Teaser Tuesdays

I have noticed teasers on Tuesdays across many blogs but have never participated until now. The principle of Teaser Tuesdays is to quote a couple of spoiler-free sentences from the book you’re reading to tempt other readers. As the book I am currently reading originated in blogging, the quote I have chosen concerns blogging, then blogging about this for my first teaser Tuesday seemed quite apt.

From what started as a blog, is now a book, and is soon to be a Nora Ephron movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams:

"Nowadays anybody with a crap laptop and Internet access can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be. But the surprise is that for every person who's got something to say, it seems there are at least a few people who are interested. Some of them aren't even related."

(Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, pg. 96)

Thank you for being interested, and for being interested when those who are related aren't!

What Katy Did

So embracing my inner child at the weekend wasn't entirely successful. Re-reading What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge I was wishing that I hadn't. Much as Hilary Mantel did I found Katy's story to be pious and moralising. Is this really the Katy Carr I loved as a child? Post accident she is so saintly saccharine that I felt the need of a visit to the dentist.
I was a good child and I am sure that I looked to Katy as I did Anne Shirley and Mary Lennox and Pippi Longstocking as a means of escape. I certainly preferred the Katy Carr who got herself into scrapes earlier in the children's novel and not Saint Katy that she later became.

What Katy Did at School was my favourite of the What Katy Did trilogy (What Katy Did Next I can barely recall) and I approach re-reading it with trepidation ... what if all my wonderful childhood memories of reading and re-reading it are shattered? It is a school story, one of my favourite children's literature genres, and therefore full of promise but I am still nervous. I don't think I'll be able to bear the disappointment of now hating it.

Far more successful were re-readings of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Although not a revisit to childhood memories for me as I first read about Harry Potter and -at that time- four of his magical adventures in 2002, it is certainly embracing my inner child. I am an unashamed and avid fan of the Harry Potter books and films and I am still waiting for my letter to say that I am going to Hogwarts.

The Summer Book

I liked The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal) but I didn't love it. I enjoyed its gentle simplicity and its understated beauty. I also enjoyed the fact that each chapter was a vignette and that the book had no actual plot - the events of each section take place during one Summer spent on a Scandinavian island but are stand alone occurrences - which lends itself to a subtle wisdom but overall the book didn't captivate me. Don't get me wrong, I don't require gripping plot to enjoy a book, and I did enjoy this book, but I was left feeling a little ... underwhelmed. Perhaps I will grow to fully appreciate its understatement and discover its literary merit and understand why it is a Scandinavian Classic upon further reflection.

The exchanges between Sophia and her grandmother fall between poignant and humorous; their close -but sometimes guarded- relationship is well conveyed. The evocation of Summer is well done. The meditation upon death is bittersweet. The whimsy is whimsical. I preferred the witty exchanges and found the darker ones heartbreaking sometimes.

My favourite Sophia/Grandmother exchange was when Herdice/Berenice, Sofia's new friend, came to visit and was afraid of everything.

"On the third day, Sophia came into the guest room and said, "Well, that does it. She's impossible. I got her to dive, but it didn't help."
" Did she really dive?" Grandmother asked.
"Yes, really. I gave her a shove and she dived."
"Oh," Grandmother said. "And then what?"
"Her hair can't take salt water," explained Sophia sadly. "It looks awful. And it was her hair I liked."

The dry wit of this thouroughly amused me. The pithy dialogue between Grandmother and Granddaughter is the best part of the book for me. All in all, I think I am disappointed because I didn't immediately love this book and I wonder whether that was my failing.

I read The Enchanted April in April and in the flourishing of Spring; the Summer Book in the outset of Summer (before the sun stopped shining here); Autumn reading will hopefully include The Autumn of the Patriarch; any suggestions for Winter? It could well be Tove Jansson's The Winter Book; I certainly won't be giving up on her work through a little disappointment and I am even waiting as we speak for a copy of Finn Family Moomintroll to arrive in the post.

Burnt Shadows

This is the novel I wanted to win the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction; if this is less deserving and overshadowed by Marilynne Robinson's Home then my imagination cannot extend to how good that novel must be.

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie is profound yet understated. It is poetic in parts and philisophical in others. It is impressive in scope - from Guantanamo Bay back to Nagasaki on the afternoon of the A-bomb, to Delhi pre Indian independence, to Pakistan post-independence, to New York and Afghanistan post 9/11 - but with concentrated attention to detail.

