acts.

The play is a riotous, irreverent and hilarious view of the immigrants by the "native" Londoners in Bethnal Green, and vice versa. The French are portrayed as farting frogs, who wish to pollute English culture with their snobbery and love of sex and cabbage; the Irish keep pigs in their home and have mutant babies after having sex with their siblings ("Don't sleep with strangers; it's dirty!"); the Jews, Bangladeshis and Muslims are similarly skewered. However, the Anglo-Saxons are equally misrepresented, as intolerant, sexually frigid but promiscuous, and vulgar. With each wave there is a love story between the same two actors, with the woman playing a "native" Londoner, whether Anglo-Saxon, Irish or Jewish, who falls in love with the "immigrant" of that particular time. As the immigrants take over Bethnal Green with each wave, the "natives" escape to suburban Redbridge, to pursue their dreams.

At the end of the inmates' performance, several members obtain letters indicating that they have been granted or denied "Leave to Remain" status in the UK, providing a sense of reality and solemnity to the end of the play.

The play England People Very Nice was most entertaining, and is highly recommended by me if it resurfaces in the UK or abroad. The script in the book does follow completely or nearly identically to the performance; however, it doesn't begin to capture the energy and flavor of the live performance.

Derelict London by Paul Talling



My rating:

This is an interesting book, consisting of color photographs taken by the author over several years of abandoned and decaying but still inhabited residences, pubs, factories, rail stations, World War II pillboxes and shelters, and cemeteries within the city. The author includes brief histories of the structures, along with future plans. Examples include the Down Street Underground Station on the Picadilly Line, which served as temporary headquarters for Winston Churchill and his cabinet during World War II; the Necropolis Railway Station, which was used to transport the dead from Waterloo Station to the Brookwood Necropolis, once the largest cemetery in the world; and the Intrepid Fox, a recently closed pub in Soho that was favored by rock stars such as Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart. This was a very entertaining read, which would be appreciated by Londoners and visitors interested in the history of the capital.

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

My rating: 4.75 stars

Review later today or tomorrow...

Me Cheeta: The Autobiography by James Lever



My rating:

This tell all biography by a chimpanzee who starred in the Tarzan movies along with Johnny Weismuller was selected for the Booker Prize longlist in 2009. It's filled with snarky humor, jokes about the movie industry and actors, and has numerous references to masturbation, excrement, and other body fluids. I guess I would say that it was well written, but it certainly wasn't a captivating story, and I stopped reading it after 70 pages.

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer



My rating:

Simon Mawer is a British-born author who has authored eight novels, including Mendel's Dwarf, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 1997. An Oxford educated zoologist who has worked as a biology teacher, he has also written two books of nonfiction, including Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics. He currently resides in Italy.

The Glass Room is a novel about a house, a real and remarkable one, although the story and characters are fictional. It begins with the return of Liesel Landauer, now elderly and blind, to the house that she, a gentile, shared with her husband Viktor, a prosperous Jewish manufacturer of fine automobiles. The Landauer House, which sits on a hill overlooking the Czechoslovakian city of Mĕsto, was designed for the young couple by a famous Viennese architect in the 1920s, and was a classic work of modern design. The centerpiece of the house is the Glass Room, which has large plate glass windows and is partitioned by a wall made of onyx that changes in appearance with the position of the sun. Mawer describes the Glass Room early in the book, as the Landauers see it for the first time:

"It had become a palace of light, light bouncing off the chrome pillars, light refulgent on the walls, light glistening on the dew in the garden, light reverberating from the glass. It as though they stood inside a crystal of salt."

The Glass Room becomes a place where anything and everything is possible, as previous structural and cultural restraints are lifted. The wealthy and sophisticated couple embrace their new home to the fullest, using it frequently to host friends and business colleagues. Liesel's best friend, Hana, a irreverent, beautiful and sexually hungry married woman, is a frequent visitor who provides vitality and spark to the setting.

