Book Review : The Wildings - Part 1: The Wildings and Part 2: The Hundred Names of Darkness by Nilanjana Roy , narrated by Tania Rodrigues

The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy
4 of 5 stars

Utterly marvellous tale of a colony of cats in Old Delhi. For story lovers of all ages. Highly recommended.

Linguistic note - the squirrels are named Ao and Jao - Come and Go.
The birds are called sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni - the 7 notes (swara) in Hindustani classical music.



The Hundred Names of Darkness by Nilanjana Roy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

No sequel disappointment herein! The adventures of the Nizamuddin cats continues as they struggle through hard times.
Marvelous section telling of the love between the two eagles,Tooth and Claw.
The author's choice of names for all the animal characters is great, and the tone of voice captures their individual characters so well.
Both books are so very well narrated by Tania Rodrigues.

I can't recommend these enough!

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Book Review: Chess Story (alt title is The Royal Game) by Stefan Zweig

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

 
Not a writer that was known to me and I've forgotten how it got onto my TBR list.
The narrator is aboard a passenger ship heading to Buenos Aires when he realises a Chess Champion and child prodigy, Mirko Czentovic, is as well. He organises amateur games with the aim of drawing the champion out of his detachment, and with the aid of a fee paid by a chess loving traveling businessman, he succeeds in doing so. As the passenger lose game after game , another man, Dr B, lends them some advice. This changes their game. This man's back story explains his incarceration by the Gestapo in WW2 and why he now no longer plays himself and why now he is persuaded to take on the champion.
You do not have to understand chess in great detail to enjoy this novel as it is the nature of the game and the psychological aspects of gameplay that are critical as Dr B's madness boils up until he has to withdraw from the game.


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Audio Book Review: The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a first novel and as such was quite impressive. Historical setting, tinges of steampunk - clockmakers, spies, incarceration in a Sultans palace, a son's search for his father, Dickens like characters - Mrs Morley was excellent and very well characterized and read on the audio by actress Clare Corbett (https://voicecall-online.co.uk/female...) , Tom Spurrell, clockmakers assistant extraordinaire, with the male characters by Bert Seymour (https://www.voicebanklondon.co.uk/art...) . I thought the story well crafted. An enjoyable read. Will be keeping an eye open for his next novel.

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Book Review: Greek Lessons By Han Kang tarnslated by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won

Greek Lessons by Han Kang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not as accessible as her The Vegetarian, but a wonderful story of a going blind man and a non speaking woman and certainly worth a read. The audio really helps with two voices, I suspect a text only read might prove harder to follow. The author is an amazingly innovative writer.

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Audio Book Review: The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer, translated by Howard Curtis, narrated by Greg Lockett, Stephanie Dufrense, Todd Kramer.

The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer by Joël Dicker
Translated by Howard Curtis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm on a roll. This is the second book I have read by this author. I now realise I'm reading them in the reverse order to which he wrote them, but not that the books are in any way connected. The Enigma of Room 622 and The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer are both thoroughly engaging thrillers.

This one is set in the USA, in the Hamptons and is a detective driven crime novel. Once again Dicker has the reader unwrapping the onion, layer by layer as she encounters all his twists and revelations in this compelling read. Once again I couldn't put it down. Once again Dicker plays with timelines.

Here we have the sleepy resort town of Orfea in 1994 and in 2014. In 2014 amateur actors are putting on the lead play in the town's literary festival. In 1994 during its opening festival the town mayor, wife, his son, and a jogger are gunned down during the first play. Dicker twists with the play on parallels, dipping back and forth between the two time periods. His back stories to his character are well fleshed out creating people who would come alive on any screen dramatisation. The audio version I listened to likewise had a suit of narrators - Greg Lockett, Stephanie Dufrense, Todd Kramer.

