30 day book challenge – day 18 – A book you wish you could live in.

I don’t want my answer to every one of these questions to be Harry Potter, so I’m going to set aside the fact that I am still waiting for some big hairy guy to come and tell me that I am a witch….

… so my next choice would be Henry VIII’s Tudor Court from Philippa Gregory’s Tudor series (and specifically, The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance).

I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense.  After all, Henry VIII’s court was a dangerous place after he separated from Katherine of Aragon.  This was a King who was prepared to tear up everything that his country had ever known to marry the object of his obsession, Anne Boleyn.  It was a game changer – nothing was sacred any more and no one was safe.

But Philippa Gregory just brings this time period to life so vividly.  All of the darkness, the sexiness, the games, the politics, the high stakes and the manoeuvring for favour are brought out in spades.  I can picture myself living in that court, gossiping in dark corners about the King, living with the danger and uncertainty.  There is something exciting about that.

And from a historical point of view, Henry VIII’s actions in separating from the Catholic Church have resonated through the ages.  To this day, a monarch is still forbidden from marrying a Roman Catholic (although I believe that there are proposals to change this).  To live at that time would be to witness history in the making.

Henry VIII and his six wives are well known tales, taught to every child in school learning British history.  However, Philippa Gregory really brought these stories to life in a way that a history lesson in school never could.  I really enjoy her focus on the female characters, and her portrayal of Katherine of Aragon standing at the head of the English army to quell the rebellious Scots is a one of my favourite moments in these books.  Just to clarify, that is because she is a woman leading an army, not because she is quelling the Scots!

Perhaps they are not 100% historically accurate all the time, but she has done her research well and uses what she has learnt to create something that feels tangible and real, and makes me feel as if I am part of it when I read her books.  I have never attempted historical fiction myself although I would love to give it a go – I think it would be a real challenge to strike the right balance between letting your research provide detail and context to the story, without allowing it to dominate the story so that it reads like a textbook.  Philippa Gregory strikes this balance absolutely perfectly – for me she is really the Queen of historical fiction.

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• Review: The Constant Princess (The Tudor Court #1) by Philippa Gregory (eatreadexplore.wordpress.com)
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30 day book challenge – day 17 – Author I wish people would read more.

It’s no secret that I love Daphne Du Maurier.  I went through every book on my shelves looking for an obscure author that I could write about in this post, but the only name that kept coming into my mind was Daphne Du Maurier.

I’m not claiming that I have discovered her or that I am the first or only person to read any of her books.  She is famous.  Some of her books are famous.  Many of her books have been adapted for film or TV or the stage.  People know about Daphne Du Maurier.

But I wish that more people of my generation read her books.  I don’t know anyone in their 20s or younger who has read anything by Daphne Du Maurier.  This may have changed given that Rebecca was recently included as one of the free books in the World Book Night give away.

Isn’t she a romantic novelist? 

No.  No, these are not romantic books.  Yes, some of them may contain romance and some may deal with personal relationships.  However, her writing is dark and there are no sugar coated, clichéd happy endings.  All of the stories have much more depth and complexity than a simple boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love etc.  Her subject matter involves smuggling, murder, drugs, fighting, incest and betrayals.  She can stray into the fantastical sometimes (e.g. The Birds) but she manages to pull this off so well.

Won’t her books be old fashioned?

A good story well written can never be old fashioned.

Not everything that she has written is a brilliant work of literature, and I don’t expect that everyone who reads her will love her as much as I do.  But I do think that everyone should give her a go.  Writing and atmosphere creation as good as Du Maurier’s will always be relevant, and suitable for all audiences, I would say from late teens onwards.

For anyone reading Daphne Du Maurier for the first time, Rebecca is not necessarily the place to start.  For an easier entrance into Du Maurier, I would recommend Frenchman’s Creek.  This is the most romantic of her books, but it is also a real swashbuckling adventure in one carefree summer, set in her beloved Cornwall.

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• From the Bookshelf, Post No. 2 (emtiernan.wordpress.com)
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30 day book challenge – day 16 – Most thought-provoking book.

