Book Review: The Big Over-Easy by Jasper Fforde

888 Challenge #10

DI Jack Spratt’s career is fast coming to a dead end; the acquittal of the three little pigs is just the latest in a string of Nursery Crime Division failures. His cases aren’t even being closed, much less getting into print. DS Mary Mary is even less happy than Jack; a department on the way out isn’ the transfer she had in mind. The chance to salvage both their careers arrives in the form of what might just be a murder case when Humpty Dumpty is found shattered at the foot of his wall. There’s no shortage of suspects - dozens of ex-girlfriends and their irate husbands, not to mention people who were burned in Humpty’s shady business transactions. The case is made more complicated by additional corpses and an assortment of plot devices banned by the Guild of Detectives. And Jack has other problems to deal with. He’s still getting a hard time over his reputation as a giant-killer, and he’s just traded his mother’s prized possession - a George Stubbs painting of a cow - for a handful of peculiar-looking beans . . .

And that’s only some of the oddities that exist in Jack’s world. At first it was a little overwhelming - I was left thinking, “QuangTech? Jellyman? Sacred Gonga? What the -?” Then I decided the best way to read the book was to switch off the part of my brain dedicated to logical thought and assume the explanations would be forthcoming. And to an extent, they were. The world of Nursery Crime has even less of a footing in reality than that of Thursday Next (but readers of The Well of Lost Plots will see the connection. Jack’s world is the book Thursday stayed in; a fictional fictional version of Reading. And if you want to know how the two Generics turned out, here’s your chance). But to return to this book: It reads much better if you don’t think too much; and it does come to make its own twisted sort of sense. What happens is determined by the original tales (and legends, and urban legends); the how is often unexpected. Sure it’s bizarre, but somehow it works both as comedy and mystery.

Rating: B+

Now reading: The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)
                                The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope (888C)
                                Rosa and the Veil of Gold - Kim Wilkins (888C)

Book Review: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

888 Challenge #9

In Church Lane, a prostitute named Caroline lives and works in a single room in a building close to falling down. Her old friend Sugar lives in somewhat more salubrious surroundings near Silver Street, where she has achieved city-wide fame as the girl who never says no. Suger’s new patron is William Rackham, heir to a perfume empire in which he previously took zero interest. That changes when he needs the money in order to set Sugar up as his mistress. Through him she enters a new sphere of society, one from which it becomes increasingly difficult to return to visit her old friends.

She also becomes acquainted with the doings of the people William knows. His wife Agnes is mad, given to erratic or childlike behaviour and unaccountable sayings. His daughter Sophie is hidden away in the furthest reaches of the house. His old friends Ashwell and Bodley are determined to set the literary world on its ears with their irreverent publications. And his brother Henry’s attempts at a religious life are hampered by his persistent lustful thoughts about Emmeline Fox, a do-gooding widow with frizzy hair, a long face, and what all but she believe to be a terminal case of consumption. In the end it is Suger’s knowledge of the Rackhams that will seal her - and their - fate.

I wanted to love this book. And for a time I did. The beginning hooked me; the odd way of narrating that was like first, second, and third person rolled into one and the following of one character in order to meet another. The narrator is omniscient, in the manner of real Victorian novels, and addresses the reader much in the way of a tour guide showing you around a strange time and place and helping you make the right connections. I could almost picture myself walking the crowded London streets in the wake of one character or another. Bodley and Ashwell made me laugh with their discussion of their book on the efficacy of prayer (or rather the lack thereof), and I hoped that Sugar would turn out to be a new Becky Sharp.