However, changes are occurring in Europe that darken and threaten the couple's idyllic existence. Hitler's national socialism spreads through and beyond nearby Germany, and the livelihood of Jews in Czechoslovakia becomes slowly but progressively more difficult. The Landauers initially ignore the warnings, as their wealth and influence insulate them from the growing menace. The couple agrees to take in a young woman who has been forced to flee from Vienna, a woman who is well known to Viktor. Finally the couple decides to flee their beloved house and country, but by the time they decide to do so, the Germans have already occupied Czechoslovakia. Hana and her Jewish husband, however, decide to stay in Mĕsto.

The novel then alternates between the lives of the Landauers and the new occupants, leading up to Liesel's eventual return to the Landauer House.

This was a brilliant and near-perfect novel that covers Europe before and during World War II and the subsequent decline in European culture, and includes rich descriptions of architecture, art and music. Love, infidelity and devotion are infused throughout the book, but ultimately the main story and character is the Landauer House with its Glass Room, and the effects it has on its inhabitants and
visitors.

I suppose the highest praise I could give this novel is that I would like to start reading it again from the beginning. It is easily the best of the Booker Prize longlisted books I've read so far, and would be a deserving winner of the award, in my opinion.

Thanks for the review, Darryl. Yet another book to add to my wish list.

Presumably The Glass Room is not yet available in the US. I checked Amazon - $71.00!!! Ouch. Some people get all the luck :-) I am chartreuse green with envy.

The Book Depository is your friend! Free shipping to the US, too. (I have Darryl to thank for my Book Depository addiction, too.)

Free shipping to the US, Canada and most of Europe, no minimum purchase, and almost all books are discounted below the list price. When I checked The Book Depository for Stasia (AlcottAcre) yesterday, it was selling The Glass Room for £15.29; I paid £16.99 for it at Foyles.

I actually ordered Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and several other books from The Book Depository while I was in London, since I knew I wasn't going to read them during the trip, didn't want to lug too many books back with me (although I did buy 33 books while I was there!), and because it was cheaper than buying it from Foyles or the London Review Bookshop (I avoided the chain bookstores (Borders, Waterstone's and W.H. Smith)).

Rebecca,

Why are you always so naughty? I'm trying to stay on the wagon.

>153 urania1:, Boo - the wagon was made to be fallen off of. ;)

Mary, like all addicts, I'm only trying to lure you further into the mire . . .

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers



My rating:

This is a true story of a remarkable man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, who emigrated to the United States from Syria, and appears to have achieved the American dream of prosperity through hard work and determination. He works for a number of contractors, and eventually becomes a successful owner of a house painting company and numerous housing properties in New Orleans. He is happily married to an attractive American woman who has converted to Islam, and they have three wonderful daughters.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina begins its slow, meandering course westward over the Atlantic Ocean and Florida, and appears to be no different than the dozen or so major storms that make landfall in the southern US. As the storm gains strength, it also appears to be headed directly for New Orleans, a city whose average elevation is one to two feet below sea level.

For decades it was well known that a major hurricane could cause failure of the city's levees, which keep the city from filling with water from Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south, but local and government officials largely ignored this doomsday scenario, as it had not occurred since the city was founded in the early 18th century.

Despite his wife's pleas to evacuate, as the weather forecasters predict that Katrina will take direct aim at the city at a maximum Category 5 intensity, Zeitoun desires to remain in the city, in order to protect his home and properties. As his wife and daughters evacuate to nearby Baton Rouge, Zeitoun rides out the storm, which initially seems to be a wise decision, as he is able to save most of the valuables in his house. However, the levees do fail two days later, and he is forced to live on and outside the second floor of their home. With nothing else to do, he uses his used canoe to check on his properties, and in the process rescues several elderly neighbors who are trapped in their homes. A couple of friends who are flooded out of their homes move in with him, and all appears to be going well for him, despite the reports of looting and lawlessness throughout the embattled city. He decides to stay in the city to help other residents, who have been neglected by the National Guard and federal officials, as he believes that God has called upon him to do this. Soon, though, the relative tranquility is shattered by an unforeseeable event that threatens to erase everything he has worked so hard to achieve.

