Reading Matters

'This is How' by MJ Hyland

Fiction - paperback; Canongate; 320 pages; 2010.

MJ Hyland has become one of my favourite writers in recent years. I discovered her in 2006, when her second novel, Carry Me Down, was short-listed for that year's Man Booker Prize. That story, about a young Irish boy plagued by a certain kind of madness, was deeply unsettling.

I then hunted down her debut novel, How The Light Gets In, and was enthralled by yet another tale about a troubled youngster, this time an Australian teenage girl, going off the rails.

I decided I liked Hyland's dark, edgy subject matter, her ability to capture the "truth" of what it is like to be an outsider, and her elegant, economic prose style. But none of that really prepared me for the sheer power -- and strangeness -- of her third novel, This Is How.

The book is set some time in the early 1960s (although it's hard to tell, as no definite date is given, although there are clues, including references to the Triumph TR4, which suggest this is the time period) and the main character, Patrick Oxtoby, is a mechanic starting life afresh in a town on the English coast. The move has been prompted by the break up of his engagement, and it's clear he hasn't quite yet got over the shock.

Three weeks ago my fiancée Sarah was standing at the top of the stairs when she said, 'I can't marry you, it's over', and when she was halfway down, I called out her name, but she didn't stop, didn't so much as look at me, just said, 'Please don't follow me.'

I wanted to push her down the stairs, make the kind of impression I didn't know how to make with words. But I didn't, and when she'd closed the front door I said, 'Okay, then', and, 'Goodbye, then.'

Aferwards I played the scene over and over, imagined how I planted my hands in the middle of her back and pushed hard enough to send her flying.

And I got the sentence in my head, over and over, 'You broke my heart and now I've broken your spine'. It was something I'd never say, not like anything I've ever said. I've never done any serious violence to anybody, never even thought about it all that much.

I realise that's a fairly large chunk of text to quote, but it's helpful, not only to get a feel for Patrick's cold, abject voice, but because it reveals a lot about his personality: he knows that he has trouble expressing himself ("I didn't know how to make the words") and he's clearly got violent tendencies, even though he swears he's never harmed anyone.

Only a few more pages into the story, that tendency towards repressed violence is revealed once again. This time he's upset with his mother, who has tracked him down to the boarding house in which he is residing indefinitely, trying to cajole him into coming home.

I go up to my room and take a pillow and get the ball peen hammer out of my toolkit. I put the pillow on the floor and put a towel over it and bash good and hard. And I count: one fucking stupid bitch, two fucking stupid bitch, three fucking stupid bitch, four fucking stupid bitch.

If that doesn't give you the heebie jeebies, and make you want to read on to find out what makes this man tick, then you're a harder reader to please than me.

I found Hyland's portrait of Patrick absolutely fascinating. He clearly wants to succeed in life and love but doesn't quite know how to go about it (Louise Connor, in How the Light Gets In, shares similar personality traits, but you forgive her because she's so young and doesn't really know any better).

Patrick is obviously very clever -- he goes to university, but drops out to pursue his dream of becoming a mechanic for which he has a particular talent -- but there's something about him that isn't quite right. He doesn't seem to "get" people and fails to relate to them on any real emotional level. And he's so beset by anxiety it manifests itself in terrible neck and shoulder pain which can only be alleviated by vast amounts of alcohol.

The crux of the novel is an appalling act of violence he commits in the boarding house, for which he later claims to have no memory. The rest of the book concentrates on the outfall, not only on himself but on his family, who want to disown him. And while I don't really want to say much more for risk of spoiling the plot, the story becomes a treatise on guilt, redemption and rehabilitation. It is chilling and fascinating by turns.

This Is How is far from a cheery read. Despite the loathsome character at its heart, it's strangely compelling. It's dark, disturbing and filled with pathos, but it is exactly this kind of exploration of a fragile mind that everyone should read, not because it offers condemnation, but because it does the opposite: illuminates and educates.

I can't wait to see what MJ Hyland offers up next.

Top 10s: Novels that scream location, location, location!

I'm one of those readers who loves her books to be peopled with strong characters. They don't necessarily have to be believable (some of the best characters are too eccentric or kooky to be real), but they do need to be sharply drawn and three-dimensional. No cardboard cut-outs in my novels, please.