But as the book wore on my interest in it did an Emmeline Fox and went into a decline. Sugar’s manipulations, Agnes’s madness, and William’s increasingly bad temper became tedious, and I’d catch myself thinking, “Why am I reading about you?” The characters I liked, or at least liked reading about - Caroline, Henry, Emmeline, Ashwell and Bodley - were only secondary ones, not present often enough to compensate for my frustration with the main cast. Sugar was no Becky; granted it’s been a while - okay, nearly six years - since I read Vanity Fair, but I recall her as being in some degree impulsive. Sugar was the ultimate schemer - everything she did was planned, and hardly a word left her mouth without its possible effects being carefully considered. I didn’t much like Agnes, either, but if her diaries were anything to go by she was too much of an airhead to be any more pleasant sane. Emmeline I did like, but in a modern novel it was disconcerting that she was one extremely few women in the whole 800+ pages who couldn’t be pigeonholed as saint or whore. (Yes, Agnes was mad, but she was also an exaggerated Victorian ideal: petite, blonde, religious, dependent, so innocent as to be monumentally ignorant, and not the brightest candle in the parlour.)

Overall this was a terribly difficult book to grade. At its best it was brilliant, depicting the lower end of Victorian life in all its well-researched seediness (and be warned that that does include the c-word . . . not infrequently, either). Even at its worst I retained a curiosity about what happened. At the same time I wanted it to end quickly, just to get it over, with the result that I sped through many dozens of pages each night to emerge with my brain feeling groggy and glutted with words. When it at last arrived, the end didn’t satisfy, leaving too many loose ends and an urge to slap William. Yet I am sure that it will prove to be a book not soon forgotten.

Rating: C+

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

888 Challenge #8

In the church at Mellstock, the music has long been provided by the Mellstock Quire - a motley assortment of local workmen and their instruments. But new vicar Mr. Maybold is a fan of progress, and has given the Quire a firm expiration date. Together with the alderman, Mr. Shinar, he wants to see a brand-new organ installed in the church - and new schoolteacher Fancy Day at the keys. The impending dissolution of the Quire is a particular blow to Reuben Dewy, for whom Quire membership is a family tradition, and he attempts to fight the decision. Reuben’s son Dick, however, is less interested in music than in Fancy. Can a mere tranter’s son hope to win the hand of someone who could do so much better; and can he be sure of her when she’s as capricious as Fancy is?

At little more then 150 pages this is the shortest book I’ve read in ages. Being so short, not much happens - just the demise of the Quire and one uncertain courtship. But it’s still an enjoyable read, and worth it to witness that rare thing - a (mostly) happy ending instead of the usual Hardian doom and gloom. The outside world intrudes very little upon Mellstock, and the villagers are used to following their own ways and customs (as shown by their dislike of Maybold, an ‘interfering’ kind of curchman who’s always visiting his parishioners rather than letting them alone). As such it’s all very idyllic and well-suited to a tale of romance that ends with a wedding and not a funeral.

Yet the story’s sunlight is not without shadows, and it’s not quite so straightforward as it was in the movie. All the other women are poor and tired, settled into dull if comfortable lives alongside their husbands (well, except for Fancy’s stepmother, who’s . . . not quite all there). It makes it impossible not to wonder whether Dick’s plans for the business will succeed, or whether he and Fancy will end up like all the rest. And the last sentence throws up all kinds of questions without any hope of answers. It turns out to be a more thought-provoking read than it at first appears.

Rating: B

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

888 Challenge #7

In post-war Spain, 10-year-old Daniel Sempere’s bookseller father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Inside this building of rambling stairs and labyrinthine passageways, he is allowed to choose a volume to care for so that others may one day read it - or does the book choose him? Either way, Daniel leaves with a copy of The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. The book is obscure and the author shrouded in mystery; he disappeared from Barcelona, surfaced in Paris, vanished from Paris, and turned up murdered in Barcelona. Now his works are becoming increasingly rare due to the actions of a literary arsonist - a man who torches every Carax novel he can; a man with a charred face and blazing eyes who wants Daniel’s book for himself. So Daniel does the only thing he can think of: hides The Shadow of the Wind deep in the Cemetery where no-one else can find it.