I don’t tend to read a lot of non-fiction work, but for my answer to this question, I am turning to one of the few works on non-fiction on my bookshelves.

Blood River by Tim Butcher.

This book recounts the experiences of Daily Telegraph journalist, Tim Butcher, as he attempts to recreate Stanley’s journey along the length of the Congo river.  It is a dangerous journey – the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country that has been absolutely ravaged by civil war.  At the time of his journey, there was no basic infrastructure so the fact of travelling presented a challenge in itself.  It was also still lawless, with groups of soldiers and armed gangs patrolling around.

Along the way, he meets a host of interesting characters who really bring the journey to life.  But the book is not just about his physical journey.  It provides a really well-written and interesting history of the Congo from the days of Belgian colonialism to independence to civil war.  The common view seems to be that the life has not improved in the Congo since the days of Belgian colonialism, and the high point where Hollywood arrived – The African Queen starring Katherine Hepburn was filmed in the Congo.

Coming from a country which had an empire spanning a quarter of the globe upon which the sun never set, this book really makes you think about the harm that imperialism has caused.  The European superpowers sat down together in the 19th century and figured out how best to carve up Africa for their own interests, with no regard to the tensions between the different tribes and ethnic groups, arbitrarily creating borders and sewing the seeds of conflict which have endured through the generations.

This book is extremely well written, it is entertaining and informative.  In parts it is upsetting and harrowing.  Two parts of this book really stayed with me after reading it.  The first was his journey into the jungle, where he discovered that there were no animals.  He asked his guide about this and he was told that there were no animals because they had been trapped and killed for food by starving locals during the conflict.  Anything that hadn’t been eaten had fled.

The second was his meeting with some aid workers.  They told him how the village in which they were working had been raided by a renegade band of soldiers.  They hid in their office, but they were connected to a neighbouring office via radios.  Over the radio, they heard an 18 year old aid worker being raped by the soldiers but they could not do anything to help her without being killed.

War, rape, starvation, murder.  That is what Tim Butcher found, but it was not the whole story.  He also met very warm locals who were interested in and assisted him with his journey.  He also saw the seeds of a country trying to grow and change and the first democratic elections since 1960 were held in the country shortly after his visit.  It is not the end of the story though and the Congo is a country which is still struggling to this day.

I would recommend anyone who is interested in the Congo, anyone who has never heard of the Congo and everyone else in between to read this excellent book.  It is a real eye opener and you will be thinking about it long after the final page.

30 day book challenge – day 15 – A character who you can relate to the most.

Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games trilogy.

It is probably stretching the truth to say I can relate to her – I’m not sure we actually have anything in common.  It I was in the Hunger Games, I’m pretty sure I would be killed straight away – I know very little about survival, I’m pretty unfit and in general, I’m a bit of a wimp.  My tactic would be to run away and hide for as long as possible.

But Katniss is the subject of this post because I just want to be her.

To start with, I have a real respect for anyone who understands nature and can live off the land.  I think it is a shame that we have mainly lost these traditional skills and knowledge.  The fact that Katniss knows how to hunt and survive off the land makes me like her.  The fact that she can use a bow and arrow makes me love her.

She is a survivor through and through.  She doesn’t let herself go to pieces no matter how much she might want to.  She uses her head.  She is smart.  She knows how to take care of herself, not just by surviving by hunting, but by learning how to adapt and play the system.

Katniss didn’t ask for any of what happens to her.  However, as the series progresses and Katniss comes to stand for something, she rises to the challenge and accepts the role that has been placed on her shoulders.  This is a heavy burden and she bears the scars but she doesn’t shy away.

But she is not all tough.  Katniss has real connections with the other characters in the book (even the ridiculous but well meaning Effie) and cares for them.  She fights for those she loves as much as anything else.

I absolutely loved The Hunger Games books.  I read them shortly after Twilight and it was just so lovely to read about such a strong female character following Bella Swan.  Katniss is everything that Bella is not.  She is exactly the kind of female character that I like to read about and a perfect role model for any young females (and me!) reading these books.