Book Review: The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker, Translated by The Enigma of Room 622 narrated by Chris Harper

The Enigma of Room 622 by Joël Dicker
Translated by Robert Bononno
Narrated by Chris Harper 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just the tonic! I needed a riveting, engaging book. This is a murder mystery written within the framing story of a writer writing a novel about solving an unsolved murder mystery whilst coping with having been left by his girlfriend. The murder is solved by unwrapping the case as if a writer was about to write a book about it, as each layer is unwrapped the clues are there to help the reader, but of course the plot seems to twist and turn. 

I will not say anything about the plot twists as that would absolutely spoil the book. Suffice to say the way the book is written swings back and back quite freely on different timelines within the story and I now some folks don't like that but it didn't cause any issue for me keeping up with when we were. I read this almost 600 pg book in 4 sittings, and would have done it in 3 if I'd been more organized about other things. 

I'd never come across this author before I read this review in World Literature Today (WLT). Its very pleasingly narration meant I enjoyed the book so much I've ordered two of his others books from my local library The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair and The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer

Book Review: Ghost Music by An Yu, narrated by Vera Chok

Ghost Music by An Yu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really had no idea what to expect when I started this book as I knew nothing about it or its author, and only had a passing recommendation from someone I only recently met. But it was unputdownable.

It is a first person narrative by a young married childless woman piano teacher, Song Yan, living in Beijing. Her mother in law comes to live with them. She had trained as a concert pianist but had chosen married life. But that is not going well and she realises she doesn't really know her husband at all when she discovers first that he had a sister. Other revelations follow. The strains of her marriage and the strains of living with one's mother in law take their toll. She receives a series of mysterious and unexpected deliveries of Yunaan mushrooms, her husband and mother in law's province. Although addressed to someone else, these cannot be returned as there is no return address. Her mother in law and her set about cooking the mushrooms that continue to arrive each week. Then she receives a letter from Bai Yu, her father's favourite concert pianist who walked away from his career and disappeared years ago. That letter ignites her and she goes to its address, one of the old courtyard hutongs in the back alleys of old Beijing.

These are the events around which this beautifully written and told story is crafted. How that is done is nothing short of extraordinary. With all the hallucinogenic effect of mushrooms they percolate into her dreams, she sees then in cupboards, growing from floorboards, in her walls and there is news that her husband's home town is covered in an orange dust. The effect is magical, making this anything but a domestic drama novel. But this is NOT magical realism. For me it is far more reminiscent of the best ghost stories ( The Turn of the Screw, The Others https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/, The Orphanage https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464141) but with shades of Nostalgia https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086022 as if they had been blended by Tarkovsky in his own special way he had with colour, music and movement.

Throughout the book music plays a central role - her relations with it, with the piano, with the children she teaches, and at perhaps the most intimate of ways the untouching shadow-playing with Bai Yu. I'm no musician but I am sure someone will write about the choice of the pieces that are in this book. Debussey's Reverie is the main one and I did look it up - "Reverie is not full of excitement and explosions of colour...but..is calm, peaceful and priorities atmosphere and reaching a dream like state. Often used for mindfulness and meditation" quote from https://classicalexburns.com/2022/08/... . That choice can be no accident. It totally fits. 

This book HAS to be made into a movie and scored appropriately. But making a movie of this will take a deft hand, as so much is in what is not said, in the gaps between the notes, those moments which are 'more resonant than the mere absence of sound' . And it is here that this novel indicates to me a great writing talent. It handles these equivalent to off camera moments well, it handles silences well, by using the ghostly hallucinations to explore the understanding, coming to terms with and resolution of the ordinary everyday strains and constraints of life and marriage. 

Audio version is beautifully narrated by Vera Chok who has also narrated An Yu's only other novel Braised Pork

I really urge you to read this book.

Book Review: Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark , narrated by Nadia May

Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My in person book group mentioned that they had never read any Muriel Spark, not even The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie! So we, of course, had to rectify this. As a fellow Scot I recall she was on my secondary school reading list over 50 years ago (TPMJB and The Ballad of Peckham Rye) and the movie version with the marvelous Maggie Smith came out around then as well. I suppose the success of the movie may have been the reason why many people had not read the book. Over the years I have at least read The Abbess of Crewe, The Girls of Slender Means, The Driver's Seat but none of her later ones . I also recall watching a documentary in praise of her by Ian Rankin, sadly I've not found this available in full online. But there is a BBC Interview with her available of Youtube ; another BBC celebration of her by Kirsty Wark and the National Library of Scotland has her Archives .