The years pass, but Daniel’s curiosity about Carax doesn’t. One by one he tracks down the people who hold a piece of the mystery, and so uncovers a story as laced with darkness as any Carax wrote. He’s helped in this by a number of friends, including bookshop assistant Fermín Romero de Torres, the ‘man in Havana’ under the old regime and a man in hiding under the new one. His nemesis is Inspector Javier Fumero, a sadist of mercurial loyalties and no love for anyone seeking information on Carax. His presence makes perilous an adventure that is already eerie. Not only is there a haunted house, but Daniel looks like Carax - and now his life is coming to resemble Carax’s as well.

This is one of those books that I close with a sigh and think, ‘If only I didn’t have to give you back to the library.’ And it’s a book I’ll want to read again; not only because it’s so good, but to pick up all the things I’m sure I missed the first time around due to the rate at which I barrelled through the pages. It’s more than unputdownable; it’s a book that draws you in from the very first word and doesn’t let go. One moment I was right there with a dying man on the streets of Barcelona; the next, the chapter had ended and I was back in Brisbane, coming to the belated realisation that the microwave had finished - I didn’t even hear it beep - and dinner was ready. And even as I loved it, it made me despair of ever creating anything half so good.

Daniel is the narrator for most of it, and it was great to watch him grow up, solve the mystery, and confront the major flaw in his character. But of all the memorable characters, my favourite was Fermín; I defy anyone not to adore Fermín. After being taken in off the streets by the Semperes, he repays them with absolute loyalty. He can take care of anything from sourcing rare books at knockdown prices to smuggling a hooker into a nursing home run by nuns; and despite the horrors of his life is indefatigably cheerful (and frequently comical). The mystery is absorbing and filled with unexpected turns; for though some parallels do appear, Daniel’s and Carax’s lives never come to resemble each other closely enough for you to predict what will happen to one based on what’s happened to the other. And it was a refreshing change to meet an amateur detective so willing to confide in people and obtain assistance in his quest. The villain, too, is good: Fumero is devoid of redeeming features and common humanity, but enough is shown of his past that he doesn’t seem one-dimensional; rather, chillingly and sociopathically real.

I could probably ramble on for several more paragraphs, but I will say just this: If you haven’t read this yet, reach for the bookmark, lay down whatever you’re reading, and get thee to a library!

Rating: A

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: Imperium by Robert Harris

888 Challenge #6

In the last decades of the Roman republic, imperium is power. The height of political imperium is the consulship, and Marcus Tullius Cicero won’t settle for anything less - quite an ambition for a farmer’s son. Learning the art of oratory and marrying sufficient money to buy his way into the senate is easy enough; achieving rank within the senate is harder. The opportunity to do so arrives on his doorstep in the form of a Sicilian named Sthenius, hiding from the murderous intentions of Sicily’s Roman governor. Gaius Verres could scarcely be more corrupt if he tried, and makes an ideal target for an ambitious advocate clever enough to outwit the devious defence lawyer.

In politics, drawing attention to yourself can cause trouble. Cicero finds himself caught between the feuding generals Pompey and Crassus, beholden to one and dodging the enmity of the other. Having helped Cicero during the Verres case, Pompey expects some assistance in return - help to gain his own, military brand of imperium; and Crassus is planning something that Cicero will need all his political ingenuity to stop.

A novel about law and politics . . . bound to be a bit dull, you think? Not a chance! Even elections can be interesting when the process is subject to the kinds of manoeuvrings the Romans delighted in. Add in Caesar’s ambitions and Crassus’s fortune, and they can be thrilling. So can trials when you have Verres in the dock and Hortensius defending him; the one vile, the other a first-rate schemer with an endless supply of tricks for ensuring things go his client’s way. The sheer scale of Verres’s numerous crimes was mind-boggling, and I wondered if history had ever produced an official more corrupt . . . and then the book introduced Catilina, who governed in Africa and almost escaped prosecution because no-one could be found brave enough to take on the case.

