I am re-thinking how I’ll manage and present this site. I’ve read another four ‘B’ books but putting together my thoughts into a finished post often takes longer than the reading of the book at hand; the delusion I seem to have in thinking I have 26 hours in a standard day apparently isn’t the case!

I’ll never stop reading and there’s little chance of me not crapping on about books, so I will be back. Oh yes, I will .

When I selected this book I thought
A good action drama freshens the mind and makes time pass quickly and pleasurably; with a poor action drama, at least you can guess the ending and know it’ll be over soon.

50-word description
Four down-on-their-luck conspiracy theorists witness the murder of a US secret service employee. Another secret service agent supports a group of terrorists plotting a stunning attack in America. A down-on-his-luck secret service agent meets a lawyer moonlighting in a bar and they become involved with each other and help the conspiracy theorists stop the planned attacks. Somehow the city of Damascus and its occupants are at risk of being blown to smithereens

150-word review
My general rule for action novels is that I’ll tolerate three suspensions of disbelief, comprising perhaps an unlikely love story, a good agent turned bad, a good agent struggling against overwhelming odds to stifle the bad agent and the circle of villains, a startling coincidence every 75 pages or so, up to three elite snipers missing the good agent in close-range shots, a bad hospital employee who happens to be on shift at the right time trying to kill an important political figure, a maximum of five seemingly random characters who appear to deliver small but timely clues, and a master of disguise (women are never mistresses of disguise and this upsets me).

Oh, hang on, I just described The Camel Club. Except poor old Damascus nearly copped a nuclear warhead just for existing. I did not expect that.

Baldacci has written far superior books. Then again, three follow-up to The Camel Club have been published, so perhaps I’m just an idiot.

david baldacci ~ the camel club

Found in
Library B

Read
Jan 10

Links
David Baldacci web site
Frankston Library catalogue link

Rating
Overblown

This is book 29 of the project.

Reading a trifling 75 books – with many released before 2009 – hardly gives me the clout to speak authoritatively on the year’s releases, but I am healthy enough of ego to hand out some trophies anyway, damn it. Most of the already-published reviews have focused on the ‘best’ books (a mixed bag of eye-opening delights at best and skewed towards inhouse marketing at worst) and book selling web sites will cover the best-selling titles, so I will jot my favourite and less-than-favourite books read in 2009.

I’m sorry there’s photos of book covers and not lemon tarts (my favourite) but I’m off sugar at the moment.

Books released in 2009

Favourite memoir

~ Affection, Krissy Kneen

Affection’s publishing team has to be congratulated for the most intense PR effort in recent Australian literary history. I reached the stage of reading reviews in the weekend paper supplements with the attitude of, “Bloody hell, if I buy the damn book, will you promise to stop plugging it so aggressively?”

I took this resentment into opening the book, but after only a few dozen pages Kneen’s articulate writing and searing frankness turned my attitude to awe and respect. The publishers are flogging the book because it deserves a wide audience. Much more than a sexual memoir and the personal impact of living authentically, the author also eloquently describes an inhibited upbringing, unrequited desires and homelessness with courage that most of us lack.

Most brilliantly-executed idea

~ Sum, David Eagleman

This street-smart collection presents 40 daring and occasionally solemn challenges about what might happen when you die, but is really questioning about how you’re living your life now. Ever thought about being confronted by the selves you could have been if you had lived up to your potential? I squirmed uncomfortably and put the book away for a few days after considering that scenario. He pokes at humanity with a stick but I don’t mind because he’s tickling the funny bone and the grey matter simultaneously.

Most over-rated release

~ Wetlands, Charlotte Roche, and

~ Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger

In Wetlands, a young woman takes an obsessional level of interest in her bodily functions but deep down her wish is to get her parents back together. The shakily-empowered but brave protagonist tries her hardest but the choppy writing, haphazard editing and lack of supporting storylines let the book down more than shock value can prop it up. And I still eat avocado, so the grossness of the sexual acts featuring my favourite fruit were a little overplayed by gobsmacked reviewers as well.

Initially, my disappointment with Her Fearful Symmetry stemmed from a case of me wanting to love Niffenegger’s new book as much as The Time Traveller’s Wife. When several of the main characters transfigured from merely secretive and selfish into evil, I lost interest and read with hope that the skilled author would save the story with more discipline and less suspension of belief, but it wasn’t to be.

The sleeper I hope wakes

~ The Marriage Club, Kate Legge, and

~ Reunion, Andrea Goldsmith

Both books are coincidentally based on the encroachment of middle age and relationships and I was delighted and humbled by two different approaches of similarly outstanding quality.

The Marriage Club uses the death of woman at the hand of her husband to allow the façade of a seemingly-perfect marriage crumble under scrutiny. While exploring if Leith Kremmer died accidentally or was murdered, her friends question their own actions and relationships with unease and secrecy. Kate Legge deconstructs the outer lives and inner secrets of her characters with a deft and wise hand.

