Nicky's Reviews

2010-06-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

The State of Me: Nasim Marie Jafry

The more I read this book the more I liked it, so that by the end I wanted to keep on reading and find out what happens next in Helen’s life. It’s a love story set mainly in Scotland in the 80’s, but it’s also the story of a young woman who contracts the Coxsackie B virus and, following that, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or ME. Helen Fleet narrates her own story, but from time to time a third-person narrator steps in to give a different perspective. Another handy technique is the ‘stranger’ who pops up from time to time to interview Helen and ask questions about the illness. In this way information (all accurate) about ME is imparted without seeming pedantic.

Helen is a typical university student, sharing a flat, going to parties, fancying the older student in the upstairs flat, travelling – until her third year when she gets sick and her normal life grinds to a halt.

We follow Helen’s life, doing the rounds of doctors and tests, the experimental treatments, the worst of the illness and the gradual increase in her ability to live an independent life. She has boyfriends, learns photography, eventually manages to complete her degree and can manage a few hours a week of volunteer work. Throughout it all, the narrator maintains a wry sense of humour and there are some gems to savour: “Jana came with her summer fling… He’s not circumcised, said Jana. Things are a bit baggy down there.”

There’s also the sadness of not living the same kind of life as other young people her age. One evening, after going to the cinema for the first time in years, she writes: “I’d loved the film and was euphoric to be mingling with other cinema-goers. They didn’t know that my head was shifting inside and that I wasn’t going back to my flat with my boyfriend, but back to my parents’ to hibernate.” Another time she writes about going to the careers office on campus: “I feel in awe of all the opportunities, looking through the toyshop window at the treasures I can never have: glittering jobs, glamorous placements, exotic Master’s degrees. I always check, but there are no jobs for four hours a week.” I know just how she feels, and I feel the same when I see positions advertised in wonderful exciting locations that I might once have applied for.

ME is a slightly different experience for each of us and there are many times when I think that the effort of trying to get across to a fully-abled person just how devastating and soul-destroying ME can be is a losing battle. This book does a great job of doing just that.

2010-01-19T09:03:00.000-08:00

The Time Traveler’s Wife: Audrey Niffenegger

I admit right away that I liked this story. I didn’t expect to. Basically it’s science fiction. The main character, Henry, has a genetic disorder that causes him to dislocate in time whenever he feels stressed, or even when he’s not stressed. It just happens, and when it does, anything he’s wearing gets left behind, creating many difficult and often dangerous situations. The time travel is mind-bendingly (well, for someone with ME it is!) complicated to follow, and I’m not even going to begin to try and explain it here (I can’t). I’m not a fan of this kind of story.

However it’s also a love story, and there’s something so irresistible – for some of us, mainly women I presume – about ‘true love’ that lasts forever and never dies, the kind of love when you know without any doubt whatsoever that that person is the one true love of your life and the absolute certainty of knowing that your feelings are reciprocated. But the agony – and hence the tension in the story – of having circumstances beyond your control pull the two of you apart. It’s a real weepy, no doubt about it! I just watched the trailer for the film, several weeks after having read the book, and I began crying all over again. Aside from any of this, Niffenegger is simply a good writer. She knows how to write, how to make the story and the dialogue feel real. I wasn’t surprised it had been made into a film so quickly. I can understand people not liking the book; there are many one star reviews on Amazon among the flood of positive reviews and the writers bring up good points; but I liked it – and I’m not going to apologize or try to explain any further.

2009-12-11T01:02:00.000-08:00

Saint Peter’s Fair (The Cadfael Chronicles IV): Ellis Peters

Good stuff! I’m a big Ellis Peters and Brother Cadfael fan. The books are much better than the ITV series (although Derek Jacobi is excellent) because Peters is such a great writer, paying attention to historical detail, character development, and plot. This Brother Cadfael mystery is set in midsummer in 1139, during a large annual fair that brought merchants (and spies) from far and wide. The battle between King Stephen and Empress Maude for the English crown is gearing up; the Empress, with her half-brother Earl Robert of Gloucester, is in Normandy working to enlist allies in the west of England; different members of the nobility are declaring themselves on the side of one or the other. On the eve of St Peter’s fair in Shrewsbury an important merchant is killed, presumably in connection with a dispute between the town and the abbey. But after his barge is searched and his niece, Emma, appears unconcerned about the loss of some of her belongings, Cadfael becomes suspicious. Two young men, one from the town and one outsider, are also strongly attracted to the beautiful young Emma. Before long a second merchant is found murdered; Cadfael becomes concerned for Emma’s own safety, and it’s clear that this is about more than a mere dispute between merchants. The plot builds to an exciting climax with an audacious rescue amid flames; true love wins the day. Two months after the fair the Empress Maude and Robert of Gloucester land near Arundel.

2009-11-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

Big Chief Elizabeth – How England’s Adventurers Gambled and Won the New World: Giles Milton

I’m so glad that the writing of history has improved over the years, and a good history book can be just as exciting to read as any novel. Details linking past and present add colour and interest to what is already a fascinating topic – how Sir Walter Raleigh set out on the task of settling English men and women in the New World. Covering the period from 1582 until 1616 by which time the colony of Jamestown had become self-sufficient, the tremendous challenges facing the would-be colonists are described in detail.

The first few attempts at colonization ran into tremendous difficulties for a variety of reasons: incredibly poor planning, horrendously bad leadership, extreme bad luck in terms of the weather (hurricanes did enormous damage to the ships), and time after time the failure to choose the right people to send: the failure to send women, the failure to send anyone who knew how to cultivate crops, the failure to send people who knew anything about basic survival under tough conditions, and so on. It seems that city men in Elizabethan times were just as (or possibly more than) addicted to gluttony and the easy life as men today - it was the women who did all the work and who finally enabled a colony to survive, once someone had the foresight to send them along.

Here you will find details of the relationship between Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth, the true story of Pocahontas (not the Disney version), and the prescience of King James who wrote that tobacco made “a kitchin of the inward parts of man, soiling and infecting them with an unctuous and oily kinde of soote”. Upon his succession to the throne he quickly imposed heavy taxes on the importation of tobacco. But it was the growing of tobacco that made the colony of Virginia (named after the Virgin Queen) a viable enterprise.

I am forced to admit a terrible ignorance of American history, having always imagined that the “Pilgrim Fathers” were the founders of the English colony. Fortunately Milton has corrected my misperceptions, and I now know that the Pilgrims were only the second colony, founded almost twenty years after Jamestown. An excellent read, and I look forward to correcting misperceptions on other matters of historical interest thanks to Milton.