The people in the book are all real, and so is the narrator - Cicero’s secretary-slave, Tiro, who developed a 4000-symbol shorthand system in order to cope with his master’s torrents of words. He’s ideal for the rôle - close to Cicero and his work, and able to observe without being much noticed. He can just stand back and watch the drama (and the comedy) unfold. Between Tiro’s observations (‘I learned one valuable lesson that day, which is that if you seek popularity, there is no surer way of achieving it than raiding a syndicate of tax collectors.’) and the comeuppances delivered to various characters, it was funnier than I had expected. The characters are all fabulous, and it’s generally easy to keep track of who’s who - but it ended when Cicero became consul and I wanted to know more!

Rating: A

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (TBRC)

Book Review: Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

888 Challenge #5

Charlie Parker’s police career ended shortly after the lives of his wife and daughter. Now he’ freelancing, doing what he can to find their killer in between odd spots of private investigation. The moonlighting’s not going well; first the bail jumper he’s about to take in gets shot in bbroad daylight, and then he gets roped into doing a missing persons case. Although Charlie suspects that Caroline?? simply doesn’t want to be found he accepts it anyway, and soon finds himself on the trail of a child-killer.

But when one case closes, another re-opens. Down in Louisiana, bodies are appearing with similar mutilations to those of the Parkers. A sadist is on the loose, turning his victims into three-dimensional artworks of death, memento mori for the modern age. A gang war is about to commence. And there are more things than just alligators haunting the local swamps.

First, a word of warning: This is probably not the sortof book you want to read over lunch. The killer’s preferred method of displaying his handiwork really is gruesome. I haven’t even bothered checking to see whether the historical basis is fact or fiction; if fact, my imagination has already provided pictures enough without Google adding to them. That aside, it’s a good, if at times unsettling read. Charlie is an interesting character, having become as much a dealer of death as the felons he once sought to put away . . . but only to the bad guys. He’s very far from perfect, but he doesn’t mind admitting his faults and has a sharp sense of observation. The structure is unusual, with one case framed by another, and Charlie constructs enough of a connection between them that they fit together nicely. And the supernatural element made the book doubly creepy (in the best possible way).

Apart from the gruesomeness, the thing that detracted from it was the sheer excess of the body count. I didn’t try to keep count, and suspect I would have failed anyway, there were so many. Enough to fill several morgues, I should think.

Rating: B

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes (CC)
                                The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Penman (CC)

Book Review: The Quiet American by Graham Greene

888 Challenge #4

The quiet American is now quiet indeed, silenced forever by a rusty bayonet and the mud of the river. The French police in Saigon have a number of questions for British journalist Thomas Fowler, who was befriended by Pyle after the latter arrived with a head too full of ideals and good intentions to hold much good sense. Fowler‘s not saying much to the police, but for the reader he detours back through the history of his acquaintance with Pyle. Soon the reasons emerge why someone might have wanted him dead, for not only was he trying to marshall a force to take on both the French and the Communists, but he cost Fowler his Vietnamese mistress.

For the first time in ages, I’ve run into a reviewer’s nightmare: A book about which I can think of very little to say. The two main character were well-drawn, but apart from Phuong and General The I’m already having trouble remembering the others. Early on I had to stop and think about what was up with all the fighting, but I have my poor grasp of twentieth-century history to thank for that. The most fun to be had in the reading - since it’s really not a cheerful book - was keeping up a running comparison to the movie (and noting things like, They got the wrong colour dog). Perhaps it would have been more suspenseful if I didn’t remember exactly what it was that Fowler wasn’t telling. (The movie, byt the way, turns out to have been a very good adaptation.) Still, the main characters alone make it worth reading.