Loitering with intent was a fast and very enjoyable read. A retrospective first person narrative of a writer, Fleur Talbot recalls the time she spent of her first novel and her job with the mysterious Autobiographical Association and its founder and leader Sir Quentin Oliver in the period 1949-50. This is a self help group therapy club for upper class misfits led by a power maniac. When does live and literature become one? Fleur notices that her novel seems to be foretelling what is happening in real life. Then the only typescript of her novel is stolen.

The novel is high melodrama. It is also a farce worthy of Brian Rix, Alistair Sim and Alec Guinness. I loved the character of aging Lady Edwina, Sir Quentin's 'mummy', whose 'fluvative percipitations' disrupts everything, everywhere. If you read it will sound so outdated nowadays, but go with the flow and I do not think you will be disappointed. The writing will sweep you along. Not surprisingly it was shortlisted in for the Booker in 1981, along with Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers (one of my 5* for both movie and reads) the year Salman Rushdie won with Midnight's Children. The Audio verison is narrated by Nadia May. A thoroughly enjoyable read

Book Review: The Cockroach By Ian McEwan, narrated by Bill Nighy

The Cockroach by Ian McEwan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



When I started reading this novella from Ian McEwan I was reminded of the classic The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, but very quickly the notion of a homage was dispelled and we are into the realm of political satire. 

****SPOLIER ALERT****Jim Sams, UK PM has been transformed into a cockroach yet, but he is still PM, in modern day Britain but not quite as we know it, although everything sounds familiar. Reversalism rules, reverse-flow economics is the norm and the traditional money markets preferred by the 'Clockwisers' are no longer in power, now people have to shop to afford to buy their jobs. The previous PM in order to placate the Reversalist wing of the Tory Party had called a Referendum on reversing the money flow. The old and the poor swayed the vote and faced with "Turn the Money Around" upswell he 'resigned immediately and was never heard of again' .

James Sams a clockwiser had emerged as a compromise candidate now had to guide a Reversalist economy in a Clockwise world. ' we will deliver Reversalism for the purpose of uniting and re-energising our great country....by 2050... the UK will be the greatest and most prosperous economy in Europe....we will move swiftly to accelerate and extend our trade deals beyond St Kitts and Nevis.... '
Any Brit will hear resounding in her ears echoes of the misjudged Cameron EU Referendum .

James wrestles with his first Tweets, tries to get the US President to adopt Reversalism, there's a fatal fishing dispute with the French, a leak and a Foreign Secretary called Benedict that needs dealing with. A false story is planted by a female colleague with the media to discredit and shame the Foreign Secretary who then has to resign and goes off to lead the rebels.

With the ultimate passing of the Reversalism Bill, James in his speech says "we have come to know the preconditions for such human ruin. War and global warming certainly and, in peacetime, immoveable hierarchies, concentrations of wealth, deep superstition, rumour, division, distrust of science, of intellect, of strangers and of social cooperation."

One can't but feel McEwan enjoyed writing this book, and from a reader's perspective it is short, speedy read which occasional bring sly smiles to one's face, but is it a great piece of creative writing?, I felt McEwan struggled to maintain his PM as cockroach character and Sams reverted to the PM as human in this reader's mind for large parts of this book. Maybe it is a book that inevitably had to be written. Could it have been written with the same of better effect without the cockroach transformation? That I feel that could have been a better book. Sadly, not one of McEwan's better books - for me an interesting idea that didn't quite work.

I listened to the audio version admirably read by Bill Nighy.