2009-10-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Shield and the Sword: Ernle Bradford

This is the history of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, from its origins as a hospice for pilgrims established in Jerusalem around 1080 up to the present day – the book was published in 1972, but the order is still in existence and operates around the world today. It is, indeed, the oldest international NGO (non-government organisation) in existence; present day descendants include the St Johns Ambulance Brigade in the UK and Malteser International (www.malteser-international.org/), a German NGO providing emergency medical assistance in places like DR Congo, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.

The Knights of St John was always an international organisation with members from across Europe. It soon developed from the provision of hospice and hospital services to pilgrims to their protection on the journey to the Holy Land. The early history of the Knights is also the history of the Crusades – the attempts by western Europeans to take over and control the Holy Land, Syria and the Levant. The first crusade began in 1097, and the Christians were finally driven out of the Holy Land in 1291, although Pope Eugenius IV preached a new crusade as late as 1440, but by that time his call was barely heeded. The story of the Crusades is a sorry one, and Bradford does not hesitate to delineate the atrocities and mistakes made by the ruthless and poorly led Europeans.

After their expulsion from the Holy Land, the Knights took over the island of Rhodes and remained there until defeated by the Turks, under the leadership of Suleiman the Magnificent, in 1522. After a period of homelessness, the Knights moved on to Malta, which many found a poor substitute for Rhodes. It was in Malta that the famous Great Siege of 1565 took place, again against the Turks. This time, however, the Knights and the people of Malta held out against the Turks – though only just. Over time the role of the Knights changed and by the time Napoleon laid claim to Malta the Knights proved indecisive and unable to mount an adequate defence. But the Maltese themselves soon got rid of the French, liking them even less than the Knights, and asked the British to take control of the island. Malta gained independence in 1964.

Their expulsion from Malta could well have been the end of the Order, however it miraculously survived, and the final chapter of the book explains how the Order reinvented itself and continues its existence up until today. This book will be of immense delight to anyone interested in the history of the Crusades, of Rhodes and of Malta. The author provides plenty of fascinating detail while maintaining the reader’s interest throughout – the book is a compact and readable 227 pages long. Highly recommended!

2009-10-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ode to a Banker: Lindsey Davis

I thoroughly enjoy all the Falco mysteries by Davis, and this one is the twelfth in the series. She writes with a wonderful sense of humour and a great eye for detail. Even though the story is set in Rome AD74 it’s as if she had recently visited and learned the daily habits of people – what they ate, what they wore, how they decorated their homes, how fires were put out, how the subtle relationships between men and women were handled, and much more.

Marcus Didius Falco is a private informer who has somehow managed to marry well above his station in life, which keeps him on his toes and provides a constant source of mystery and amusement for the reader trying to figure out the relationship between husband and wife. In this particular story the exact nature of the relationships between a wealthy banker and his first and second wives also contributes to the mystery. The banker is also an arts patron and publisher, and there is much insight into the world of publishing before the days of printing and paper. And even though this book was published in 2000, her insights and parallels between the world of banking in ancient Rome and the scams and hedge funds leading to the banking meltdown of 2008 are quite eerie. The banker is murdered, and Falco has to figure out if this was the result of a banking deal gone wrong, or an angry writer feeling cheated, or a wife becoming overly jealous. A great read!

2009-09-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

Past Secrets: Cathy Kelly

A chick-lit romantic novel with pretensions to be something grander – but organisation and plot lets it down. An undemanding read with good characterization, but there are problems. The author allows the story to become confusing and disjointed when she attempts to make a ‘mystery’ out of whether or not one of the main characters actually had an affair with a well-known artist some years before the start of the novel. This leads to some frustration for the reader. Another trip-up is when another main character talks about walking past customs officers after coming off the Galway to Dublin shuttle flight. Excuse me? Going through customs after an internal flight? Otherwise the plot is entirely predictable. We know it will all work out well in the end; the devoted couple will overcome difficulties and stay together; the woman whose lover cheated on her will find a much more worthwhile man; the daughter who ran off to L.A. with her musician boyfriend will realise the error of her ways and return home to mother. What’s disappointing is that although the novel is set in Ireland, there’s very little to give an Irish feeling to it – yes, the street they all live on is given some character, but it could have been any street almost anywhere in the English-speaking world.

2009-08-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Size 12 is not Fat: Meg Cabot

A delightfully entertaining and easy read – a chick-lit mystery novel at its best, without pretensions to be anything else. Heather Wells is a former teen pop star fallen on hard times and has decided to go back to college. To earn her keep she takes a job as assistant residence hall director in New York City. A couple of undergrad female students die, supposedly ‘elevator surfing’. Heather decides there must be something else going on, and risks her own life to find out exactly what.

Cabot has an ear for language and gets it right, giving the story and setting an authentic feel. The plot moves along at a good pace and there’s plenty of humour involving all those little problems that women have to put up with: men who cheat, dress manufacturers who mislabel the dress size, and the impossible boss.

2009-08-21T23:15:00.000-07:00

Things My Mother Never Told Me: Blake Morrison

I read this book, which for the most part also covers the same period of time, soon after reading To War With Whitaker, so comparison is inevitable. Both books are about strong women, one told in her own voice, this one written by her son, who also uses wartime letters between his parents to help tell the story of their courtship and eventual marriage after the war.

Morrison’s mother comes from a large Irish family – just how large only becomes known to him after his mother’s death. She had kept many details of her early life hidden from her English husband and children due to the discrimination experienced by Irish Catholics in England during her lifetime. She came to England soon after qualifying as a doctor, and worked in a string of hospitals throughout the war. Her work is difficult and demanding, and she’s frequently exhausted, often getting ill. At the same time, the courtship is carried on through letters and infrequent meetings, as Arthur Morrison, also a doctor, is serving overseas for most of the war.