Rating: B-

Now reading: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
                                The Tomb of Agamemnon - Cathy Gere

Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

888 Challenge #3

Margaret Lea has never read anything by Britain’s most popular living novelist, Vida Winter. That changes after she receives a letter from Vida, who’s read one of Margaret’s biographical essays and wants her to write a full-length book - about her. It could well be the chance of a lifetime, for Vida has given as many versions of her early life as she has interviews, and to be in possession of the truth would be quite a coup if Vida will actually reveal it. Soon afterwards, Margaret find a book by Vida Winter in a locked cabinet in her father’s antiquarian bookshop. It’s value derives from the fact that almost all copies of that edition were recalled when it was discovered that a mistake had been made: It was called Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation but in fact contained only twelve.

As Margaret devours all of Vida’s works, the thought stays with her that she mightbe able to uncover the missing thirteenth tale. But when she arrives in the wintry wilds of Yorkshire, the ailing Miss Winter makes it clear that her story will be told one way: Her way. No questions, no leaping ahead, just Margaret obediently listening to her tale of unhealthy relationships in the maybe-haunted tumbledown house called Angelfield. When opportunities arise Margaret goes investigating on her own and uncovers more mysteries. Is Vida’s home also haunted? Why did the Angelfield governess disappear without a trace? What are the origins of Aurelius Love, who was once upon a time a baby abandoned on the Angelfield estate? And how much of the truth is Vida actually telling?

If ever there was a perfect novel for bibliophiles, it’s this. A love of books permeates the whole: Margaret had spent her whole life surrounded and comforted by books. Vida had made a career out of writing them. The latter’s life story is unfolded largely in the library. The many mysterious things included a story missing from a book, a page from a book, and a secret hidden in a library. And this:

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”

It would be hard not to love a book narrated by a character who loves books as much as does Margaret, even if it wasn’t so entrancing as this. I was a little jealous of her, actually, for being able to bury herself in books and ignore the rest of the world. And I was in awe of her for successfully leaping to the solution to the mystery; it was something I doubt I would ever have thought of. Vida was an interesting character, not easy either to like or dislike but a clever spinner of stories, and once the story of Angelfield is completed I could understand why she was so reluctant to reveal the truth. The way in which she told her tale gave a Gothic atmosphere to the mysteries at Angelfield, with horrors hinted at or implied and the reader’s imagination left to provide the rest. It wasn’t until Margaret hit upon the truth that I realised just how skillful she had been. And when the truth was finally out, there was just enough of the supernatural left to satisfy those who were glad to hear Vida announce that she was going to tell a ghost story.

Thankfully Margaret believes in finishing a story by tying up all the loose ends, accounting for the fates of all the characters from the long-lost governess to the cat, as well as the thing which started it all - the thirteenth tale.

Rating: B+

Now reading: The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende (TBRC)
                                A Season for the Dead - David Hewson

The Literary Highlight of the Year

2,000,000 books displayed in 2 halls of the convention centre across 72 hours over 8 days, plus 6.5 hours of browsing while spending $58 on 52 books before lugging the resultant 13kg load home, can only add up to one thing: It’s Bookfest time again! They call it the biggest book sale in the world, and since the proceeds are all for charity it’s the perfect excuse to load myself up with as many books as I can carry.

It wasn’t as well-organised as in previous years. The Unpriced (i.e. dirt cheap) section had no separate table for Penguins, there were fewer rows of books along each side of the Paperback Fiction tables, no crates of books at the back from which to replenish the tables, and two tables of Unsorted Books that no-one had bothered to categorise. (And when I say table, I really mean two rows of tables side by side forming one giant surface.) There were no price guides posted, either, but that didn’t matter as it’s purely theoretical and in practice all books are fifty cents. The emcee who usually calls out requests for books and stray family members was absent, replaced by the same songs playing over and over on a 45-minute loop until someone had mercy and shut it off. And all sections were short on classics.

