Category Archives: The Book on The Nightstand

Technology is the magic of the future. The wand and magic spells have been replaced by screens that can pop up virtually anywhere and simulations that can bring your dream man right into your living room. There is no need for cash, as money flies right out of your account when you’re wearing your “system”. If you think social media has brought about the loss of privacy you have no idea how accurate that is and how hard is to have a moment when nobody is watching. No need to learn spells and magic formulas like Harry Potter. No, it’s way easier than that. And less complicated.

I had my doubts about getting this book. The title is quite catchy, and the cover art even more so – the book does get a bonus point for that, but science fiction is rarely a genre I pick up on my own. Still, after reading Carl’s review, I decided to give it a try. We should get out of our comfort zone sometimes, right?

The story begins in 2103 in a dating center where Mira, a woman who’s been dead for eighty years, is revived for a few minutes to speak to a potential husband. The future has brought about the marvel of revival, where people with a generous insurance or attractive enough can be brought back from the dead. The Bridesicle program is a special section of this “experiment” and wealthy men can pay for the revival and reconstruction (that sounds awful but accurate, given the extensive physical damage some of the women had sustained) of a woman, in exchange for a lifetime marriage contract. A very disturbing version of Sleeping Beauty, except that Prince Charming is neither young nor charming but obscenely rich.
The story revolves around Mira and another woman, Winter, who also ends up in the Bridesicle program. Rob, the man who killed her by accident, is consumed by guilt and decides to visit her as often as possible, which is not a very easy thing to do as only a few minutes worth of conversation with a revived woman costs several thousand dollars. In order to get the money he has to give up his dream, move back in with his father and work a menial job – a big change from his former lifestyle.

I liked the small number of characters that inhabited the story. Each one of them feels real enough to evoke sympathy, even the attention-seeking Lorelei, who lives entirely for her social media ratings. The small cast of characters include Veronika, a shy dating coach with a not-so-secret crush, Lycan, a brilliant scientist but socially awkward, Nathan, the handsome guy who falls in love with the wrong person, and Rob, the young man whose one reckless act makes him reconsider his lifestyle. There is also Sunali, a former bridesicle who fights to change the rules of the facility that runs the Bridesicle program.

It was a weird experience reading this book. Not only because it depicts a very technologically driven world but also because it’s described in such a way as to make it very plausible. Technology had made so many wonderful things possible – traveling for example, and extending one’s life, but it has also altered the real world with the aid of virtual simulations. Imagine walking in a dilapidated old neighborhood and with just a touch being able to change the landscape, the smell, even the sounds – all this made me think of a pretty bandage over an infected wound.
The language is appropriately futuristic, from acronyms to the name given to people who have chosen to live without technology – raw-lifers they are called – but the story offers only a glimpse into what that means. It would have been interesting to see the world through their perspective.
In spite of the technological background, people’s emotions manage to shine through and the events force the protagonists of the story to reevaluate their lives. Some of them even manage to find a measure of happiness, while others are content to live a life that has more in common with a soap opera. It’s disturbing how close this feels to a near future. It made me think of the choices we have and the paths we decide to take in life. Would people accept to be frozen in case of an accident or illness, so they can be revived in the future by someone who would have entire control over their lives? Is it worth living a hundred and twenty five years in an artificial world? Is it worth living a life without privacy for a fleeting moment of fame?

I based my rating on the emotional rather than literary merit of the story. While the idea the book is based on is surprising and intriguing (not sure how original, but it certainly feels special) it made me feel sad, faintly repelled by it all, and not even the less bleak and quite abrupt ending managed to dispel that.

3/5 stars

*Read in February-March 2014

Having just finished Isabel Allende’s book Daughter of Fortune, I was looking for something else to read and I thought about The Kite Runner which had been waiting on my nightstand for months, borrowed from a friend. Then I saw one of the comments on the cover and it was by Allende, and I thought, there must be a connection between these books. That is how I began reading Khaled Hosseini’s first novel.
Three years ago I had read A Thousand Splendid Suns, his second novel, and loved it, but stayed away from The Kite Runner because I felt there was too much hype surrounding the book, and for some reason I refused to be drawn into it. Perhaps it was not the time. Until now.

The story of Amir and Hassan, the sultans of Kabul, as they like to call themselves with words carved on a tree, is a bitter-sweet tale of love, devotion and betrayal.