But I also love reading fiction in which the setting is just as important as any character. My location soft spots are New York, Venice, Ireland and Australia, probably because they represent special places in my heart, but it doesn't really matter where stories are set, just as long as the sense of place is detailed and distinct.

Here's my top 10 novels where the location is key (arranged in alphabetical order by book title)

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Once described as the book that Charles Dickens was too afraid to write, The Crimson Petal and the White depicts the rise and fall of a 19-year-old prostitute in Victorian-era London. As one would expect from a story about the sordid world of an 1870s "working woman", it is lewd and bawdy, and the language can, at times, be crude. But the highlight of this 800-page epic is the way in which Faber brings the city to life. The London he describes is rich and vivid, peppered with beggars and street urchins, while the constant stench of human waste and horse dung fills the air. The novel feels like an intoxicating trip into a world that few of us could ever hope – or want – to visit.

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Eight Months on Ghazza Street by Hilary Mantel

Set in the secret, repressive world of Saudi Arabia, this novel won’t exactly have you planning a trip to Jeddah any time soon, but it’s a fascinating glimpse at a culture so different from our own. Based on Mantel’s first-hand experience of living in the kingdom, it has a real ring of authenticity to it. She depicts a world that is both restrictive and claustrophobic, where the religious police keep a close watch on everything and the rights of women do not exist. British expat Frances Shore, a cartographer forbidden to work because of her gender, finds herself becoming increasingly paranoid as she lives her new life virtually under “house arrest”. Knowing that the apartment above her is empty, she begins to hear unexplained noises – a woman sobbing, footsteps and furniture moving around – and becomes convinced that something illegal is going on. But no one, including her husband, believes her. A psychological thriller of the finest order, this is the kind of story that really gets under the skin.

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Forever by Pete Hamill

New York must be one of the most popular cities to depict in fiction, but few have depicted it in the same way as Pete Hamill, the former editor in chief of the New York Post and the New York Daily News. Part swashbuckling adventure, part romance, part historical drama, part fable, Forever spans more than three centuries and tells the story of a poor rural Irish lad who is granted immortality, as long as he never steps foot off the island of Manhattan. And because part of his deal is to ensure he lives a very full and active life, rather than sitting on the sidelines merely existing, he throws himself into all kinds of situations. As time moves on you get to witness changes to the city's structure, its ethnicity, its politics; you see it grow and change; you discover how it transformed itself from a British outpost for trade and commerce to one of the world's most glamorous and exciting urban centres. And along the way you meet real characters -- good, bad and ugly -- from history that shaped the way the city is today.

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Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald

This Booker Prize-winning novel is set among a houseboat community moored on the Thames, just a stone’s throw from Chelsea’s King’s Road, in the early 1960s. Of course, a book set on the Thames could not help but make the river a central character, and Fitzgerald writes of it so evocatively that you can see the water swirling, feel the tides rising and falling, hear the gulls squawking overhead. She gives the river a sense of romance, of history, of danger. And she peoples the story with a cast of eccentric, but wholly believable, characters, as you would expect from those who chose to live in a kind of netherworld, neither belonging to land nor water.

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The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland

The highways and byways of rural New South Wales during the Great Depression are the focus of this Australian classic recently republished by Penguin. The central character, Macauley, is a swagman, an Australian term for an itinerant labourer, who travels between jobs largely on foot, carrying a traditional swag (a bed that you roll up) and a tuckerbag (a bag to store food). Accompanied by his four-year-old daughter, whom he initially regards as his "shiralee" (a slang word for burden), Macauley’s quiet, frugal lifestyle is tempered by a little girl who talks too much and slows him down. As well as being a touching portrait of a father-daughter relationship, the book details a bygone way of life and showcases the beauty and terror of the Australian landscape in all her glory - think wide brown paddocks, swaying gum trees, dusty gravel roads, exotic wildlife, brilliant sunshine and unexpected thunderstorms.

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Songs of Blue and Gold by Deborah Lawrenson

This is one of those lovely, lush stories that transports you right into the heart of the Mediterranean, or, more accurately, the Greek island of Corfu. Based on the life of the late Lawrence Durrell, an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist and travel writer, who "wrote beguilingly, drawing constantly on his own experience and his many subsequent moves across the shores of the Mediterranean", the book is best described as a “literary romance”. But don’t let that put you off. The rich, vivid descriptions of Corfu – the violet trumpets of morning glory growing everywhere, the tangerine sunsets over the water, the scent of jasmine on the night air – will have you planning your next summer holiday before you’ve even got to the last page.