Reunion’s characters are a more externally passionate and ambitious bunch but Andrea Goldsmith brings them together with bonds tied with disrespect and resentment before tearing them apart. She also delves skilfully into the nature of success, insecurity, jealousy and death. It’s a quietly challenging book with subtleties and afterthoughts that reach out long after the book has been placed on the shelf.

Most magnificent short stories

~ An Elegy for Easterly, Petina Gappah

This award was a walk in the park when I realised I had been hauling Petina Gappah’s book around in hope of delayed appointments so I could cram just one more story in. The author is an outstanding creator of scene and her characters – especially the cast of dejected and manipulative adults — are portrayed as if leaping from the page. While the stories are a product of Mugabe’s disastrous rule in Zimbabwe, the author saves bitterness and anger for her protagonists and writes with sharp insight and tender melancholy. This is probably my favourite book released in 2009.

Books released prior to 2009

The sleeper that woke

~ The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

Something happened during the year that turned a tale about a fractured unit of family and friends from a sleeper to a soarer. By mid-year I was gloating that I’d already read the book twice, and the first time last year, thank you very much new converts. It doesn’t hurt that The Slap is a cracker of a book that peels away social niceties and strips its characters to their flawed selves. I giggle every time I hear reviewers say the characters are unlikeable; of course they are, they’re a reflection of ourselves and our own family units and nothing is as confronting as the truth that aren’t the people we want others to think we are.

Most wonderful compilation

~ The Best Australian Essays 2008, edited by David Marr

In his introduction as overseer of 2008’s collection, David Marr confesses to grappling with little more than the reassurance of gut feel in whittling hundreds of worthy essays to a manageable 31, but he is being far too humble. He has selected a treasure trove of short to middle-length pieces, opening with a sweet essay by Christos Tsiolkas on the beauties of the night, takes us for a trip to the USA with Guy Rundle’s outsider’s view of the lead-up to the last presidential elections, and home again where Rachel Robertson observes a confused but fiercely loving family living with a charming autistic boy. John van Tiggelen’s empathetic and tragic story of the Indigenous Aurukun community’s struggles in ‘After Sorry’, first published in Fairfax’s Good Weekend, is worth the cover price alone.

Favourite memoir

~ Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, and

~ So Many Selves, Gabrielle Carey

I found Nabokov’s book in a reading list in Carmel Bird’s book about writing, Writing the Story of Your Life. That woman has hurt my credit card with her recommendations being on the money every single time and Speak, Memory is now placed firmly in the beloved category with The Grapes of Wrath as a book I’ll re-read regularly.

Gabrielle Carey’s 2006 memoir was a beautiful chance meeting at the library. Unfortunately best-known in trivia questions as, “Who co-wrote Puberty Blues with Kathy Lette?” Carey chronicles her unbreakable teen friendship with Lette that indeed split irrevocably. The book is an honest, self aware look at spirituality, relationships and parenthood, peppered with moments most of us will never experience, such as an unlikely friendship with a mentally ill Spike Milligan at his most unguarded.

Cookbook surprise

~ Jamie’s Ministry of Food, Jamie Oliver

I know, there is no end to my talents and no section of a bookshop left neglected. In all seriousness, a book that aims to turn pot burners into burgeoning cooks is ripe for speaking down to its audience, but Oliver nails it with enthusiasm and respect. Starting with pantry and equipment essentials and recipes for the basics including sauces and dressings, the book is a little like the younger brother to Stephanie Alexander’s tome in a less intimidating, breezier format that should also satisfy more experienced cooks. There’s certainly a permanent place for both in my collection. I’m ignoring the dorky ‘commitment to cook’ pledge at the front of the book and focusing on the fresh, easy-to-prepare meals. So far, I’ve sent three copies as Christmas presents for people who are trying to enjoy cooking and want to do a bit more.

Happy reading in 2010.

I originally started writing this paragraph to introduce my little book awards ceremony, The Tarts 2009, with a tally of the modest 75 books I’ve read this year (14 from Frankston Library reviewed, 42 in the ‘others 2009’ listing in the blog’s sidebar and the piles of books around the house I’ve read but haven’t done anything with yet). But the idea grew … just how much did I read this year?

A million words a month.

Look. See!

All estimates are conservative and I excluded research and reading in permanent paid employment – this is my reading by choice total.

I can’t upload the spreadsheet here (despite trying only four different ways) so you can have a quick stab at it yourself. Have a go anyway using your own estimates; no one will think you’re insane, promise.

The most humbling aspect of the total is that when I think about all my gaps in the ‘top 100’ lists and books to read before you leave the planet, all the classics I’ve never picked up and all the books written in languages other than English that haven’t been translated for my reading pleasure, the sum of my endeavours is a speck of dust on a back shelf of the world’s combined libraries.