Zeitoun is a captivating page turner that, in the story of one man and his family, describes the spectacular failure of local, state and federal officials to protect victims of Hurricane Katrina, and the government's brutal and immoral treatment of innocent Americans of Middle Eastern descent after 9/11. Even though it is nearly 350 pages in length, it is a quick read, and, like arubabookwoman stated previously, I could not put it down after I resumed reading it this afternoon. Highly recommended.

Thanks for another cogent review; as a result, Zeitoun is on my Wishlist (hoping to find an international imprint in paperback somewhere here in Tokyo). :)

Dave Eggers has always really annoyed me, so I've ignored his works until now, but between your review and the rave in the NY Times Book Review, I may have to put my prejudice aside and look at Zeitoun.

The wishlist is growing! Zeitoun has been on my radar for a while now, and I am glad to see so many good reviews. The Glass Room also went also went straight to wishlist for me. I can't resist a non-architectural book about architecture.

Yes The Glass Room looks excellent, and a super review, doc! sounds like a strong contender for the shortlist. Can you tell us what the picture on the cover is? It looks like Delauney or something?

It's The Seated Man, or The Architect by Roger de la Fresnaye.

oh great, thanks doc.

kd - I can't mentally keep up with all these great books you're reading. It's like a blur - tearne-mawer-zeitoun... Enjoying your thread.

Thanks, Dan!

The Trial of Robert Mugabe by Chielo Zona Eze



My rating:

Robert Mugabe, the infamous dictator and current president of Zimbabwe, awakens to find himself in a court room surrounded by several of his bodyguards. He soon realizes that he has died in a plane crash, and is on trial in God's court, accused of crimes against his people. His judges consist of three famous Africans in history , Steve Biko, Olaudah Equiano and Dambudzo Marechera. Mugabe is aghast that he is on trial, as he liberated his country and people from the English settlers who should be brought to justice.

In the first part of the story, several ordinary Zimbabweans are called to testify against Mugabe, most of whom were killed by the president's soldiers in his campaign to root out dissidents. Their stories are heartbreaking and horrific, but Mugabe brands them as liars and supporters of imperialism. During the trial, Yvonne Vera, a recently deceased Zimbabwean writer, takes notes, as she will be called upon to provide testimony against Mugabe.

Vera's lightly fictionalized account of the members of a family in Kezi make up the second part of the book, which provides more damning evidence of the brutality caused by Mugabe's soldiers.

At the end of the testimony, Mugabe is given an opportunity to speak, which consists only of a defiant rambling rant against the dissidents, whites, and Western governments. The judges confer with God, who renders a verdict which surprises everyone in the courtroom.

This was an enjoyable novel, which provided graphic accounts of the current situation in Zimbabwe, although these brutalities are similar to those documented in numerous other recent books. However, we are not provided with much insight into Mugabe the man, which would have been unique and interesting.

What an interesting idea for a book!

How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall

My rating: 4 stars

This was a very enjoyable read, but I'll need to think about it a bit, and maybe re-read certain chapters at the end, before I can submit a useful review.

Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith



My rating:

One of my work partners lent me this book last week.

The editors of SMITH Magazine, an online "vibrant community of storytellers", invited its readers to contribute six-word memoirs, and roughly a thousand were selected for this book. Some authors are famous, most are not. Many of the memoirs are pedestrian ("Will draw for food and coffee"), but a small handful were thought provoking. A couple of my favorites:

"Explained Hitler, Shakespeare. Couldn't explain self."
"I died at an early age."
"I hear nothing and see everyone."

I found it mildly interesting, and it was probably the fastest book I've ever read. This would make a nice Christmas present or birthday gift for certain people, so I would recommend it for that reason.