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Tainted Blood by Arnaldur Indriðason

This is the first in an ongoing series of police procedurals, written by a former journalist, set in grey, rainy Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Erlendur Sveinsson is the morose detective in charge of the investigation into the mysterious death of an old man with a sordid past. The Icelandic location is particularly important, not just for the brooding, melancholy atmosphere it provides, but because the plot hinges on the scientific work being done at the country’s Genetic Research Centre (the Icelandic population is believed to be the most homogeneous society in the world). Tautly written with a fast-paced narrative, this is one of the first novels of the 21st century that heralded a new wave of Scandinavian crime fiction to hit British shores.

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That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern

The Irish countryside has never felt more alive, nor more beautiful, than in this book by the late, great John McGahern. The story mainly revolves around a pair of middle-aged outsiders, Kate and Joe, who flee the London rat race to try a gentler way of living. Over the course of a year we learn about their ups and downs, their hopes and fears, the ways in which they lead their quiet lives on a day-to-day basis and the people they befriend along the way. It is a beautiful, slow-moving story that mirrors the gentle rhythm of rural life and brims with a subdued love of nature. In its depiction of the changing seasons and the farming calendar -- the birth of lambs, the cutting of hay -- it tells an almost universal story about humankind and its relationship to the land and the climate. And it also tells an important, often overlooked tale, of how humans interact with each other when they live in small communities.

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The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

The rugged beauty of the Canadian wilderness in the late 19th century is the setting of this award-winning novel, which is part crime fiction, part epic adventure tale. In a frontier township on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a French settler is found murdered in his shack. His neighbour decides to track down the killer when her teenage son is accused of the crime. What follows is a fast-paced cat-and-mouse hunt across some of the most isolated, and dangerous, terrain on earth. Penney’s descriptions of the landscape, the coldness – and the fear – are pitch-perfect. The Tenderness of Wolves won the Costa Book of the Year in 2006.

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The Yacoubian Building by Alaa As Aswany

Set in downtown Cairo at the time of the 1990 Gulf War, this intriguing novel shows modern Egyptian life through the eyes of a diverse cast of characters, all of whom live in an apartment block called the Yacoubian Building. Written by an Egyptian dentist-turned-novelist, the book has been a bestseller throughout the Arabic world since publication in 2002. It charts the struggles of a wide cross-section of society, from the underclass that live in cramped conditions in converted storage rooms on the roof of the building, to the wealthy residents who inhabit the building's individual apartments. All the while Aswany shines his perceptive eye on the apparent contradictions in Egyptian society where people with different religious, political and moral viewpoints live side by side, not always in harmony.

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So, what did you think of my choices? Are there any particular books you'd recommend that feature evocative locations? What is missing from my list?

 

Bookshops worth travelling to

The BBC has published an article about the world's greatest bookshops. I think I may have to hunt out The Bookworm when I'm in Beijing next month.

Triple Choice Tuesday: Angela Meyer of LiteraryMinded

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday, once a weekly series but now an occasional one! This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is Angela Meyer of LiteraryMinded, an Australian lit blog which has been running for 3½ years and is hosted by news service Crikey. 

Angela, who lives in Melbourne, is a writer, reviewer and former-acting editor of Australian book trade magazine Bookseller+Publisher. She is currently writing a novel as part of a Doctor of Creative Arts, and if that's not enough, she chairs panels at writers’ festivals and does a bit of teaching, too. Who knows when she has time to sleep!

Without further ado, here's Angela's Triple Choice Tuesday selections:

 

A favourite book: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

I read this for the first time when I was about 21 and I was fascinated, disgusted and compelled by it. Humbert Humbert is one of the best characters (and unreliable narrators) ever created. How he takes you with him into his little view of the world, how he stirs up strange things inside you – he is desperate, cunning, jealous, love-sick and twisted. And poor, poor Charlotte Haze. And Lo herself – we really do not know whether she is as Humbert paints her, or if her own version of the story would be different. Of course, one reads Nabokov, too, for the language. Language to make you love language – inventive, lyrical, playful, delectable. I aim to read all of his books in my lifetime.