AudioBook Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, narrated by Kathleen Wilhoite

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before Christmas I attended a short online course at City Lit, London on Epistolary novels. One of the extracts the tutor used was from this novel. I'd never heard of it, never heard of the author, never watched all the TV shows she has written (eg Arrested Development). A comic novel about a mad cap family based in Seattle, father works at Microsoft, mum a washed up architect frustrated by the parochrial housewives, mothers and assorted figures trying to get her to be part of the community at Galler Street School where her only child, gifted daughter Bea goes to school. Sitting somewhere on the spectrum , Bea has written up the various communiques to and from her mother, antagonistic neighbour Audrey in a fight over brambles and a run over foot, her remote based PA Manjula in India, another Galler Street parent Soo-lin who becomes her husband's admin, the schoolteacher. These open the book. As I read the first few pages I was pleasantly surprised by the flow, indeed the speed of the text, it flew off the page. It is most definitely not a book I would normally have picked up but I borrowed it from our library and wow! One of the best reads in a long time. Not a great book, but a superb read. The audible narration by Kathleen Wilhoite is 5*, she nailed it, her narration captures the character of Bea. Check out her interview where she talk about what it is like to record an audiobook. I was amazed this was her first one, she had met Maria Semple at writing class!
If you want a great read to become immersed in, to laugh, smile and giggle at and lift the spirits during a winter's day as grey as Seattle, then pick up this book now!

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Book Review / Audiobook review: Outlaws by Javier Cercas, translated by Anne McLean, Narrated by Luis Moreno

Outlaws by Javier Cercas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Anne McLean the translator has translated many famous authors writing in Spanish including two I have read and enjoyed Isabel Allende and Juan Gabriel Vásquez, so following on my usual 'follow the translator' route I came to Javier Cercas. This is the first book of his I have read. I chose this one to start with because it had an audiobook version. It was narrated by Luis Moreno (http://www.luismorenotheactor.com), whom I thought did a great job. I liked the tone of his voice and would love for him to record more of Cercas' works and other Spanish author's translated into English but whose books have yet to make it to audio.

As for the book, the story is presented as a series of interviews by an unnamed author writing a book about El Zarco, a teenage criminal from the era just after the death of Franco. These first person narratives come from a number of people each of whom offer different perspectives on life of Zarco - Ignacio Canas, Zarco's lawyer and ex-gang member, Police Inspector Cuenca and Eduardo Requena, Superintendent of the Prison. Their interviews are often rambling and repetitive, but in my opinion this structure works well, their almost monologues are very realistic of how people's memory work, a story unraveling bit by bit, each with contractions and unknowns from this series of unreliable narrators. They flow extremely well and with their slow reveal of the back story really keep the reader's attention throughout. I found it hard to put the book down at the end of the day.

Do we ever get to the whole truth, or just to various versions of the truth, a series of truths, or even only a partial picture of part truths? I was left to wonder what book the author would actually construct from these interviews. Just as Zarco's life and exploits had become something of a legend over time, a myth which for Cañas finds echoes in the story of Lain Shan Po that he (and I) recalls seeing on TV as The Water Margin (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227975 ), the reader begins to consider whether it is ever possible to know it all, to understand how and why it all happened. As Cañas says "even if we find it comfortable to find an explanation for what we do, the truth is that most if what we do doesn't have a single explanation, supposing it even has any" Ca

But what is presented is a very entertaining and well written thriller. Lurking within and behind it, there's a somewhat murky picture of the social deprivation in post Franco times - the impact of poverty, bad housing, drug addiction, AIDS. It's never 'in your face' but it is ever present from the contrast in backgrounds and subsequent lives of Cañas and Zarco, between their opportunities or lack of afforded by between being a poor immigrant to the city a charnegos or being a quinquis a delinquent, small time criminal, life on two sides of the tracks, here a river, again echoing the Chinese story. The sadness of Cañas's continual involvement with Zarco and its impact on his life may not be that he initially became involved because he fancied Tere, a girl gang member with Zarco on Cañas' first meeting, but as Cuenca says the best thing that happened in my life happened to me due to a misunderstanding, because I liked a horrible book (in his case Galdos' book about the siege of Gerona which made him seek a posting in the city) and because I thought a villain was a hero

An excellent read, and highly recommended


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AudioBook Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Bernadette Dunne

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Previously I have only ever read Shirley Jackson's famous short story The Lottery and I promised myself that one day I would read her novels.