A couple of posts from my 75 Books thread.

For the record, these are the books I bought in London:

July 28: London Review Bookshop
Journey Into the Past by Stefan Zweig (read)
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw

July 29: Foyles Bookshop (Charing Cross Road)
How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall (read)
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds (read)
The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
Not Untrue & Not Unkind by Ed O’Loughlin (read)
Solo by Rana Dasgupta

July 30: National Theatre Bookshop
The Observer by Matt Charman (read)
Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi (read)

July 31: London Review Bookshop
Harare North by Brian Chikwava (read)

August 2: Foyles Bookshop (Southbank Centre)
The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
All Fires the Fire and Other Stories by Julio Cortàzar
Coloured Lights by Leila Aboulela

August 4: London Review Bookshop
Devil on the Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
Blank Gaze by Jose Luis Peixoto
Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie
Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec
Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein (read)
Derelict London by Paul Taller (read)
Paris and Elsewhere by Richard Cobb

August 5: Wellcome Collection Bookshop
Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Lunatics by Roy Porter

August 7: Foyles Bookshop (Charing Cross Road)
Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne (read)
Chowringhee by Sankar

August 8: Foyles Bookshop (Charing Cross Road)
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (read)
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

August 11: London Review Bookshop
Me Cheeta by James Lever (partially read)
The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo

August 12: National Theatre Bookshop
England People Very Nice by Richard Bean (read)
Kwame Kwei-Armah Plays 1: Elmina’s Kitchen; Fix Up; Statement of Regret; Let There Be Love

By my count, 33 books purchased, 13 read so far.

How to Paint a Dead Man was a wonderful ride, flissp. It consists of four intertwined stories, involving a dying and famous Italian landscape artist, a young girl who has recently become blind and was tutored by the artist, a famous artist from Cumbria who was influenced by the Italian artist, and his daughter, whose twin brother recently died in a tragic accident. Each story comprised a separate chapter, and the writing was wonderful. Each story became more intriguing and nail biting, and the structure of the book created a lot of tension, as I found myself wondering what was going to happen to the blind girl while I was reading about the Cumbrian artist's mishap, and how he was going to extricate itself from it. To say too much more at this point would be a bit of a spoiler. I will say that I loved the ride with Sarah Hall, but I'm not yet sure where we went.

I'll still review this book properly later this week.

I don't envy you having to carry all those books home in your luggage, but I do envy all that happy book-shopping. And the number of books you manage to read despite your heavy workload.

Rebecca, my close friends, family and co-workers would laugh hysterically at the thought that I have a "heavy workload"! Most don't think I work at all, or just enough to pay for my trips and books. I'm only working nine days this month (which included 10 vacation days), and I only work two 12 hour weekend night shifts in the first 20 days in September (no vacation; I'm still not sure how that worked out). In a normal month, with no vacation, I work 12-15 days (80% of full time), so I have plenty of time to read and travel compared to my friends in private practice, who usually work four days a week and one weekend a month. When we do work, it is pretty intense and draining, and even more so as I get close to the half-century mark.

As I've said previously, it's a sweet gig.

I "only" brought back about 20 books, as I gave some to Rachael (FlossieT) and donated others that I had read to the Oxfam bookshop in Bloomsbury. I did bring an extra bag with me to bring back books, and I packed light, so it actually wasn't too bad.

I see you bought Timothy Mo's The redundancy of courage, and Perec's life a user's manual. Both are super books. Looking forward to your reviews of those!

Murr, I'll probably read both books next month, after my current Bookerthon. I just finished my seventh longlisted book (see below), so I have six more to read. I'll resume reading Love and Summer by William Trevor today, and start Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel later this week. Wolf Hall is the current favorite to win the prize. The shortlist for the prize will be announced on 8 September, so I'll focus on the shortlisted books I haven't read after that.