A book that changed my life: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

I think I was about the same age or a bit younger when I read The Myth of Sisyphus. And I’ve read it about four or five times now and am incorporating Camus’ ‘absurd’ into my thesis. It has influenced my thinking, my writing, the way I deal with and react to life’s events (and non-events).

From the moment absurdity is recognised, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all. But whether or not one can live with one’s passions, whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they simultaneously exalt, that is the whole question.

It is not a book about suicide but a book about freedom in the space between illusion and reason. It is about accepting things and living with passion. It is life-affirming, and I think it is as relevant now, in the consumer age, as it was in the post-war era.


A book that deserves a wider audience: Iran: My Grandfather by Ali Alizadeh

There are many books I could have mentioned here but having recently read Iran: My Grandfather I think it’s the best candidate.

Briefly: Alizadeh tells the story of the modern history of Iran through and alongside the story of his grandfather. Alizadeh’s grandfather was affected by and had a hand in much of the events and movements in Iran’s fascinating, complex and turbulent history. This book works because it is a compelling narrative as well as historical record, and it allows room for the reader to make their own judgements on certain things – from the West’s destructive interferences and their effects, to the overall swings between secular law and religious law, and more. A readable and memorable book that definitely deserves a wide audience.

If you want a bigger picture view, I reviewed this book for Mascara Literary Review.

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Thanks, Angela, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Angela's choices? Have you read any of these books? I've not read any of them, but clearly I need to explore Camus' back catalogue because he gets name-checked quite regularly in this series...

Don't be offended if...

... I don't reply to any comments for the next month.

I left London last Tuesday and internet access is going to be a bit haphazard until mid-December. I've scheduled a few bookish posts in advance, so if you see a few posts popping up, it doesn't mean I'm near a computer.

If you're interested, and assuming I can post to my blog on the odd occasion (I have no idea what internet access is going to be like in mainland China), you can follow my travels at http://kimbofo.typepad.com

Please note this is a sticky post, so scroll down for new content.

 

'Fool's Sanctuary' by Jennifer Johnston

 Fiction - paperback; Headline Review; 152 pages; 1999.

For the past four years I've been slowly making my way through Jennifer Johnston's extensive back catalogue of novels. Fool's Sanctuary, first published in 1987, is her eighth book - and my eleventh.

There's something quite comforting about entering JJ's fictional world, and it has nothing to do with the subject matter, which can often be dark and disturbing, but more to do with the way in which she handles words and stories, and, above all, treats her readers with intelligence.

Her prose style is not at all descriptive or explanatory, so that you often have to figure things out as you go along, and most of the action moves ahead via dialogue, some of which is extraordinarily confusing as several conversations play out between characters all at the same time. But there's something about her style, which also interweaves first and third person narratives, that gives her novels a distinctive, familiar and occasionally ambiguous flavour. I dare say it's a flavour you either love or hate, but for me, her novels are a special kind of heaven.

Fool's Sanctuary is no exception, although it seems far darker than any of her more recent forays into fiction. This one is set during the Irish Civil War, circa the late 1920s, and most of the action takes place in a big house in an area on the coast north of Donegal known as Termon (which is essentially Irish for "sanctuary", hence the novel's title).

The story opens with an aged Miranda Martin lying on her death bed, looking back on an evening from her youth that was to shape the rest of her life. In a narrative that swings from the past to the present and back again we discover how Miranda and her tree-loving widowed father got caught up in events that were much bigger than their quiet, peaceful lives.

By page 7 we already know that Miranda's young lover, Cathal, was taken away that night and shot in the head, but we don't know why this happened or what events lead up to his death. It's only when Miranda's older brother Andrew returns home on leave from the British Army that you get the first inkling that all is not well within the family. Andrew, a survivor of the Great War, is dismissive of the Irish desire for Home Rule and belittles his father's goals of reafforestation and land reclamation as nothing more than "romantic rubbish".

Andrew's colleague, the funny and likable Captain Harry Harrington, is more puzzled:

'I think that like most Irish people I've ever met you just talk on and on about things you don't understand very well. [...] I didn't mean to be r-rude. But you seem as a race to have this capacity for turning feeling into fantasy, and then you all get so worked up about oh... ah... d-dreams. Always dreams. M-maybe I'm quite wrong. Maybe when I've been here a little longer I'll begin to understand what all the f-fuss is about.'

