Five Questions

Kim over at Sophisticated Dorkiness has emailed me five questions so that I can play along...

1. What is your favorite setting from a book (fiction or nonfiction)? Why?

It would have to be any setting in an English village in a Jane Austen novel. It is quite strange actually as I grew up in a regional country area in Australia and I hated it but I just love all of the descriptions of these settings in Jane Austen's work.

2. When you're not reading or blogging, what is a favorite hobby?

This is a hard one as I don't see myself as a "hobby" person except for my reading. Is it bad to say shopping?? I did enjoy photography once but I haven't really got into that in a long time.

3. On a long plane/train/car ride, what kinds of books do you like to read?

Definitely something light and character driven - the Alexander McCall Smith books that I am reading now would be perfect. I also really like to take audio books with me for longer trips.

4. What book has influenced your perspective on an important political or social issue?

The book Fast Food Nation definitely made me think about the food choices I was making. I have also just picked up the new Peter Singer book - The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty which I expect will have a big impact when I read it.

5. If you could only read one genre of books for the rest of your life, what genre would you pick and why?

I know this is being a bit broad and non-specific but I will have to say literary fiction - I don't want to cut off my options!

Do you want to play along? Leave me a comment to this post that says “Interview Me” with contact information, and I’ll send you a list of five questions to answer on your blog.

The Spare Room

The Spare Room By Helen Garner was a book I had been waiting for for quite a while. Helen Garner's last few books have been non-fiction and while I have enjoyed them I have been looking forward to another novel.

You would probably call The Spare Room a novella - I finished it in a day and I would have finished it in one sitting if my life plans would have allowed for that! I was on a bit of a time restriction too as I am going to be listening to Garner speak at the Sydney Writer's Festival this weekend and I wanted to have the book completed by then.

The Spare Room is told from the perspective of "Helen" - a character that shares a lot of similarities with her author namesake (apparently the author has said that the book is not autobiographical). Helen is a woman in her early 60's living in Melbourne, Australia in a house beside her daughter, son-in-law and 2 young grandchildren (including a gorgeously precocious 5 year old, Bessie).

The book opens as Helen is preparing her spare room for the arrival of her friend Nicola from Sydney. Nicola has been diagnosed with a fatal cancer and is coming to Melbourne to be treated by an alternative health care clinic. Helen is extremely dubious and skeptical of the benefits Nicola will actually receive from this treatment and this scepticism really forms the crux of the story as the tension builds between the doubting Helen, who is providing constant care to her extremely unwell friend, and the ever hoping (some would say in denial) Nicola.

The story moves fast and yet as the reader you never feel rushed, the story seems to unfold as it needs to. I was with Helen the whole way and could feel her frustration with and sadness for Nicola - and herself.

Towards the end of the novel the tension within Helen has reached breaking point and as she trys to take some time for herself while Nicola is at the treatment clinic she writes;

"My heart was full of holes. Everything strong and purposeful was draining out me".

Such simple writing really but so strong and honest.

I loved this book - I was moved to tears by the ending and I am greatly looking forward to hearing the real life Helen talk about her work this weekend.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

I have just finished Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures By Vincent Lam - I love this title - and I really enjoyed the book.

The book, set in Canada, is broken up into 12 short stories with some of the characters and their stories overlapping and interweaving in the stories.

The stories are all set in the medical/hospital world. In the first story we meet Ming and Fitzgerald as they study for their entrance exam into medical school and struggle with their more personal feelings for each other (well, Ming struggles - Fitzgerald is a lot clearer about where he wants things to go). As the stories progress we then meet Chen and Sri - two more medical students about to become doctors and we begin to follow parts of their stories as well.

The author is a doctor himself and it definitely came through in his writing for me. I have worked in a hospital in the emergency and intensive care departments/wards and the writing in these stories really rings true and brings home the intensity, variety, tragedy and also humour of these places. I loved how the writing was so direct and punchy too - definitely paralled with the setting.

The stories are often cloaked in sadness and despair - some of our main characters don't meet the best of ends - but I still really enjoyed the read.

Weekend Reading

This is going to be a pretty busy weekend but I'm already putting some thoughts into what I want to be reading over the two days. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with my reading choices lately and I hate feeling like that about reading - it's supposed to be my passion and joy not my stress and concern! I think in the not too distant future I will have to do some thinking about my reading goals for the next few months or so - hopefully that will help me to stay on track and read what I really want to be reading. Any suggestions or help with this would be greatly appreciated!
But for now I'll just concentrate on the upcoming weekend.
I picked up a book while I was in Sydney this week that I hadn't heard of before - Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures By Vincent Lam. It comes with glowing praise from Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood (possibly supporting their fellow Canadian but I think I'll trust them). I'm already 120 pages into this and it is very easy reading so I think I will try and finish this one over the weekend. The book is narrated from the perspective of four medical students and explores their relationships with each other and their work/study. Having worked in a hospital setting in the past I'm finding it very interesting reading. The author will also be speaking at the Sydney Writer's Festival which I am going to later this month so it would be great to hear him speak about the book there.
The other book I'm feeling the need to begin as I have been waiting for it to arrive for a while now is My Reading Life By Bob Carr. This is also a book I have down for my Non-Fiction Five Challenge.
Bob Carr is a former Premier of the state of New South Wales and is known for his love of reading and books and his promotion of children's literacy during his time as a political leader so I am looking forward to reading about the books that have impacted on his life.
I think that should get me through the weekend!