30 day book challenge – day 14 – Book that made you cry

The first time I ever cried at a book was one of The Saddle Club stories when I was a child.  I can’t even remember the name of it, but The Saddle Club had gone on vacation to a ranch in Texas.  Towards the end, Tomahawk, the dog of the ranch owner, was bitten by a rattlesnake and died.

I absolutely sobbed my little 7 year old heart out.  To this day, it is one of the most traumatising memories of my childhood, and is one of the most memorable scenes from any book I have ever read (probably due to the heartbreak rather than the quality of the writing).  To this day, I despise and fear rattlesnakes above all other types of snake.

Many more books have made me cry since then, both at happy moments and sad moments.  The one that stands out for me for this post is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.

This is one of my all time favourite books to the point where looking over and seeing it on my bookshelf makes me smile because I own something so special.  It is the story of Liesel, a young girl living with her foster family in Nazi Germany.   This is an extract from the blurb on the back cover:-

“Some important information.

This novel is narrated by death.

It’s a small story, about a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery”

I’m not going to say anything else about the plot because I don’t want to give anything away for anyone that has not discovered this book yet.

What I will say is that this book is unusual because it starts with the end.  It is beautifully written but when I started I out I thought the beginning would turn out to be a mistake.  I thought that the author had shown his hand too soon and this would prevent his readers from emotionally engaging with the story.  Boy was I wrong.  Marcus Zusak is such a skilful writer that he weaves the story around you and draws you in.  It was actually a pretty ingenious idea to start with the end, because this really ramps up the tension towards the end of the book when you know exactly what is going to happen but by this point you have fallen in love with the characters and you dread what you know is coming.  This book made me sob like I had lost Tomahawk all over again.

30 day book challenge – day 13 – A book that disappointed you

I had to think about this for a while, because I do genuinely enjoy most of what I read, and I do try to start out with an open mind.  Even if I don’t love everything I read, I usually find something that I’ve enjoyed about it.  But then I realised that being disappointed in a book doesn’t have to mean the same thing as not enjoying it – it comes down to expectations and I can think of a couple of books that failed to live up to what I had expected of them.

The first is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

I had never heard of this book, but a good friend of mine who doesn’t tend to read a lot knew the basics of the story, and suggested we read the book together in the run up to the film.  I will never turn down an opportunity to convert a non-reader to reading, and my expectations were high – I had never read anything by Oscar Wilde but I knew his writing was famous, and I had been promised by my friend that this was a really good story.

For anyone who is not familiar with it, Dorian Gray is a wealthy, naive young man, who descends into a downward spiral of sin and debauchery when he realises that his portrait bears all the stains of his soul.  He basically never grows old and can do whatever he likes without carrying any outward signs of it.

It is a good idea for a story, a really good idea.    But it is a really hard read.  It is a very short book, but I struggled to finish it.  It is difficult to put into words, but the voice was all over the place and sometimes the narrative seemed to lose all coherence and became very rambling.  Somewhere in this confusion, the drama was lost.  After I had finished reading it, I found out that the book had prompted a huge backlash of criticism from conservative Victorian society and there were calls for Wilde to be prosecuted for obscenity.  The outcome of this was that Oscar Wilde extensively reworked the book, expanding it, adding a new sub plot and toning down some of it’s homoerotic scenes.  This is apparent in the confusion and lack of cohesiveness.  A brilliant concept, but a big disappointment for me.

The other one that stood out is The Shack by William P. Young.

I like to read anything a bit quirky, offbeat and original; if it is a bit controversial as well then even better.  The Shack seemed to tick all of these boxes.  It is the story a father grieving for his murdered child meeting the holy trinity in person at the shack at which his daughter was murdered.  It raised some interesting theological questions, and I take my hat off to the author for being brave enough to portray God as a woman.

However, overall the book didn’t live up to my expectations.  For some reason, prior to reading it I had thought that it was based on a true story, and it certainly reads that way in the beginning.  I think starting out on the wrong foot like that was maybe what caused my problem with the book.

