The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman

The Imperfectionists would have to be one of my favourite reads of 2010 so far - I don't think it is a perfect book by any stretch of the imagination (the title takes care of that!) but it was a perfect read for me.

The book centres on the life of an international newspaper located in Rome. The story of the newspaper is told in a series of chapters by different employees and readers of the paper with alternating shorter chapters covering the history and development of the paper which began as the idea of a wealthy American businessman wanting to keep hold of a connection with an old flame.

Each of the characters had a distinct voice and story to tell about their role in, and connection to, the paper. I thought each character could have easily had the whole book devoted to them and their point of view so while I loved how the book was structured I'm also left yearning to know more about the individual characters!

My father is a journalist and I have grown up in the world of newspaper production and the media and it is a world that holds a lot of interest for me so I especially loved the sections of the book that delved a little deeper into the production of the news. Having said this though, I don't think the author gets bogged down in detail - it is very much a character driven novel with the main character being the paper itself. I thought one of the main messages in the book was how print media is a dying breed - and how this impacts on the people working in this career but also on how we receive and pass on the news of the world.

A fantastic read - hope there is much more to come from this author.

An Education - Lynn Barber

I have wanted to see the movie version of An Education ever since I read about it and saw a preview - the glamorous life of a teenage London girl in the 1960's seeking to escape her working/middle class upbringing through an affair with a much older and more experienced man - sounds just like the dreams I had as a teenager growing up in rural Australia in the 1990's!

But before seeing the movie (which is now out on DVD in Australia) I did want to read the autobiography/memoir it is based on by English journalist, Lynn Barber.

My assumption is that the movie version focuses only on chapter two of the book where Barber re-tells the story of her affair/relationship/dalliance with a much older man when she is a 16 year old school girl in London. The book describes Barber's parents reactions to the relationship - surprisingly accepting - and her own doubts about the man who turns out to have one or two significant secrets. While I was initially disappointed to find that the book didn't focus on this period in Barber's life for longer - my reflective teenage self would have liked to hear more descriptions and tales from the weekend jaunts to Paris and Bruges - my disappointment was only short lived as I realised that this section of her life was only one interesting instance - many more followed in her life as an Oxford student and journalist.

I especially like the sections where Barber reflects on her work as a newspaper journalist where she discovered her passion for interviewing - a skill she clearly mastered if her several British Press Awards are anything to go by. My father is a journalist and I have always loved being a part of that world of newspaper production so this part of the book did bring back many fond memories for me.

This was an interesting and moving read for me - Barber is extremely open and honest in her writing and her reflections of her life - I really felt as though I was being let into her personal diaries - I only wished she had kept on writing.