what I've read this month

I've decided to keep a list of all the book I read (but not necessarily bloged about/reviewed)  this coming year. Partly because I think it will be a nice thing to reflect on at the end of the year, and secondly because it will help me stick to the reading resolutions I've made.

So here's a round up of my first month (click the link to read my reviews):

1. Flappers, Judith Mackrell
2. The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Gailbraith (J.K Rowling)
3. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
4. Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle, Manda Scott
5. Empire: The Gates of Rome, Conn Iggulden
6. Holy Warrior, Angus Donald
7. Moon over Soho, Ben Aaronovitch
8. The Little Coffee Shop of  Kabul,  Deborah Rodriguez
9. Dark Places, Gillian Flynn (by the same author as Gone Girl)
10. The Twelve, Justin Cronin (sequel to The Passage)  
11. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

The worst book of the bunch was undoubtedly The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul, my favourite The Goldfinch with Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle a close second.  

Deborah Rodriguez, The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

Urgh, this was a regrettable reading decision, The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul is truly dreadful book. Predicable, poorly written and vaguely racist.

Also, according to Wikipedia (yeah, I know it's not the more reliable source) the author, Deborah Rodriguez, sounds like a shady character. Her first book, Kabul Beauty School,  allegedly endangered the lives of some of the women that worked at the school and was filled with inaccuracies.

The Plot: Sunny, an American woman living in Kabul must find a way to make her coffee shop more profitable. Among her clientèle are Isabel, a British journalist in search of a story and a way to overcome past trauma, and Candace a wealthy American, who has come to Kabul to be with her Afghan lover. Working in the coffee house alongside Sunny, are Yasmin, a vulnerable pregnant woman, and Halajan who is both motherly and rebellious.  Trigger warning: violence, rape, substance abuse, racism.

So basically, the book is meant to be all about sisterhood, five very different women coming together in dangerous circumstances. The Afghan women are incredibly poorly written, particularity Yasmin, she is mainly used as a prop by Sunny, a plot device to show what a compassionate woman Sunny is, rather than a character in her own right. Both Halajan and Yasmin are comprised of clichés and are two dimensional.

I wonder how many Afghan friends Rodriguez actually had, because for someone who spent an extended period of time in Afghanistan, she seems to rely heavily on stereotypes and worn out tropes. Pretty much all the Afghan men in this book are warlords/drug barons/ financiers of terrorist training schools.

Plus, I'm not sure if Rodriquez has ever met a British person either, as Isabel is also hashed together out of stereotypes and misinformation. Apparently she speaks with a 'thick British accent' wtf is this? Britain is made up of England, Scotland, Wales, each with very unique accents, that can be further identified by region or county, there is not one homogeneous 'thick British accent'. Rodriquez is also labouring under the false impression that we attend segregated schools in Britain (erm, NO) and she even uses a racial slur (p***), which is offensive, and inaccurate- the majority of Brits do not use that word.

For a book about women, the female characters (foreign and Afghan)  are largely defined by their relationship to men, it really isn't about sisters doing it for themselves. Sunny's love triangle is massively dull, and I can see why Candace's boyfriend gets tired of her as she is spoilt and vapid. Yazmin's blossoming romance, is very lazy, of course she gets paired up with the only Afghan male that is close in age, and how brave! how noble! He can overlook that she has had a baby with another man.

(more angry ranting after the jump)

Thomas Cromwell

"But my sins are my strength, he thinks; the sins I have done, that others have not even found the opportunity of committing. I hug them close; they are mine. Besides when I come to judgement I mean to come with a memorandum in my hand: I shall say to my Maker, I have fifty items here, possibly more."  

- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Li Hongbo, art made from paper

Just seen a small feature on the telly about Li Hongbo, an artist who makes incredible structures out of concertinaed paper. The sculptures are moveable.

picture source

picture source 

The Goldfinch and The Cuckoo's Calling

Aside from both having birds in the title, Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and Robert Gailbraith's The Cuckoo's Calling have other similarities, so I've therefore decided to lump my review of them together.