It was quite wordy and revolved around the main character’s conversations with God.  I suppose it is hard to say how someone should react if they all of a sudden meet God in person, but I felt that the reaction of the main character (who at that point I thought was a real man describing what he believed was a real experience) just didn’t feel realistic.  It would be an earth-changingly mind blowing moment, but he took it all in his stride with barely a ruffle or a question.  Maybe that it what it means to have faith.

Even once I realised that I was reading fiction, the ending did not work for me at all.  I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who has not read it, but I really think that the main character would have found himself with quite a lot of explaining to do in the circumstances.

Even though I did find these two books disappointing, I did still find parts of them to enjoy and that it why they are both still on my bookshelves and not in the charity shop.  The beginning of Dorian Gray before it descends into incohesiveness is very good.  I like some of the ideas and questions that The Shack raises, and the fact that it does prompt discussion and debate.  I would not rule out reading either of these books in the future, and I may even enjoy them more coming at them with lower expectations.

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30 day book challenge – day 12 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t.

There was a time in my life when I barely read at all.  I packed up and moved 350 miles from home to go to University, leaving all of my books behind.  I wanted to travel as lightly as possible so my books didn’t make the journey with me.  During term time, I would work hard and play hard.  Then when I went home, I would read anything I could put my hands on during the holidays before leaving it all behind again.

There was one book that changed that and brought reading back into my life all year round.  It was an impulse buy at the airport when I was waiting for a flight back to Newcastle.  That book was Atonement by Ian McEwan.

I really enjoyed the book although Briony annoyed me intensely (though if she hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been a story).  I then later read On Chesil Beach, also by Ian McEwan, which is an uncomfortably intimate but exquisite portrait of the first night of marriage for a young couple.  Ian McEwan was then firmly on my radar.

I had been aware of Enduring Love before I had seen the film because I knew I wanted to read more Ian McEwan.  Then I saw the film, which I thought was excellent.  It was really dark and psychological.  The thing that got to me was that the main character, Joe, was just so ordinary.  His reaction to the sequence of events and the way everything seemed to spiral out of control I could imagine happening to anyone.  I really thought Daniel Craig and Rhys Ifans did an excellent job,  Watching this film put Enduring Love to the top of my to read list.

That was nearly 5 years ago.  Not only have I not yet read Enduring Love, I haven’t read any other Ian McEwan books, and I don’t have any on my bookshelves waiting to be read.  I’ve reminded myself all over again just why I want to read it though, and so I’m going to make the effort to buy/borrow it after writing this post though and put it back at the top of the reading pile.

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30 day book challenge – day 11 – Favourite classic book.

If you read my last post, you will know that I tried my best to avoid the classics for a long time.  I think it was down to reading and hating Pride and Prejudice in my teens.  After reading and loving Tess of the D’Urbevilles, I realised I had a lot of catching up to do and so I have been making an effort to catch up on everything I had so stubbornly and stupidly missed.

My favourite classics author so far is Edith Wharton.  I have read two of her most famous works – The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth.  I honestly can’t separate which out of the two I prefer, so I’m going to write about them both.

The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer in 1870s New York.  He makes a good, conventional match with May Welland and his life is set to follow exactly the lines that he had expected.  However, he then meets and falls in love with Countess Ellen Olenska, who is scandalously separated from her husband.  Newland finds himself torn between his duty and the expectations of society, and his own passionate love for Countess Olenska.

The House of Mirth is the story of Lily Bart.  Her father died in mysterious circumstances following his financial ruin, leaving Lily dependant on wealthy relatives,  Lily is the belle of 1890s New York society and has a real taste for pleasure – she wants to wear the latest fashions, attend all the best parties, gamble at bridge.  She knows that in order to survive, she needs to make a good marriage, however she cannot bring herself to give up her single life and steps away from the brink numerous times.  Lily is a object of desire for men, including married men, and she ultimately finds herself ruined by scandal.

I really enjoyed both of these books for their devastating portrayals of New York society, for their well painted and believable central characters who maintain sympathy throughout, and for their unexpected and in a way, heartbreaking endings.  When writing about society from that era, it would be very easy to be superficial, but all of her characters have real depth and complexity, and Edith Wharton does a tremendous job of portraying this to her readers.  I won’t spoil the end of either book for anyone who has not read them, but they are both really thought provoking and stayed with me for a little while after I had finished.  As much as I enjoyed the whole of  both of these excellent books, it is their endings that elevated them from being more than just good classics into becoming my favourites.

