BOOK: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, 123 pages

Bibliophilic Challenge; Booker shortlist 1979

Very short novella about a woman, in 1959 England, who decides to open a bookshop, to ensure "that she existed in her own right". She had lived in the small town for almost ten years, after her husband had died. Ah, but small towns are fickle things, and she encounters some obstacles that she really can't do much about. It's a bit of a sad story, with some interesting characters, and a peek at a life in a different time and place.

The writing is what stands out, because the words are used carefully, and describe a place and people very well, and are used sparingly. Florence isn't the book lover that you'd hope for in a book about a bookshop, but there is a reference to Lolita, as she has to decide if she will carry the book, if it is okay to sell in the small town. However, the book is just too short to get attached to any characters. It's an okay read for me, with a few surprises along the way.

Some lines I noticed and particularly liked:

She drank some of the champagne, and the smaller worries of the day seemed to stream upwards as tiny pinpricks through the golden mouthfuls and to break harmlessly and vanish. p21

She would have liked to have been instrumental in passing some law which would entail that he would never be unhappy again. p47

The teapot basked in front of it, the room grew close, and the difference in age between Christine and Florence seemed less, as though they were no more than two stages of the same woman's life. p65


also reviewed by:
Robin at A Fondness for Reading
Jodie at Estella's Revenge
Susan at You Can Never Have Too Many Books
Eva at A Striped Armchair




I managed 9 novels this January, I really thought I could make it to ten. This year I blame reading a big chunk of The Woman in White, but not finishing it, and since I had started The Jade Peony in December, I couldn't count it either. I had fun though, trying to get the pretty gold badge. The books read in January for NaJuReMoNoMo include:


1. Poppy Shakespeare - Clare Allan
2. Crossfire - Miyuke Miyabe
3. Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4. Snow Angels - James Thompson
5. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
6. The Incident Report - Martha Baillie
7. I am Morgan Le Fay - Nancy Springer
8. The Spellman Files - Lisa Lutz
9. The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald

BOOK: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

what an animal!; booker longlist title 2008

I would guess that the Man Booker judges committee this year all like the same kind of book: wry commentary on society, first person narrative, confessional story, with lots of dark humor. The White Tiger had the same tone and feel to me as A Fraction of the Whole and A Case of Exploding Mangoes, and I haven't completely decided if I like this type of novel. For all three, I enjoyed the story and the humor, but I didn't care enough about the characters to want to keep reading. I continually checked to see how much farther I had to read, and I could put them down and not be interested in picking them back up, and yet, I did enjoy the books. I have learned that I prefer a more emotional book than an intellectual book. My favorite books of the summer were Crow Lake and Before Green Gables, books which focused more on personal relationships rather than social commentary.

Modern India gets the going over in The White Tiger. The caste system, the servants to the rich, the many ways the poor people are kept down, American outsourcing, the balance of the old ways with the Internet society, people with cell phones but no running water. The narrator, Balram Halwai, writes to the premier of China who is expected on a visit, telling of his entrepreneurial rise to success in India. If morals had to be slightly ignored for his success, well, too bad. He tells us from the beginning what the end will be, but the reader is kept in suspense as to how, and while I can't condone murder, he makes his case that the least damage was done for him to break out of his life and to be a success. I kind of liked Balram in the end.

The first person confessional was reminscent of The Reluctant Fundamentalist from last year's Booker shortlist, but the letter writing makes it more conventional. The writing was good, and the exposure to different cultures is always good. Adiga keeps the story moving along and it will be a good read for people who like social commentary with a dose of humor.

BOOK: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

Chunkster Challenge; Booker shortlist 2006; an Orange July

The Night Watch is post war London, but going back in time, as we follow four main characters. It's an interesting technique in that we know the ending and the past is hinted at, so the story is how they got there. In the first part of the book 1947, we meet Kay, a woman who dresses as a man and can't seem to find the purpose she had during the war as an ambulance driver; Duncan, working in a factory, but who spent the war in prison; Viv, escaping her day job as a match maker to have trysts with her married lover Reggie; and Helen, who works with Viv, and is desperately jealous of her lover, a writer named Julia. The first part sets up the second section, 1944, and all the situations and ways that the charcters overlap to give us 1947. The final section, 1941 is almost not needed, but it does give the first meetings and ultimate set ups.