The Philosopher's Apprentice - James Morrow

This book was a bit of a sidetrack in my reading plans - out at the bookshop and it caught my eye so home it came!

I have been tempted to delve into another James Morrow book - The Last Witchfinder and I think after my experience with The Philosopher's Apprentice I will have to give it a go.

The Philosopher's Apprentice was (for me) a cross between a futuristic outlook novel, science fiction, fantasy fiction and several complex ethical dilemmas!

A Philosophy academic (Mason Ambrose) having failed to have his PhD accepted takes on a job on an isolated American island working for a very wealthy woman with a problem - her 17 year old daughter (Londa) has no capacity to reason and act in a moral way. The reasoning behind this problem becomes very clear once Mason arrives on the island and discovers that Londa actually has "sisters" of whose existence she is unaware of. The way these sisters came into existence and the events that follow as a result of their moral education impacts widely and it is these events that cause the reader to really think about some topical societal issues and dilemmas. I found myself having to stop in places and just ponder the issues for a while before I could keep reading.

I find it hard to describe the context of this novel without giving away too much of the plot!

Although this is a genre of book I would not normally read or enjoy I have to say I was really engaged with this story. Although some of the events in the novel are out of the realm of possibility in current society they certainly appear to be a very real possibility in the story and I never caught myself saying "as if that would/could happen".

I will be on the look out for other James Morrow books in the future.

Trying to Get To

As I am sure many people can relate to I seem to have a towering pile of books that I have been meaning to get to over the past few weeks (and in some cases months).

Kabul in Winter - Ann Jones is one I have had on the shelf for a while now. The book is written by a journalist and women's rights activist about the time she spent in Afghanistan after the American war there. I heard the author speak so passionately about her work and the experiences she had in this country during a radio interview in Australia that I went out and bought the book immediately.

Foreign Correspondence - Geraldine Brooks is one I need to read to complete my Geraldine Brooks reading experience.

The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion is another one to add to my grief and loss reading pile. Even though (or maybe because) I work in this area I really enjoy reading books talking about people's lived experiences of grief.

The Student Chronicles - Alice Garner is a cute little book telling the author's tales of her past student days in an Australian University.

Thanks for the Memories - Cecelia Ahern is perhaps a little more lighthearted option than some of the above titles. I really enjoy "escaping" in these sorts of books sometimes.

So, off to work on the pile!

Holiday Reading

My boy and I have just come back from a wonderful week away. We travelled to gorgeous Kiama on the NSW South Coast and had a very relaxing time walking, talking, eating, drinking and (of course) reading.

I managed to get through a few books in our time away, This Charming Man - Marian Keyes, Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier and Daphne - Justine Picardie were the main ones.

I am a huge Marian Keyes fan and I was really looking forward to reading This Charming Man (I had bought it as soon as it was released but had hidden it at home so that I couldn't delve into it before my holiday!). I must say though, I was a little disappointed with this novel. The story is told from the perspective of 4 different women - Lola, stylist to the rich and obnoxious but currently taking a break from her career, Grace, journo with a heart for the real life stories, Marnie, Grace's sister and wife and mother and Alicia, fiance of the "charming man" in question.

I really enjoy this narrative style that Marian has used for a few of her books - you get the chance to pick up the individual voices of the characters and see the story from different points of view. The only problem was that I didn't really connect with any of these characters to the point that I have in past Keyes novels. This leaves the story. While I certainly support discussion and exploration of the main issue the author brings to light in this novel (domestic violence) I'm left feeling a little empty regarding the outcome of the story. The novel is certainly a lot heavier and more emotionally draining than most Marian Keyes other books - even though she has written about "heavy" issues before - alcholism and drug addiction, death etc... I just got the feeling that in order to do the issue justice in "This Charming Man" Marian might have left some of her humour and character development behind. I feel a little tough in my review - domestic violence is certainly an issue that we should be discussing and addressing in the community - I'm just wondering if a Marian Keyes book is the best way of doing this?? Having said this - I'm still a huge fan and will no doubt be on board when her next book comes along.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier was a book I wanted to read before I read Justine Picardie's Daphne. I remember studying Rebecca in an English Literature class during my first year of university quite a few years ago now but I honestly can't remember now if I had to actually read the book or just watch Hitchcock's film - or both! I was engrossed by the novel and the journey of the second Mrs de Winter - even though she made me want to scream with frustration at times! I had to keep reminding myself of the time in which the novel was set and the behaviours and appearances that would have been appropriate for a young woman of that time. I think the character of the landscape and the house interested me more than the actual humans - this is very unusual for me - I'm definitely more of a character than setting reader normally. Having now done some further reading into du Maurier I realise how important this landscape was to her life and how it was a driving force and inspiration for her writing - I certainly picked up on this as her reader and I am very interested in now reading more of her work.