As mentioned in a previous post, one of the most striking parts of the novel is an editorial choice: the flashing white light when Fat Man fell on the afternoon of August 9th, 1945, is represented upon the page and is extremely effective. On each page of the book too -and on the front cover- are the three black cranes that are a central motif of the novel. Hiroko, the main protagonist, is wearing her dead mother's kimono with a pattern of cranes embroidered on its back when the Atomic bomb falls and this design is burned onto her back. Shamsie revealed in interview that she was inspired by this line from John Hersey's book Hiroshima: "On some undressed bodies the burns had made patterns - of undershirt straps and suspenders and, on the skin of some women (since white repelled the heat from the bomb and dark clothes absorbed it and conducted it to the skin) the shape of flowers they had had on their kimonos" and the character of Hiroko was born. I have read that book (it is immensely evocative, as is Masuji Ibuse's Black Rain) and was struck by that line, that image that is burned upon the world's consciousness post-Atomic bomb. Photographs of survivors with these burns inspired Hersey, who in turn inspired Shamsie, and these photographs -along with other infamous and iconic ones of running victims and of the now named A-dome and Peace Memorial, the only building left standing- document one of the cataclysmic events of the Twentieth Century. The image of the three black cranes -and the scars upon Hiroko's back- are central to the novel and haunt her, subsequent events, and the reader. Although the Hiroshima section of Burnt Shadows is the shortest it is also the most effective; Hiroko is branded literally and figuratively, her resentment of being hibakusha ("explosion-affected people") and this is a resounding undercurrent throughout the novel.

I have enjoyed reading a number of novels set in pre and post Independence India, in Afghanistan, and in post 9/11 New York as well as Japanese literature and to blend all of these settings together so seamlessly and epically is astounding. Perhaps the sheer magnitude of its scope is unrealistic but, in my opinion, Burnt Shadows never seemed to grasp but always flowed from one historic event to the next.

This novel left an impact, a shadow, an imprint.

Embracing my Inner Child

Even though I have a TBR pile longer than the cumulative length of all of my limbs and then some, I cannot resist embracing my inner child this weekend. Who needs an excuse to revisit comforting childhood reads? I don't.

I love Children's Literature. I read so many great books as a child that are beloved and were an informative part of my reading. I also enjoy discovering new (and classic) children's books.
Some of my favourites have made it onto my Children's Lit bookshelf above although I am dismayed to notice that Anne of Green Gables isn't there and am annoyed to realise that I have inadvertently left it in my parents' home in Glasgow. Leaving one's packing for a move to London until the last minute and having books everywhere will ensure that one's book packing is haphazard -and often nonsensical- to say the least. Case in point: I have the first two and the last Harry Potter books here and the middle four at home. Sigh. I do, however, have them on audio (read by the wonderful Stephen Fry) and I am listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as I write.

Due to another moving oversight a few years ago (not mine this time) most of my books from childhood were left in a huge box in the attic so I have desperately tried to replace the ones that are most sentimental to me. Borders 20% student discount days whilst I was at University were mainly spent in the Children's department.

This weekend is forecast to be fairly miserable and we have no plans other than the weekly grocery shop at Sainsbury's and watching the F1 in Turkey so I think spending it curled up with a cosy read is an ideal way to spend the remainder. Besides, I feel the need for some heartwarming comfort and escapism in childhood innocence. I plan to listen to the remainder of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and read What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge and then possibly its sequels or Roald Dahl's Matilda.

What are your childhood favourites? What makes you embrace or become nostalgic for your inner child?

Even More Library Loot

This morning my beloved book bag (left) and myself wandered to the library and picked up even more books! This has to stop. I returned five that I have read and still have four out (currently reading two of these) and collected eight so I have maxed my allowance of twelve; two outstanding requests won't be ready for some time as I am about fourth in the queue so at least I can concentrate upon the ones I currently have. All twelve of them.

Some of the ones I now have I have mentioned in previous posts; I requested some of the Orange Prize shortlisted novels a few weeks ago as well as a couple of other recommendations. Lady Chatterley's Lover is this month's book group choice; I've been wanting to read The Post-Birthday World and The Group recently; Fahrenheit 541 has been on my wishlist for as long as I can remember.