The tension between the two factions -- the pair of British soldiers on leave for a few days, and the Anglo-Irish father and daughter, who still reside in Ireland -- merely mirrors the nation's predicament. But even without the politics, this is a heart-hammering drama that pits nice, well-meaning people against each other only to result in tragedy. That Johnston achieves this in just over 150 pages, without getting bogged down in extraneous detail (nor preaching), is nothing short of stunning.

As ever, what JJ delivers is a carefully crafted novella of immense power. And if you've not read anything by this Irish author before, this is a good a place as any to start.

10 gifts for book lovers, part 2

Following on from last week's 10 gifts for book lovers, part 1, here's another load of gift suggestions for bibliophiles.

This time I've concentrated on traditional books, and tried to include titles, subscriptions and sets which are special for one reason or another. 

As ever, please note that prices, availability and links are subject to change without notice, but were correct at the time I compiled this. And remember the prices quoted do not include any postage or packaging charges.

The books are arranged by price, from low to high.

Melville House Publishing "Art of the Novella" series (35 titles), from £5.99 each, Amazon.co.uk

 

Following The Detectives edited by Maxim Jakubowski (paperback), £17.99, New Holland Publishers

 

The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story edited by Anne Enright (hardcover), £25, Granta Books

 

A book subscription to Peirene Press, £45 for 6 books (other offers available), Peirene Press

 

Revolutionary Writing series - 8 classic novels, £47.94 if you take advantage of 3 for the price of 2 offer, Faber & Faber

 

A book subscription to Persephone, £54 for 6 books, Persephone Books

 

The Bloomsbury Group - "lost classics" from the early 20th century, £59.90 for all 10 books, or £5.99 each, Bloomsbury

 

 

Set of six F. Scott Fitzgerald 70th anniversary novels (hardcover), £89.95 for all 6 books, or £14.95 each, Penguin

 

 

Membership to the Pushkin Press Book Club, £99 for one year (which includes one book a month), Pushkin Press

 

The Everyman's Contemporary Classics set (76 volumes), £1,070 ($1732.40), Everyman's Library

Hope this helps your Christmas planning! If there are any particularly generous readers out there, I'm quite partial to those Everyman's Library volumes...

'Fragrant Harbour' by John Lanchester

Fiction - paperback; Faber and Faber; 299 pages; 2003.

John Lanchester's Fragrant Harbour is billed as a novel about Hong Kong. I recently spotted it in my local Oxfam shop and bought it in preparation for an upcoming trip to the former British colony.

The story is really three stories, although the lives of the main characters are intertwined so that it reads as one giant narrative spanning 70 years and three generations.

The central character is Tom Stewart, an Englishman in his 80s looking back on his life as an expat in the "fragrant harbour" (Cantonese for Hong Kong). He moved there in 1935, partly to escape the family business of running a pub in Faversham, Kent, but ironically ends up making his fortune in a similar trade: the hotel business.

But before we get to hear Tom's tale, the book opens in bombastic style with the story of an ambitious female journalist wanting to make her mark on the world. Dawn Stone (real name Doris) charts her climb up the career ladder, from a local newspaper in Blackpool to the nationals in London, before accepting a job offer in glamorous Hong Kong in 1995.

Dawn's plotted history is told in a breathless, almost arrogant style, in just 50 short pages. By the end of her story we know that she's shallow enough to ditch her journalistic principles for the offer of big bucks and power. The message? That Hong Kong might be glamorous and the most crowded city on earth, but it's also fuelled by greed and it doesn't take much to be seduced by her charms.

Thank goodness, then, for fine upstanding citizen Tom, whose story takes up the greater chunk of this novel. Tom has the benefit of being a survivor, first as a hotelier in a cut-throat business and second as a prisoner of war captured by the Japanese during the Second World War. His friendship with Sister Maria, the Chinese-born Catholic nun whom he meets on the boat trip from England (she teaches him Cantonese during the six-week sea voyage) is the one constant that grounds him. But is there more to their relationship than meets the eye?