For you, a thousand times over, Hassan says to Amir as they run around and play together as children, the second, a son born into a privileged family, the first his poor servant. Even though they share childhood games and play like brothers, the thin line dividing them is always there, in the words Amir uses to taunt his playmate who never takes them to heart, always trying to please and protect. His devotion is a testament to his generous and sweet nature, while Amir’s behavior seems at times like that of a spoiled rich child who takes full advantage of it. I couldn’t help but compare the two boys, admiring one and blaming the other, as the story evolved and events enfolded.

Afghanistan, a country that seemed like paradise on earth to the two boys, begins its descent into dark times as the Taliban come to power and destroys the sheltered, idyllic life of the protagonists. Young Amir and Baba, his father, flee to America, while Hassan stays behind in a country torn apart by violence. But Amir is not able to forget what happened to Hassan, and most of all, the part he had to play by not taking any action to save a friend who had stood up for him so many times. And then, many years later, when Amir is a grown man and married, and his father is dead, he receives a call from the country he left behind and he realizes the past had finally caught up with him. There’s a way to be good again, says the voice on the telephone, his father’s old friend, keeper of more than one terrible secret. And just like that, Amir decides to go back to Afghanistan and face whatever terrible punishment fate has decided to deal him.

Ka is a wheel, says Stephen King in his Dark Tower series, and in this book it makes perfect sense. The deeds of the past must be atoned for, and retribution is possible, even after so many years, even after thinking that time and distance had erased them into oblivion. Amir has a chance to set things right, and in doing so, to make up for, at least in a small measure, the sins of the past.

There are several interesting threads well worth analyzing: Amir’s relationship with his father – always strained, Hassan’s devotion – never faltering, the symbolism of the kites, and Afghan culture, to name a few. The characters are well drawn and the story moves at an alert pace with sudden revelations and emotional scenes. I loved Hassan for his bravery and self-sacrificing attitude, and quite a few times my eyes misted over a scene in the book. The writing is beautiful without being embellished, and the story kept me up at night, making me resentful of the fact that I needed sleep. Who needs sleep when there are books like this one, stories that can make two hours pass like two minutes and whose end makes one feel empty and alone? Still, the novel is not perfect – sometimes the events seemed to fit too well and that wheel turns a bit too often, but these are flaws I was content to overlook in favour of the story as a whole. And while it seemed like things tie up too neatly at the end, there is still that emotional current throughout the book that never really falters and which made reading it such a great and satisfying experience for me.

And that connection I was talking about at the beginning of my review is just a minor thing that I noticed while reading Allende’s book. She names one of her characters Babalu – he’s a big, scary-looking man dressed in wolf skins acting as a bodyguard to a group of traveling prostitutes. The same name is used in Hosseini’s book as a sort of boogeyman, a taunting name given to Hassan by a violent, evil wealthy young boy who never misses a chance to pick on him. Given that Allende’s book was published four years prior to The Kite Runner, I wonder what this small detail means and if the two authors knew each other personally. I like it when I discover small details connecting two books, like threads running from a story into another. Needles to say, I look forward to reading And the Mountains Echoed, Hosseini’s latest novel. I wonder if it’s going to be as emotional as this one.

My rating: 5/5 stars

*Read in February 2014

Isabel Allende belongs to a special corner in my imagination where I put all the writers I would like to read one day: Joseph Bolano, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Checkov, Alice Walker, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, just to mention a few. It’s a long list, and every once in a while a name pops up, a lottery type of moment if you will, and one of the books written by someone from that long list comes up front and I pick it up and start reading and in a moment I forget where I am and minutes later I come back to the real world and say, yes, I’ve been looking for this book.

The main character is introduced right away. There is no overly florid description but a true, powerful first sentence that piqued my curiosity and managed to keep me guessing until the very last page. There’s adventure, danger, brutality, tragedy and loss, and for each of them there’s also love, courage, determination and a powerful desire to follow one’s dreams. Eliza gets to know all of them, first as the adopted daughter of a well to do family living in Chile. Little is known about her origins. Certainly nobody seems to know who her parents are or where she is from, but she is received with great joy by Miss Rose Sommers, who later convinces her brother, Jeremy Sommers, to accept the girl into the family. The other member of the Sommers clan, John, is a sea captain whose voyages into distant lands keep him away from home for the greatest part of the year. His visits are short and joyful, and his absences long.

