I used to read quite a few graphic novels during my teens; not as much as some of the people I went to school with, who were aficionado’s, of a sort, and often seemed to be employing some kind of private language when they were talking to each other, but, then, they were mainly teenage boys, so I could say that about almost anything they were talking about. In any case, I was too busy indulging my own secret literary peccadilloes at the time to really explore the genre seriously, and, eventually, I stopped reading them all together – at least, until this year. As it is, I have slowly been reintroducing the graphic genre to my literary palette, and I have actually really enjoyed the process.

The first graphic novel I read this year was purchased on something of a whim with some money I had received for my birthday, so, choosing from the two books my local indie book shop had in stock, I walked home with Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which was a book I had been meaning to read for ages, but which I was extremely nervous about choosing as my first graphic novel to read after so many years. My nervousness was mainly due to the fact that I had seen the film, and really liked it, and I thought the book would not live up to my expectations, raised even higher by the rave reviews the book had recieved.

As it was, as powerful, funny and moving as I found the film, I thought the book was ten times better. For anyone who doesn’t know anything about the book (after all the press it has received, I am not certain such people exist), Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of her life in Iran, from before the beginning of the revolution, when she was a small child, to the point of her final departure from the country as a young woman, taking in her time as a voluntary exile in Switzerland during her adolescence, and covering topics from the political oppression in Iran to first love and family relations.

The thing that makes the book so powerful for me, though, is that Satrapi switches so effortlessly from the seeming normality of her childhood to the horrific consequences of war with such ease that it always comes as a shock to turn the page and see something heartbreaking, moments after reading about a conversation over something quite domestic with one member of her family or another. It is the recognisability of the family situations, then, coupled with the totally alien abnormality of terrible violence (at least in terms of my own experience) and personal loss that so emotionally moved me.

Added to this, while the film made excellent use of a narrator, the fact that you are reading the book in silence makes the experience even more intense. Even more importantly, as a reader, rather than a viewer, you can control exactly how much time you devote to each frame of the book, looking for fine details and really being drawn into Satrapi’s world, all of which made me really glad that I ignored my slight wobble over whether to read the book or not and made me really glad I did.

Now, from the sublime to the ridiculous, as they say, but in a good way in this instance, as I next found myself reading the first volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series (which has just been made into a film, in case you didn’t know), Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, detailing the everyday life of 23-year-old professional layabout Scott Pilgrim. Scott is pretty much the definition of a slacker, having no job, spongeing of his gay roommate Wallace, with whom he shares a bed, spending his time playing computer games and rehearsing with his band.

His trouble really starts when he begins dating a school girl, 17 year old Knives Chau, while simultaneously starting to have dreams about a roller-skating delivery girl, Ramona Flowers, and starts receiving mysterious emails from someone who apparently wants to fight. It turns out that Ramona is actually using a short-cut that runs right through Scott’s brain (surreal, no?) but, before Scott can actually start dating Ramona properly, he must defeat her evil exes, and, as it turns out, the mysterious emails he has been deleting without reading are actually quite important.

There are more than a few surreal moments in Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, which I like, so, you know, I’m fine with that, but what really made the book a success for me, and made me determined to get my hands on the rest of the series, was the humour of the book, and I did actually laugh out loud at a couple of points. Added to this, the cast of characters are wacky yet genuinely charming (and I love Wallace), and O’Malley exploits the graphic novel genre to tell Scott’s story in the most energetic and interesting way possible.

The third book I read was, for me, not quite as good as either of the other two, in part because Ghost World by Daniel Clowes seems to sit uneasily in the middle ground between the surreal funniness of Scott Pilgrim and the serious coming of age elements of Persepolis. I also found that the fact that the book had been a serialisation originally really stopped me from getting into the book.

It was still an interesting book to read, and the relationship between Enid and Rebecca, the two central protagonists, was interesting to read about. The trouble is, there isn’t really that much of a plot as the book is more of an exploration of the nature of adolescence and friendship, and, essentially, the inevitability of growing up and, sometimes, apart. The trouble is, my adolescence was completely different from Enid and Rebecca’s so I felt as if Clowes was documenting some alien species and, really, I just didn’t much like any of the characters, and, when you get right down to it, I think that if you don’t really care what happens to anyone in a book then you are never going to particularly enjoy, but I would still say that it is worth reading if you have an interest in graphic novels, just as a point of comparison. Still, while I will definitely be reading more work by both Satrapi and O’Malley, I really don’t think Clowes’s work is for me.