I raced through 1944, with many oh! moments as things became clear. Ultimately, it was a very sad book as you realize the characters and their choices and how depressing their lives were at the end. I should go back and read the first part again, but I hate to do that. Nobody is very happy and I guess that's the result of war, but also it is the choices they made. The characters spend the war thinking things will change, it will all be better, but it's just their life and things don't change that dramatically. In the same way that overweight people think their life will be better if only they can lose weight, but the things that made them unhappy are still there; or people who win the lottery think their lives will all be better, but it's not money that made them unhappy in the first place.

Wartime London with the blitzes and warnings was described vividly. I was struck with the difference in war scenes from other books I've read recently, like The Cellist of Sarajevo and A Long Way Gone (Sierra Leone.) Both of those were civil wars with rebels taking over. London had a desperate feel, but at least they were all in it together. The government had departments set up to reimburse people who had been bombed. The enemy was clear - the Germans, and they were under attack and all working together, by Jimmy. The civil war states are so less clear, and there is no help for the citizens since it is some of the citizens who are the enemy. Not that London was a good place to be, but it was a clearly defined war as opposed to Bosnia or Sierra Leone where no one was helping anyone, just people living and hoping this was not their life forever.

This book finishes the Chunkster Challenge, and a personal 'check off the list' book that I've been meaning to read for a year now. Plus I've read one for the Orange July.

UPDATE: Wednesday

Have you met my poppet Christie? I won her in the draw for the Once Upon a Time challenge during the summer, along with a set of Lord of the Rings bookmarks. Here she sits looking at the Stephen King book I'm just about finished for the RIP II challenge. This has been a wonderful challenge, with, I think, my favorite themes, as I keep finding more creepy books to read that take the place of books I meant to read.

Christie is named after Agatha Christie, a wonderful mystery writer. If you think she's a great writer, or at least a better writer than EB White, head on over to the book mine set and vote in the Great Wednesday Compare. I've got nothing against White, but Christie has such a collection of mysteries and stories that I don't think they compare at all. I read a Tommy and Tuppence book earlier this spring, and they were terrific role models for women's equality, as Tommy treated Tuppence as his equal, not the dumb chick along for the ride.

I finally got The Road from the library to read. I put my request in during July, and it has taken until now to get it. I was number 24 in line at one point. I hope it is good after waiting so long. It better be good, because it is a part of the dystopian challenge, the new york times notable book list, and it is a Pulitzer prize winner for 2007, so I will be able to cross it off three lists at once. It was also an Oprah pick during the summer, which may explain why it has become so popular at the library.

I see that The Gathering by Anne Enright has won the Man Booker Prize this year. Of the six that were shortlisted, I read two: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and On Chesil Beach. I bought The Gathering as the next one to read because I thought it looked good, in a bleak, Irish grief sort of way. And now it has won. I enjoyed both books, but was glad that they weren't any longer. Each of the two I read had a gimmick and it worked, but only for the slim volume that it was. But I still think about some aspects of both books, so they must have made an impact.

what I'm reading now: Rises the Night by Colleen Gleason (one extra challenge in the RIP II is to read Gleason's vampire novels with the chance to win the third edition which will be released this winter. )
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King (one more short story to go)

in the queue: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson and Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coello

I've been browsing around The Bookworms Carnival as well. Lots of great suggestions and read about spooky and creepy books for the Halloween season. My kids are going to be for Halloween the decidedly unscarychoices of: a nerd, Hannah Montana, and a unicorn. Pictures to follow after Halloween.

BOOK: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

shortlisted for the Booker Prize
166 pages

I've seen mixed comments about this book because it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. McEwan has won the award previously, and the feeling is this book is too short and not important enough to merit being short listed, as McEwan is very well known and doesn't need the extra press.

I read this quickly, and couldn't help comparing this to Tomorrow by Graham Swift, a book I read very recently because both : were written by Booker winners, were set in England, involve one pivotal night, have main characters that are a married couple born just after the second World War, involve telling how the couple got to this important night. Weirdly similar.