It is Arthur Morrison who comes off least well in this narrative. His letters show him to be stubborn, insensitive, petulant, easily bored, and sexist. It grates that Kim (her real name is Agnes, but he gradually forces her to change it) is doing more interesting and demanding work than he is. He berates her for being a Catholic and refuses to get married in a Catholic church. Eventually he has a long-term relationship with another woman, for which he never apologises; nor does he ever acknowledge the hurt he causes his wife. The author repeatedly steps in, as if he could warn his mother against marrying his father, but I found this device tiresome and it does little to add any interest to the history of his parents’ relationship. In the end, for me, this is the story of a very ordinary man who ruins the life of a woman who might have gone on to achieve a more rewarding life had she grown up in different conditions and at a time when it was more acceptable for a woman to have a career. Directly following the war there was a lot of pressure on women to return to what was considered their proper domain in the home. Blake Morrison also wrote And When Did You Last See Your Father? but following what I’ve learned about his father in this book I feel no urge to read it.

2009-08-11T01:04:00.000-07:00

A Natural Curiosity: Margaret Drabble

One of my unspoken complaints when looking for a good book to read is that it seems impossible to find a good novel that reflects my own life in any way. I would like to find a story that I can read with pleasure and identify with the main characters, find something of myself in them, read the questions that I have about life and learn how others in similar situations answer those questions.

In this novel the main characters are three women in their 50s in 1980’s Britain, and I wonder if any women readers were able to identify with these characters. Not me. These women are comfortably sure of themselves and of where they belong, they seem ‘very English’ to me, complacent, most of their questions in life answered. So, not great literature, no really big issues raised, just every day lives of comfortably well-off professional older women.

Is it a good read? The large number of minor characters becomes difficult to follow, but there’s enough going on, enough to keep us wondering what’s going to happen next, with a little bit of mystery thrown in, to keep the reader occupied and interested. Good enough.

2009-07-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

To War With Whitaker: The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939-45 : Hermione Ranfurly

A terrific book! This is a different view of life during WWII – the view from the Middle East, and also a woman’s view. Yes, she’s a countess, but when fighting the military bureaucracy that only seems to make things more difficult. She’s young – 25 at the start of the war, and only just married. Her husband (also just 25) is with the Nottinghamshire Sherwood Rangers, and they get posted off to Palestine. Wives are not allowed to follow, but that doesn’t stop Hermione! Thus begin her adventures around the Middle East – Jerusalem, Cairo, Baghdad, Aleppo, Algiers, and eventually Italy. Early on the military brass try to get rid of her, and force her to leave on a ship going back to England. She jumps ship in Cape Town (the ship is eventually bombed by the Germans, and her best friend is killed) and manages to get a seat on a plane going back to Cairo by pretending to be a secret service agent.

She has excellent secretarial skills and eventually the powers that be are forced to admit that they really do need her, as there’s a desperate shortage of English-speaking secretaries in Cairo and Jerusalem. Not too long after her return to Cairo, her husband is captured and taken prisoner by the Italians, and she spends much of the war wondering and worrying where, and how, he is. In spite of this, she still meets dozens of fascinating and important people through her work, and writes about them charmingly. She describes the enormous difficulties of wartime life, the uncertainties, the minimal living conditions, lack of bathing facilities, cramped spaces, all in a straightforward manner without complaint. She’s the type that gets on with it, no matter what. The book isn’t really about Whitaker, her husband’s batman (“a soldier assigned as a personal assistant to a commissioned officer”), although he provides a constant reassuring presence.

There’s an excellent obituary of Hermione, with more details of the book here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1322321/Hermione-Countess-of-Ranfurly.html

2009-05-17T06:37:00.001-07:00

Verity Red’s Diary – A Story of Surviving M.E.: Maria Mann

I only really got into this when she was given three kittens, Paddy, Murphy, and Mary, and began describing their antics. Having ME is rather boring – nothing happens, and improvement is so gradual as to be almost unnoticeable. Every person with ME has a different collection of symptoms to differing degrees, so I found it difficult to identify with Mann, whose condition is much worse than mine. She also suffered from the ignorance and prejudice of the medical world and family members, all of whom appeared to be quite sceptical and unsympathetic about her illness. This can be one of the most difficult aspects of ME, and quite why people suffering from this condition should be subject to such prejudice is difficult to understand. Anyone doubting the existence of this prejudice (coming from doctors and lay-persons alike) only needs to read relevant entries on the now infamous blog of the so-called “Dr Crippen”, a practising NHS doctor in the UK, and comments that readers have added on the topic.

Aside from all this, Mann has a whimsical and creative style which includes her quirky and funny poems, imaginary parties with pixies and dwarves, and odd-ball names for friends and local drinking establishments where her boyfriend disappears to on Friday nights. She has managed to find the humour in ME, in spite of it all, and this is what makes her story an enjoyable read. Her life, constrained by moderately severe ME, is described in every detail, sometimes minute by minute, as she struggles to wash a plate or get dressed. Her weekly visits to the osteopath and exchange of letters with friends provide an external view of her ordeal. If you have ME or know someone who has it, and enjoy this style of writing, then this would be an interesting book. If you’re looking for a traditional novel with gripping action and in-depth characters, then I’d look elsewhere.

2009-05-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

Miss Garnet’s Angel: Salley Vickers

Several reviewers quoted on the front and back covers of this book describe it as ‘subtle’. I agree. I hadn’t, and still haven’t, come across this novel anywhere else until a friend gave it to me to read. At first I wasn’t greatly taken with it, finding the main character, Julia Garnet, somewhat boring and unsympathetic. I was prepared for some soppy tale of how she finds a guardian angel and true love in Venice, despite her age.

The story did not proceed as expected. It turned into a fascinating historical novel going back to the ancient Jewish tale of Tobias, which almost certainly had its roots in an even older tale coming from the Zoroastrians of Persia. Some of the tale of Tobias takes place in Nineveh, present day Iraq, and it’s saddening to note that Christian communities which have existed for many centuries in that region of the world (they pre-date the Muslims by a very long time) are now being forced out of their ancient homelands.

The ancient story is balanced with a modern-day parallel, and there is a pleasantly happy ending (of the kind that I might choose for myself) that doesn’t involve anything quite as unrealistic as the main character falling in love.

2009-04-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

The Kindness of Strangers – The Autobiography: Kate Adie

I have to object to the subtitle of this book – I do not consider this an autobiography. It’s a fascinating collection of stories from the front line of reporting in war zones, with a couple of chapters about how Adie got started in the business. However, the truly personal side of events is missing. I kept comparing it to Aiden Hartley’s “The Zanzibar Chest” which I read last year. Hartley was a war reporter working for Reuters predominantly in African countries; his career ended when his father died and he had a nervous breakdown. His book is compelling, each chapter a more gruelling war, in which he is fully engaged. His accounts from the working front line are balanced with accounts of the social life of reporters and photographers living on the edge, and he doesn’t spare the seedier details of alcohol and drug abuse, and includes enough information about his romantic life to give us greater insight to his character and personality. Adie, on the other hand, manages to maintain a professional distance and only once or twice in the book she admits to breaking down and crying over the horrors that she’s witnessed. Her private life is curiously and frustratingly absent. By the end of the book I felt like I knew very little about Adie the person. Reading one anecdote after another about one war after another became a chore lacking the crucial element of a more personal view.