…which all makes for a rather brilliant series, actually. The series in question is The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger, and, while I know very little about the steampunk genre, I have come across more than my fair share of comic fiction over the years, and Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless, the three books in the series so far, all had me chortling out loud more than once.

The books are set in an alternative Victorian Britain, for the most part, where ghosts, werewolves and vampires abound, having come out of the proverbial closet during the reign of Henry VIII and integrated themselves quite nicely into the upper echelons of Society, with a capital “S”, and it is the presence of vampires in society, who, in Carriger’s world, love to tinker with all things mechanical, that has advanced civilisation to a rather great degree.

The existence of the supernatural is put down to certain people having an ‘excess of soul’, which keeps the spirit alive once the body is, technically, dead. The exploration of what the soul actually is makes for quite an interesting subplot throughout all of the books so far, because, as it happens, Alexia Tarabotti, the central character, was born without a soul, and therefore has the ability to cancel out the supernatural abilities of all forms of supernatural creature with a single touch.

However, while these abilities make for an interesting plot point, it is actually Alexia’s character that is most engaging, as she is intelligent, forthright, witty, and she doesn’t let inconvenient circumstances, like people trying to kill her, put her off her food. Add to this her obsession with fine tea and a parasol made of reinforced steel and filled with ballast, which is liberally applied to several people’s heads during the course of the novels, and anyone who knows me well will see why I love her.

Nevertheless, funny as the books are, and wonderful as Alexia is, there is a lot more to them than that, and all three books also contain elements of the classic mystery/adventure novel, a manageable dollop of romance, and a great deal of wonderful writing to boot. The first book, Soulless, begins with Alexia being attacked by an ‘unexpected vampire’, as, as far as she knows, all the vampires in London know of her existence, making it pointless to attack her.
In the ensuing struggle, however, she accidently kills the vampire, thus making it necessary for the BUR, essentially the supernatural version of the civil service, to start an investigation, headed up by Lord Maccon, a werewolf, and his Beta and second in command, Professor Lyall, with Lord Maccon also providing the love interest, to boot. Pretty soon, however, it becomes apparent that, not only are new vampires appearing seemingly out of thin air, but lone vampires and werewolves are also disappearing, several attempts are made to kidnap Alexia, and a man whose face appears to mad of wax appears out of nowhere, all pointing to a Sinister Plot, all while Alexia struggles with her own feelings towards Lord Maccon (which often consist largely of irritation, it has to be said).

Having looked at the reviews on some book sites, I know that Lord Maccon is something of a Marmite character, but I actually really quite liked him, and the repartee between Alexia and him is often very funny. There are also a supporting cast of characters who are all equally beautifully drawn, and often very charming, from the much put-upon Professor Lyall himself, to the outrageously camp vampire, Lord Akeldama (who reminded me rather strongly of a young Noel Coward) and his cast of equally flamboyant ‘drones’, or mortal companions/servants.

I won’t, of course, let spill any spoilers, which basically rules out recounting the plots of books 2 and 3 in any way, but I will say that Soulless reaches a suitably exciting, complicated (in a good way) climax, and the other two books in the series are equally brilliant. One word of warning, though; if you do get book 2, get book 3 as well, as, if you are anything like me, the cliff-hanger at the end of Changeless will make you desperate to read straight on. The only complaint I have is that the next book isn’t due out until next summer, which means I will have to wait absolutely ages to find out what happens next.

In the meantime, does anyone else know of any funny steampunk novels that I could try and get my hands on in the interim?

Well, it is getting on for a month, with no sign of another blog-post from me, and so I’m going to do something I’ve thought about for a while, in an attempt to get my to-be-written-about pile of books down to a more manageable size, and just write about a few books in brief. I’ve therefore picked a selection of books that I would recommend to people in my non-internet life, something that I rarely do.