The plot in a sentence:
Donna Tarrt, The Goldfinch: On the cusp of adulthood, Theo Decker loses his mother, but gains a painting by  the Dutch master, Carel Fabritius.   
Robert Gailbraith, The Cuckoo's Calling: When famous supermodel Lulu Laundry suddenly dies, private detective and former solider, Cormonron Strike is hired by the model's grieving brother to investigate her death.

Both novels were highly anticipated, The Goldfinch is Tartt's first book in 11 years, and Gailbraith is a pseudonym for J.K Rowling (possibly worst kept secret ever). So the first question is did they live up to hype? In a word, yes.

Although Donna Tartt's bibliography is small, but they are all contemporary classics, and beautifully written. The Goldfinch is no exception, populated by Tartt's usual cast of intellectual eccentrics and charming wastrels.   The Cuckoo's Calling is a more confident and accomplished novel than Rowling's first post-Harry offering, The Casual Vacancy, writing under an alias was obviously liberating.  Crime thrillers are also a genre that suits J.Ks style and ability write tightly plotted narratives. The characters seemed more believable than in The Casual Vacancy, were they occasionally tipped into charactertures.  Cormonran Strike, despite is ludicrous name, is a likeable character, who offers competition to other fictional maverick  detective such as Lee Child's Jack Reacher.   

If you are thinking of buying either of these novels, I'd recommend you purchase the ebook version. As both are long and heavy. Plus I think they are both currently cheaper to buy on amazon kindle, I bought mine for £1.99, though I suspect the price has now gone up. 

If you are trying to chose between the two, I think The Goldfinch is the better and more memorable read. I've read some unfavourable reviews of The Goldfinch on amazon (and some good ones) and feel I should defend the book. Yes, it is long, sometimes slow and Tartt will sometimes use pages and pages of description to arrive at a singular point , but that's what I loved about the book. You can see the care and consideration, the story revolves around the theft of a painting and Donna Tarrt uses words as brush strokes to craft a masterpiece of storytelling. She writes how I wish I could. The Goldfinch is one of those book that's more about the journey than the destination, perfect for curling up and reading at a leisurely pace. A novel that should be read, savoured and enjoyed rather that hurried through on the commute when your mind is elsewhere. If you're after something less challenging and faster paced, give The Cuckoo's Calling a chance instead. 

Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch (picture source) 

  

Crying Bench

Quote: Charles Bukowski, An Almost Made Up Poem (full poem can be found here)
Photo: taken at Camden lock, by me. 

lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. 

Anne

"They are black eyes, slightly protuberant, shiny like the beads of an abacus; they are shiny and always in motion, as she makes calculations of her own advantage"

-Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Ben Aaronovitch, Moon over Soho

I picked up Moon over Soho in a recent library haul. Its the second in a series of books called Rivers of London, the first of which I read ages ago, so I've been meaning to read this for a while. I was initially attracted to the series thanks to the intriguing quote on the front cover, "what would happen is Harry Potter grew up and joined the fuzz". 

The Plot: Peter Grant, met officer and trainee wizard, investigates the suspicious deaths of Jazz musicians in Soho. 

My thoughts and views are under the cut (warning may contain spoilers):-

John Craxton

I've already broken a promise I made to myself to blog with a some sort of regular schedule, never mind. Here are some photos that were leftover from the ones I shared last week, when I visited the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge.

The museum had an exhibit of the work of neo-Romantic painter John Craxton. I know nothing about art, but I appreciated his use of bright colour and geometric shapes in his portraits. 

Galatas (sorry only painting I remembered to get the name of)

Fitzwilliam museum

Just along from Pembroke College in Cambridge, is the wonderful Fitzwilliam museum. It houses collections from the ancient world, medieval manuscripts and European and Oriental decorative art. The outside of the building is undergoing repair work, but the museum is open as usual.

The Egyptian artefacts are always my favourite, and unlike the chaotically busy British Museum, Fitzwilliam was practically empty so we could get nice and close to the displays.

Part of me does think that we should give all the artefacts back to their country of origin, but I am very grateful that I get to see them.  