On Chesil Beach is the story of a young couple getting ready for their first night of marriage. McEwan tells the tale from both perspectives and gets inside their heads. We also learn about their childhoods and their courtship. I found this worked better in On Chesil Beach, because we definitely know where this book is going to end, as it leads to the, I have to say it, climax. Tomorrow kept more of a secret as to what the big reveal would be the next day to the children. I found myself getting frustrated as the mother kept trying to explain what all led up to that night. Just tell it already! In that regards, I enjoyed On Chesil Beach better. I really wanted to know how the night ended. The characters motives and thoughts seemed very realistic and I was caught up in the plot. McEwan had the right mix of past and present to keep the story moving and perhaps explain the characters better.


I like the idea of taking one night, and everything that leads up to, and all the thoughts that go through the characters minds, as they deal with one huge event. I haven't read enough Booker winners to know if this is a potential winner, but it was a good, quick read.


The Man Booker Short List
The field has been trimmed from 13 to 6, so I've read 33% of the short list. Both have been good.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)

The winner will be announced on October 16.

CHALLENGE: Long Term Projects

Wouldn't it be fun to be able to say "I've read all the Pulitzer prize winning books" or "I've read all the Bookers"? Well there are a bunch of ambitious readers around who think it would be fun. We are not completely crazy so this is a long term project, as in eventually, I'll be able to say I've read all these great books. I think it will be interesting to see which books I tend to prefer, because I imagine there is a definite feel that each list takes on. In the same way I think I tend to like the Giller prize winning books, but maybe it's because I'm Canadian.


Pulitzer: For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life




books already read:
1961 To Kill a Mockingbird read in the 1990s
1981 A Confederacy of Dunces reviewed here
1983 The Color Purple read in the 1990s
1988 Beloved (I'm 90% sure I read this; also 90% sure I didn't get it. At all) read in the 1990s
1994 The Shipping News read in the 1990s
2003 Middlesex read in 2005

So, obviously I have quite a way to go, only 75 more. Unfortunately, there are several that I had no intention of reading; I'll save them for the end.
Here's the ones that I say, I want to read that, every time I see them. I expect to read them within the next year, she hopefully types.

2007 The Road
1999 The Hours
1995 The Stone Diaries
1958 A Death in the Family
1932 The Good Earth

Man Booker: is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland.




So far, I've read:
2002 The Life of Pi read in 2004 and loved it.
2000 The Blind Assassin reviewed here
1997 The God of Small Things reviewed here
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha read in the 1990s
1985 The Bone People reviewed here

I found a big old list of Bookers I'd like to read and the ones that top the list are:
1983 Life and Times of Michael K
1989 The Remains of the Day
1998 Amsterdam

The Man Booker long list has been released and I'm hunting down any that I can find easily, ie, my library. Here's what I found at wikipedia, so I assume the links go to that site.

Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Self Help by Edward Docx
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
The Gathering' by Anne Enright
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
Consolation by Michael Redhill
Animal's People by Indra Sinha
Winnie & Wolf by A.N. Wilson

So far, I've read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, reviewed below, and I am in a patient line for On Chesil Beach, and will be able to get Consolation at the library as well. Others may take a while.

I think I liked this book, after some reflection. As I read it, I wasn't sure, but since it was short, under 200 pages, I knew I'd keep going. This is the story of a young man from Pakistan, who came to America to go to Princeton and live the American dream. His life in New York City, with a high status job as a valuator, changes after September 11, 2001. The narrative voice is a little strange, and I'm not sure it was the best way to tell the tale. He tells his story to an unknown American he meets at a cafe in Pakistan, after the fact. We never find out who this stranger is, and a lot is left unsaid at the end. There is also a love story of sorts as the narrator recounts his love of an American girl during his time in America.

I'm not sure what an American reader would feel about this book. There is a definite outsider looking in quality, and the terrorist topic is a sensitive subject, quite rightly. The narrator is not a terrorist, but provides an interesting perspective to these times. There are political statements about America's involvement in Pakistan-Indian affairs, and the term fundamentalist has several connotations that are played with during the story. The ending is quite ambiguous and could be interpreted several ways. I think it has been longlisted for its somewhat daring topic, the narrator perspective, and the ambiguous ending, all of which make it easy to discuss and argue and analyze.