You can take it as read (excuse the pun) that I thought they were all wonderful, for a multitude of various reasons, but I have had trouble writing about them all, either because I didn’t want to give too much about the plot away, and couldn’t see how not to in an extended blogpost, or because I just haven’t been able to form my thoughts on them into a coherent piece of writing.

The first book, basing my choices roughly on the ages for which they were intended, is Un Lun Dun by China Mieville, which, while probably best classed as a young adult novel, is far too subversive, inventive, and generally witty to find itself restricted by that category. Set in a parallel UnLondon, where ‘trash’ forms packs and comes alive to run the streets like stray dogs, and broken umbrellas- unbrellas, in fact- seem to have a sinister life of their own, Mieville has created a finely realised fantasy world that is full of humour and a cast of characters that are wonderfully vibrant.

The book started of with a bit of obligatory slang thrown in, just to let us know we were dealing with teenagers, which very nearly put me off reading any further but I am glad that I didn’t as the story that unfolded was, frankly, brilliant, and very subversive in the way that it dealt with the idea of the Chosen One, and the adventure-quest, within fantasy as a genre. I’d recommend it for you if: you read children’s literature anyway, you like comic fantasy, you fancy reading something light and inventive.

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner, is a young adult novel as well, but perhaps for a slightly older readership. The story is based on a Welsh myth from the Mabinogion and three teenagers find themselves acting out the story of Blodeuwedd, which, as it is on wikipedia, and is pretty much covered in the book itself, I shan’t relay here. Nevertheless, mythology and folk tales are two of my literary passions, so I though Garner’s ability to weave an ancient Welsh myth into his narrative was brilliant.

The book is, unsurprisingly, not funny, but it is incredibly powerful, very eerie, and created quite an oppressive atmosphere, at least to my mind. I read this book back in July, though, and wasn’t entirely sure what to think of it, but, even after all of the books I have read since, the impression it made on me is still really clear in my mind, so it is definitely a slow-grower. I’d recommend it for you if: you don’t mind if a book doesn’t clear up every mystery it presents, you like very evocative stories, you think the Canongate Myths series is a really good idea.

Up third is The Magic Toyshop, by Angela Carter, which I absolutely loved. It’s dark and creepy, whimsical and fantastical, all at the same time, which is, basically, just my kind of book, and I now really want to read everything she has ever written. The story focusses on Melanie, who is sent to live in London with her aunt, who suffers from mutism, and her uncle, a dictatorial toymaker, after both her parents are killed.

It could have been a story about the grieving process, but instead, Carter presents the reader with a neo-gothic fairytale that really got under my skin. Reading the novel, I found myself thinking, about forty pages from the end; “I love this book so much, there is no way that the ending cannot disappoint me”. Thankfully, I was completely wrong, and the denouement more than exceeded my expectations. I really don’t want to give too much away about the plot, because the way in which Carter reveals the plot to the reader, building up tension in the process, is really very wonderful. I’d recommend it for you if: you always preferred the darker originals to modern PC fairytales, you like disturbingly quirky literature, marionettes freak the frick out of you.

The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson, is an entirely different type of book from the others, but it really is beautiful. The book cover writes as if there is a plot to the book, but, really, it is simply a series of wonderful little vignettes, depicting the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter Sophia as they spend the summer on their family island in the gulf of Finland.

The relationship between grandmother and grandchild is lovely to read about, and the grandmother herself is a fantastic character, who is very much attuned to the natural world, but what I found so moving about the book was actually the descriptions of the natural world and a lifestyle that is slowly becoming extinct. It’s not a long book, but I spent a wonderful afternoon sitting in the garden with a cold drink, and the sense of place the book created was just amazing. I’d recommend it for you if: you don’t mind a book that doesn’t really have a plot, you like books that bring a place to life, you like reading about eccentric characters.

My last recommendation is again a very different one; I’ve done children’s literature, I’ve done adult fiction, so now it’s time for the poetry. I never really know how to write about poetry collections because there’s no plot to describe, no characters to talk about, and, when you get right down to it, poetry succeeds or fails on the language the poet makes use of, and that is the one thing you can’t describe in anything but abstract terms. Nevertheless, for anyone who already reads poetry, I would definitely add Swithering, by Robin Robertson, to your TBR pile, and, for those who don’t read poetry regularly, you could do worse than to break yourself in with Robertson’s book.