The third story follows Matthew Ho, a Chinese-born businessman in his 30s, who divides his time between Hong Kong and Australia, where his young family, including his in-laws, have emigrated. Like Dawn Stone, Matthew, too, is ambitious, and through some plot implausibility, meets Dawn on the very first flight Dawn makes from Heathrow to Hong Kong. Their "friendship", albeit as journalist and source, works both ways: Dawn gets to use him for stories, he later gets to use her to pitch a business idea to her powerful boss.

Of course the main "character" in this book is Hong Kong itself. Lanchester does a good job of bringing the city to life, with rich descriptions of the junk-filled harbour, the steep streets and the skyscrapers that line them. He provides a strong sense of history too, covering the city's physical development from the mid-1930s to the Chinese handover in 1997. Key political events -- the Japanese capture of Hong Kong in 1941, the Chinese civil war and Mao's cultural revolution, the 1967 riots in which pro-communists demonstrated against British rule, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing -- are dotted throughout, giving the story a truly epic feel.

But at times it does feel slightly forced, particularly in part one, when Dawn arrives on foreign shores and is given a running commentary on the city by her boss:

See that stone wall around the airport perimeter? That used to be the Walled City of Kowloon. During the war the Japanese tore down the walls and made POWs build the perimeter of the airport. The city stayed where it was, a total no-go area to the cops thanks to some ancient row over jurisdiction between the Chinese and the Brits. Literally swarming with Triads, junkies, sweatshops, whorehouses, you name it. More edifyingly, if you look out the back window you can catch a glimpse of the mountains around Kowloon. They're in the New Territories, which is the last bit of mainland between China proper. The Chinese said the hills were dragons. There were eight of them. Then the last of the Sung emperors came here in the thirteenth century, fleeing the Mongols, Kubla Khan among them, he of the stately pleasure-dome where Alph the sacred river ran.

This, I hasten to point out, goes on for pages. To be fair, this kind of author knowledge, masquerading as scene-setting, is only present in the first part of the novel. By the time we get to Tom's story we pretty much know that Hong Kong is beset by political corruption, dirty money, crime gangs, drugs and prostitution. But we also know that the city attracts the rich and powerful, and offers a lifestyle many can only dream about.

While Fragrant Harbour is a highly entertaining read, one that taught me much about Hong Kong's recent history in an enjoyable manner, its narrative structure lets it down slightly. It would have worked equally well told entirely through Tom's eyes without cluttering it up with Dawn's and Matthew's voices as well.

That said, I still ate up the book in a matter of days, and found myself caught completely off-guard by some unexpected plot surprises.

Fragrant Harbour was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.

'Too Many Magpies' by Elizabeth Baines

Fiction - paperback; Salt Publishing; 124 pages; 2009. Review copy courtesy of author.

In many European cultures, the magpie is associated with superstition. In English folklore, the bird is a bad omen. In Scotland, a magpie near the window of a house foretells death. In Sweden, it is associated with witchcraft.

In Elizabeth Baines' Too Many Magpies the bird is a metaphor for the mysterious world of spells and magic, but it also symbolises nature.

In the park there were magpies, too many to be counted. When I was a child there were never so many of them -- one for sorrow, you said, two for joy -- but now there  were too many for such short rhymes or such simple messages, they'd multiplied and colonized the towns.

The story, which is told from the point of view of an unnamed mother, explores what it is like to raise children in a world beset by environmental problems. Together with Richard, her scientist husband, the pair grow their own vegetables "since trials had indicated that pesticides and nitrates in farming and market gardening could cause allergies and cancers". They read the books, apply the gathered knowledge, and their little family -- "husband, wife and two-point-four children" -- is happy and safe.

But then a charismatic stranger enters the woman's life, a man who is the direct opposite of her husband, who talks of spells and magic, and lives life with spontaneous abandon.

He said, 'Have another brandy.' He added, 'You only live once.' What he meant, and what I knew now, was that if you stopped worrying you could live several times.

His carefree attitude rubs off on the woman, and before she knows it she's not exactly neglecting her children, but she is less anxious, less fearful for their safety. As she whizzes off down the motorway to make her secret rendezvous, her newly acquired blithe spirit teeters on irresponsibility. She drinks, she drives, and on one occasion she comes across unexpected roadworks, so that she has to slam on the brakes:

The red-and-white cones rushed up more quickly than it seemed they should have done; I pressed the pedal and got the brakes under control. Each side then red-and-white barriers flickered as I crawled. TAKE CARE, said a sign, too late, FOR HALF A MILE.