Eliza grows up in a somewhat chaotic atmosphere, between Miss Rose’s strict rules concerning what a lady should do – play the piano, sit ramrod straight for hours or walking with a book on her head to cultivate a good posture, and being neglected for days, time she uses to sit with the cook, Mama Fresia, and learn all she can about the culinary arts. And then she falls in love. For the sixteen year-old who’s led such a sheltered life, the moment turns everything upside down. Passion, love letters, and a desire to belong to Joaquin Andieta, her first love, will have her run away from her family, hide her identity, endure a devastating experience aboard a ship and make a lifelong friend who saves her life.
Obsessed with finding her runaway lover who left her behind to pursue his dream of getting rich, Eliza goes to the city that was later to become San Francisco. Determined to find Joaquin, she risks her life in a land filled with people crazed by the gold rush, where death and hardship go together, and there, hiding under the disguise of a boy, she continues her search. We get to see how California came to be, the gold rush, the greed and drama, even Levi’s famous jeans get a brief nod, along with a more ample description of the origins of the peep show. Lust, in the form of traveling brothels and erotic books, is described in such a manner as to give the reader a good picture of what America was like in the mid 1800s and how gold changed everything. Scores of immigrants in search of fortune mingle and live together in the same city yet apart in well defined neighborhoods. Chinese customs and way of life are mentioned, mostly through the eyes of Tao Chi’en, the young zhong yi, trained in the ancient art of traditional Chinese medicine. His story is also a brutal one and after meeting Eliza, their paths never truly separate.

Eliza and Tao Chi’en are the most developed characters in the book, but the writer gives enough details about the Sommers so that the reader gets a good enough idea about them, Miss Rose in particular, whose scandalous past is described in a more lengthy story. There is a secret the Sommers are hiding and it comes out unexpectedly but a little too late.
I liked Eliza for her determination and courage. She is a true heroine, not necessarily beautiful (thank God for that or it would have been too cliché) but with enough willpower to feel like a girl ready to go to the ends of the world to find some answers, no matter what they might be.
I enjoyed this book for the sense of adventure and the historical references. The story keeps up an engaging pace and the reader is kept guessing until the very last sentence in the book. Although one might get a feel for where the story is going, the question remains: will Eliza find her first love, and if she does what will she do? Only that last line will provide the answer, and it’s not a straightforward one but perhaps more satisfying because of that. In the meantime, it was a really good adventure. And there’s also a sequel, Portrait in Sepia, published one year after the first book, in 2000. I would like to read that one, too.

My rating: 5/5 stars

*Read in February 2014

If you’re planning a trip to Thailand, this book might be just the thing to read before landing in The Land of Smiles. With over a hundred essays divided into nine chapters, this book offers a wealth of information about traveling in this country, from places you can eat jungle food (crocodile, anyone?) and the proper way to snack on bugs (those cricket legs might cause a slight problem), to famous temples where you can get a tattoo or have your fortune read, superstitions, island getaways and lesser known spa treatments, just to name a few topics. More than seventy writers have shared their stories and experiences and made reading this book a truly enjoyable experience. The photos are very beautiful as well, and the glossy pages enhance the reading pleasure.

It’s not only the beautiful side that the writers have explored in their essays, but also valuable information, like ways to avoid tourist scams and places you can help by volunteering or donating objects or cash. Thanks to the practical information, be it a website, address or telephone number, the reader can find out where to donate a used bicycle and old computer parts, or where they can offer their time to help children and animals in need, through various foundation programs.

Having lived in Thailand for more than a decade, it was refreshing to see the country through new perspectives and adventures. Some of the places I was happy to see mentioned in these essays were bookstores with English books like Kinokuniya, a true paradise for booklovers, Asia Books, and also Dasa Book Café, a secondhand bookstore I sometimes visit, and last but not least Neilson Hays Library, whose white building and cool, wood decorated interior reminds me of home.
I had to smile when reading about a writer’s experience with Songkhran (Thai New Year), the days-long-water-throwing festival which the locals celebrate every mid-April. During this time, Thailand is a water drenched place where no one is dry for long, unless they travel everywhere in a car. For some reason I was never able to enjoy this much loved Thai celebration, and don’t see the fun in being drenched with freezing water the moment I step out of the house, without having any say in the matter. Nevertheless, I’m happy to see that other people enjoy it.