The first thing that struck me about Mary Kathleen was her age. 18! Never! She's a child. A child with OCD at the very least. The second thing that struck me was just how well Shirley Jackson showed that character. I loved the touch of humour, its honest craziness was wonderful. 5* on character portrayal. Made my think of the Adams Family. The characters just leap of the page and some of the scenes are incredibly visual eg when Uncle Julian is showing Mrs Wright round the dinning room.

"“Madam.” Uncle Julian contrived a bow from his wheel chair, and Mrs. Wright hurried to reach the door and open it for him. “Directly across the hall,” Uncle Julian said, and she followed. “I admire a decently curious woman, madam; I could see at once that you were devoured with a passion to view the scene of the tragedy; it happened in this very room, and we still have our dinner in here every night.”
"“Alas,” Uncle Julian said. “Then, on either side of my brother, his daughter Constance and my wife Dorothy, who had done me the honor of casting in her lot with mine, although I do not think that she anticipated anything so severe as arsenic on her blackberries. Another child, my niece Mary Katherine, was not at table.” “She was in her room,” Mrs. Wright said. “A great child of twelve, sent to bed without her supper. But she need not concern us.”

The choreography of it is superb. As it is in the scene of the girls escape from the burning of house. I am intending to watch the movie version https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5952138/ and I hope it translate well, although I know for me the actor playing Uncle Julian is nowhere near frail or old enough to match my impression of him from the book.

I agree Mary Katherine is not your traditional unreliable narrator because act actually what she sees is she does so with incredible clarity - she sees through Charles immediately. I listened to the audio which was well read by Bernadette Dunne , and I noticed that at the point where she starts the first the narrator slowed down as if to emphasize Mary Katherine's thought process in action. I'm not sure whether if I had just been reading the text I would or would not have put that sway to it. I'd be interested to hear how those of you just reading the text saw that episode - did she do it deliberately or just clumsily?

I am left unsure of why both women are such damaged characters. Was Constance an agoraphobic only after the trial? What caused Mary Katherine to be so? If we believe Mary Katherine did the poisoning knowingly then what caused her to be so disturbed at an age before the deaths? I've listened to the link Dan supplied and still feel she is less a 'witch' than a stumbling child using the burying of trinkets as somewhat of an extension of the "Step on a crack, break your back / step on a line, break your spine" chants we all heard in childhood as a means of establishing order in what she perceives as a chaotic world, establishing her safety zone just as Constance establishes her by never leaving the house.

And why does Uncle Julian keep asking whether it happened or not? It here I suppose is the poisonings nothing anything else. His moments of coherence and moments of incoherence/forgetfulness, staged and not, make him unreliable or more reliable? If anyone is living in an alternate reality it is Constance with her food fetishes, cooking frenzies, and hot flushes for Charles.

The ending needs consideration as well. Here the alienated sisters have returned into their new decrepit half destroyed safe zone, shored up by vines and hidden behind cardboard and junk, seeing the real world only through a peephole. What minimal contact they had had with the outside world dwindles away until they become the ghosts of other's childhoods. It is in many ways a very sad ending - and oh that last phrase "Oh, Constance,” I said, “we are so happy.” The mad women have sequestered themselves away; and they will be happy there until they die; and when they die, no one will ever know.


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Book Review: Songbirds by Christy Lefteri

Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First some facts
(1) In Cyprus, an estimated 605,000 migratory birds were caught in mist nets and killed in the autumn of 2021 to lace the diner plates in fancy restaurants and homes - see https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rsp...

 
(2) The UK issues over 20,000 Overseas Domestic Worker Visas per year to people coming from outside the EU https://gal-dem.com/overseas-domestic... , https://www.thevoiceofdomesticworkers... . 