Having made my complaints, I must admit that there were some interesting titbits such as when she made her views on religion plain visiting the Vatican and describes: “the peculiar maleness everywhere – fussy young priests skittering around and fat cardinals with jewellery gliding like Daleks over the marble.” (p.132) And the odd time or two when she loses her patience and thumps someone! (Unfortunately I forgot to make a note of those references – sorry!).

The chapter on the war in Northern Ireland is interesting, not least because it’s so ignored by the majority of the English. I think any African familiar with war would find much that is familiar in her account of this conflict. For example, while we are currently horror-struck over the recent cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, did you know about the cholera outbreak in Belfast?
“…the Divis Flats in central Belfast. The Divis were notorious, never mind for being a bastion of republican sympathy, but also for being the only place in Europe to have experienced an outbreak of cholera in the late twentieth century.” (p. 163)

There is also plenty of humour. When under heavy fire in Beirut, she gets stuck in a shop for several hours:

“Thus I found myself stuck – and in heaven – in Beirut’s largest shoe shop. Three full hours of battle raged outside while I went through every pair of shoes in the basement. Finally, when the coast was clear, I staggered back to the hotel with three boxes of elegant shoes. The other journalists looked up from the bar enquiringly: ‘Front line,’ I said, heavy retail action.”

There were a couple of major omissions; she includes a photograph from Rwanda, but writes nothing about it; and there are a couple of photographs with members of her birth family, but writes nothing at all about how she was reunited with them (she had been adopted as a baby).

Still a fascinating book. Still well worth reading. And still pretty amazing for anyone to have done all that she’s done and risked her life so often, and to have survived – apparently – mentally and physically intact.

2009-04-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

Lionel Shriver: Double Fault

Shriver is best known for her 2005 Orange Prize-winning novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, which I’ve yet to read. Double Fault analyses the marriage of two professional tennis players, from the day they meet to the day they split up. The difficult ending is inevitable and foreseeable, so I’m giving nothing away. Shriver’s skill lies in her handling of dialogue and her ability to show the twists and turns followed by the mind of a young woman critically lacking in self-confidence. This is a modern marriage, a “partnership” between equals, but problems arise when each partner is equally driven by an overwhelmingly competitive spirit.

At times this is an agonizing and frustrating read; what propels the reader on is wanting to know how and why, ultimately, the relationship ends. The “why” can be difficult to answer, but when we understand the female character’s reasons, we then understand how marriage is still based on the assumption that one partner, inevitably the male, will take the lead in the relationship. Can a marriage of equally successful and equally dominant personalities succeed? According to Shriver, no.

2009-03-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

David Ball: The Sword and the Scimitar

One of those sweeping historical novels that brings to life the realities of battles for ships (laden with goods) and power that raged between Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean of the 16th century. This is the novel to take with you when you go on holiday to Malta, as Malta lies at the heart of the story, even though much of the story also takes place in Algiers, Istanbul, and Paris. The story tracks the life of a Maltese brother and sister, separated at a young age when the boy is captured as a slave by a passing galley. The lives of ordinary Maltese are contrasted with those of the Knights of St John, the Maltese nobility, slaves serving in the galleys, and the servants of Suleiman the Magnificent in the Topkapi palace. At over 700 pages, although many scenes are intensely gripping, the book is too long. I skimmed several sections that could have easily been cut without any loss to the heart of the novel. Wonderful to read this and then wander through the streets of Birgu where much of the action takes place and see the historic buildings mentioned in the book.

2009-03-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Nicole Krauss: The History of Love

Sad. Things never quite work out for the characters of this story, who are steeped in the sadness of holocaust survivors. There are two main characters, an old man and a young girl, whose stories run in rough parallel to each other, only meeting at the very end, when it’s really too late. Not an optimistic work, not the usual happy ending. The description of the lonely life of an elderly holocaust survivor, living alone in NYC, is intensely moving; however, I found that the story pushed and stretched the boundaries of reality with an intricately constructed plot that was maybe just a bit too clever.

2009-03-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

Recovery from CFS: 50 personal stories
Compiled and edited by Alexandra Barton

My biggest problem with this book is that the editor is disingenuous in the way she uses the terms ‘ME’ and ‘CFS’ interchangeably. There is no differentiation in the book between ME and CFS; indeed, the controversy over labelling the neurological disease ME is completely ignored. ME is a distinct, well-defined, neurological disease classified by the WHO (ICD-10 G93.3) which can be diagnosed using specific scans (see http://www.nightingale.ca/documents/Nightingale_ME_Definition_en.pdf). CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), however, refers to a collection of symptoms and by definition is not a specific illness.

The majority of general practitioners and other medical personnel do not understand the distinction between ME and CFS; indeed, thanks to a deliberate policy of mis-labelling, most people are unaware that ME is a distinct and clearly defined disease. The reasons for this are clearly explained by Jodi Bassett in her article “Who benefits from 'CFS' and 'ME/CFS'?” which can be found at: http://www.ahummingbirdsguide.com/whobenefitsfromcfs.htm
One result of this failure to clearly differentiate between ME and other un-diagnosed health problems with fatigue as the primary symptom (please note: fatigue is NOT the primary symptom in ME) is that people are often diagnosed with ME when they do not have ME, and others are diagnosed with CFS, which cannot be an actual diagnosis because there is no disease “CFS” – it is merely a collection of symptoms. All of which brings me back to the book in question: it is clear that some of the contributors suffered from illness and problems that have caused the symptom of chronic fatigue, but that they probably did not have ME, even when the contributor describes him or herself as having had ‘ME’. Therefore the book cannot be seen as referring only to ME cases; it clearly refers to a mix of ME and other illnesses which have chronic fatigue as a symptom (among a variety of other symptoms). Although the title only refers to ‘CFS’ (possibly to head off complaints such as mine!) the two terms are used interchangeably elsewhere throughout the book – and on the back cover.