What I liked the most about the book was that each writer brought their own individuality into the stories and shared their tips with the reader. Some of these places I’ve never been to despite the fact that they are not that far from where I live – the small island of Koh Kret is one of them, and others, like Wat Suan Mokkh in the Surat Thani province, where one can go on a ten-day silent meditation retreat. The retreat is not free, despite of what is stated in the book – a look at their website revealed a non-refundable registration fee. It is, however, one of the things I would like to do in the near future and I’m glad I found out about this place. No speaking, vegetarian food, yoga and meditation, and least desirable of all, sleeping on a concrete bed with only a straw mat and a wooden pillow for comfort. I think it would be an unforgettable experience, in more ways than one.
I’m glad I had the chance to read this book and I intend to use it as a basic guide when planning future trips. It was fun to read how others have spent their holidays in this beautiful country. Being here for so long, I’m afraid I lost some of that ability to fully enjoy and appreciate the uniqueness of Thai culture.

Many thanks to Joe Shakarchi, one of the contributing writers, who provided me with a copy in return for an honest review.

My rating: 4/5 stars
*Read in February 2014

She cups her tea in both hands, fingers wrapping around the cup and meeting on the other side.

I’ve read this in a review on Vishy’s blog and I felt instantly moved. I can’t quite explain why, but perhaps it was the feeling of intimacy and loneliness that the image conveyed, and ever since then I’ve wanted to read this book. A few months later, and here I am, the book read, my thoughts ready.

Glaciers is a novel about a young woman, Isabel, who spends her days working in a library and her free time collecting vintage postcards and photographs, and shopping for vintage dresses. Told in short chapters, her story alternates between past and present, a movement which creates a constant shift in the narrative, quite like a wave. One moment we see what the city of Portland looks like in the morning when she makes her way to work, and the next we are taken back in time to her childhood spent in Alaska – a trip on a ferry and seeing an iceberg break from a glacier. Between the swirl of leaves in the crisp air and the coldness of the dying glaciers, the author reveals details about Isabel’s world – her longing for faraway places – Amsterdam is one of them – the stories she imagines about people whose names she finds on the back of postcards, her love for books – she works in the preservation and conservation department at the library, where she spends her days taking care of damaged books, the wounded.

The solitude of printed words, the quiet companionship of her cat, and the short conversations she has with Spoke, her co-worker whom she secretly has a crush on, make for a nice routine. Spoke has been to Afghanistan as a soldier, is well-liked at work, and he is quiet, just like Isabel. The attraction between them is palpable but repressed, their conversations apparently mundane. It may have gone on like this for a while, but when Spoke has to leave, Isabel suddenly realizes time is running short. Soon, he will be a memory, a moment in time, just like the postcards she collects. Her fondness for things that belonged to other people and damaged books can be a reason why she is attracted to Spoke in the first place. They are both quiet, enjoy their routine, and are marked by a past they can’t seem to shake.

I started the book and read a few pages, then put it away for a few days until this past weekend. Then I picked it up again and read it in one sitting. At just under 180 pages, the book is nicely paced and the writing easy to read. Its melancholy tone and beautiful writing convey a sense of fragility that is both compelling and profoundly marked by sadness. It’s almost as if we know something dramatic is going to happen while at the same time we can’t hope but wish that Isabel finds the happiness she deserves. There is, however, a ray of light at the end of this tunnel of melancholy in the final pages, when the story comes full circle and brings about the hope of a new start. Tell us a story about longing, her friend Michael asks her at a party, and Isabel finds herself talking about her dreams and in doing so, breaks free of the past she has long been a captive of.

I loved this book for its ability to shift between sadness and hope, between a melancholy past and the possibility of a better future. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it suddenly hit me while reading about the child Isabel (whom her father calls Belly) going on a trip to a Salvation Army Thrift Store with her father.

“There are treasures everywhere”, her father says, and Belly is still too young to understand the meaning of the word “treasure”.

“Belly, he said,…, it’s a treasure if you love it. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, or whether anyone else wants it. If you love it, you will treasure it, does that make sense?”

Literary references, such as Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin brought back to mind John Irving’s In One Person, where this book is also mentioned, and I was wondering why it came up here as well, then I got the answer when the writer introduces Isabel’s best friend, Leo, who is gay, and has a penchant for writing his name on books he borrows from the library. Other literary references include Our Lady of the Flowers (1943) by French author Jean Genet, Apartment in Athens (1945) by American writer Glenway Wescott, and The Good Soldier (1915) by English novelist Ford Madox Ford.