How many words have you read this year?

Oh yeah, I wrote more than 80,000 words, too.

all i want for christmas is some time off to read them

Top to bottom:
Roberto Bolano~ 2666. I seem to have a new obsession with Chilean authors, especially Chilean authors who die before finishing the last part of a five-book opus and whose benefactors insist on publishing the 900 pages as one doorstop. I’m sure it’s bad luck to mess with the wishes of the deceased but I hope the potentially messy karma doesn’t extend to those who read the book. Violence, murder, dark humour, a world gone wrong — what more could a reader want?

Edited by Robyn Davidson ~ The Best Australian Essays 2009. Robyn Davidson is one of my favourite writers and the annual compilation is one of my yearly must-buys. But you know what? From the stories I’ve dipped into so far between appointments and the dreaded day job, I think she’s played her editorial hand a little conservatively. Then again, in the editor’s note Robyn has justified her selections and why experience was mainly chosen over exuberance; I have the luxury of being critical because I didn’t have to read and decide which of the hundreds of small treasures to keep or cull.

Kim Echlin ~ The Disappeared. I knew nothing of Kim Echlin until reading a sparkling review in the evil, influential mail order catalogue. Young love, separation, an arduous search and the impact of Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia in achingly beautiful prose (apparently). I’m looking forward to sitting for a few hours with a dog or two on my lap and a box of tissues by my side.

Patrick Gale ~ The Whole Day Through. The truth about Patrick Gale is that I adore his writing so much that I don’t know what the book is about. I just saw and ordered it.

Aravind Adiga ~ Between the Assassinations. The follow-up to The White Tiger is a collection of intertwined short stories set in the fictional town of Kittur. No doubt Adiga will continue his take-no-prisoners approach to mid-1980s India between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv.

Kate Grenville ~ The Lieutenant and The Secret River. The two-volume set at a crazily-low price is the reason for the order. Both books explore the lives of Englishmen sent to Australia in its early decades of white settlement, with The Lieutenant based on the real-life notebooks of William Dawes. I know that Kate has written many shoddy sentences, because she has said so in her book on writing, but I don’t think she’s ever allowed anything less than stellar writing to hit the the printing press.

Booky Christmas! I have a few ‘B’ book reviews to write but the next entry will be the The Tart Awards 2009.

When I selected this book I thought
There’s a big soft spot in my heart for Russian literature but a little empty spot as I haven’t read any of Bulgakov’s works.

50-word description
In an attack on Stalinism that was banned for more than 30 years, the devil disguised as a foreigner comes to Moscow with his merry and sadistic band of followers and with them havoc and terror reign.

150-word review
I still can’t decide if the book was trying too hard to be clever or if I’m just not clever enough to understand the book.

I devoured and wanted to be dazzled by Bulgakov’s slyness and dramatic tale telling but I didn’t finish because the storylines crashed like dodgem cars driven by children under the influence of red cordial. I looked for greater understanding – and wanted to understand the book’s many layers and scathing attack on Communism – but I was trying to convince myself to enjoy the book out of obligation.

One day I’ll hunt down a different translation with an introduction and footnotes and I’ll be back. Until then, The Master and Margarita is being shoved back into a shoe drawer, which is the only available space I have now for new books.

Found in
Home library B

Read
Oct 09

Links
Book’s Wiki page
Frankston Library doesn’t have a copy, but you search the totally excellent Library Link Victoria catalogue link

Rating
I don’t know

This is book 28 of the project.

Top to bottom:
David Eagleman ~ Sum. Stephen Fry apparently twittered that if people weren’t enchanted by this little book, he’d eat 40 hats. It was good enough recommendation for me and the first few chapters have issued stunning, clever challenges on what might happen when you die. Ever been bored by the mundane — prefer to try re-living your life having years of showers without break, eating a lifetime’s worth of food in one long sitting, sleeping your life’s sleep uninterrupted instead? Or if heaven was comprised of only your friends and chosen acquaintances? Consider the mundanity and lack of novelty. His cheeky take on if God were truly egalitarian is worth the cover price alone. I’m dipping into a chapter a day to make it last longer.

Pettina Gappah ~ An Elegy for Easterly. I can’t remember how I discovered this book, but I found a yellow sticky note with the title scrawled on it. This is a book of short stories about life in Zimbabwe under Mugabe’s influence and so far has been packed with eloquence, rage, dark humour and hope among fear.

Krissy Kneen ~ Affection. Most-publicised Australian memoir for some time. Can’t wait to dip into 40-year-old Krissy’s recollections of lived and unrequited desires before the invisibility of middle age sets in.