This is how I would rank the longlisted books I've read so far:

1. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
2. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
3. How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
4. Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
5. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
6. Not Untrue and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin
7. Me Cheeta by James Lever

I finished two very enjoyable books today: Summertime by J.M. Coetzee (4 to 4-1/2 stars) and Beauty Salon, a novella by the Mexican author Mario Bellatin (4-1/2 stars). I'm visiting my parents for the first 10 days of September in the Philadelphia area, and we'll be eating dinner soon; so I'll submit reviews later tonight or tomorrow.

Summertime: Scenes from Provincial Life by J.M. Coetzee



My rating:

Summertime is the third fictionalized memoir about the young Coetzee, after Boyhood and Youth. It describes his life in South Africa from 1972-77, when he returns to South Africa after completing graduate studies in the US.

The famous writer John Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize, has recently died in Australia. Vincent, a British historian, reads Coetzee's papers and memoirs, and interviews several people that were friends and lovers of Coetzee from 1972-77.

The interviewees' descriptions of the young Coetzee, who is in his mid to late thirties and lives with his ailing father outside of Cape Town, are harsh and unflattering. Most describe him as socially inept and repressed, a "soft" man who has no sexual appeal to women, one whose lovemaking is "autistic" and focused more on atmosphere and music than on the woman that he is with.

The novel ends as it begins, with fragments written by the author, as Coetzee must decide whether to remain with his dying father, whom he does not love, or pursue other opportunities. The reader is left with the impression that another memoir will pick up the story from there.

This was a very enjoyable, brave, but peculiar read. I assume that most of the accounts written about Coetzee are based on fact, though I would assume that the characters are fictional. The stories are humorous but often made me cringe, and I frequently had the impression of vultures picking over a dead carcass and complaining about how bad the meat of the dead animal tasted. I'm curious about Coetzee's motivation in writing such a harshly critical story about himself. He, of course, is very much alive, though he continues to live as a recluse in Australia. I doubt that any biographer of Coetzee could write anything more harsh about him, and perhaps he wants to be the one to definitively tell his story, in his own peculiar way.

Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin



My rating:

I picked up this novella earlier in the week, after reading a profile of the author last month in the New York Times and a review of it in Three Percent.

The unnamed narrator is the owner of a popular beauty salon, which is manned by himself and two other male friends who dress like women, in order to provide excitement into their lives and to put their customers more at ease. One of the friends asks the narrator to provide shelter to another young man who is dying from an illness that bears close resemblance to AIDS, as neither his family nor any facilities will care for him. Soon afterward, others who are similarly afflicted come to his salon, and he converts it into the Terminal, where only men at the end stage of the illness are allowed to stay. His colleagues have succumbed to the illness, and he is the only provider to his guests, as he rejects all requests for help from religious and medical benefactors.

He is a competent but remote caregiver, both to his guests and the tropical fish that were once the highlight of the salon. The dying are not permitted any comforts other than candy, and one young man is savagely beaten by the owner after he tries to run away. Only one young man elicits any sympathy from him, but only fleetingly.

Later, the narrator develops telltale signs of the illness, and realizes that he is beyond hope. Only then does he reflect on his life and those of his guests, as he wonders if anyone will take care of them in their last days.

Beauty Salon was a very short (63 pp) but superb and unforgettable novella from an author largely unknown outside of Mexico who hopefully will gain greater exposure after this work. (Highly recommended.)

wow the plot sounds so unlike anything I've ever read - I'm not usually a fan of absurdist storylines and this does sound a bit like that, but I might make an exception and track it down. Thank for the review!

(ah, it feels so great to follow threads again! I've been away so long - can't wait to read everyone's reviews of their summer reads - lot of catching up to do!)

kd - loving your latest posts. Beauty Salon is on the wishlist.

Eliza & Dan, I'm glad you enjoyed the reviews. The only other book by Bellatin that has been translated into English is Chinese Checkers, which I'll look for in NYC this month or San Francisco next month. A lengthy review of this and several other books by Bellatin can be found here.