But any shortcomings in the halls weren’t really reflected in the haul; I bought only 5 fewer books than last year. As ever, it included plenty of books that I wasn’t looking for and lacked plenty that I was. I managed just 5 books for the 888 Challenge, doing little better in the whole Bookfest than in one branch of the library; though I could have brought home more if I hadn’t found most of them in the High Quality section, where I lacked both the money and the space to buy any more than I did. But I am very much looking forward to crossing off Every Dead Thing, The Angel of Darkness, Runaway Jury, Shogun, and Cocaine Blues (the more so since the last one isn’t in the library; I was thrilled to find it). I finally managed to get hold of some Anthony Trollope; not the one I wanted, but the first of the Barchester novels, and how rare it is to find the first of a series at the Bookfest. Even greater good fortune attended my discovery of the first two of a three-volume complete collection of Sherlock Holmes (handy since I also bought Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-per-cent Solution which references Holmes).

Elsewhere my luck didn’t hold. I found only one Agatha Christie (the ending of which I remembered) and the only Ngaio Marsh was multiple copies of one I’ve got (they were curiously well-supplied with copies of Jeffrey Archer’s A Quiver Full of Arrows and le Carre’s The Russia House, too - though one fewer of each by the time I’d been through). There were plenty of copies of North and South . . . by John Jakes, and I found Northern Lights . . . by Nora Roberts. No Elizabeth Gaskell and Philip Pullman, alas. (I had thought that after so much wanting to read the Gaskell N&S last year, and not finding it, that this year - after having borrowed it from the library - I’d be tripping all over copies, but no.) And still no Lolita.

Another author there was a lot of was Dennis Wheatley, whose works I noticed because I’de first heard of him only last week, in a documentary about thr ploys used by the British to mislead the Nazis during WW2. Wheatley was one of their generators of ideas, though was of limited use as he favoured the outlandish and impractical - and his style of writing sounded equally bizarre, albeit very successful. After inspecting a few donated paperbacks, I can say that his books really were the B-grade horror stuff that I’d expected. My personal favourite was The Haunting of Toby Jugg - a tale of Black Magic. (No, I was not tempted, not even for fifty cents and the off-chance that it might fall into the ‘so bad it’s good’ category. And there was no indication as to whether the name was a crockery-inspired pun or merely an unfortunate coincidence.)

Between the avid book hunting and the fun speculations such as: Did any of the myriad copies of The Anti-Cancer, Anti-Heart Attack Cookbook come from deceased estates? Were all those books on making money donated because the previous owners got rich and no longer needed them, or because they didn’t work? Who would buy copies of the Guinness Book of World Records that’re older than I am? How is it that they have seemingly every book ever published by Robert Ludlum, except The Bourne Ultimatum, which I need to complete the trilogy? And did the Book of Mormon end up on the Humour & Oddities table by accident or design? those six and a half hours passed in no time - although the walk home from the station seemed to take forever. But all the aches and pains were worth it to enjoy the highlight of any booklover’s year, and come next January I’ll be doing it all again.

Now reading: The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende (TBRC)
                                A Season for the Dead - David Hewson
                                The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield (888C)

Book Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

888 Challenge #2

The year is 2057, and the bane of Oxford’s time-travelling history department is Lady Schrapnell. She’s rebuilding Coventry Cathedral and is a big fan of details, which have to be collected by someone - or rather, a lot of someones. A whole history department full of someones. For Ned Henry, this means trying to ascertain whether the bishop’s bird stump was present during the cathedral’s bombing in 1940, but the slippage keeps getting in the way. The result is a bad case of time lag, and since Lady Schrapnell doesn’t believe in time lag, Mr Dunworthy sends him to 1888 to recover.

