Reading Matters

Scene from a book #5

She  followed the calle down to a wooden bridge. On either side of the narrow canal washing lines stretched between the high buildings and looking down she saw knickers, petticoats, jumpers, overalls, perfectly reflected in the dull green water. Boats covered in tarpaulins, roped and tied across like parcels, were moored along the buildings' weedy sides.

The book: Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers, page 207.

The photograph [click to enlarge]: The exact same place in Venice -- on the bridge that leads to the Jewish Ghetto -- that Vickers describes in the quote above. Photo taken by kimbofo, 31 October 2006.

** UPDATED **

Click to see more photographs of this scene on my other blog.

A new TV show about books to screen on Sky

If you live in the UK and have access to the arts channel on Sky TV, you might want to check out The Book Show, presented by husky-voiced Mariella Frostrup, which airs on Thursdays at 8pm. Unfortunately, while I've just bought myself a new kick-ass TV, I don't have access to this particular channel. But if anyone watches it, I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it...

<Via the BookZone newsletter>

Shortlists for Costa Book Awards unveiled

I'm a day behind with this, but the shortlists for the Costa Book Awards (formerly known as the Whitbread Prize) have been announced. There are categories for first novel, novel, children's book, biography and poetry.

The shortlist for the best novel looks like this:

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
Saving Caravaggio by Neil Griffiths
Restless by William Boyd

Click to see synopses of all the books on the shortlists.

The winners will be announced on January 10, 2007.

Oh, and if you're a UK resident and fancy winning all 20 shortlisted books there's a competition here.

The future just happened

I know we're all getting sick of this whole controversy revolving around online book reviews vs reviews published in the mainstream print media, but I just wanted to point you in the direction of Debi Alper's blog. She has written a thought-provoking post entitled History lesson - circa 2050 which sums up the debate in a quite neat and unique way.

Anyone want a free book?

I've just finished reading Karin Fossum's Don't Look Back, which I am happy to give away to one lucky reader no matter where in the world you live.

To be in the running, simply tell me the name of your favourite crime novel or favourite crime author in the comment section below.

On Saturday I'll put everyone's names in a hat and draw out one winner.

You never know, it could be YOU.

I've just finished reading Karin Fossum's Don't Look Back, which I am happy to give away to one lucky reader no matter where in the world you live.

To be in the running, simply tell me the name of your favourite crime novel or favourite crime author in the comment section below.

On Saturday I'll put everyone's names in a hat and draw out one winner.

You never know, it could be YOU.

'Don't Look Back' by Karin Fossum

 
Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 252 pages; 2003. Translated from the Norwegian by Felicity David.

A sleepy Norwegian village is rocked by the discovery of a teenage girl's naked body lying on the edge of a local, secluded lake. Did she kill herself? Or was she the victim of a sexual attack?

But there's much more to this crime than meets the eye, as Inspector Sejer soon discovers. The victim, for instance, was an extremely popular girl in the neighbourhood, but she had recently become withdrawn and had quit her school's handball team despite being a top-notch player. She had also stopped her regular babysitting work. Her mother puts this change in behaviour down to puberty; her father thinks there's slightly more going on; Sejer wonders if she might have been raped.

There's little evidence of who committed the murder but several locals fall under suspicion, including a disabled man, a teacher and the girl's boyfriend. Without giving away the ending, it's always the person you least expect, isn't it?

Ultimately, this is a fast-moving, well-paced crime thriller that had me guessing all the way through, which is rather rare for me: I normally guess the ending long before I reach the final page.

The prose is straightforward, clear and concise and the dialogue is realistic.

It has a convincing set of characters, especially Inspector Sejer, a widower still mourning the death of his wife, who is smart, tough and fatherly. I liked him enormously.

And the atmosphere — both of the cloying community stunned by the crime, and the sense of dread that builds as the investigation progresses — is pretty much perfect.

On the strength of this one book I've already added the remainder of Fossum's back catalogue to my wish list.

Call for voluntary code of practice

I called for a voluntary code of conduct for book bloggers a couple of weeks back. Now Tim Toulmin, the director of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) here in the UK, has called for something similiar for blogs in general.

Click to read the full article.

Click to read the PCC code of practice.

A monopoly on thinking?

Thank-you to Tim Sterne of Sarsaparilla for writing such a beautiful piss-take on the whole Rachel Cooke affair, entitled Deliver us from thinking. I only wish I had written it myself. I haven't laughed so much in ages.

Book Group: Vote for the Session 9 book you want to read

Regular participants in Reading Matters' Online Book Group may have noticed the book group schedule got a little sidetracked recently. This was mainly due to your host (that would be me!) getting ill and having a few other priorities, such as trying not to drown in my own lungs!