On the most basic level Too Many Magpies is a story is about a straitlaced, anxious mother embarking on an extra-marital affair and then dealing with its outfall. But to dismiss it as a middle-class romance-cum-kitchen-sink drama would do the book, and its author, a supreme injustice.

Despite its subject matter, there is no sex in this book. Everything feels oblique. References are askew, nothing is nailed down. It lends the story a haunting, intangible quality. The prose is filled with a kind of musicality more reminiscent of Irish writers than British ones. I found myself being lulled by its rhythm -- and its magic.

For such a slim volume Too Many Magpies also wrestles with big ideas -- science versus nature, methodical analysis versus irrational fear, well being (physical and mental) versus illness -- and explores marriage, parenthood and the impossibility of protecting children from a world of hidden, unknowable dangers, all subjects which I expect are close to many people's hearts.

I found the book curiously reminiscent of Jennifer Johnston's style, in particular The Illusionist, but it also reminded me of Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child in its depiction of a young boy, marked out as different from birth, who causes disruption to his picture-perfect family.

Smartly plotted and with not a word wasted, Too Many Magpies is an appealing, bewitching read, one that feels slightly dangerous and a little bit thrilling. It deals with predictable subjects in unpredictable ways, and for that reason alone it marks Baines as a British writer to watch. Highly recommended.

10 gifts for book lovers, part 1

Christmas might be six weeks away, but if you hate shopping as much as me, the best way to take the stress out of it is to buy everything online -- and then make sure you're at home to take delivery!

But what do you buy the bookish person in your life if you're not sure what they've read? Well, something inspired by literature might be a start.

Here's 10 literary-inspired gifts that are sure to delight bookish family and friends. And if there's anything you fancy for yourself, just email this permalink to your loved ones as a not-so-subtle hint.

Note that prices, availability and links are subject to change without notice, but were correct at the time I compiled this. And remember the prices quoted do not include any postage or packaging charges.

The gifts are arranged by price, from low to high.

London Review Bookshop vouchers, £5, London Review Bookshop

Set of 20 adhesive "Botanical tulip" bookplates, £3.70 ($6), Laurel Ink

Spiral-bound book journal and matching book mark, £6.50, Paperchase

"She is too fond of books..." tote bag, £8.95, The Literary Gift Company

 

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie poster print 59cm x 84cm, £9.95, Popart UK

Umbra Conceal Invisible Bookshelf, £10.50, Henry Tibbs

Keep Calm and Carry On skin for the latest Amazon Kindle, £12.32 ($19.95), Gelaskins

Men's black "I'd Rather Be Reading" t-shirt (other colours available), £18.50, Cafe Press

 

Falling Books Bookend (red and green versions also available), £22.50, Design My World

 
The Great Penguin Bookchase board game, £29.95, Art Meets Matter

 

Next week, I'll post 10 more gift suggestions focussing on drool-worthy books...

'The House of Slamming Doors' by Mark Macauley

Fiction - paperback; Lilliput Press; 183 pages; 2010. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Humorous, dysfunctional families don't come much better than the one presented in first-time novelist Mark Macauley's recently released The House of Slamming Doors.

The Montagues, an upper-class Anglo-Irish family, live in a grand manor house in County Kildare. The head of the family is Bobby, a Catholic born in Canada and educated in England, who has "a really weird accent" that he alters depending to whom he is speaking.

If he's on the phone trying to be business-like or sucking his pipe thinking he's wise, he'll have a Canadian twang. If he's trying to be funny and friendly with the locals he suddenly gets a terrible Irish accent, like he's trying to be their best friend, saying stupid things like 'bejesus' or 'begorragh' or 'fair play to ye'. If he's in England he has an English accent just like 'By the way, I went to Oxford, old chap.'

Mr Montague is married to Lady Helen, the daughter of an English earl, who loves French wine and "swanky Russian fags called Sobranie", and has a rather distant, off-hand relationship with her three children: Emma, 17; Lucy, 15; and Justin, 13.

The story is told from Justin's point of view in diary entries that begin with the arrival of JFK on Irish soil in June 1963 and finish with JFK's assassination five months later in downtown Dallas. During this short period Justin -- full name Justin Alexander Torquhil Edward Peregrine Montague "but my father calls me 'you little bollocks''" -- catalogues everything from the war waged between his fiery-tempered parents, to his growing attraction to the local farmhand's daughter, the outspoken and beguiling Annie Cassidy.