Love and Summer by William Trevor



My rating:

The setting for this understated novel is Rathmoye, a small town in the south of Ireland in the middle of the 20th century. Mrs Connulty, whose family owns most of the buildings in town has died, and the townspeople come out to honor her. However, a young visitor, Florian Kilderry, also makes an appearance in the town, as he is there to take photographs of a theatre owned by the Connultys that burned down years ago. He catches the eye of Miss Connulty, the daughter of the deceased matriarch, and he has a brief but electric interaction with Ellie Dillahan, a former orphan who is now married to a farmer whose first wife and young child died in a tragic accident that he was partially responsible for.

The Dillahan's marriage is a convenient but loveless one for Ellie, as her husband is good to her, but does not inspire her. She falls passionately in love with Florian, who lives in a neighboring town. He is a directionless underachiever, and is in the process of selling his late parents' home, to move to "Scandinavia" to make a new life for himself.

The relationship between Ellie and Florian deepens, and the single, middle-aged Miss Connulty is the only one who perceives the danger of this illicit relationship, as it resembles a tragic experience that she had a young woman. As the date of Florian's departure nears, Ellie falls more deeply in love with him, while realizing that she does not love her husband.

For me, Love and Summer was a beautifully written, quiet novel of love and repression in a small town. The intentions and portrayal of two key characters were unclear to me, which made this an incompletely satisfying, though still very enjoyable, read. Admittedly I did not give it the attention that it probably deserved, and I plan to re-read it if it makes the Booker Prize shortlist.

This is my current Booker Prize longlist ranking (eight books completed, five to go)

1. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
2. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
3. How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
4. Love and Summer by William Trevor
5. Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
6. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
7. Not Untrue and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin
13. Me Cheeta by James Lever

Books left to read:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (which I'll start today)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
Heliopolis by James Scudamore

I hope to have all 13 books read by Oct 6, when the winner will be announced. The shortlist will be announced on Sep 8, and I'll read the shortlisted books I haven't read after Sep 8, and get to the others later in the month.

As I mentioned in my 75ers thread, IMO this is a much stronger year for the Booker than the previous two years. Love and Summer is a borderline choice for my short list, as is The Quickening Maze; last year these two would have easily made the list.

Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine by Roy Porter



My rating:

Roy Porter was one of the greatest of all Western medical historians, who taught for many years at University College London, until his early and untimely death in 2002. He has written or edited over 100 books on medical history, the Enlightenment, London, and England, including Flesh in the Age of Reason, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, and Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World.

Blood and Guts covers the history of Western medicine from antiquity to the beginning of the 21st century, and is divided into eight explanatory chapters: "Disease", "Doctors", "The Body", "The Laboratory", "Therapies", "Surgery", "The Hospital" and "Medicine in Modern Society". Porter manages to pack an amazingly comprehensive yet quite readable account of Western medical history in a small book (169 pages of text, of which 30-40 pages are used for illustrations). Included is a sizable bibliography for further reading, including Porter's more comprehensive works.

Although most of the information in the book was familiar to me, as I took a History of Medicine course as a medical student, I did learn a few things, particularly about the differences between the development of specialists and generalists in the US and UK, and the development of the modern hospital in Europe. There is no discussion of the development of medicine in Canada, and I would have liked more information about the role of nursing in the modern hospital after Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale. However, I doubt that there is a better short introduction to Western medical history, for medical practitioners or a lay audience.

Roy Porter was excellent historian. I thoroughly enjoyed Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. While much of his thesis was familiar to me, I garnered a number of interesting anecdotes and bits of cultural history to share with my students. Blood and Guts sounds interesting. Have you read Foucault's The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception? He was a French philosopher and critical theorist who died in the mid 1980s. While I do not agree with all of Foucault's arguments, he was brilliant.