The book is also in need of a good edit and more meticulous proof reading before the next edition comes out!

Having got all my criticisms out of the way, here’s what I do like about the book. It offers some hope to people with a range of health problems, including ME. It is empowering to learn that some people do recover. Before reading the book I had come to a point where I accepted that I had ME, that I would probably always have it, and that I simply had to learn how to live with it as best I could. Since reading the book I’ve picked up my research tools once again, and have begun exploring all the internet links provided in the book, and indeed have moved on way beyond the information provided. I’m currently looking into the link between ME and Lyme disease, which is not mentioned in the book. One type of treatment unfortunately not mentioned in the book is lymphatic drainage, practiced and taught in the UK by R. Perrin, an osteopath. It would have been interesting to read the stories of those people who’ve been treated by Perrin.

The book is a useful starting point for people who have been given the catch-all chronic fatigue diagnosis. I do not, personally, agree with the ‘miracle cure’ stories – I suspect that these people did not actually have ME. At present there is too little research done on ME, and the research that exists appears to be ignored by medical practitioners such as those in the UK who are responsible for the NICE guidelines on ME. One day there will be an explanation for the cause of this organic, neurological illness, and one day we will know what the most appropriate treatments are. I just hope it’s in my lifetime.

2009-03-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Lynne Truss: Making the Cat Laugh – One Woman´s Journal of Single Life on the Margins

From the author of: "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves", this is a collection of columns she wrote for The Listener, The Times, and Woman´s Journal - written before she became famous. She's an entertaining and witty writer, with wry comments on the life of the single woman.

Barbara Kingsolver: Pigs in Heaven.
The Cherokee Nation vs Taylor Greer. About the adoption of Indian (native American) children away from the reservation. 6-year old Turtle, the adopted daughter of Taylor Greer, sees someone fall into the Hoover Dam, ends up on Oprah, is seen by an Indian lawyer Annawake Fourkiller, who then starts the process of getting Turtle back to what remains of her family. But it turns out that Taylor´s mother, Alice, is ¼ Cherokee too… Kingsolver is one of my favourite US writers, and this one is every word as good as others by her which I’ve read: Prodigal Summer, The Poisonwood Bible, and Animal Dreams.

2009-01-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

Thelma Gruenbaum: Nesarim: Child Survivors of Terezin

Out of approximately ten thousand children who were imprisoned in, or passed through, the concentration camp Theresienstadt (Terezin) only one thousand six hundred survived. Located sixty kilometres north of Prague, the camp served predominantly as a transit camp where Jewish prisoners were held before being transported to extermination or labour camps further east, such as Auschwitz. Terezin also served as a ‘model’ camp where the Nazis could show Red Cross officials what the camps were (supposedly) like. Thus inmates received slightly more food than those in other types of camps, and cultural activities and sports were allowed. Many children also attended classes during much of their internment, albeit secretly, as educational activities were prohibited. Over 33,000 prisoners died from disease, malnutrition or mistreatment while in Terezin.

For roughly two years, a group of forty boys aged ten to twelve when they began their internment, lived in one room at Terezin together with their team leader, a young man of twenty years named Franta. Franta had completed a two-month teacher training course in Prague, and had a couple of years’ experience running an orphanage. The nine survivors of Room 7 who were interviewed for this book all credit Franta for building them into a cohesive unit known as “the Eagles” (Nesarim) that was envied by the other boys, and for giving them the moral strength and will-power to survive. The ten survivors (including Franta) all eventually left Czechoslovakia and were scattered around the world, but kept in touch with each other sporadically.

In the early ‘90’s, with increasing age and the fall of the iron curtain, the Nesarim began organising reunions that include their wives (some of whom are also survivors) and children. They have returned to Prague and to Terezin to visit the places where they once lived.

One might imagine that reading these memoirs would be depressing, but it isn’t. If you want to know the meaning of life, here it is. If you want to better understand how children survive under conditions of extreme hardship, this book gives indicators. And if you want to know how people who’ve been given a second chance at life choose to live, you’ll find answers to your questions here.

The Holocaust, like the Rwandan Genocide, must never be forgotten. This book adds further insight into those terrible years. For anyone looking for more detail about life in the camps, the books of Primo Levi are also indispensable reading.

2008-12-26T12:35:00.001-08:00

Vikram Seth: Two Lives

I devoured Vikram Seth’s “A Suitable Boy” when I was working in East Timor in ’96 – ’97 and it was still under Indonesian military occupation and there wasn’t much to do in my spare time. “Two Lives” is also a thick book, fortunately not quite as thick, but very different. This is the story of Seth’s maternal uncle, known as Shanti Uncle, and his wife, known to Seth as Aunty Henny. Seth’s skill is first to see that there was a story to be told, then to do all the necessary detailed investigations and interviews to learn as much as he could from his uncle and from old documents and letters, and finally to set these personal histories into the broader framework of world events.

Shanti Seth was born in India in 1908 and as a young man went to Berlin in the 1930’s to study dentistry. He found lodgings in the home of the Caro family, comprising the mother, Gabriela Caro, and her three grown children, Henny, Lola, and Heinz. At that time Henny was engaged to a handsome young man and the two of them made an attractive couple that, if the war had not intervened, would doubtless have married. However, the Caro’s were Jewish and soon the restrictions against the Jews in Germany began the work of destroying their lives. Seth has done his research and provides details that I’ve never read elsewhere about (for example) specific restrictions on what people could not do and what they were forced to do, where they were allowed to shop (and when), where they had to live, the clothes they were or were not allowed to own, the personal belongings that were ‘confiscated’ (stolen) from them by the government, and so many more degrading, soul-destroying and health-destroying rules. It is easy for me to focus on this period of the book because the pre-war, during, and immediate post-war periods in Berlin are the most moving sections of the book. Visiting the Museum of Jewish History in Berlin after reading the book, I looked up and found the names of Gabriela and Lola Caro in the remembrance volumes containing the names of all the Jews murdered by the Nazis in Germany.

Seth outlines the broader context of the story:

“Many of the great currents and movements of the century are reflected through the events of their lives and those of their friends and family: the Raj, the Indian freedom movement, post-Independence India; the Third Reich; the Second World War; post-war Germany, including the division of Berlin and the blockade and airlift; the emigration of Jews from Germany in the 1930s (with some of Henny’s friends going as far afield as Shanghai, South Africa and California); the Holocaust; Israel and Palestine; British politics, economics and society.”