While he’s there, Ned is meant to correct an incongruity - return a cat that fellow historian Verity Kindle brought forward to 2057. Unfortunately, Oxford then concludes that removing the cat did not create an incongruity, but that taking it back could well alter the course of history. Now Ned and Verity have to make sure that Lady Schrapnell’s airheaded ancestress Tocelyn goes to Coventry on the right day, has her life changed by the experience (and the bird stump), and marries the right man; but with her diary rendered illegible by water damage they have no idea when, or how, or who. Nor do they know how to determine the location of the bishop’s bird stump, either during the air raid or in 2057. Or the other mystery - if the net is supposed to shut down rather than create an incongruity, why did it let Ned (and the cat) through at all?

The drama of the first book in the series is largely left behind here (well, except for the possibility of the collapse of the space-time continuum), but the fun remains from beginning to end. As the title suggests, it does reference Jerome K. Jerome; Ned travels downriver as one of three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog) after hitching a ride with Terence St Trewes and his bulldog Cyril, and helping to rescue Terence’s tutor, the absent-minded, fish-loving Professor Peddick. There are also nods to The Taming of the Shrew and the mystery novels of the 1930s, Verity’s usual province. She and Ned even lift a strategy right out of the pages of a Dorothy L. Sayers novel - happily for me, one I’ve read. The narration was Ned’s, and it was impossible not to feel for the guy; in over his head in a strange time, and caught between the twin horrors of Lady Schrapnell in one century and Mrs. Mering - who in manner greatly resembled her - in another. (And after the Rescuing Rose debacle, Isabel Wolff should have read chapter 1 to see how to do self-delusion well.) The animals had personalities of their own, the humans were all varying degrees of eccentric, and the scientific aspect made for interesting if occasionally mind-bending reading. (Though I’m still not sure how Ned worked out what the consequences would be if the incongruity was left uncorrected.) I frequently broke into giggles while reading, and couldn’t possible choose a favourite part or person.

And now really want to read Three Men in a Boat.

Rating: A

Now reading: The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende (TBRC)
                                A Season for the Dead - David Hewson
                                The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield (888C)

How Organised Am I?

One of my big plans for 2008 was to be more timely in my completion of challenge reads, and so far I’ve managed to surpass my expectations. Fifteen days in, and I’ve already finished three of my TBR Challenge reads, plus 300 pages of the fourth. Even better, I went to the library last week and found not one, not two, but four books from my 888 Challenge wishlist. I would have been able to borrow three more, too, if I’d only been able to carry them, but a 2.5L container of sunscreen does rather weigh one down. Still, I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s a sign of good luck to come, especially since tomorrow is . . .

. . . the BOOKFEST!! Weekends are busy, Monday was hot, and today it rained, so I settled on tomorrow for my annual pilgrimage to literary cloud nine. I’m taking a list of books needed for the challenge, and this year I’m being extra cautious and making some notes as to which books I already have, so there’s no chance of inadvertently doubling up.

I’ve also made good headway in creating a list of all my books on LibrayThing. At least, I’ve noted down the ISBNs of most of the books I own (and the titles of those too old to have them) but it will be the work of days to enter them all. (And to work out which books can’t be found in the databases, since I went around my shelves and stacks of books in largely random order and neglected to make any notes as to which books the ISBNs belong to.) Add to that the 50 or 60 I’ll likely lug home tomorrow, and I’ll be entertained for a while.

But best of all: I am completely up-to-date with my reviews! And I intend to stay that way . . . as much as possible.

Now reading: To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (888C)
                                Death at the Bar - Ngaio Marsh
                                The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende (TBRC)

Book Review: Cat o' Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer

888 Challenge #1

The nine tales of the title are all based on stories Archer gathered while doing time for perjury. So naturally the are tales of crime, and of crime that hasn’t paid . . . in the short term, at least. The Commissioner tells of a career conman whose attempts at blackmail earn him a promotion he can’t refuse - but wishes he could. A chess piece in The Red King sees another con artist play two brothers against each other, only to get done for the wrong crime. The Alibi sees a man set up what appears to be a perfect alibi, while the protagonist of Don’t Drink the Water devises a seemingly perfect crime - and neither goes quite as planned. In addition to these, there are three more stories unlinked to Her Majesty’s prisons, including my favourite The Wisdom of Solomon, in which a gold-digger’s plans backfire.