(3) It is very common for migrant women to work in domestic servant jobs in middle class Cypriot homes. In 2019 the body of one was found and with it a multiple murder investigation into the disappearance of 5 woman and 2 children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsero... their hopes for a better life brutally ended.

Lefteri, herself from a Cypriot family, weaves a rich brocade of a story around the fictional disappearance of Nisha, a maid from Sri Lanka, a widow with a young daughter back home whom she has not seen for 10 years. For those 10 years she has served Petra, herself a widow and brough up her daughter. Nishi and Yiannis, the tenant in Petra's upper flat, are lovers. Yiannis confesses to her that following the bank crisis he lost his job and has ended up catching birds. They both live on the edge of complex, far reaching and in Yiannis's case illegal, operations. Their love affair remains hidden as Nishi fears losing her job and being unable to repay her 'arrangement' fee.
The story alternates chapters from Petra and from Yiannis as Nishi's story is released to the reader. As I started to read this I was struck by how involved I felt in the story even although the final outcome of Nishi's death is all to apparent from the start, but my involvement all the more surprising because I disliked both the bird hunts and the attitude of Petra to her maid. We know Yiannis will finally break from his bird hunter role, that he will go and see Nisha's daughter in Sri Lanka, and that Petra will finally see the wealth of love that Nisha brought into her and her daughter's life. We also see the horrid nationalistic racist misogynistic attitude of the police who will not investigate Nisha's disappearance and who did not investigate the initial reports of the disappearances of the women murdered in Cyprus. Interspersed with these two character’s chapters is the story of the hunter, the Red Lake and a dead hare. It is beautifully crafted and well worth a read. The excellent audio version is narrated by Indira Varma, George Georgiou, Art Malik and Lolita Chakrabarti. Totally compelling read, Highly recommended




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Short Story Review: Half Light by Tayari Jones

Half Light by Tayari Jones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Short story about twins Amelia and Camelia Hall who have identical faces but look nothing like each other in all other respects. They are on a mission to retrieve a portrait of their mother painted by Jacques Toussaint. While still in ‘till death do us part’ mode dermatologist Amelia had given the portrait, originally given to her by her mother, to her musician husband in return for one of his songs written on paper. He ended up with it after their divorce where Camelia had acted as Amelia’s attorney. This retrieval is of course illegal and we all know that the best plans go wrong in this case when they meet the much younger, cake baker, Melanie in the ex’s kitchen
This is the second short story I have read by Tayari Jones, the trouble is I’m just not normally interested in the domesticity of family lives that she writes about but I have to say this one held me so much more that my previous read, Dispossession. Once again this was a free Audible Original and I’m glad I listened to this one.

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Book Review: In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo, trans by John Cullen

In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't really know what to make of this book. In some ways it wasn't that great, sometimes a bit boring, but at other times what the author tried to do worked well.

Véronique Tadjo is a writer from Côte d'Ivoire of poetry, novels and children's books. One of her children's books is listed in the 100 Best African Writing of the 20th century https://www.african-writing.com/seven...

Here she has written the story of the 2014 - 2016 Ebola epidemic that scoured West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. It has been translated from French to English by John Cullen, who also translated Yasmina Khadra's Swallows of Kabul which I read some years ago. I listen to this on the Audible veriosn narrated by Je Nie Fleming and I have to say I did not enjoy this narration, I found her American intonation very off putting.

As for the book itself, it is a strange compilation of essentially first person narratives from various people who experienced the Ebola outbreak including a carrier of the disease, nurse, a person who buries the dead, a survivor, a nurse, the evacuated infected volunteer, the scientist, the adopter of child survivors, the poet who lost his financée. There are also first person narrative chapters by the Baobab tree, the Virus itself and the Bat. For those of us who followed this event on the TV News as it happened from the safety of our homes we will recognise all the stories.

For me the work was a bit too sprawling, and it wasn't until the final chapters that it rose up and she really found her voice, particularly the chapter by the Virus and by the much maligned Bat. She caught the right mood there, decrying Man, our interaction with Nature, raising questions about global aid, how to face similar impending crises, how to rebuild.