 

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30 day book challenge – day 10 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving.

The obvious answer to this question is the Harry Potter series, however I don’t want to write about the same books in answer to every question.

So I put a little bit more thought into this, and took myself back to a time when I decided I should read more classics.  I didn’t feel too enthusiastic about this, but I thought I had a big gap in my reading by avoiding anything pre-20th century and so I borrowed Tess of the D’Urbervilles from the library to plug this gap.

I didn’t expect much of it when I sat down to read it.  I thought I would hate it and that I would have to force myself through a long, rambling story in which the plot gets lost in too much wordiness and archaic language.

I won’t lie – Thomas Hardy does ramble sometimes, it can get a bit wordy when he is describing landscapes and some of the language is archaic as you would expect.

But I loved it.

The story follows Tess, who is one of the simplest, kindest and genuinely warm characters I have ever come across in fiction.  But she has a terribly hard path in life.  After discovering that they are descended from the aristocratic family, the D’Urbervilles, Tess is forced to go and claim kin with distant wealthy relations following an accident in which the family’s horse (and so potentially their livelihood) is killed.  From this point onwards, Tess’ life goes on a downward spiral as she suffers the unwanted attentions of her cousin Alex and is forced to leave the D’Urbervilles.  It looks as if Tess’ luck has changed when she meets and falls in love with Angel Clare, but her brief happiness is cruelly snatched away when Angel discovers the truth about her past.

I absolutely adored Tess and I took her straight into my heart.  Hardy has created her so beautifully, that she becomes so real.  When she hurts, I hurt and when she is happy, I am happy for her.  She is wronged in so many ways that make me seeth with anger for her, and rail against the injustice when she seems to accept it as her just deserts.

This is a beautiful and tragic story of the life of a wonderful creation of fiction.  I loved this book not only for itself, but for changing my views towards reading the classics.  I picked an absolute corker to get me started and I haven’t looked back.  As a result of Tess of the D’Urbevilles I have let many more wonderful pre-20th century books into my life and onto my bookshelves.

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30 day book challenge – day 9 – Most overrated book.

This might be a controversial answer, but the most overrated book I have ever read is Pride and Prejudice.

I know, I know.  It is a beloved book, a treasure of English literature, how can I think it is overrated?

Firstly, I don’t like Elizabeth Bennett.  I find her to be narrow minded, interfering and judgemental with an annoyingly superior attitude.  I thought she was very unfair, listening to gossip and rumour from Mr Whickham to inform her opinion of Mr Darcy.  I think she would have felt very harshly treated if Mr Darcy had done that to her, and rightly so.  I’m going to add shallow to the list as well – she might think that she wants to marry for love and cares nothing for fortune, but perhaps it is no coincidence that her feelings towards Mr Darcy change only once she has visited and fallen for Pemberley.

But I’m not sticking up for Mr Darcy at all – I also don’t like him.  He is cold, aloof, stand-offish and a snob.  He may be a man with a fortune, and maybe a good man at the end  of the day.  However, I really don’t see the appeal personally – it would insufferable to be around somebody that miserabe all of the time.

The book is obviously a product of its time, and it is a fact of the time that making a good marriage was important to a woman.  Jane Austen is one of the few examples of a woman in that time who was able to have a successful career and live independently of any man.  I’m trying very hard not to judge it on it’s subject matter, however I did find the plot which is basically all about the tangled affairs and husband hunting of the Bennett girls, a little bit thin.

I read this book when I was a youngish teenager, which perhaps is a prime time to fall for Mr Darcy, but it did nothing for me.  In fact, it put me off the classics for a long time.  However, I have since embraced reading classics, and I have read and enjoyed some of Austen’s other work, in particular Emma.  At the back of my mind, I have been thinking it might be time to give Pride and Prejudice another go, as I think a little (or a lot of) time and distance could well change my original opinion, but I can’t see myself ever really loving this book as much as its millions of devoted fans.