Robertson writes primarily in free verse, but his work has a great deal of musicality in the lines, and the collection is mainly composed of clear, deeply moving, and powerfully personal lyrics and you really don’t need a great knowledge of poetic form to understand them, although, as with most poetry, you have to put in a little more concentration than you might with a novel if you are to get the most out of the book, but it is definitely worth it, and there was hardly a single poem in the whole collection where I didn’t come across at least one line and think ‘wow, I wish I’d written that’. I’d recommend it for you if: you like contemporary poetry, especially poets such as Simon Armitage, Don Paterson and Christopher Reid, you want to start reading poetry and you are looking for something powerful to start you off.

And now, I’m going to have a nice cup of tea and relax, feeling slightly less guilty about my incredibly poor blogging habits.

I am a foodie; I always have been, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s possible that anyone who has read the mini-bio in the sidebar will have guessed that already, as two of the things Jen and I first bonded over were cake and cheese, but my love of food goes back much further than that; as soon as I was capable of talking, I named my favourite teddy Scrambled Egg, after my favourite dish du jour, and, after a brief period as a fussy eater, I’ve been experimenting with food for years, with, admittedly, mixed results. That being said, I can completely understand why someone would want to write a memoir focussed around food, or even to chart the progress of an entire relationship based on the meals eaten, and that’s why I was so pleased to come across three such books this month: Cooking for Mr Latte by Amanda Hesser, Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard, and French Milk by Lucy Knisley.

I’ll talk about Cooking for Mr Latte first, the book I enjoyed slightly less than the other two, for the simple reason that I didn’t like Amanda Hesser, or at least the way she presented herself in the book, as much as the other two writers. The book itself covers the period between when Amanda Hesser, a food writer by trade, first meets her future husband, Tad Friend, a fellow writer, and the day of their wedding; that’s all on the back cover, by the way, so I’m not spoilering. The individual chapters of the books were originally written as articles, so there is a kind of piecemeal feel about the book, but that doesn’t really matter too much, as each chapter ends with a selection of the recipes that Hesser was talking about, either from dinner parties, dates, or restaurant visits, in the preceding pages, which disrupts the flow of the narrative in any case.

Although not many of the recipes are vegetarian, thereby doing me no good at all, most of them sound quite tasty, so they weren’t the problem for me. What I found a bit annoying at times was that Hesser often came across as a bit too opinionated about food for me. On one occasion, talking to a man she had just met, she launches into a sustained diatribe against his plans to open a chain of boulangeries in Spain, so that he could get a decent croissant when he was there, as he put it. While I’m not sure about that as a business plan, I couldn’t help but feel that Hesser was being a little bit hypocritical in declaring that people shouldn’t eat croissant in Spain whilst she tucks into Thai, Italian, and French food, among others, in her New York surroundings.

Still, it was an interesting enough look at the life of a food writer, and if you eat meat or fish there are probably quite a few recipes that a moderately skilled home cook would be interested in, but I really just come up with a lot of enthusiasm about the romantic elements of the story, and so, in the end, I really just didn’t care that much about a lot of the people in the book.

French Milk is a rather different book to Cooking for Mr Latte, being Lucy Knisley’s graphic novelesque travelogue of a month long vacation in Paris that she took with her mother. The reason I put this book with the other two is that Knisley is almost totally obsessed with food, and a good portion of the book is devoted to recounting what Knisley and her mother had eaten that day, and describing her love for various foodstuffs, including the fresh whole milk that gives the book its title. That said, there is still a lot about the cultural life of Paris, and various meetings with friends and acquaintances that took place throughout the month.

French Milk almost comes across as a diary, in many ways, but the unusual format means that it comes across in a quirky, charming manner, and the quite simplistic drawings support that feeling, at least for me. There are times when I felt that the book slipped dangerously close to angst-ridden teen territory, despite the fact that Knisley was in her early twenties when she wrote French Milk (and we all know there’s a massive difference between people in their teens and early twenties. Ahem.), but those instances are few and far between, and the portrayal of the close relationship between Knisley and her mother, and the miniature portraits that Knisley paints of the people they come across more than made up for any small issues I had with the book as a whole. The only criticism I have of the book, really, is that I wish it had been longer, but I got the impression Knisley had made as much of her material as she could, and so I’m just going to look out for more work from her in the future. In the meantime, I will content myself with looking at the stuff Knisley posts on her website, which is well worth a visit.

