Summer Wish List

1) Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn: After letting Gillian Flynn’s third novel Gone Girl take over my life in February I sought out her other titles and her first novel Sharp Objects instantly grabbed my attention.
The thriller, set in small town America, has the perfect blend of investigative journalism and grisly events, with a strong female protagonist leading the story.
Camille Preaker, a newspaper reporter haunted by a troubled childhood, is sent back to her home-town after a series of murders shock the community. A quick read of the first chapter on Amazon showed promise of Sharp Objects being just as addictive as its successor.
 
2) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: As you may guess from my summer wish list I have a yearning to visit Japan and Haruki Murakami’s trilogy has been popping up everywhere in bookshops as the mandatory introduction to Japanese culture and has recently made an addition to my Amazon wish list.
 
3) Number9dream by David Mitchell: I previously reviewed David Mitchell’s Cloud Altas in December where he impressed me with his skills as a writer and clever play on conventional narratives. Number9dream, Mitchell’s second novel, is set in Tokyo Japan and follows a man’s quest for his father; a simple concept that the inventive author is guaranteed to add his own innovative slant to. 
 
4) The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock: I’ve had a craving recently for the Southern Gothic and this novel’s synopsis hints at an ideal concoction of the darkly bizarre in rural Ohio. The morbid list of this book’s attractions of serial killers, ritual sacrifice and executions reads off like the perfect way to spend a dusky summer evening.

5) Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima: This novel takes the top spot on the Guardian’s top books set in Tokyo here where Number9dream also makes an appearance. Spring Snow offers the poetry delicacy of old Japan mixed with timeless love story.
 
6) Piracy: The Complete History by Angus Konstam: I’ve been meaning to read about the history of pirates since a visit to Croatia; the aquatic blue landscape and coastal towns were the inspiration behind Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. After a laborious internet search Angus Konstam’s complete history stuck out as the most comprehensive guide to one of the world’s most illustrious and oldest occupations.Starting with origins of piracy in the Ancient ages documenting its development through medieval times to the present day: Piracy: The Complete History promises to dispel the romantic Hollywood myths surrounding swashbuckling buccaneers of the ocean and shed light on the brutality and bloody nature of history’s sea raiders.

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

On reading the first sentence of Narcopolis you instantly know Jeet Thayil is a poet. The Prologue reads like a long sprawling verse, the language curling on the paper, rising and slipping into stories, images breathing and drifting, like a single line of smoke. 

Words are framed and measured with space for imagination to seep in.

Bombay, a city of mangroves, the Stoneman killer stalks the streets of sleepers and handcarts, a hallucinatory world of outcasts, opium dens, hijras, and travellers…

In the haze of the chandu khana characters wait to open up like synapses flowering in Jeet Thayil’s brain. 

The first exhalation comes from Syrian Christian Dom Ullis, a travelling drug addict who seeks out the best pipe in Rashid’s place. 

As the pipe is passed around the room others emerge and recede, each with their own stories, addictions and philosophies to leave behind.

There is Xavier, an alcoholic poet whose sexual perversions mix with an unsettling obsession with Sainthood; Rumi, an unhappily married businessman, who finds a release in violence, and Mr Lee, a Chinese refugee reveals his family’s trauma during the Mao’s cultural revolution; an unhappy bunch of bums, pimps and addicts who survive in poverty only by living off a hourly hit of feverish bliss. 

Narcopolis covers the hard subjects of drugs, sex, and the slums, and admittedly it is at times difficult to read. Scenes of matter-of-fact brutality stand out in the riots of Bombay’s streets and behind hijra brothel’s closed doors. The novel’s theme of degradation is embodied the main character Dimple, an ennuch who feeds her growing addiction through prostitution, and who is used and violated by all of the characters. 

Often the reader will allow themselves a restful moment of clarity and intake some clear air, an option the characters are otherwise denied. 

The unusual prose, however, is something to admire in its intangible and unstable form which successfully evokes the fogginess of addiction. It makes sense then, once you learn that Narcopolis took five years to write and is a recount of the Jeet Thayil’s twenty year career as a drug addict. His poetic writing captures the remarkable experiences of the poorest of the poor and evanesces with a faint memory of Bombay’s forgotten characters.

Blood & Beauty: A Novel of The Borgias by Sarah Dunant

From its creamy black cover, gold detailing and red edged pages everything about this beautiful hardback edition of Sarah Dunant’s Blood & Beauty oozes the word “luxury”.

The spoils continue on delicately turning the first page as Sarah Dunant invites you to
watch the unfolding exploits of the most infamous family of Renaissance Italy.

   

15^th century Rome is a cesspit of corruption. In the unrelenting heat fat cardinals yawn from their windows and look on while sheep eat grass growing in the ruins of a once great city. Inside the Vatican those in power scheme and manoeuvre for more power and many abandon the chaste route carved out for them by the church.
 

Yet despite derelict buildings and straying away from God’s will, Rome is still the centre of Christendom and holds the power in making or breaking kingdoms.

For one man this neglected fruit lies idle and ripe for plucking…

Sixty-one years old and with a budding young family of three sons and one cherished daughter, Rodrigo Borgia is to be become history’s most controversial pope: Alexander VI. 

His reign will be one to set tongues wagging in even in the poorest backstreets of the papal city; a reign marked by ambition, plots and above all family loyalties.

Detailing Alexander VI's life from his elevation in 1492, to his daughter’s second marriage, Sarah Dunant takes a career already possessed with the power to jump out of the page and places you, the reader, amongst the action.