Daphne by Justine Picardie was another beautiful looking book that I was saving for my holiday. When I first saw the book I was enchanted by it's cover (would anyone think less of me for my confession that this is often why I buy books??). But it was the description of the book that really made me buy it:

It is 1957. The author Daphne du Maurier, beautiful, famous, despairing as her marriage falls apart, finds herself haunted by Rebecca, the heroine of her most famous novel, written twenty years earlier. Resolving to write herself out of her misery, Daphne becomes passionately interested in Branwell Bronte, the reprobate brother of the Bronte sisters, and begins a correspondence with Alex Symington, an enigmatic Bronte scholar and bibliophile, as she researches a biography. But behind Symington's respectable scholarly surface is a slippery character with much to hide, and Daphne becomes embroiled in a literary mystery where truth and fiction become indistinguishable. The last untold Bronte story, Daphne is a story of obsession and possession; of stolen manuscripts and forged signatures; of love lost, and love found.

The third main character in this novel, who the above description fails to mention, is a young woman starting her PhD thesis on du Maurier and the Brontes. I am a newly enrolled PhD student myself and while the content of this novel interested me greatly I think I also wanted to connect with another student struggling to juggle thoughts, ideas and theories into a researchable topic - even if that student was fictional!

This book was beautiful, haunting, lovely and engrossing - one of those books you can't put down but at the same time you don't want the end to come. It is written in alternate chapters or sections by each of the three main characters, Daphne, Symington and the nameless PhD student. The similarities to the constructs of "Rebecca" are obviously present - but the author is not attempting to hide or disguise these in any way - it is clear that Rebecca - both character and book - is a fourth character in Daphne. Each of the characters are compelling and true - you feel connected to their lives and their choices. In the acknowledgements at the end of the book Justine Picardie talks about becoming "utterly possessed by the story" involving the Bronte manuscripts - I can see why! It is a wonderful mystery that is gorgeously told by Picardie. It has inspired me to read further in the du Maurier and Bronte world.

Finding Style

I had a new book purchase arrive today (always an exciting event). This book is a little different, a non-fiction "self help" sort of book called Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design I first read about this book and the concept a few months ago in a magazine and it caught my interest. The idea being that through a series of self exploration and questioning you can find two words that help define your life, who you are and where you are heading.

I often use exercises similar to this with my clients in counselling - not necessarily around issues of style of course but definitely in relation to life direction, purpose and goals. I'm interested in any concept that explores this area of personal development and the idea of "knowing yourself" and setting a course for your life - I love that control!!

The book looks beautiful and I think I will add it to the "going on holiday" pile for Thursday.

Inspired...

I have been inspired by Danielle at "A Work in Progress" to pick up a copy of "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier to read before I delve into "Daphne" by Justine Picardie. I can't remember ever having actually read the book before - although I did watch and study the movie for a first year university english course I took and remember being mesmerised by the story through that medium.

Another book I have just picked up is "The Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement" By Virginia Lloyd.

An outline of the book from the author's website:

Single at 32, married at 33, and widowed at 34.
A young professional woman finally meets the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, only to discover that he is terminally ill. After her beloved John's death from cancer, Virginia was faced with addressing the chronic rising damp problem in the house they had shared and, over her first year as a young widow, her house had to dry from the inside out – and so did Virginia. The Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement is a wry and touching love story that plays with the parallels between our homes and ourselves.

I think the premise of this book, although clearly very sad, also sounds very hopeful...

Just Finished and Reading...

I have just finished "Change of Heart" the latest release from Jodi Picoult. I was a huge fan of Jodi's early books, "The Pact" was a particular fave and one of the first Jodi books I read and I remember absolutely devouring it before passing it on to friends. I must say that apart from "Nineteen Minutes" I have not been enjoying Jodi's latest books. I'm starting to feel like I am reading a formula rather than a story with characters that ring true. I felt like I should have been able to relate to some of the characters in "Change of Heart" - especially Maggie the unlucky in love, overweight lawyer, but I just felt like these characters were stereotypes or cardboard cutouts - and they ALL had redeeming qualities somewhere along the line that were meant (I think) to make us feel like everything balanced out nicely in the end. The ending itself was very disappointing - what do others think? Am I being too harsh/expecting too much?

A book I am just starting to get into at the moment is "La Vie Parisienne: Looking for Love and the Perfect Lingerie" By Janelle McCulloch I am a complete sucker for these sorts of books (as was the girl who sold it to me in my independent, local bookshop). So far beautiful writing and descriptions of Paris (a place I have only dreamt about but never visited - yet...) and an honest story about looking for the life that belongs to her - as opposed to the life she has been told she should aspire too (one of my favourite themes in life and literature!).