Bob Mason ~ Magic Circles. Bob did a PhD in the lyrics of the Beatles — that is enough street cred for me and a source of envy that I didn’t think of something so cool to study. This book is an accumulation of the music, lives and lyrics of the Beatles and their peers.

Kurt Vonnegut ~ Armageddon in Retrospect. I’ve been sitting on this book for a while: I’m wary of posthumously-produced works that the creator hasn’t had control over (Jeff Buckley’s estate, anyone?) but I’ll get around to reading the dozen stories and speech in this compilation.

When I selected this book I thought
I fortunately read the book before the film’s marketing campaign (I don’t watch a lot of television and, yes, probably have been living on another planet) and my copy has the plain cover that doesn’t give away the theme.

50-word description
The story is told as an allegory about nine-year-old Bruno, who moves with his family far from the comforts of home. He meets a boy who lives on the other side of a high fence and forms a friendship despite differences that don’t often make sense to Bruno.

150-word review
Creating a fictional Holocaust tale with respect, imagination and a fresh perspective is a challenge reserved for the bold verging on foolhardy.

The author succeeds but with any great idea comes the risk of serious flaws. The last book by Boyne I read, The Thief of Time, was similarly ambitious (a man who can’t die and outlives generations of family) but fell over in its execution and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas follows suite.

Bruno’s character strays too far from innocent child to blinkered fool; with his father ranked highly in Hitler’s regime Bruno would have been a member of the Hitler Youth instead of professing ignorance about Jews. Bruno’s continued mispronunciation of vital German words (in English) grates and he would have been punished severely in a commandant’s household. The likelihood of meeting a boy on the other side of the fence with the freedom to meet daily for a year goes beyond suspension of disbelief.

But the author writes an absorbing story that emphasises the lesson of the allegory with a breathtaking finale. A colleague asked if I had seen the film, and I replied, “No, I don’t want to risk ruining my memories of the book,” because the flaws are outweighed by the originality of Boyne’s undertaking.

john boyne ~ the boy in the striped pyjamas

Found in
Home library B

Read
Jul 09

Links
Author’s web site
Frankston Library catalogue link

Rating
Flawed brilliance

This is book 27 of the project.

When I selected this book I thought
I cheated a little because I’ve read this book but wanted to read again to understand more fully the layers of literary and historical references in Bird’s story.

50-word description
Set in 1950s Australia, psychiatrist Ambrose Goddard experiments on female patients to further his landmark studies into the human mind. Patients’ delusions are encouraged, radical therapies experimented with and sexual abuse is rampant. The discovery of a dead woman in the clinic’s grounds helps unveil the true lunatic.

150-word review
Bird masterfully chronicles Goddard’s growing megalomania as his patients’ mental states crumble in the name of providing case studies for his book.

The White Garden is disarming with drugged patients describing abuse in dazed monologues, point of view shifts to the doctor’s and backgrounds of historical figures on whom some patients’ delusions are based. Cross-referencing was required occasionally (by me anyway) to hold the past and present together and understand how cleverly the author has constructed and tied up the story.

The book is an obscure but important piece of Australian literature and a reminder that quality doesn’t always equate with popularity.

carmel bird ~ the white garden

Found in
Home library

Read
Jul 09

Links
Author’s web site
Frankston Library catalogue link – n/a

Rating
Outstanding

This is book 26 of the project.

When I selected this book I thought
Wow, everything’s different in ‘B’. It’s darker and more mysterious and then I realised that’s because the ‘B’ shelves are further from the sunny northern window than ‘A’ *d’oh*. The book’s blurb sounded like an interesting foray into the muddling of professional and online lives.

50-word description
Elaine Botsch is a go-getter in a soulless corporation and in the night hours becomes Francesca, the online sexual plaything of a dominatrix named Inez. After ‘Francesca’ mistakenly logs in under her real name, Inez hints she knows the real-life Elaine, sending her into an emotional and professional tailspin.

150-word review
The premise of ‘real’ and online worlds colliding was daring at the time (the book’s release in 1997 was still in the early days of widespread popularity of internet chat rooms) but the novel’s execution fell flat.

Plot climaxes slipped by quietly, hidden in long and rarely insightful prose about identity. The overall theme of the book suffered from confusion between wanting to be a cautionary tale of who we share our secrets with, a mystery novel or a precursor to the darker chick lit genre.

I couldn’t identify with or be drawn into the corporate and virtual worlds created by the author because neither was tempting. Most of the characters were thinly rendered and didn’t evolve past initial glimmers of interest.

I kept reading out of curiosity to learn which character was behind Inez’s user name. However, by the end it didn’t really matter because most of the suspects had been discounted too early in the text.

martha baer ~ as francesca

Found in
Fiction B

Read
Jul 09

Links
Random House book blurb
Frankston Library catalogue link

Rating
Underwhelming

This is book 25 of the project.