I have The Birth of the Clinic, but haven't read it yet. I had planned to read it this year, though.

I have three other books by Porter: Quacks, Madmen, and Flesh in the Age of Reason. I'll probably read one or two of them before year's end. Have you read anything else by him, Mary?

kizdoc,

Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World and Flesh in the Age of Reason are the only two works by Porter I have read. IMO, Porter is the best kind of historian - one whose scholarship is rigorous but one who also can turn this rigor into utterly enthralling histories.

sounds like my kind of history. Both going on the TBR. Golly.

You've sold me; I'll read the Porter books I have, and move to his other works next year.

Just catching up, kidzdoc. What a fabulous vacation of book buying. Weeeeeee!

The Booker Prize shortlist has just been announced:

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The winner will be announced on October 6th in London.

J M Coetzee in running for first hat trick

>191 kidzdoc: so, what does this do to your personal ratings? Put Coetzee on top, followed by Foulds?

I'll finish Wolf Hall this morning, so I'll have read nine of the 13 longlisted books, and four of the six shortlisted ones. I'll probably rank it second on both lists, behind The Glass Room. So, my shortlist rating is:

1. The Glass Room
2. Wolf Hall
3. Summertime
4. The Quickening Maze

I'll start The Children's Book this weekend, and I'll hopefully finish it and The Little Stranger by next weekend.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel



My rating:

This book is a masterpiece of historical fiction, probably the best book I've read this year, and it replaces The Glass Room as my favorite of the 2009 Booker Prize longlisted and shortlisted books.

A short preface: my knowledge of Tudor England before reading this novel was limited to the following facts:

1. Henry VIII was a famous King of England.
2. Henry VIII had six wives.
3. Several of his wives lost their heads over him.

My interest in Tudor England before reading Wolf Hall was quite low; it is now very high, and I am profoundly disappointed that this journey is over.

And, having said that, any historical inaccuracies in this review are solely mine.

The novel starts spectacularly, as a young William Cromwell is being beaten nearly to death by his blacksmith father:

"So now, get up."
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned inward towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.

Cromwell remains the major character of the novel, as he escapes the wrath of his father, and rises from his humble beginnings to attain fame and fortune abroad in Italy. He becomes the trusted adviser to the powerful Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who himself is King Henry VIII's right hand man.

As the second part of the novel opens, Henry is seeking permission from the Pope to divorce his first wife Katherine, who has yet to bear him a son despite nearly 20 years of marriage. He has his eye on the young Anne Boleyn, whose ego, ambitions and deviousness extend beyond the kingdom and are masterfully portrayed throughout the book. Wolsey fails in his task to have the king's marriage annulled, and is expelled from his lavish residence. Somehow, Cromwell manages to retain loyalty to the cardinal while positioning himself to make himself indispensable to Henry and avoiding the hostile plans of the king's other chief advisers, most notably Thomas More, Thomas Howard and Charles Brandon. Despite the devastating loss of his wife from the sweating sickness epidemic of 1528, and his beloved daughter in the following summer's plague, Cromwell's influence grows, as he also skillfully aligns himself to Anne and the Boleyns while maintaining his own independence and dignity.

Due to Cromwell's legal acumen, Parliament grants Henry supremacy over the Church of England, and he becomes the king's chief minister. Henry takes Anne Boleyn as his second wife, but she too is unable to bear him the son that will become the rightful heir to the throne. Dissent spreads throughout and beyond the kingdom, as opponents to the king's rule over the Church and the replacement of the former Queen, including Thomas More, who replaced Wolsey as Lord High Chancellor, are imprisoned and brutally executed.

Mantel's ability to place the reader in Tudor England, Henry's court and, most deliciously, Anne Boleyn's company is the most impressive aspect of this novel. A tremendous and essential aid for me was the Cast of Characters at the beginning of the book, which I referred to frequently in the first half of the novel. Wolf Hall clocks in at just over 650 pages, and it somehow seems both larger than that, yet not large enough. It is very readable and quite captivating, especially when taken in 50-100 page leisurely segments. I look forward to giving this another go in the near future, and cannot recommend it highly enough.