In one chapter called “Architecture”, Isabel describes a visit to her aunt and uncle’s house. As I read the first few lines where the nine-year-old Isabel talks about the smell of a particular incense, nag champa, I had to smile, because I got a box of it a couple of weeks ago as a gift from someone who visited India, and now I could smell it and know exactly what the author was talking about. This is yet another little detail that helped me make a connection with the book.
Even though this is not a diary, it felt like one to me. Perhaps it’s the smallness of the book, the way the pages don’t align when it’s closed, and the intimate tone of the story. For some reason, while reading it I had a sudden urge to start drawing in it, the way one might draw in a diary, around the words. But I didn’t, because to write in books feels to me like some sort of abomination, an intrusion on someone else’s work.

Some of my favorite passages:

Like other great creatures before them, the glaciers were dying, and their death, so distant and unimaginable, was a spectacle not to be missed. The ferry slowed where a massive glacier met the ocean; a long, low cracking announced the rupture of ice from glacier; then came the slow lunge of the ice into the sea. This is calving – when part of a glacier breaks free and becomes an iceberg – a kind of birth. The calving sent waves, rocking the ferry. Hands gripped railings and feet separated on gridded steel. There were shouts of appreciation and fear, but nothing like grief, not even ordinary sadness.

*

It’s never the wedding dresses, you know. We keep those, too, but only because they’re so blooming expensive. No. I’ve seen enough old ladies’ closets to know what we really hold on to. Not the till-death-do-us-part dresses. It’s those first lovely dresses: the slow dance dresses, the good-night-kiss dresses. It’s those first pangs we hold on to.

My rating: 4/5 stars

*Read in January 2014

A fantastical adventure complete with magic, love, kittens and lots of delicious things to eat, The Night Circus seemed like a promising story. Not only is the setting a perfect playground for any possibilities, but the characters are mysterious and the magic is real, even if the action is a bit on the slow side.

Two old rival magicians make a pact. They will each train a student in the magic arts with the ultimate goal of pitting them against one another in a competition to the death. Apparently this was done before so each of them know exactly what they are doing. Or so they think. Prospero the Enchanter, or Hector Bowen by his real name, and Alexander, the mysterious man in the grey suit, each choose a student. Prospero chooses his daughter, Celia, whom he calls Miranda (a nod to Shakespeare), and Alexander picks an orphan boy whom he decides to train as a magician.
The setting is a magical circus designed specifically for this purpose, Le Cirque des Reves (The Circus of Dreams) complete with acrobats, tents in black and white, wonderful snacks and a clock that is nothing short of extraordinary. The circus comes and goes without warning, but its followers, called reveurs, seem to know exactly where it’s going. The two opponent magicians, Marco and Celia, trained from childhood and now all grown up, find themselves thrust into a challenge none of them want to complete, especially since love gets in the way and they can’t accept the fact that in order for one of them to win, the other has to die, and the circus is nothing more than the arena of their challenge.

I really liked the idea the book is based on – two rivals, a competition, complications, magic, but in spite of all that something felt a bit odd. The competing magicians are perfect, they have no flaws (beautiful, young, etc.), their impossible love (the Romeo and Juliet kind) too predictable and unreal (he was actually with somebody else for quite a while), and the ending too happily-ever-after.
There are no true villains, unless one considers Alexander a villain – he is cold, detached and uninterested in his apprentice beyond pushing him to read or occasionally taking him out to see magic plays or visit museums, or Prospero – for selfishly putting his ambitions first and teaching Celia how to heal herself by repeatedly slicing open her fingers. There are no consequences to their acts, and the two lovers do not fight back.

What I liked was the description of magic – the wishing tree with its candles symbolizing wishes, the ice garden, the ability of the magicians to change their looks and their clothes, and the description of delicious food which made me google “chocolate mice”. I enjoyed this book but felt it came short of its promise of an exciting adventure and a fight to the death. It’s entertaining, easy to read, and the writing is delicate like a sugar confection, but I wish there was more to it than that.

My rating: 3/5 (based on the Goodreads system).

*Read in January 2014

2013 was a good year for books. Not as great as the previous couple of years but still okay. Out of the thirty books I’ve read, these are the ones I enjoyed the most.

Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II by Arthur Conan Doyle
Although I’m not a great fan of detective stories, I love Conan Doyle’s most famous character and his trusted sidekick. The fact that the action is set during the Victorian period also contributed a lot to making me like this book. Hopefully I’ll get to read volume I this year. And everything else Sherlock Holmes.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
I have wanted to read this book for a long time and when I did it was amazing. Gothic horror novel, three impossible words to resist. It is very likely that I will read it again.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
As short stories go, this one is a treasure of a book. I particularly liked Other People because the end was perfection and unexpected. All I can say is that it starts with a demon and it’s not a happy story. Also the poem The Day the Saucers Came, which is not about saucers but something else entirely, left me in a melancholy state. There are also notes about how Gaiman got the idea for each story. I’ve always liked those.

Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
My first Joyce Carol Oates book, and it was a pleasure to read. Love gone wrong, suspicions, murder, all blend together in these tales that shine a light into the darkest corners of the human heart. I will definitely read more books by this author, perhaps The Accursed although it’s a huge book and I’m not particularly fond of huge books. Unless they’re written by Stephen King.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
This is a book that melted my heart. Gaiman’s story of a childhood revisited is nothing short of wonderful – there’s magic, a great friend, and a black kitten. I loved that kitten.

In One Person by John Irving
It took me a while to get used to Irving’s slow pace – this book taught me patience and given its subject, the journey of a man who tries to come to terms with his sexuality, it was an interesting read. I also liked A Widow for One Year, maybe a little bit better. I think A Prayer for Owen Meany should be next on my list.

The Observations by Jane Harris
A Victorian adventure imbued with humour, wit, and secrets, Bessy’s tale is nothing short of entertaining, while her distinctive voice gives the book a truly Victorian feel. One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year.

The Road Home by Rose Tremain
The story of Lev, an East European trying to find a better life in London grabbed me from the first page. It brought back memories, and it’s one of the things I loved this book for. A bitter-sweet tale about fighting for your dreams. Inspirational.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The best book I have read last year. The kind that breaks your heart but you love it anyway. The kind that makes you want to start re-reading again because you just can’t accept the fact that it’s over. It combines a heart breaking story with incredible story-telling and superb writing. And stories within stories. And the narrator is Death, how amazing is that?
Zusak’s tale of an orphan girl trying to survive during World War II is not just a story of survival but one of love, and an ode to books everywhere. If you liked Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 you’re going to love this. I stopped many times and just stared at the words and marked the pages which had the most beautiful paragraphs. And I put those beautiful words together. I call it “The Book Thief Poem”.

What amazing books did you read in 2013?

The Road Home – Rose Tremain

While I was reading the Acknowledgements page of The Observations I came upon a familiar name – Rose Tremain. It didn’t take long to see I had a book by this author, so I decided this was going to be my next read.

This is the story of Lev, a man from Eastern Europe who is on his way to London to find a better life and send money back home to his village. If one would only change the names, this would be the classic immigrant story. The promise of a better life and the reminder that his 5 year old daughter and elderly mother are dependent on him manage to shake Lev from the depression he’d fallen into after the death of his wife, Marina, and with hope in his heart and vodka bottles in his traveling bag, he sets out for London.

On the bus that takes him to London, Lev meets Lydia, a former English teacher who is on her way to the same city hoping to find work as a translator. Throughout the book, their paths will come together at intervals, as both of them struggle to find their place in a new city teeming with immigrants.

It is a roller-coaster of events, the good mixed with the bad, and it feels a lot like a test. Will Lev be able to drag himself from the past and the memory of his dead wife, to the fast changing present or is he doomed to a never-ending circle of fleeting happiness and hard disappointment? The slightly dark story runs over undercurrents of humor, as Lev’s friend from home is mentioned, and heart-wrenching moments from a past life are played in the mind of a man who feeds on dreams. And it is one of these dreams that will ultimately turn Lev’s life around and force him to face the present and take advantage of the changing times.
The best way to describe this book: heart-warming.

Here’s the first chapter, free, have a look.

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

I came upon this book after reading an online list of “the ten horrifying novels that will scare you to death” or something of that sort, and I thought okay, let’s see what the author of The Road and No Country for Old Men is up to.

The story loosely follows the adventures of “the kid”, a teenager who runs away from home and ends up in a group of outlaws traveling the American Wild West in the mid and late 1800’s. It is probably the most violent book I have read, not only because it depicts amazing acts of cruelty towards people and animals (to the point when I began to cringe every time a horse or a dog came up in the story), but also because the characters seem like a band of devils in disguise sent on earth to punish others and they take pleasure in doing it. Scalping, rape, murder, mutilation, and the list goes on. By the middle of the book I considered abandoning the story because just the thought of going on made me depressed. Ultimately I decided to stick with it for a few reasons: because the writing is strikingly beautiful, in spite of the long winding sentences and an almost stubborn absence of commas; there are no quotation marks to make the dialogue stand out and this lends another strange beauty to the book and doesn’t hinder its narrative in any way, and the “redeeming” little scenes that I paused at like a thirsty traveler at a well of water in the desert.