It’s been years since I’ve read any of Archer’s short stories, or indeed any Archer at all, and it was good to get reacquainted. This was just as good as any of his other collections, with the difference (I think) that all the stories here are based on reality, which I don’t recall being the case with the other books. (Impossible not to wonder where embellishment ends and reality begins.) The beauty of these tales is in the clever plotting and twist endings; I’d love to have ideas like those (I’ll pass, though, on going to jail to get them). What I found interesting was that some of the stories contained enough details that an enterprising reader could conceivably attempt to replicate the scams -if they could only find a way to avoid the characters’ pitfalls. I wonder if anyone will?

Rating: B

Now reading: Sophie’s Choice - William Styron (TBRC)
                                The Bourne Supremacy - Robert Ludlum
                                To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (888C)

The 888 Reading Challenge with a Twist

I didn’t originally intend to sign up for this challenge, as I never know in advance what books I’ll get to read each year; it all depends on the availability at the BookFest and the library. But then it occurred to me that I could put my own spin on it: instead of a list of books I must read, I could compose a list of books I will read if at all possible and let serendipity take care of the rest. If I can track them down, great; if I can’t, it doesn’t matter. A pressure-free challenge with the added fun of testing fate!

1. The Collections
Books composed of short stories

Cat-o-Nine Tails - Jeffrey Archer
The Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susanna Clarke
Ghost Stories - Charles Dickens
In a Glass Darkly - J. Sheridan le Fanu
Life’s Little Ironies - Thomas Hardy
Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
Waifs and Strays - Charles de Lint

2. Eighteen Hundred and Something
Books that have withstood the test of time

Shirley - Charlotte Brontë
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
She - H. Rider Haggard
Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
The Aspern Papers - Henry James
Indiana - George Sand
The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope

3. A Little Light Reading
Books that are fun to read

Welcome to Temptation - Jennifer Crusie
The Big Over-Easy - Jasper Fforde
Lola Carlyle Reveals All - Rachel Gibson
Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy
Austenland - Shannon Hale
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
The Man with Two Left Feet - P. G. Wodehouse
The Trials of Tiffany Trott - Isabel Wolff

4. Next, Please
Books that are next in a series or sequence

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
Seeing Redd - Frank Beddor
The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr
Venus in Copper - Lindsay Davis
Cat in a Midnight Choir - Carole Nelson Douglas
Voyager - Diana Gabaldon
Rosa and the Veil of Gold - Kim Wilkins
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis

5. The Rest of the World
Books set in the past of a country outside Britain

Shogun - James Clavell (1600s Japan)
Cocaine Blues - Kerry Greenwood (1900s Australia)
Imperium - Robert Harris (100s BC Rome)
Jerusalem - Cecelia Holland (1100s and guess where?)
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry (1800s America)
The Honest Courtesan - Margaret Rosenthal (1500s Italy)
Perfume - Patrick Süskind (1700s France)
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (WW2 Germany)


6. Screen First, Page Second
Books I've seen an adaptation of

Bleak House - Charles Dickens
A Room with a View - E. M. Forster
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
Runaway Jury - John Grisham
Seabiscuit - Laura Hillenbrand
Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman
The Cider House Rules - John Irving
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

7. Things that Go Bump in the Night
Books that are mysterious, spooky, or just plain weird

Every Dead Thing - John Connolly
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
The Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone - Mervyn Peake
The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

8. We Meet at Last
Books I've been wanting to read for ages

Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Euginedes
The Crimson Petal and the White- Michel Faber
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Northern Lights (a.k.a The Golden Compass) - Philip Pullman
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Now reading: The Man Who Knew Too Much - G. K. Chesterton
                                Marley & Me - John Grogan
                                Rescuing Rose - Isabel Wolff