The details of family life in India are also fascinating and provide information about Seth’s own early life, as well as his uncle’s. A generous collection of photographs adds interest, along with copies of personal letters. Seth is honest and open in giving personal details and describing his own feelings for his subjects whom he knew well, since he often stayed with them. In his final summing up of their lives which had spanned so many of the crucial events of the 20th century, Seth makes his plea for a saner world:

“As I walk back to the tube, I consider the word in the context of an evil century past and a still more dangerous one to come. May we not be as foolish as we are almost bound to be. If we cannot eschew hatred, at least let us eschew group hatred. May we see that we could have been born as each other. May we, in short, believe in humane logic and perhaps, in due course, in love.”

2008-10-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers

Who will be the new bishop? Will Mr. Harding get his old job as warden back? Whom will Eleanor marry? Who will become Dean? This novel is full of questions that pull us in and hold our attention, while the narrator makes pithy comments and never lets us forget that the author is in full control of his story, giving us only such information as he cares to:

“It is hardly necessary that I should here give to the public any lengthened biography of Mr. Harding, up to the period of the commencement of this tale. The public cannot have forgotten how ill that sensitive gentleman bore the attack that was made on him in the columns of the Jupiter, with reference to the income which he received as warden of Hiram’s hospital, in the city of Barchester.”

This is the second volume of the Chronicles of Barsetshire published between 1855-67, and although the language at times feels circuitous and old fashioned, it is also extremely funny. The characters’ names are delightful: Mr & Mrs Quiverful (who’ve had a productive marriage with14 children!), Obadiah Slope (slippery fellow!), Dr Fillgrave (whose medical skills we can’t help but question), Mr Omicron Pie, Bishop and Mrs Proudie (and very proud of themselves they are too), among others. Through the names and the addition of skilfully scattered words and phrases the author allows his feelings about his characters to show:

“Mr. Slope having added to his person all such adornments as are possible to a clergyman making a morning visit, such as a clean neck tie, clean handkerchief, new gloves, and a soupçon of not unnecessary scent, called about three o’clock at the doctor’s door.”

Barchester Towers is a classic, and it’s not by accident that Trollope’s work is still current – another of his stories was recently serialized on BBC Radio 4.

2008-09-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

David Lodge: Small World

This could well be the funniest book I’ve ever read. I grinned and chortled all the way through to the very last sentence. Set right at the end of the 70’s when air travel still felt glamorous, computers were still in their infancy, and mobile phones unheard of, the story follows a set of British, Irish, American, German, Italian, Japanese and French academics as they jet around the globe from one literary criticism conference to the next. There’s plenty of bawdy sex, romance, mistaken identity, quotations from literature, discourses on literary theory, the quest for the Holy Grail of the UNESCO chair of literary criticism, and even a kidnapping. The action whizzes along at a pace to match the characters’ whizzing around the globe attending conferences from the smallest and dullest at the so-called Rummidge University in England, to the biggest and brightest in New York City – with plenty more in-between. Persse McGarrigle, a young Irish poet who’s still a virgin (will he lose his virginity by the end of the book?!) is chasing after a mysterious and intelligent young woman with a mane of shining black hair (will he ever find her?), while the older but no wiser professors are all chasing after the UNESCO chair, with plenty of back-stabbing and in-fighting going on in the process. Having jetted to, attended, and organized a number of such conferences myself, and having tackled literary criticism as an undergraduate, I think this book should be on every professor’s office shelf.

2008-09-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, which makes it a bit more difficult to admit that I'm not crazy about this book. It's obviously good, and he's a great writer, but it's not the type of story nor style that I generally enjoy. He seems obsessed with Istanbul in winter: there's cold snow and ice everywhere – does it still snow there these days? However, there's also no shortage of humour, for example I enjoyed the diatribes for and against coffee: it’s a sin, it’s what enables people to think clearly, and so on.

The story highlights the impossible situation of women, how they must always be in some man’s charge: either the father or the husband or the husband’s family. Here a woman is in difficulty when her husband disappears and she’s neither divorced nor widowed, but forced to stay with the husband’s family against her will. There are many references to pretty boys, making it clear that boys were frequently used for sex in that world. And many references and retellings of old Middle Eastern stories and myths which would have more resonance for a reader already familiar with these tales.

But the main theme of the story is art, and I learned a lot: the history of the great miniaturists of the Middle East; the discussion over the difference in styles between the east and the west; the meaning of art in religion, and the meaning of religion to artists (religion = Islam). How the style of western art began to influence artists in the east, and how the preachers became involved in these discussions. This was the most difficult part for me. It requires a reader with more knowledge of the history of art and the interplay between art and religion in the Islamic world – many indeed saw art as being incompatible with religion, i.e. art as immoral; also, the immorality of artists having such a thing as individual style, something we take for granted in western art. At times the discussions became tedious and inhibited the progression of the story. At other times the story speeds along, one character taking up where the other leaves off, allowing for different viewpoints, so we know what Shekure (the female lead) is thinking and then we know what her would-be lover, Black, is thinking.

It’s also a murder mystery set in 1590’s Istanbul. There are fascinating tidbits of everyday life: chamber pots; mattresses being unrolled; details of the clothing women wore; the food served at a wedding feast, the role of the match-maker, and more. Each chapter is narrated by a character in the story talking directly to the reader; but some of these narrators are not real characters - some are drawings, for example, and even the murderer is a narrator, while still hiding his identity.

2008-08-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

Ellis Peters: The Leper of Saint Giles
Brother Cadfael series
A marriage is about to take place at the abbey; the groom is a strong, thick-set man over 50, very rich; the bride is a young 18 year-old, orphaned, taken care of by a wicked uncle and aunt – the uncle is her dead mother’s brother; she is enormously wealthy, but the uncle and bridegroom between them will divide all her lands. She doesn’t want to marry him, and is in love with a young squire to the bridegroom. The bridegroom is murdered on the eve of his wedding; the young squire has already been thrown out of his master’s house and accused of theft, but he escaped from the sheriff’s men and is in hiding with the lepers of St Giles. Brother Cadfael sets out to find the murderer; the young squire is accused, but Cadfael and the girl believe him innocent, as does his friend, Simon, the nephew to the murdered man. Cadfael traces the man’s mistress, and from her discovers the name of the only person who knew where she was, and hence where the bridegroom was on the eve of his wedding.

There's a happy ending, of course!