This afternoon I am going to try to finish one of the library books I am currently reading as well as hopefully some progress with another, whilst eating strawberries and cherries; I love summer.

The Orange Prize for Fiction 2009

Apropos to the title and the accompanying photograph, I would like to point out how much I love Penguin books, whether they be orange & cream, mint green, silver, or the new white & grey, I enjoy collecting them. I also covet this book and also this one as the history, design, and marketing of Penguin interests me greatly.

However, I have gone off at a tangent. The Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 has been awarded tonight to Marilynne Robinson for her novel Home. Already the announcement has been described as "the surprise was that there was no surprise" (Guardian). It came as a surprise to me; I wanted Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows to win (I hope to review that tomorrow) or suspected -from what I have read- that The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey to win (I'm collecting that from the library tomorrow so it will be an Orange-centric day). Having only read Burnt Shadows from the six prize short-listed novels and Toni Morrison's A Mercy from the long-list, I am hardly qualified to judge who should have won but I am disappointed; neither Home nor Robinson's 2006 longlisted Gilead appeal to me. Am I wrong to be unattracted towards them? have you read either and enjoyed them? I feel uninspired.

As it's Orange Prize night and I've been meaning to do this anyway, I am using this post this to also track how many of the previously nominated Orange Prize contenders I have read (don't you just love lists? even if they do take up numerous blog inches). Courtesy of Kimbofo via dovegreyreader this is the list in full from its inception in 1996. Scored through are the titles that I have read and in Orange are the few I own but have not read. Are there any you would recommend or wouldn't? For the most part I have enjoyed those I have read; there are some great books, some masterpeices, and many fabulous female writers on this list.