I think it was an ambitious structure to attempt and clearly based on research and interviews. It is not a non fiction book and doesn't read like one although other reviewers have mentioned it read as such to them. It is a very creative piece which doesn't on the whole come off as well as it might have, which is a shame considering the parts that do within its short 160 pages .

Review: Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Keiko Furukura is a not so young, unmarried, somewhere on the spectrum, virginal, convenience store woman that is she works in a small neighbourhood store Hiiromchi Station Smile Mart. Being in Japan her routine is full of morning practice when staff recite en mass greetings, “Irasshaimasé!" and other soundbites, being Keiko she reckons that watching and mimicking the store manager's video of the model store worker taught her "how to accomplish a normal facial expresiion and manner of speech", so for 35 years she has donned the same unniform and transformed into "the homogenous being known as a convenience store worker" and become a "normal cog in society". Except that she is not, she remains in the same job, remains unmarried, remains withut ever having a relationship until a new member of staff arrives, Shiraha. But this is not a girl meets boy, falls in love, and live happy ever after story. It is a story about being oneself, not what others expect you to be.

Sayaka Murata's story won the 2016 biannual Akutagawa Award (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akutaga... ) which is awarded to "the best serious literary story published in a newspaper or magazine by a new or rising author". It, and other Murata books, have been translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori (https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/c... ) and the Audible version is wonderfully read by Nancy Wu (https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/nar... ).

4* For someone who does not usually like higher pitched voices, Wu's Keiko kept me glued to the audio. For someone who doesn't normally like novels about thirty-somethings' angst, Murata's novel sped along and was a delightful read. At only 163 pages it is well worth popping in your bag for a train/plane journey.

Book and AudioBook Review: The Power by Naomi Alderman, narrated by Adjoa Andoh

The Power by Naomi Alderman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First of all probably the best narration ever by my favourite female narrator, Adjoa Andoh, it permits her full vent to her extensive range of voices and accents, English, American, Nigerian, Indian, young, old, northern, southern, Cockney etc. Just brilliant! She brings real texture, changes in speed, pitch, emotion and vocalisation to this work. 5* narration.

The book inverts the world. Bookended by the correspondence surrounding the draft of a book by a male author. The story in his book being the core, interspersed with factual pieces from history. It depicts a world where, apparently suddenly, all girls have the power to release electricity from their fingertips, and soon all women, but only women and post puberty girls. As with all speculative fiction you have to go with the premis and here it will take you on an incredible journey alongwith its princple characters - Allie, an abused American foster child who reivents herself as a faith leader building a commmunity away from men, Roxy, streetwise teenage daughter of a London gangster, Tunde a young Nigerian journalist who reports on this pehnomenon witnessing how it shifts the society's balance worldwide, and middle aged Margot, an on the rise American politican.

And it does change the world. From overturning regimes in Saudi Arabia, to freeing women from trafficking, but mainly it inverts everything as regards gender, just as Malorie Blackman's Noughts & Crosses up-ended race in her thought provoking look at prejudice, so Alderman up ends gender in an equally thought provoking manner.

In essence what this book is about is Power, what it is and how it is wielded. And as such it is not for the faint hearted - think of all the situations where power exists today from the writing of history, waging war, abuse of individuals, groups and peoples, exploitation etc, the power to cover up, the power to spread false news, the power to manipulate etc.

The book I felt started well, took a little bit of time to give us all the characers and start to bring them and itself together, and then it got The Power and thundered all fully charged. Some of the scences are horrific, but at the same time nothing that does not happen. This book does what all great speculative fiction should do, pose pretty soul searching, fundamental socio=political questions about the way we live and why. Up there with the best. The 1984 for 21st century.

Book Review: The Color Purple by Alica Walker

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I listened to the author herself narrate this book, it was excellent. Very befitting what is probably one of the best book ever written in my opinion. I had not re-read it since it fist came out, but so so pleased I did. It still tugs hard at my heart, I love its structure, its voices, its characters and its storyline. Just perfection.