I had read this before but had forgotten almost every detail, even the actual perpetrator. It’s a classic Brother Cadfael mystery, the identity of the perpetrator well hid in clear view; well-researched use of words as they would have been used in the 12th century – ‘capuchon’ ‘jennet’ ‘assart’ and so on; the history of the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maude; the Crusades; the daily life of the Abbey and the monks; the situation of lepers in those days; all these details add interest to the basic “whodunit”, with a riveting plot that had me holding onto the book until late at night even the second time around. This book has also been produced as a TV episode in the Brother Cadfael series, so if the story sounds familiar, that may be why.

2008-07-16T13:31:00.001-07:00

Film: Mamma Mia

Go on, just go and see it! I haven't laughed so much since...actually, I don't remember ever laughing so much. Meryl Streep is fabulous and obviously enjoyed every second of her performance; Pierce Brosnan can't act, can't sing, and I'd rather not see him without his shirt on; he was so bad he had me in stitches. Oh, and musicals bore me to tears! But this one is set on an alluring Greek island, has three outrageously sassy older women in the lead, and who can help themselves from tapping their feet to Abba? I loved every second. If you're feeling down, this film is guaranteed to cheer you up!

2008-07-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

Ellis Peters: City of God and Shadows
Detective Chief Inspector Felse Investigates

Set at the site of an imaginary Roman town on the Welsh border called Aurae Phiala, near the supposed towns of Comerbourne and Silcaster. More than just brain candy, references to archaeology, roman history, how to get rid of valuable ancient treasures, murders and attempted murders, unusual words: “How did any of us get here…in this tragic palimpsest of a city without people?”, “…the whole group…dispersed like a dehiscent fruit bursting” etc.
Charlotte Rossignol’s great uncle disappears; she goes off to the place he knew best, the site of Aurae Phiala, to better understand his work; there she meets Gus Hambro, a specialist in antiques who’s slightly mysterious; a school boy wandering around the site disappears and is later found murdered; someone tries to kill Gus at around the same time, but Charlotte saves him; the curator Paviour, and his much younger wife Lesley offer Charlotte a place to stay. Someone tries to kill Gus again, and he’s buried alive in an underground passage.

An enjoyable read; more action and more complicated than McCall Smith books. Of course there’s a love interest to keep it moving along – Charlotte knows there’s something not quite what it seems about Gus Hambro, but she saves his life all the same; we’re a little dismayed when he appears to fall for the siren-like Lesley, but naturally all is well in the end!

2008-06-28T15:13:00.001-07:00

Alexander McCall Smith: Blue Shoes and Happiness

This is the seventh title in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, set in Gabarone, Botswana – where the Scotsman McCall Smith once lived. The series has been a huge hit and was recently made into a film for television directed by Anthony Minghella. McCall Smith doesn’t hesitate to use these books to let his readers know that there is a different side to Africa. He shows us the good relations between people, how they help each other, how friendships and family relationships have meaning, how the land and traditions are important, and above all how one African country at least can be well managed and successful. The books have had some success in that quarter, as I’ve heard that in Botswana there are now tours to show visitors around the places mentioned in the books. (I don’t know if actual visitor numbers have increased, but I would like to think so.) Although McCall Smith doesn’t shy away from the grittiness of life in Africa (but he’s yet to touch on the Kalahari Bushmen issue), I fully support his focus on the more positive aspects of life. There is far too much bad news coming out of Africa, and also a misguided propensity to see the continent as one whole.

Not a great deal happens in the stories; there are minor moments of action that gently nudge the narrative along, and along the series we have followed the “traditionally built” Mma Precious Ramotswe through a very long engagement and finally marriage to the best mechanic in town, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Mma Ramotswe has an assistant detective, Mma Makutsi, who is addicted to unsuitable shoes and has had her share of difficulties in finding a suitable husband. In Blue Shoes Mma Ramotswe investigates the blackmail of a college catering service manager, the atmosphere of fear at a game reserve, and the malpractice of a general medical practitioner from Uganda. Mma Makutsi runs into a misunderstanding over exactly what kind of feminist she is with her fiancé, and buys a new pair of shoes. Brain candy – delightful summer reading!

2008-06-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

Alexander McCall Smith: Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
An Isabel Dalhousie novel - second in the "Sunday Philosophy Club" series.
I think of McCall Smith books as “brain candy”: sweet, delicious, easy on the brain, with a smooth aftertaste that leaves one wanting to pick up another. This series is set in Edinburgh; the main character, Isabel, a well-educated and comfortably well-off woman in her early forties, divorced, is editor of the Review of Applied Ethics (a job which provides for plenty of philosophical topics to ruminate on as she goes about her daily errands). She’s also endowed with something more than the usual sense of curiosity and need to see things through. In this story she meets a man who’s undergone a heart transplant and has been seeing uncomfortable visions; he asks her help in figuring out why this is happening. There are many interesting digressions on life after death, cellular memory, the morality of getting involved, and the relevance of age differences in romantic relationships (Isabel is rather stuck on an attractive young man fifteen years her junior). McCall Smith is a past professor of medical law and served on bioethics bodies, so he knows what he’s writing about when it comes to the medical and ethical issues – although he doesn’t allow Isabel to get weighed down or go into too much detail. There is, however, slightly more depth to this series than one finds in the series set in Botswana: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Extremely enjoyable light summer holiday reading!

2008-05-29T04:24:00.000-07:00

Nick Hornby: How to be Good

I enjoyed How to be Good. It deals with lots of those questions that many of us frequently ask ourselves – am I good? What does that mean? How best to deal with the street children problem? etc. And he’s also very funny while he’s about it. I liked the bit about people from Surrey: “All the lonely people… At least we know where they come from: Surrey”. I suppose that’s really an in-joke for people from London. Hornby lives in north London.

It’s also about the rough spots that marriage can get into when you’ve been married for 20 years and have two young children and are working full time. But he’s written it from the woman’s point of view and although I can’t find any serious faults, I’m also not totally convinced that this is how women in such situations think. Why didn’t he write it from the man’s point of view? Is he just trying to be clever? Or does the fact that in this case the woman is the bread earner and has the affair, and her husband the one who works from home and picks the kids up from school, mean that the author finds it easier to write from her perspective?

Whatever. It’s a good book. A page turner. Amusing. Entertaining. It says something about how we live today.

2008-05-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

Kate Atkinson: Case Histories

Jackson Brodie, private investigator, is looking into three cases; these bring back memories of the much earlier murder of his own sister – and on top of everything else, someone is trying to kill him and he doesn’t know why.