A L Kennedy Everything You Need
A L Kennedy So I am Glad
Ajay Close Official and Doubtful
Ali Smith Hotel World - shortlist
Ali Smith The Accidental - shortlist
Alice Greenaway White Ghost Girls
Alice McDermott Charming Billy
Alice Sebold The Lovely Bones
Allegra Goodman Intuition
Amy Tan The Bonesetter's Daughter
Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses - shortlist
Andrea Barrett The Voyage of the Narwhal
Andrea Levy Never Far from Nowhere
Andrea Levy Small Island - winner
Anita Desai Fasting, Feasting
Anita Desai The Zigzag Way
Anita Amirrezvani The Blood of Flowers
Anita Rau Badami The Hero's Walk
Anita Nair Mistress
Anita Shreve The Weight of Water - shortlist
Ann Patchett Bel Canto - winner
Ann Patchett The Magician's Assistant - shortlist
Ann Weisgarber's The Personal History of Rachel DuPree
Ann-Marie MacDonald Fall on your Knees
Anna Burns No Bones - shortlist
Anna Quindlen Black and Blue
Anne Donovan Buddha Da - shortlist
Anne Enright The Gathering
Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces - winner
Anne Tyler Digging to America
Anne Tyler Ladder of Years - shortlist
Anne Tyler The Amateur Marriage
Audrey Niffenegger The Time Traveler's Wife
Barbara Ewing A Dangerous Vine
Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible - shortlist
Barbara Neil A History of Silence
Bella Bathurst Special
Bernadine Evaristo Blonde Roots
Beryl Bainbridge Every Man for Himself
Beryl Bainbridge Master Georgie
Carol Shields Larry's Party - winner
Carol Shields Unless - shortlist
Carol Topolski Monster Love
Carrie Tiffany Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living - shortlist
Catherine Chidgey In a Fishbone Church
Catherine O’Flynn What Was Lost
Célestine Hitiura Vaite Frangipani
Charlotte Mendelson When We Were Bad
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun - winner
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Purple Hibiscus - shortlist
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The Mistress of Spices
Chloe Hooper A Child's Book of True Crime - shortlist
Christina Koning Undiscovered Country
Christine Dwyer Hickey Tatty
Christine Pountney Last Chance Texaco
Clare Allan Poppy Shakespeare
Clare Clark The Great Stink
Cristina Garcia The Aguero Sisters
Crystal Wilkinson Water Street
Curtis Sittenfeld American Wife
Curtis Sittenfeld Prep
Dalia Sofer The Septembers of Shiraz
Danzy Senna From Caucasia, with Love
Deborah Robertson Careless
Debra Adelaide The Household Guide to Dying
Deborah Moggach In The Dark
Deirdre Madden One by One in the Darkness - shortlist
Deirdre Madden Molly Fox's Birthday - shortlist
Deirdre Purcell Love Like Hate Adore - shortlist
Dinah Lee Küng A Visit from Voltaire
Donna Tartt The Little Friend - shortlist
Drusilla Modjeska The Orchard
E Annie Proulx Accordion Crimes - shortlist
Edna O’Brien In the Forest
Eilis Ni Dhuibhne The Dancers Dancing - shortlist
Elif Shafak The Bastard of Istanbul
Elizabeth Knox The Vintner's Luck
Elizabeth McCracken Niagara Falls All Over Again
Elizabeth Strout Amy and Isabelle – shortlist
Ellen Feldman Scottsboro
Elspeth Sandys River Lines
Emma Richler Sister Crazy
Esther Freud Gaglow
Esther Freud The Wild
Gail Jones Dreams of Speaking
Gail Jones Sorry
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
Gillian Slovo Ice Road - shortlist
Gina B Nahai Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
Gina Ochsner The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight
Haven Kimmel The Solace of Leaving Early
Heather O’Neill Lullabies for Little Criminals
Helen DeWitt The Last Samurai
Helen Dunmore A Spell of Winter - winner
Helen Dunmore House of Orphans
Helen Dunmore The Siege - shortlist
Hilary Mantel Beyond Black - shortlist
Hilary Mantel The Giant O'Brien
Ingrid Hill Ursula, Under
Isla Dewar Keeping Up with Magda
Jackie Kay Trumpet
Jacquelyn Mitchard The Most Wanted
Jamaica Kincaid The Autobiography of My Mother
Jane Gardam Old Filth - shortlist
Jane Hamilton The Short History of a Prince - shortlist
Jane Harris The Observations - shortlist
Jane Mendelsohn I Was Amelia Earhart - shortlist
Jane Rogers Island
Jane Rogers Promised Lands
Jane Smiley Horse Heaven - shortlist
Jane Smiley Ten Days in the Hills
Jane Urquhart The Underpainter
Janet Davey English Correspondence
Jayne Ann Phillips Motherkind
Jeanette Winterson Gut Symmetries
Jeanette Winterson The PowerBook
Jennifer Clement A True Story Based on Lies
Jennifer Egan The Keep
Jhumpa Lahiri The Namesake
Jill Dawson Fred & Edie - shortlist
Jill Dawson Watch Me Disappear
Jo-Ann Goodwin Danny Boy
Joan Brady Death Comes for Peter Pan
Joan Didion The Last Thing He Wanted
Joan London Gilgamesh
Joanne Harris Five Quarters of the Orange
Joolz Denby Billie Morgan - shortlist
Josephine Humphreys Nowhere Else on Earth
Joyce Carol Oates Middle Age
Joyce Carol Oates Rape A Love Story
Joyce Carol Oates The Falls
Judy Budnitz If I Told You Once - shortlist
Julia Blackburn The Book of Colour - shortlist