Even though I loved French Milk, though, of these three books, Lunch in Paris, by Elizabeth Bard, is by far my favourite. The book covers the first few years of Bard’s life after she moves to Paris to live with a man she barely knows, and begins when Bard is still living in London, having moved there from her home city, New York. There are, of course, many little episodes of culture clash, and many points at which Bard questions her decision to live thousands of miles from her family, but, as the book is subtitled ‘A Love Story, with Recipes’, and Bard’s paramour, Gwendal, seems like a thoroughgoing chap, there is little doubt about the end of the book.

At points, though, it is difficult to discern exactly which love story Bard is most concerned with; that with her partner, Paris itself, or food. All three relationships make for good reading, but it is Bard’s relationship with Paris, and its elusive citizens, that make for the stormiest parts of the book. Nevertheless (and rather predictably), it is the parts of the book that deal with food that really caught my imagination. Unlike Amanda Hesser, Elizabeth Bard approaches food as an enthusiastic amateur, rather than a professional chef and food writer, and her writing, for me, has a lot more warmth, making me feel more interested in what was happening.

As for the recipes, their were a lot more vegetarian recipes, or recipes that could be adapted to suit a vegetarian diet. Added to this, there was much talk of ingredients that I am now desperate to use, and foods I really want to try, including the wonderful peche plate, flat “white” peaches, which are usually called doughnut peaches, or Saturn peaches, in England, and which, by pure coincidence, I saw in my local fruit and veg shop for the first time ever a couple of days after finishing this book, and which are absolutely, unspeakably delicious. Even my mother, who is a confirmed peach-hater, thought they were gorgeous. I’ve also got my eye out for a spice called ‘grains of paradise’, which was recommended by Hesser as well, and that is what I really loved about Lunch in Paris; for days afterwards I was walking about thinking about the recipes in the books, or where I might find various ingredients. Bard’s passion for food was genuine, and very contagious, and I found that wonderful to engage with, which is why I would recommend Lunch in Paris for any other foodies out there, as it really is a lovely book.

I’ve just got back from a much-needed holiday, before taking off for another – still needed! – trip. All serving both to clear my head before I dive into exams and to get me reading lots again, after wading through a massive non-fiction tome recently. But more on that another time, I feel.

I finished a book way back in July which I still haven’t written about, and it’s partly because I was unsure what to write or how to approach a discussion of it. This uncertainty stemmed partly from a reading slump (which I appear to have passed on to Fliss, sorry!) but also because it was a very unusual book for me to read. One might say… unexpected.

The short, fairly unexciting, story behind this is that my sister bought me a copy of The Exception by Christian Jungersen, which is probably best described as a ‘psychological thriller’. I haven’t read anything that could be termed a thriller in so long – because I’m far too excitable and jumpy to read thrillers generally – that I really wasn’t sure how to approach it.

I enjoyed it! I can’t compare it to other novels of its type, but while it wasn’t perfect in its execution, it was a really interesting approach. Basically it focuses on four women, who work at an institution for genocide studies in Denmark. The story is told from the voices of the four women, in turn. What at first seems like a case of fairly simple office politics takes on a more disturbing angle as we begin to hear events from different perspectives. Various unpleasant messages are received and events take place, but nobody is sure whether the culprit is internal, external, or both. It’s not really a book of action so much as of analysing people’s characters, past and actions, and realising how these can be interpreted and reinterpreted based on the other characters wishes, preconceptions and prejudices.

What’s interesting about it, then, from this respect is that not only is it a book which has an ‘unreliable narrator’: it has four. Which, naturally, draws the reader into making their own judgements and analyses alongside those of the characters in the novel, which in itself feels quite disturbing. At the beginning, they each individually seem quite credible, but more and more doubts seep in. Another aspect is that, as they are geared towards the analysis and research of genocide, including the psychology of those involved in genocide both as those who support without controlling event (think of Nazi soldiers) and those who individually have an impact upon events and are a direct cause of atrocities (such as various war criminals) and the whole array of individuals in between, that kind of research is then brought to bear – however inappropriately – upon the people around them, as a way of understanding events.