Case 1: a 3 year old girl called Olivia disappears in the middle of the night from a tent in the garden. Years later, two of her older sisters find her soft toy mouse in the locked drawer of their father’s desk after he dies and turn to Brody for help in solving the mystery. The tale involves the garden of their neighbour, an old woman with the unlikely name of Binky Rain who keeps an awful lot of cats.

Case 2: a young woman of 18 is murdered in her father’s office and her killer is never found. Ten years later her father comes to Brody to see if he can track down the killer. Brody talks to the right people, previously away at the time and therefore left out of the investigation, and of course he identifies the killer without too much trouble.

Case 3: a young mother, in the throes of post-natal depression with a baby who never stops screaming, kills her husband. Her sister takes the baby, but doesn’t look after it as promised, because the dead husband’s parents take the baby girl. The girl grows up, becomes a runaway, and disappears. The sister comes to Brody to ask him to look for the girl. This sister sleeps with him, he figures out that something about her story is off, then he finds out she’s married, so he drops her case. In the meantime, the sister who was in prison is now living under another name and has married again (to a very rich man) and is pregnant.

Binky Rain, from Case 1, is always calling Brody in to look for her lost cats. He often visits her, feels sorry for her, and never charges her for his services. It turns out that the person trying to kill him is related to her - but you'll have to read the story to find out why he wants him dead and how this leads to a happy ending!

The three cases are linked by a homeless girl on the streets of Cambridge, whom some of them give money to and some try to ignore. This girl is, of course, the missing child from Case 3. She ends up saving the life of the father from Case 2, who then takes her in to his home, and they look after each other.

At the very end, Brody, now very rich, is looking for a house to buy in France after retiring and selling his agency. He’s together with Julia, from Case 1, who turns up again as his partner in Atkinson’s next book (One Good Turn) which I read not long ago, set in Edinburgh during the Festival. In that book all the different puzzle pieces do end up being connected, whereas in this one they’re not really connected and all the names get a bit confusing at times (or it could be due to mildew on the brain); in any case, Atkinson is a brilliant and funny writer, and I’m looking forward to reading whatever follows!

2008-05-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

Film: Everything is Illuminated
Starring: Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz

This is my kind of film: hilarious, terribly sad, clashing cultures, set in another country about which I know nothing (Ukraine). It's based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, which tells how he travelled to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis in 1942. But the story is just as much about the other family - that of the interpreter (Eugene Hutz) who makes glorious mistakes with his English, and his grandfather - and how what they all find is different from what they expected. There is pure comedy, including a deranged t-shirt wearing dog, supposedly the "officious seeing eye bitch" for the supposedly blind grandfather who drives the battered blue car; visual delights - their goal is a small wooden house set in an enormous field of brilliantly yellow sunflowers; a terrible tear-jerking history - the nazis killing and wiping out an entire village; unexpected friendship between the two young men of opposite character; and brilliant music mostly played by Eugene Hutz's own band, Gogol Bordello (read more about them on Wikipedia), which has been described as "like a raging Eastern-European American wedding celebration teetering on the brink of chaos" (College Media Journal, quoted in Wikipedia). I loved it all!

2008-05-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

Film: Lady in the Water
Written, produced and directed: M. Night Shyamalan

A cool, rainy Sunday afternoon in a London suburb, and someone else chose the film. That's my excuse. So corny I found myself laughing and making snide comments. I can't recommend wasting your time with this, unless you're a real Shyamalan fan. The Sixth Sense was far better.

The entire story takes place in a large apartment building, seemingly set in a field in the middle of nowhere, although we're told it's Philadelphia. The caretaker lives in a small dilapidated house to the side of the building, looking totally incongruous. Someone is using the swimming pool at night; the caretaker hears splashing but sees no one, until finally he sees the girl. She's a nymph come from another world to help a writer (played by Shyamalan himself), who lives in the building, to finish the very important book he's working on. This book, she tells him, will influence a man who will later become president, so that he can save the world. Having cleared his writer's block, it's then up to the inhabitants of the apartment building to help her get back to her world. Of course there's a very nasty creature waiting to tear her apart the minute she ventures out alone. Told you it was corny.

2008-05-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

Patricia Cornwell: Cause of Death
The seventh Dr Kay Scarpetta novel. Begins with a man who dies while scuba diving in a ship yard full of decommissioned navy vessels. Ends with a terrorist attack by New Zionists taking over a nuclear power station to steal uranium to sell to Libya. Meanwhile, Kay’s love-interest, Benton Wesley, is getting divorced from his wife, and Kay and Benton get to spend a night in London together. Excellent writing as usual, the story speeds along with Pete Marino and Lucy included at every turn. Highly recommended for murder mystery addicts!

2008-05-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

Tom Reiss: The Orientalist

Tom Reiss is no relation, but I wish he were! Being a detail person I thoroughly enjoyed the abundance of detail and footnotes in this book, and marvel at the author's persistence in tracking down what he could find about the forgotten life of the early-mid 20th century writer, Lev Nussimbaum.

Nussimbaum was born somewhere in the vicinity of Baku, Azerbaijan in the early years of the 20th century, and would have been just a few years younger than my grandmother. His story reflects the revolutionary history of the first half of the century and that of Jews and many others forced to flee their country of origin.

2008-05-03T21:43:00.001-07:00

Tracy Chevalier: Burning Bright

I’m rather jealous of Tracey Chevalier. First she took the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (http://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/schools/hum/lit/Courses/Postgraduate/MA%2Bin%2BCreative%2BWriting), then her book Girl with a Pearl Earring was made into a film, and now she seems to effortlessly churn out new books, all while being a mother and looking like she’s still only 25. The Creative Writing MA is one of those courses that I dream about taking “one day” if I were ever lucky enough to be accepted on to it.

I read Girl with a Pearl Earring several years ago, and was lucky enough to be in The Hague and see the painting soon after. Reading the book gave me a greater appreciation for and interest in the painting. Likewise with Burning Bright, which has sparked my interest in the life of the English poet William Blake, whom I’d never been interested in before. The story is set in London in 1792 – 3, while the French revolution is taking place across the channel in France. Although I’d studied the French revolution in high school, I don’t remember learning about how the revolution affected the lives of ordinary people in England at that time. Now I’m tempted to take a look at this – I wonder if anyone has done this as a dissertation topic?