The best way to describe this book: highly disturbing, but if you want to see how violence and beautiful writing work together, give it a try.

Here’s one of those redeeming little scenes:

“The kid rose and looked about at this desolate scene and then he saw alone and upright in a small niche in the rocks and old woman kneeling in a faded rebozo with her eyes cast down. He made his way among the corpses and stood before her. She was very old and her face was gray and leathery and sand had collected in the folds of her clothing. She did not look up.
….
He spoke to her in a low voice. He told her that he was an American and that he was a long way from the country of his birth and that he had no family and that he had traveled much and seen many things and had been at war and endured hardships. He told her that he would convey her to a safe place, some party of her countrypeople who would welcome her and that she should join them for he could not leave her in this place or she would surely die.
He knelt on one knee, resting the rifle before him like a staff. Abuelita, he said, No puedes escucharme?
He reached into the little cove and touched her arm. She moved slightly, her whole body, light and rigid. She weighed nothing. She was just a dried shell and she had been dead in that place for years.”

Blackbirds – Chuck Wendig

One of the blogs I visit is Chuck Wendig’s terribleminds.com and on one of such visits I discovered that his book, Blackbirds, was free for download until the end of this month (you can follow the link to download it). I finished reading it today and can say that it has been an exciting adventure.

Miriam Black is in her twenties, a drifter, and she has a special gift: by simply touching another person (skin-on-skin) she can see when and how that person dies. The scene is played in her mind with vivid accuracy, and up until she meets Louis, a gentle-giant of a trucker, she thinks there is nothing she can do to change fate. The story goes back and forth in time, leaving behind little cliffhangers – glimpses into Miriam’s past, and is nothing short of a crazy ride in a roller-coaster, packed with tough-girl dialogue, plenty of profanity and lots of punches. Think Jack Reacher in female form with a foul mouth. They would actually make an interesting couple.

The best way to describe this book: fast, violent and entertaining.

Many thanks to Chuck for making this available for free online. It’s one of those very few times I managed to read a book on a screen without any glitches. It went by quite fast.

*Read in December, 2013

I bought The Observations at a library sale. The book also bears the stamp of a second hand bookstore that I haven’t been to in a very long time – perhaps a year – and it looks like a well read copy. It is also a first novel.
The name of the author did not jump up at me at first, but when I looked it up on goodreads.com, I saw that she had written another novel whose name was quite familiar, “Gillespie and I”, a novel I had seen at the bookstore, picked up but didn’t buy. Now I will have to.
What attracted me to The Observations was the cover – very Victorian, and as I am a great fan of the genre, I decided to buy the book and read it as soon as possible.

The story is told from the perspective of Bessy Buckley, a girl with a dubious past, who is on her way to finding a job and starting anew. The place is Scotland and the year 1863. She finds employment at Castle Haivers which is not a castle at all but a fancy name for an estate that could have used a bit more care and a few more servants. Her new masters, Arabella and James Reid, are an odd couple – she is very observant, talkative, and locks herself up in her room to write. He is tight with money, selfish, and a no-nonsense aristocrat. As the story evolves, however, other character traits emerge and manage to change the perspective on these two people.

Bessy settles in her new life and has a few mishaps at first. It becomes apparent to her mistress that she was never a housekeeper nor a farm hand, and as she decides to find out more about the new maid, so does Bessy tries to find out more about her mistress. There’s a lot of humor in the book, mostly coming from Bessy’s doings as she snoops around while at the same time taking a liking to her new employer and trying her best to please her. She goes so far as to put up with Arabella’s strange requests of sitting up and down repeatedly and to let herself having her measurements taken, such as having her head measured, as well as the distance between her facial features. And when her mistress is occupied elsewhere she manages to read the book Arabella keeps under lock and key.

There is mystery throughout the book, and it becomes apparent to Bessy, as she begins to know her mistress, that something is amiss in the Reid household. Burned pages of a journal belonging to a former maid, an old trunk that belonged to Nora – another one of the former maids of Castle Haivers, and the odd request that she write down her own thoughts for her mistress to read, lead Bessy to believe that there is a secret Arabella is trying to keep under wraps. This she is not able to do for a very long time, as Bessy begins to put facts together and in the end arrives at the horrible truth.