It does keep you going with it, whether you like it or not, and explores characters who can act in both humane and cruel ways without necessarily noting any contradiction in their behaviour.

One of the interesting points about the book, from a ‘gender’ angle, is that while it’s fairly usual as a reader to come across book after book in which male characters and their motivations are at centre stage, with weak female supporting characters sometimes serving little purpose other than as a means by which the male protagonists can exercise their own autonomy, it’s less usual to find it the other way round. Often you find that even where a book has a female protagonist, the actions and inner workings of the key male characters are quite fully explored; their character development isn’t neglected. With The Exception, there are only a couple of male characters and while they play key roles in terms of the plot, it’s more in the sense that they provide particular motivations. As characters, they’re almost completely undeveloped and rarely discussed except in this incidental way. It was an interesting thing to note. So much of the written word has been given over to analysing the behaviour and inner workings of various male minds, that it was almost a shock to the system to have very peripheral male characters. I don’t, in the context, think it was necessarily a failing in the book; in fact, it enhanced it in a few respects, although I don’t want to give spoilers. Suffice to say that it highlighted perhaps that the actual identities of the men involved was pretty incidental to the action: catalysts but never actors, with the main psychological action all centred around the workplace and the interaction between the women.

Just a few thoughts! It was definitely something that was quite unusual for me, and it reminded me that I used to read a fair bit of ‘crime fiction’. Labelling books in various ways often does seem a bit arbitrary, but there is some excellent fiction out there which has a mystery or crime at the centre but I suppose that when most people think of ‘mystery’ or ‘crime’ books, quality is not the first item that comes to mind. I’ve always liked good books, and sometimes separating it out into all these genres does (some!) books a disservice. I tend to browse ‘general fiction’ in bookshops, but very rarely look at crime fiction to sift the quality from the chaff and consequently have read less and less over the years, just because I’m not looking specifically for something that has a crime in it, just a good book.

So, yes, I should probably take more time to seek out different kinds of books. Sometimes it’s good when you get given a book that you wouldn’t have found for yourself, but end up enjoying; and who knows, maybe it can change your book buying habits in the future?

Has anybody else been branching out, recently?

This book counts towards the Chunkster Challenge, being a tasty 576 pages long! Nearly there!

For anyone who has never had reader’s block, you are very lucky, and I might well hate you! For the last month I have been feeling distinctly meh, and generally mentally exhausted, with any spare energy I do have going into my search for a job, which sucks, and is incredibly boring, and I just can’t seem to get into the books that I pick up. The only exception has been rereads of Terry Pratchett books, which are the literary equivalent of comfort food to me. As it is, I have three books on the go; the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way, which I am really enjoying, but just takes too much concentration, a short biography of Tolstoy, which is interesting, but written in a style which I find incredibly irritating, and a collection of Nawal el Saadawi’s writings, which is really interesting, but not something I could read all the way through.

Hopefully, though, as my life starts to get a little more organised, I’ll get my reading mojo back. Until then, however, I’m going to be using this little reading hiatus to try and get my blogging a little bit more up to date, and actually post some reviews, unless anyone else has any ideas on how to get yourself out of a total reading funk?

I think I may well be really late to the game on this one, but who else finds themselves glued to Five Books? There’s something deeply compelling about just getting someone who knows stuff about a thing and then getting them to pick five awesome books about it. It makes for excellent reading and some great reading recommendations. There are so many subjects it covers, too, that it must give everyone a big happy once in a while.

From the general to the specific (there are selections on feminism, and also Islam and feminism) and books from all over the world, I’ve got some serious booklust. Which is deeply worrying, for I do not have the bank balance to be feeling such high levels of desire for the written word. Never mind! The website itself will just have to be enough for me for a while.

The only sad thing is that I can’t just browse around by author, which would be excellent. But that’s just me being a greedy book lover.

Such a simple idea, so nicely done. In many ways, it’s like Pop Tarts.

Ah, the blogging portion of the internet! I remember you!

