Meeting The English, Kate Clanchy

This was a really good read, engaging and enjoyble. It follows Struan Robertson, 18 and just out of school as he moves from his hometown in Scotland to London to be a carer for a famous author, who has recently suffered from a stroke. Struan is responsible and old for his age, and takes very good care of Phillip whilst getting used to and finding his place within Phillip's dysfunctional and mostly selfish and uncaring family.

I read this a few weeks ago (been on holiday so no blogging!) whilst it was very hot, and the novel is based in the scorching summer of 1989 (also the summer I was born) so it was pretty apt. Its a relatively easy read but not mindless, it asks questions, is funny and just manages to shy away from cliche at the end! Certainly worth a look.  

Next was The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle - bought for my brother by his girlfriend, probably because of the same last name (quite rare and we're always local to West Yorkshire). It was brilliant and very original.

Benediction, Kent Haruf

Benediction is perfect. It is life, humanity, and lives and people and huge sorrows. I can't articulate how much I feel and love novels which aren't fast paced and don't really have a beginning, middle and end, and don't end. The book leaves, but the world it has let you into keeps going and is still there in some other place.

It is set in a small town in Colorado. Holt is surrounded by plains and the story reflects this, it is open and isolated simultaneously. Haruf's prose is pared down, long sentences but simple, with feeling and a particular sense of place even in the way he writes and the people he speaks for.

The core story is that of Dad Lewis and his family. Dad is dying, his wife and daughter are caring for him. There is a son who they don't hear from anymore. A girl just moved into the house next door to live with her grandmother as her mother has died and there are the Johnson women, a mother and daughter, and the story of the preacher and his family.

 

Benediction is a book you read and then think, yes that is how it seems to be, but overwhelmingly, it will be ok, and there will be something or someone, and maybe it is all just healing. You just can't convey some things in a sentence. But Benediction shows, for me, exactly what novels are for.

Thank you very much Picador for the proof.

Brighton Rock, Graham Greene

I'm not sure about this one, it is enjoyable, but not hugely. I think in part because none of the characters are particularly likeable, they aren't as straight forward as that. Greene seems to be moralising and testing opinions of different characters, you aren't supposed to like any of them, and they evolve and change throughout.

This from the back cover:
'Pinkie, a boy gangster in the pre-war Brighton underworld, is a catholic dedicated to evil and damnation. In a dark setting of double-crossing and razor slashes, his ambitions and hatreds are horribly fulfilled... until Ida determines to convict him of murder. But Pinkie, on the run from her pursuing fury, becomes even more dangerous...'

The above description gives a very glamorised version. The story is linear, and not as straightforward as you expect.  It continually leaves things behind and moves on. I like that nothing is explained fully, but it gives the novel a not-quite tied down feel. This, coupled with the characters and Greene's questioning of morality, contributed to my not engaging fully I think. 

I started it because I was going to Brighton for the weekend, it has a brilliant sense of place. The town is vivid, even as the characters are somewhat murky, the feel of the place and the sea-side-ness of it is conveyed.

Unusually I'm not sure what I'll read next (finished Brighton Rock in my lunch break today). My bookmark is currently in Benediction by Kent Haruf, but I'm not quite convinced it suits my mood.

Pygmalion, Bernard Shaw

I didn't realise until a couple of pages in that this is the play that 'My Fair Lady' is based on. It is pretty much the same as the film, except for a rather long afterword. This isn't too tedious though, Shaw uses it to explain why he didn't match up Eliza and Higgins. Higgins doesn't see Eliza as his equal and so can't give her what she wants; 'his relation to her is too godlike to be agreeable'. I get the impression Shaw would have been a really interesting person to have a conversation with.

Pygmalion is a very funny play, but I never really appreciated before how moral the story is. Classes and superficiality, men and women and how people are treated. Shaw lulls you in with a funny, slightly silly play and asks you lots of questions whilst showing you the answers. Its a lovely read, and worth taking the time over as its a different experience reading it over a few days than watching it in a couple of hours. 

I have just started Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (mostly because im going to Brighton at the weekend..) 

If You Find Me, Emily Murdoch

If You Find Me  is compelling and original. It was one of the last proofs I got before I stopped working at Waterstones. It is a teen novel, which would usually have me running a mile, but this one has something different.

It is the story of Carey (aged 14/15) and her little sister Janessa (6), who live in a camper van in the woods with their drug-addicted mother. They have lived there almost as long as Carey can remember and since before Janessa was born. Their mother often disappears for weeks at a time, it is during one of these disappearances, when they are running low on supplies, that we meet the sisters. 'Then strangers arrive and everything changes'

 

It is a brilliant, story of surviving, coping, and family. New ways of life being reconciled with old secrets. The characterisation is really subtle and well done. When you read it (because you are going to, aren't you?) you'll notice that Delaney is really well drawn, and not a cliche as she could have been!

Thank you very much Indigo books for the proof. 

I am reading Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw now. I didn't realise until I was a couple of pages in, but its the play 'My Fair Lady' is based on, so I have Audrey Hepburn walking around in my head.

My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell

This was an absolute pleasure! Funny, entertaining and completely bonkers. It had me stifling laughter in public places (unsuccessfully) and wanting to go bug hunting in a warm country.

The book is Durrell chatting and reminiscing about his life living in Corfu with his family when he was a boy. You meet his brilliantly eccentric family, and their friends (a mix of equally intriguing settlers and locals) and an amazing array of wildlife, magpies, terrapins, toads, scorpions, water snakes....
Durrell spends his time out watching (and often catching and keeping) the wildlife. He has an insatiable curiosity and a passion for any creature, no matter how repulsive to the rest of his family.

There is so much life in this book and reading it is like being on holiday. Gorgeous.

No-one to thank this time as its not a proof! Borrowed it off me dad...

The President's Hat, Antoine Laurain

If you read the last post you might remember I started 'Is That a Fish in Your Ear?' by David Bellos. It is a really engaging book and I'm about half way through. I have put that one aside for now though (new job, don't have any thinking/concentration power left over) for something a bit lighter.

The President's Hat was just what I wanted, warm, light hearted and thoughtful. It reads like a succession of short stories. The novel is set in France in the 1980's and follows President Francois Mitterrand's hat as it is picked up by a fellow diner at a restaurant. The hat is no ordinary hat, it is lost and picked up by a succession of people who all have their lives changed in some way. It is well written and the links and crossovers between the different 'owners' of the hat are beautifully crafted.

Thanks for the proof Gallic Books.

Im now reading My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell and so am spending my spare time with a boisterous family and living on the island of Corfu. Sunny!