Surrender yourself freely to Dunant’s vivid narration and rich vocabulary and you will find
yourself breathing in the stale air of the Sistine Chapel during the papal conclave, watching the amber glow of candles flicker over Pinturicchio paintings in the Room of Mysteries and hearing the clatter of plates as Alexander VI’s fist meets the dinner table in stark disapproval. 

The novel offers a refreshing take on a familiar historical cast. The figures are imbued a humanity that is enjoyable in its dimensions and offers a different slant to the cruel and villainous Alexander VI, whose weaknesses and motivations are exposed by Dunant. The character list also includes the naive and much doted on Lucrezia, who endures the pains of an unhappy first marriage, and the Pope’s handsome and politically astute eldest son, Cesare.    

Blood & Beauty is historical fiction at its finest with each point eloquently depicted right down to the tinniest of brushstrokes. Enjoy the Renaissance frescoes beautifully painted by Sarah Dunant, the lace of Lucrezia Borgia’s bridal gown as she walks the portico in front of a gathering crowd and the war cries of soldiers marching across the Mediterranean landscape.

In recent times the trend has been to sex up history in fiction and the Borgias have been no exception. The family have been treated to modern revamp with the 2011 television series starring Jeremy Irons, a series with great cinematography and grand costumes and scenery that falls short at times on the facts side. 

Sarah Dunant’s main achievement in Beauty & Blood is to deliver all the romantic and action packed elements of the Borgias’ story but remaining true to the captivating and undiluted authority of history itself. 

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Although it is always wise to avoid being drawn to a book by its cover there is something hypnotic about the picture of the young girl on The Passage by Justin Cronin. 

The child, meant to represent the book’s main character Amy Harper Bellafonte, stares at you through the strands of hair which are covering half her face. The freckles on her cheeks and nose evoke the innocence of childhood, and she is unsmiling which at first glance suggests that she is afraid of you.

Yet it is her pupil, a black colourless circle that locks into you from across a crowded room of books, which suggests otherwise.

Needless to say before I turn off the light at night and go to bed, I turn the book cover over...

Within the first few pages of The Passage you are greeted with accolades shining down on Justin Cronin’s gifts as a writer, even counting one from master of contemporary horror himself, Mr. Stephen King. Yet discounting all the hype and the Waterstones bargain price tag of £2.99 it would be wrong to describe this book as anything else but wonderful. 

Set in the hazy heated landscape of North America The Passage is the perfect blend of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Richard Matheson’s I am Legend and every horror film and survivalist colony fiction of the twentieth century.

Justin Cronin cleverly plays with the modern trend in horror of making nightmare monsters which crawl under your bed scientifically viable by giving them biological legs to stand on and walk the earth. Without giving too much away, it seems the US government have been very very naughty. 

As you’re reading there are parts of The Passage that feel familiar, almost knowable, yet being that Cronin’s creation is a product of some of the best horror fiction written this only makes it deliciously rewarding and in turn the book delivers everything you would want from a modern classic of the genre. 

What also drives this novel along is Justin Cronin’s dedication to every character. Here he takes notes from King when even considering minor characters; each is given their own back-story, an ex-wife perhaps or hidden past, habits and dreams. This makes it hard to disconnect from the book when the terror grows in force and devours its world.

Simply put The Passage is the ideal companion to the sunny days which have been creeping in towards the beginning of May.

Read, read, read and let the comfort of your home fall away.

My Library: Some of my Favourite Children's Books

Illustration by Quentin Blake in Roald Dahl's Matilda (Penguin Group, London) p.12.

"It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village."

Roald Dahl, Matilda, (Penguin Group, London) p.21.

Sometimes I feel that the time when a book could capture my imagination the most was in my childhood. In childhood books were full of possibilities and magic and the belief in a writer’s story was at its strongest. I have taken a trip down memory lane and brought out a few of my favourite childhood books to share with you…

Matilda by Roald Dahl 
Always to be a favourite among children for generations to come, I think I have read and owned every book written by Roald Dahl at one point. However when coming to make this list the tale of the four year old who loves reading and develops telekinetic powers instantly sprung to mind. 

 

The Indian In The Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks 
The story of boy who is given a cupboard for his birthday that magically brings to life a plastic toy model of a Ironquois Indian. I loved this story so much that I even begged my parents for my own cupboard and key, although my one never did seem to work. 

 

Quick, Let’s Get Out Of Here by Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake 
A collection of poems recounting hilarious family incidents and memories, illustrated by Quentin Blake, who also illustrated for Roald Dahl. My favourite is “Chocolate Cake”, a poem written by Michael Rosen recounting a memory of when as a boy he snuck into his kitchen at night to have a taste of chocolate cake.

 

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery 

Originally written as a story for all ages the tale of a talkative young red head has now fallen into the category of children’s literature. This is probably one of my all time favourite books from my childhood.  Scenes evoked by the cover are Anne begging her guardian for puffed shelves on her dress, the nosy neighbour Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the blossom trees in Prince Edward Island.

Horrible Histories by Terry Deary, Peter Hepplewhite and Neil Tonge 
Revealing all the glory, slimey, and gruesome bits teachers left out in lessons this series brought history to life for me as a child. The books are full of illustrations, quizzes and funny facts about different periods and events in history. My favourite fact was always that Elizabeth I was considered the cleanest person in England as she had four baths a year!