 

 more pics after the cut:

Cambridge

This weekend we took a quick jaunt over to Cambridge. We were really lucky with the weather, it was perfect to have a stroll around and look at all the beautiful architecture of the university colleges.

King's College 

King's college 

King's College 

If you're in the area, there is a really tasty vegetarian/ vegan restaurant opposite King's, called Rainbow cafe. It is reasonably priced and has loads of options. All the food is freshly prepared on site using in season ingredients. I had Latvian Potato Bake, which tasted like proper comfort food, the only disappointed was the side salad, which was a bit too basic. For pudding I had lavender and chocolate vegan cheesecake, which was delicately flavoured and creamy. I'd also recommend the ginger beer.

Ranibow cafe, don't be put off by the slightly dodgy alleyway, it's a gem

Pembroke College 

A lot of the colleges charge an entrance fee, but Pembroke College allows visitors to stroll around the quad for free. It's my sisters old college, so I've stayed in one of the rooms when I visited in her first year, the buildings are stunning, but I remember her room was draughty and noisy.

Pembroke college 

gluten-free clementine and nutella cake

This is not a cake to make if you're short of time, but as it's a bit time consuming and fiddly it makes it a real treat.

recipe after the cut:

Swords & Sandals

Maybe it's because of Game of Thrones withdraw, but recently I've been reading a lot of historical fiction of the swords and sandals variety. 

Previously, when I've delved into historical fiction, it has been more on the line of bodice rippers like Philippa Gregorgy (my guilty secret), but after reading an article in The Times  a couple of weeks ago about women's growing dominance in the swords and sandals genre, I thought I should give it a try. I was worried that these book would be a bit 'blokey' but I've really enjoyed reading them!  

A brief synopsis of the novels pictured above, before I give you the full low down on what I think:

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle, Manda Scott: set in ancient Britain before the Roman invasion, the country is occupied by fierce warriors, psychic dreamers and warring tribes. This is the first in the series of book that charts the life of Breaca, from childhood to legend. 

Emperor: The Gates of Rome, Conn Iggulden: Two young friends grow up together in a affluent, but unstable Roman household just outside the capital city, Rome.  Trained in combat by a former gladiator, the two boys are ready to test their mettle in the legion and the senate. First in a series about Julius Caesar 

Holy Warrior, Angus Donald: Second book in a series about Robin Hood. Alan, now in his dotage, recounts his early life as a trusted companion of the notorious outlaw. Robin and his band of merry men are now respectable and are favourites of King Richard the Lionheart. To settle a debt they must join the king's crusade to reclaim the holy city of Jerusalem. 

All three of these novels share some similarities; bloodthirsty battle scenes, court politics, bildungsroman narratives and rich, historical detail. They are not however equal, if I was going to pick one to recommend it would be Manda Scott's Boudica. It seamlessly blends together  a fictional and fantastical story with carefully researched historical fact. Plus, I have an affinity with feisty ginger women.  

Colin Iggulden's Empire, is a strong start to a series and I'm looking forward to reading the next one. It is less complex than Boudica however. I felt that Iggulden has borrowed from the glut of Roman films (Gladiator, Ben Hur, The Eagle, Spartacus) without really adding anything new- that isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book, it just seemed to be a pretty conventional narrative. Boudica on the other hand, felt fresher, perhaps because I'm less familiar with the myths, religion and cultural practices of the ancient Britons. The abilities of the dreamers and druids made the novel blurred the historical genre into fantasy, so if your a Game of Thrones fan, you may enjoy this. The magical element to the novel gave  Boudica the edge over Empire, in my opinion as it made the story more innovative and imaginative. 

Another point in the favour of Boudica is the strong cast of characters. There are plenty of complex female protagonists, that have the physical prowess, charisma and leadership that is more commonly assigned to male characters. The secondary characters are also interesting and three dimensional.   

You can probably give Holy Warrior a miss, it is a weak sequel to Outlaw. The main problem of this novel is it deviates to far from the Robin Hood legend, the characters would have been better off staying in Sherwood forest rather than marching off to Jerusalem. There are some dodgy racial undertones in this novel, and the massacre of Jewish people in particular wasn't written very well or handled sensitively enough in this book. I don't think I'll be carrying on with this series, which is a shame as I had fun reading the first one. 