Julia Blackburn The Leper's Companions - shortlist
Julia Darling Crocodile Soup
Julia Leigh The Hunter
Julie Otsuka When the Emperor was Divine
Kamila Shamsie Burnt Shadows - shortlist
Karla Kuban Marchlands
Kate Atkinson Case Histories
Kate Grenville The Idea of Perfection - winner
Kathryn Heyman The Breaking
Kathy Page The Story of My Face
Kira Cochrane Escape Routes for Beginners
Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss - shortlist
Kirsten Bakis Lives of the Monster Dogs - shortlist
Kitty Aldridge Pop
Laura Fish Strange Music
Laura Hird Born Free
Lauren Liebenberg The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam
Laurie Graham Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights
Laurie R King With Child
Leila Aboulela Minaret
Leila Aboulela The Translator
Leone Ross All the Blood is Red
Lesley Glaister Now You See Me
Lesley Glaister The Private Parts of Women
Leslie Forbes Fish, Blood & Bone
Lily Prior La Cucina
Linda Grant The Cast Iron Shore
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
Linda Grant When I Lived in Modern Times - winner
Lindsey Collen The Rape of Sita
Lionel Shriver We Need to Talk About Kevin - winner
Lisa Moore Alligator
Lissa Evans Their Finest Hour and a Half
Liz Jensen Ark Baby
Liz Jensen Egg Dancing
Liz Jensen War Crimes for the Home
Lori Lansens The Girls
Lorraine Adams Harbor
Louise Welsh The Cutting Room
Louise Young Baby Love
Lucy Ellmann Dot in the Universe
Lucy Ellmann Man or Mango?
M J Hyland Carry Me Down
Maggie Gee The Flood
Maggie Gee The White Family - shortlist
Maile Meloy Liars & Saints - shortlist
Manda Scott Hen's Teeth - shortlist
Margaret Atwood Alias Grace - shortlist
Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake - shortlist
Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin - shortlist
Margaret Forster Over
Marianne Wiggins Eveless Eden – shortlist
Marilyn Bowering Visible Worlds - shortlist
Marilynne Robinson Gilead
Marilynne Robinson Home - shortlist
Marina Lewycka A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - shortlist
Marly Swick Evening News
Mary Kay Zuravleff The Frequency of Souls
Mary Morrissy Mother of Pearl
Maureen Duffy Restitution
Meaghan Delahunt In the Blue House
Meera Syal Anita and Me
Meg Wolitzer The Position
Melanie Finn Away From You
Melanie Wallace The Housekeeper
Michele Roberts Impossible Saints
Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog
Michelle Huneven Round Rock
Michelle Lovric The Remedy
Miranda Hearn Nelson’s Daughter
Miriam Toews The Flying Troutmans
Monica Ali Brick Lane
Nadine Gordimer The House Gun
Nancy Huston Fault Lines
Nani Power Crawling at Night
Naomi Alderman Disobedience
Nell Freudenberger The Dissident
Nell Leyshon Black Dirt
Nicole Krauss The History of Love - shortlist
Nora Okja Keller Comfort Woman
Nora Okja Keller Fox Girl
Oonya Kempadoo Buxton Spice
Pagan Kennedy Spinsters - shortlist
Pat Barker The Ghost Road
Patricia Ferguson It So Happens
Patricia Ferguson Peripheral Vision
Patricia Wood Lottery
Paulina Simons Red Leaves
Pauline Melville The Ventriloquist's Tale - shortlist
Penelope Fitzgerald The Blue Flower
Philippa Gregory The Constant Princess
Preeta Samarasan Evening is the Whole Day
Rachel Cusk Arlington Park - shortlist
Rachel Seiffert Afterwards
Rachel Seiffert The Dark Room
Rebecca Gowers When to Walk
Rose Tremain The Colour - shortlist
Rose Tremain The Road Home
Rosina Lippi Homestead - shortlist
Rupa Bajwa The Sari Shop
Sadie Jones The Outcast
Samantha Harvey The Wilderness
Samantha Hunt The Invention of Everything Else
Sandra Benitez Bitter Grounds
Sandra Cisneros Caramelo
Sarah Hall The Electric Michelangelo
Sarah May The Internationals
Sarah Waters Fingersmith – shortlist
Sarah Waters The Night Watch - shortlist
Scarlett Thomas The End of Mr. Y
Sena Jeter Naslund Ahab's Wife
Shauna Singh Baldwin What the Body Remembers
Shena Mackay Heligoland - shortlist
Sheri Holman The Mammoth Cheese - shortlist
Shirley Hazzard The Great Fire - shortlist
Siri Hustvedt The Enchantment of Lily Dahl
Siri Hustvedt What I Loved
Sonya Hartnett What the Birds See
Stef Penney The Tenderness of Wolves
Stella Duffy State of Happiness
Stella Duffy The Room of Lost Things
Stephanie Grant The Passion of Alice
Stevie Davies Kith & Kin
Stevie Davies The Element of Water
Sue Gee The Mysteries of Glass
Sue Miller Lost in the Forest
Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of Bees
Sunetra Gupta A Sin of Colour
Suzanne Berne A Crime in the Neighbourhood - winner
Tessa Hadley The Master Bedroom
Toni Morrison A Mercy
Toni Morrison Love
Toni Morrison Paradise - shortlist
Tracy Chevalier Girl with a Pearl Earring
Trezza Azzopardi The Hiding Place
Tricia Wastvedt The River
Valerie Martin Property - winner
VV Ganeshananthan Love Marriage
Xiaolu Guo A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - shortlist
Zadie Smith On Beauty - winner
Zadie Smith The Autograph Man - shortlist
Zadie Smith White Teeth - shortlist
Zoë Heller Notes on a Scandal