No wonder it won both the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. I remind myself that at the time it was controversial, written in the 'folk speak' of Celie in her letters first to God and then to her 'lost' sister Nettie, it was the first time an African American woman had won the Pulitzer. It has been filmed by Steven Spielberg albeit without the essential relationship between Celie and Shug (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/) , and made into a stage muscial ( https://www.theatricalrights.co.uk/sh...)

Back in 2007 for its 25th anniversary The Guardian wrote this review of book and author (https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...).

Although I have not read the book In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of Alice Walker’s Masterpiece by Salamishah Tillet, there is an interesting article by Tillet on the Legacy of The Color Purple (https://newrepublic.com/article/16116... ) who "offers up a history... on how sexism within the Black community - and the white establishment's preference to frame racial injustice in terms of concerns facing Black men - stood between The Color Purple and recognition as "an American Masterpiece"". In this reader's humble opinion, it always was and still is. A highly recommended reread.

Book Review: Leaving the Atocha Station by Adam Lerner

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
 

4* Probably the most compelling first person narrative I have read.

It is a rambling, uncertain, fictional (?) memoire of American student, Adam Gordon's time in Spain. He's drunk and /or drugged up for a lot of it, a poet supposedly writing but with no intention of completing the work required by his scholarship - his project is “a long, research-driven poem” exploring the legacy of the Spanish Civil War about which he knows nothing - instead he is hiding behind the supposed inadequacy of his Spanish as he negotiates friendships and lovers, translators of his poems, reading Tolstoy, Ashbery and Cerventes in a spaced out stupor. We are taken on a full-of-self-doubt, thoroughly engaging impressionistic drift through his time in Spain to the finale of a panel discussion on Literature Now and the launch of his poetry in translation pamphlet -

"was I in fact a conversationally fluent Spanish speaker and a real poet, whatever that meant? It was true that when I spoke to her (Teresa) in Spansh I was not translating, I was not thinking my thoughts in English first, but I was nevertheless outside the language I was speaking, building simple sentences with the blocks I had memorized, not communicating through a fluid medium. But why didn't I just suck it up, attend the panel and share my thoughts in my second lanagueg without irony? They wanted the input of a young American poet writing and reading abroad and wasn't that what I was, not just what I was pretending to be? Maybe only my fraudulence was fraudulent"

The writing is very engaging, oftimes funny. Clearly the author has a way with words and a little research showed me that he is in fact a published poet. The Audible audio version of this his first novel is well narrated by the author himself and I found it very good to listen to, helping me truly 'hear' the voice of his main character and get the book's humour.

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Book Review: March by Geraldine Brooks

March by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not in principle a lover of fiction which takes a minor character from a classic and works it up, but this book does that exceptionally well. The Rev March is the largely absent father in [author:Louisa May Alcott|1315]' s [book:Little Women|1934], a book I confess never enthralled me and hasn't been reread since my schooldays, with two movie versions likewise leaving me somewhat cool about the 'perfect' family. I will also confess that because of this I had been put off reading this book when it first came out, when CR read the two books in parallel some years ago, and only picked it up now when my in-person book group is reading Australian and New Zealand Novelists this year.

 

This book surpassed all my expectations. Brooks creates an engaging portrayal of Mr March, which according to her Afterword is based around Bronson Alcott, the writer's father. Brooks says her starting point for any writing is finding and hearing the voice of her main character. I can absolutely relate to that, as in this book she most definitely creates that voice and through it brings the unknown Mr March to life as a fully formed character, albeit with his faults and imperfections, but with a solid heart taken utilising much of Bronson Alcott's teenage peddling to wealthy southern planters, and his radicalism of later years, his vegetarianism, and his transcendalist and abolitionist convictions. I could hardly put the book down as I listened to its narration by Canadian actor Richard Easton, whose lower register, mature tone and range of intonation brought Brookes' first-person story telling Mr March very much alive.

 

A quite memorable 5* read.

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