It’s been both hectic and quiet in these parts of late, which has meant a lack of blogging fun (although I’ve still been mostly keeping up with my Google Reader…). By that I mean that I have been busy, but I’ve been busy not doing a great deal. Which suits me fine.

You’d think that I’ve been reading lots! I kind of did, it’s just that the book I’m reading right now is incredibly dense and really quite long, so I’m not actually halfway through it yet. And it’s been a while. It’s become the Everest that I must climb. I must finish this book. I’m sure others among you have battled with books which are great but just incredibly time-consuming?

On top of that, it’s back to college for me. The final accountancy exams before I can be an exam-qualified Chartered Accountant are looming and this is the bad, the very bad, kind of busy. But this time round I’m going to keep a certain portion of time to one side for reading, because I just don’t understand people who can do nothing but account for stuff. Really, deferred tax, consolidated financial statements… they’re just not that much fun. A little reading goes a long way…

I’m tired, and I’m rambling, and I know it. I’ve got two books to review, and reviews are coming, but what I’m really posting for today is: what should I be reading, alongside MAMMOTH BOOK* to keep me going through the dark months of exam-studying ahead? I’ve got just oodles on my TBR pile, including White Woman on a Green Bicycle which looks like it could be quite nice and readable. Any other ideas? I really don’t want to give in and live a life with no literature!

What a dreary life that would be for a book addict.

* A very large, dense book. Not a book about mammoths. Although reading about mammoths is not something that I would rule out.

Basically just housekeeping, but here it is anyway, for your reading pleasure. The longlist:

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan – Picador)

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin – Fig Tree)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Books)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group – Headline Review)

Tom McCarthy C (Random House – Jonathan Cape)

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet  (Hodder & Stoughton – Sceptre)

Lisa Moore February (Random House – Chatto & Windus)

Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin – Hamish Hamilton)

Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House – Chatto & Windus)

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic – Tuskar Rock)

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House – Jonathan Cape)

There were a couple on there that I have not heard anything about, but which look very interesting, quite a few that regularly popped up in forums and on other blogs as suggestions. The Levy, Carey, Mitchell, and Tremain books were ones that I thought might make it on to the list, but I had no idea about the rest, and I was actually quite surprised by the omission of <i>Solar</i> from the longlist. Nevertheless, I’m thrilled that Helen Dunmore’s latest is on the longlist, as she is a fabulous writer. It looks like there are quite a few chunksters on the list again, though, which raises the question, is anyone going to attempt a readathon of the longlist this year?

In preparation for the release of the Man Booker long list this year, I’ve been spending a bit of time on the Man Booker Prize website and around bookish chat rooms, just to see what some of the predictions were for the long list. What caught my attention more than the books themselves, however, was the constant mention of the “Booker Controversy”, something that seems to crop up nearly every year, whether it’s who gets on the long list, the short list, what the judges say, what the authors say; there always seems to be something. I wasn’t surprised, then, to come across this quote, from Publishing News:

“Each year’s controversy raises the odds. Just how shocking can Booker get? Topless judges? A page 3 committee?”

What did surprise me, a little bit, was the fact that this quote appeared on the Man Booker website itself.

I actually studied the Booker Prize’s beginnings earlier this year, as part of a course on 20th Century Literature. What I never knew was that the Booker Prize very nearly didn’t make it past the early 70s, as they just weren’t getting enough publicity, and so, in a way, I can understand why they make such a big deal of the controversies that have basically kept the prize going. Of course, the extra publicity also means that even the books that are longlisted get a sales boost, which must be nice for writers that are working in the “genre” of literary fiction, which isn’t really known for its fiscal rewards.

Added to this, it means that publishing houses continue to invest in at least a few literary fiction titles, meaning that we are given some respite from endless lists of Dan Brown-alikes, and the kind of shock-memoir and celebrity “confessions” that routinely fill supermarket shelves. Still, despite the positives, I can’t help feeling that there is something, well, a little bit icky in the amount of pride the Prize administrator’s seem to take in their “bad” publicity, as if they were naughty children. It’s just a little bit sick-making that a prize that claims to be looking for ‘the best book of the year’ doesn’t actually seem willing to let the books speak for themselves.