My updated Booker Prize shortlist and longlist ratings:

Shortlist:
1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
3. Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
4. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds

Longlist:
1. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2. The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
3. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
4. How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
5. Love and Summer by William Trevor
6. Summertime by J.M. Coetzee
7. The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
8. Not Untrue and Not Unkind by Ed O'Loughlin
13. Me Cheeta by James Lever

WOW! I am impressed by both your review and opinion of the book.
I have always been interested in the Tudors, since university in fact, and this is certainly go onto the wish list.
Also, I am really looking forward to your opinion of The Children's Book, an ARC of which is sitting on top of one of the TBR piles.

Thanks, Paola. Cait86 on the 75ers thread read The Children's Book a couple of weeks ago and loved it. I may start it as early as tonight, after I finish Coloured Lights.

Good news, then!
After I finish a couple of books I must read (one of them an ER book), I will plunge into it.

Coloured Lights by Leila Aboulela



My rating:

This was a mildly interesting, but mainly superficial collection of short stories primarily about a variety of Sudanese girls and young women who have emigrated to the UK and Scotland. Included in this collection is "The Museum", which won the 2000 Caine Prize for African Writing, also known as the "African Booker", which is given to the best short story of the year. This story, about a Sudanese young woman studying for her master's degree in Aberdeen who "befriends" a shy but sensitive local classmate, was ultimately disappointing despite a promising beginning, which can be said for the majority of the other stories in this collection.

#199: Too bad! At least I'll know to try The Translator (which is in already on my shelves) instead of this one. You've saved me from buying another book, which is a valuable service these days.

I still plan to read The Translator, which has gotten good reviews on LT and elsewhere, but probably not until next month at the earliest.

So, Wolf Hall was OK then? Great review. Your whole Man Booker Prize summary is absolutely terrific.

LOL over your preface regarding your knowledge about, and interest in, Tudor England before you read Wolf Hall. Stopped there and will come back to read what you had to say after I read it myself. Thanks for always keeping us up-to-date on all the prizes. I really like the cover of Colored Lights (and, yes, I'll get suckered into buying a book because of the cover) but I usually prefer a novel, or a memoir/NF story like The Translator over short stories.

And, speaking of covers, do you tend to go to the same place to get covers, or just grab the first one you see after googling a title? I worry that I'll pick up a virus or an unwanted cookie on some of the sites. Does anybody else worry about this? Or am I just showing my paranoia/ignorance on this?

You're not paranoid or ignorant at all, bonniebooks! I have been getting my book covers from LT for the most part, which usually come from Amazon US or Amazon UK. Only rarely do I upload a cover from another site, and I strongly prefer to use a cover from a reputable source, such as the publisher's web site or that of a known bookseller like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Whenever I do any search on Google, I use McAfee SiteAdvisor (http://www.siteadvisor.com), a program that automatically assigns information about the safety of any web site (green for sites known to be free of spyware, adware or other problems, and yellow and red for dangerous sites). The basic program is free, but I use the paid version, which I think blocks you from going to these dangerous sites without going through a couple of confirmatory steps.

#202: Thanks, Dan. I agree with Cait86 and others, this year has been a strong one for the Booker, as seven of the nine books I've read are amongst my favorite books of the year.

Great review of Mantel's book. I love historical fiction generally, and the Tudor period especially, so another book on the TBR pile.

Doc, Mantel has written a book about the French Revolution and the struggle between Robespierre and Danton, which I think I will also read after hearing your praise for her work.

Here's an article about her from this week's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/sep/12/hilary-mantel-booker-prize-int...

Yes, I saw that same article, Murr; I posted a link to it on the "Interesting Articles" thread.

My thread took quite a while to load this morning; I'll start a new thread here.