Anyway, things seem to be back on an even keel again (at least the coughing has stopped and I can breathe without wheezing like a little old lady), so please accept my apologies for the interruption to normal services.

To take this 'blip' into account, I've revised the schedule for Session 9, as eagle-eyed readers might have already noticed in my menu bar down there on the right somewhere. The book for the next session will be revealed this coming Saturday (2 December) and the discussion will open on Saturday 27 January. Hopefully, this will take the festive season into account and give you plenty of time to read the book during the dark/hot days of January, depending in which hemisphere you reside.

For this session I thought it might be interesting to try something Irish. The three books I have chosen for consideration are by male authors, all of whom have produced critically acclaimed and highly regarded work.

The books up for vote are:

1. The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty by Sebastian Barry

Synopsis (from Amazon.co.uk):

"Following the end of the First World War, Eneas McNulty joins the British-led Royal Irish Constabulary. With all those around him becoming soldiers of a different kind, however, it proves to be the defining decision of his life when, having witnessed the murder of a fellow RIC policeman, he is wrongly accused of identifying the executioners. With a sentence of death passed over him he is forced to flee Sligo, his friends, family and beloved girl, Viv. What follows is the story of this flight, his subsequent wanderings, and the haunting pull of home that always afflicts him. Tender, witty, troubling and tragic, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty tells the secret history of a lost man."

2. That They May Face the Rising Sun (published in the USA under the title By The Lake) by John McGahern

Synopsis (from the Faber & Faber website):

"Considered by many to be the finest Irish writer now working in prose, John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun vividly brings to life a whole world and its people with insight and humour and deep sympathy. Joe and Kate Ruttledge have come to Ireland from London in search of a different life. In passages of beauty and truth, the drama of a year in their lives and those of the memorable characters that move about them unfolds through the action, the rituals of work, religious observances and play. By the novel's close we feel that we have been introduced, with deceptive simplicity, to a complete representation of existence -- an enclosed world has been transformed into an Everywhere."

3. Death in Summer by William Trevor

Synopsis (from www.Alibris.com):

"Thaddeus Davenant's wife Letitia Iveson is killed in an accident, leaving him with their infant daughter. Pettie, a young woman he interviews (and rejects) as a nanny, is a desperately needy, sexually abused former foster child. She becomes obsessed with Thaddeus and plots to murder his mother-in-law, who is now looking after the baby. William Trevor's haunting novel about madness and abduction was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998."

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To take part in the 'election' simply leave a comment below nominating the book you plan to read.

Please state your vote clearly and vote for just one book only. You are only allowed one vote. IF YOU MENTION TWO OR MORE BOOKS OR SAY YOU DON'T HAVE A PREFERENCE YOUR VOTE WILL NOT BE COUNTED.

The votes will be counted at 9am (Greenwich Mean Time) on Saturday 2 December and the winner announced later that day.

Discussion for Session 9 will then open on Saturday 27 January.

Please note the Book Group is open to anyone, so if you've not taken part before, don't be shy about 'joining'. The more, the merrier. If you leave a comment I will add you to my distribution list (if you are not on it already) so that you will be notified whenever a post about the book group is published on this site. If you want to find out more about how the Book Group works please download the PDF in the menu bar on the right.

I'm so glad I've got thick skin, 'cos here's yet another drubbing to add to the list!

Remember the shitstorm that ensued after I pissed off most of the "elite" litbloggers about my post on the pitfalls of receiving free books? Now it looks like the mainstream media ain't too happy with me either -- at least one mainstream journalist from the national press thinks my blog is a little on the dull side.

You see I came in for a bit of a drubbing in today's Observer, as did Grumpy Old Bookman and Dovegreyreader scribbles, two sites I respect and visit on a daily basis.

Here's what Rachel Cooke said about us:

...I went to a site all bloggers recommend, Dove Grey Reader, which is written by a 'sock-knitting quilter' from Devon. I was pleased that she was 'truly hooked from the first line onwards' by Arnaldur Indridason's thriller Silence of the Grave, and it does sound good - but I have friends to recommend thrillers to me. Grumpy Old Book Man is, according to the Guardian, one of the top 10 book blogs. Eh? Even its author admits it's an 'acquired taste' (here he is on Jeffrey Archer: 'Good old Jeffrey. He's always good for a laugh, isn't he?') Finally, to Reading Matters by 'kimbofo', an Australian in London. Do we really need to know that Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go has been on her TBR (To Be Read) pile for a year, or that she bought it as part of a discounted set of Booker novels? Pooter lives!

Click to read full article.