Bessy’s natural humor shines throughout the book. She is a kind-hearted girl but she also lies, steals her mistress’ key and concocts a most devious plan that will have a powerful effect on Arabella. In spite of this I couldn’t help but sympathize with her, especially as the story goes back and forth in time and the reader is given glimpses into the young girl’s life before she became a maid.
Bessy’s voice is very distinct and her use of the vernacular gives the book a unique language that is both engaging and many times quite funny. Her daily adventures on the farm include trying to milk a cow (and failing), cleaning a carpet with a piece of wet newspaper and learning how to use punctuation under the patient instructions of her mistress.

What I liked most about the book was its engaging pace that never faltered and the constant discovery of yet another little detail that made the mystery that more baffling. It also has all the elements that I love in a story: the isolated house, strange noises in the attic, a tragic past, a villain, and more than a bit of humor thrown in for balance. If you’re a fan of historical novels, you’re going to enjoy this fun ride through the Victorian era.

Some paragraphs I liked:

She leaned in and says quietly, ‘Look at the spaces between the words.’
It was a clue. Well, I looked hard at her ‘Dear Father’. There was a space between the two words right enough. Then I looked at my ‘got up’. There was a space there too. But the two spaces seemed much the same to me and one space plus another space is just a bigger space no matter how long you look at it.

*

Most of all she seemed to like the part about my mother and her good works which for dear sake was the bit I had invented! on account of I had forgot to remember what I was thinking about whilst I was working so I just made up the first thing that came into my head.
‘This part about your mother,’ says missus. ‘Write more like this.’
‘I’ll do that marm’, I says, thinking well for dear sake if she can’t tell the difference that’s easy enough, I’ll just make things up all the time.

*

I had a quick skelly about the place but could find nothing and was on the verge of heading back down when I seen somebody coming towards me up the stairs. Crumbs and Christopher it scared the behicky out me.

*

The master was sat in the wing armchair opposite my Arabella. He flicked his eyes at me as I came in then glanced away again almost immediately. For dear sake he was a daddy longleg so he was! So tall and lean he barely fit the length of him in the chair. You would have put him older than missus but no more than 45 and just a shade off handsome on account of his phiz being on the lengthy side and he was not exactly going bald but lets just say his forehead was high.

*Read in December 2013

It was with great excitement that I bought – and immediately started reading – Gaiman’s new novel. At the end I thought:

1. I really want a black fluffy kitten
2. and a friend like Lettie would be great, too
3. “that pond” is really a boring name for the expanse of water in my neighborhood
4. Adults can be scary sometimes
5. and children even more so
6. Imagination is the most powerful thing we own
7. and sometimes the most dangerous
8. Magic is not a waving of the wand and incantations
9. at least not anymore
10. Why is this book less than 200 pages long?
11. I really wanted more.

Childhood. Memories that stay buried deep within until the sight of a familiar house brings them back like an avalanche. A friend. Gone but not really gone, because what are memories but scenes of life we can play again and again in our heads and we never get tired of them. An old, kind woman, so old she claims to remember things that other people might find weird, to say the least. And a pond, which is not really a pond, but something else.

The protagonist of the story is only seven when he meets Lettie Hempstock who lives on Hempstock Farm. She is a few years older than him and she tells him things that don’t really make sense unless you’re young and innocent and you believe in everything, even if that everything means you’ll have to stretch your imagination quite a bit. She introduces him to a world of wonder and terror, of amazing food (made me hungry just reading about that) and real monsters, the kind that burrow into your skin and don’t come out.

But even with these weird things happening, I found myself nodding my head and saying it all makes sense. Yes, even when you read about cutting off events and sewing back the fabric of time, it still sounds perfectly normal. This is the magic I’m talking about, and in Gaiman’s book there’s plenty of that. The writing flows easily, at times so smooth and easy that it felt like reading a poem, each word carefully crafted and placed in its rightful little niche, creating a melody of words I was sorry to leave behind. And when I finished it I cried, not because the ending was sad, but because Gaiman’s book had managed to open a door in me and now I had to close it. And I felt sad and utterly alone again.

Some beautiful quotes:

“That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together…”

“Everything here is so weak, little girl. Everything breaks so easily. They want such simple things. I will take all I want from this world, like a child stuffing its fat little face with blackberries from a bush.”

“How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow. There can never be a time when you forget them, when you are not, in your heart, questing after something you cannot have, something you cannot even properly imagine, the lack of which will spoil your sleep and your day and your life, until you close your eyes for the final time, until your loved ones give you poison and sell you to anatomy, and even then you will die with a hole inside you, and you will wail and curse at a life ill-lived.”

Read in August, 2013