What do you think? Are you tempted to give reading a swords and sandals epic a try?

Penguin Postcards

I finally got round to putting some of the Penguin Postcards up on my walls.

I had a bit of difficultly choosing a frame. Each postcard measures 9.8cm x 15.3cm (including a thin white border) and it hard to find a standard frame that would allow me to fill the frame without cutting a postcard in half. In the end I went for this Ikea Ribba frame (40x50) which enables me to have two rows of postcards, four across.  Eventually I would like a larger frame, as it looks slightly small hanging above my double bed, but as the frame was only £7 it was a bit of a bargain.

As I was limited by how many postcards I could have I selected only ones with the classic Penguin striped design. I chose cards not that I'd necessarily read, but ones that reflected my personality and interests.   As I got loads of the cards still to use I'm very tempted to make some more as gifts for friends and family.

I also framed this iconic A Clockwork Orange design for on my night stand. The frame is this small Ribba frame (18x24, £2.75).

I'm really pleased with my bookish decor, what do you think?

new year's reading resolutions

So, I'm a bit behind on this as we're a week into the new year, but better late than never. Alongside some personal resolutions, I'm setting some reading goals:-

1.  Finish reading The Iliad and The Odyssesy. This was one of my aims for 2013, I got halfway through of both and then abandoned the project, but this time I'm determined!

2. Attend a spoken word event. 

3. Stop buying books when I've got some many on my shelves I haven't yet read. I have a ridiculous amount of books, I might have to start a one in one out policy and donate some to charity. 

4. Read more critically, after spending a fortune and 3 years hard work I don't want to forget everything I learnt at uni.

5. Read more non-fiction. This sort of ties in with the goal above, I want to continue to educate myself. I was fortunate to receive some non-fiction for Christmas, so I should be able to make a start on this goal easily. 

Alysia Harris, Guinness Skin

Rachel Wiley, 10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy

1.
I say, ‘I am fat.’
He says ‘No, you are beautiful.’
I wonder why I cannot be both.
He kisses me 
hard.

2.
My college theater professor once told me
that despite my talent,
I would never be cast as a romantic lead.
We do plays that involve singing animals
and children with the ability to fly,
but apparently no one
has enough willing suspension of disbelief
to go with anyone loving a fat girl.
I daydream regularly
about fucking my boyfriend vigorously on his front lawn.

3.
On the mornings I do not feel pretty,
while he is still asleep,
I sit on the floor and check the pockets of his skinny jeans for motive,
for a punchline,
for other girls’ phone numbers.

4.
When we hold hands in public, 
I wonder if he notices the looks —
like he is handling a parade balloon on a crowded sidewalk;
if he notices that my hands are now made of rope.

5.
Dear Cosmo: Fuck you.
I will not take sex tips from you
on how to please a man you think I do not deserve.

6.
He tells me he loves me with the lights on.

7.
I can cup his hip bone in my hand,
feel his ribs without pressing very hard at all.
He does not believe me when I tell him he is beautiful. 
Sometimes I fear the day he does will be the day he leaves.

8.
The cute hipster girl at the coffee shop 
assumes we are just friends
and flirts over the counter.
I spend the next two weeks
mentally replacing myself with her
in all of our photographs.
When I admit this to him
we spend the evening taking new photos together.
He will not let me delete a single one of them.

9.
The phrase “Big girls need love too” can die in a fire.
Fucking me does not require an asterisk.
Loving me is not a fetish.
Finding me beautiful is not a novelty. 
I am not a fucking novelty.

10.
I say, ‘I am fat.’
He says, ‘No. You are so much more’,
and kisses me
hard.

fortunately we both remembered we were English

"For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we  both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call"

-Ben Aaronovitch, Moon over Soho

Trocadero Centre

"The space is criss-crossed at random intervals by escalators, presumably because the architects felt that disorientation and an inability to find the toilets were an integral part of the shopping experience"

-  Ben Aaronovitch, Moon over Soho