Much of this is laugh-out-loud funny, but there's an edge to it too, inviting comparisons to Molly Keane's novels. But like all dark comedy, the book works by deftly treading the line between tragedy and humour.

Macauley achieves this by ensuring that Justin's observations lack crucial adult awareness -- for instance, he seems oblivious to the fact that his mother is conducting an extra-marital affair -- so that the reader genuinely feels for the protagonist's situation because you know what's coming even if he doesn't. Indeed, I felt a moral sense of outrage, comparable to Justin's, when his father forbids him from fraternising with Annie because he "will not have children of the staff in my house".

The House of Slamming Doors is an effortless read, packed with funny incidents and peopled with deliciously eccentric characters (Donal Sheridan, the world's slowest chauffeur, soon became my favourite). And while it's essentially a coming of age story as Justin emerges from the shadow of his bullying father and learns to stand up for the things he believes in, it also has much to say about the class system and racism between the Irish and the English.

Joining the dark side

As most of you know, I'm about to jet off on an extended trip. When planning adventures abroad, normal people tend to worry about currency exchange and what sorts of clothes to pack. Bookish people just fret about how they're going to carry two months' worth of reading material when the baggage allowance is only 20kg!

My solution has been to invest in something I never thought I'd do: buy an electronic reader. In the past I've experimented with a first generation Sony eReader and not found it very enjoyable. This time I've opted for a third generation Amazon Kindle, which I've blinged up with this removable decal from a fabulous little company in the US called DecalGirl. (I was most impressed that my order took less than a week to arrive using their cheapest shipping option. And it took all of 30-seconds to stick on my Kindle, with no air bubbles or other problems whatsoever.)

I've not actually used the Kindle properly yet. I opted for the cheaper version, but soon wished I'd spent another £40 for the free 3G, because typically I couldn't get it to connect to our Apple wireless router. In fact, our Apple wireless router is so secure, I don't even think M16 could crack it. The only solution is to bypass the router completely and connect directly with our BT home hub, which means a lot of faffing about whenever I want to download books.

But that's probably a good thing. If it was easy as a click of a mouse button it wouldn't take me long to drain my entire bank account filling up my Kindle with hundreds and hundreds of books!

As it was, I set myself a budget of £50 and together with all the free downloads (yes, there are loads of free books downloadable from Amazon), I've now created a virtual TBR which should keep me going for a bit.

Here's what I have purchased:

• The Complete Works of Jane Austen
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
• The Last Man by Mary Shelley
• What Does China Think? by Mark Leonard (non-fiction)
• Red Dust by Ma Jian (non-fiction)
• Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang (non-fiction)
• The Ancient Ship by Zhang Wei
• The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee
• Faithful Place by Tana French
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I don't think this device will ever replace my love of traditional books, but as a way of carting around a little library without the weight, I'm hoping it's a temporary godsend. I'll keep you posted as to what I think of the Kindle when I begin using it properly...

'If On A Winter's Night A Traveler' by Italo Calvino

Fiction - hardcover; Everyman's Library; 304 pages; 1993. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver.

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler was Italian author Italo Calvino's much lauded 16th novel. A rather clever, knowing book, it pokes fun at reading, writing and publishing. From its opening passage, I suspected it was going to be a rather enjoyable read:

You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone.

But sadly, I found this book so clever as to be pretentious, and so contrived as to be patronising. Most of all I just found reading it an incredibly frustrating experience.

The nub of the novel, which was first published in 1979, is this: a reader tries to read Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler but discovers that the book is faulty. He takes it back to the shop for a replacement, only to discover the replacement book is also faulty. And therein lies the pattern: in alternate chapters we follow the reader's adventures as he tries to  track down a perfect copy of the book. This is interspersed with the actual text of the books he acquires, none of which turn out to be Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler.

Confused yet? I found it excruciatingly perplexing in places, particularly as the reader's side of the story is told in the second person, so the "you" feels like it is being addressed to you personally, even though it becomes increasingly clear that that is not the case. It gets worse when characters associated with the reader, including the enigmatic Ludmilla who also bought a defective copy of the book, cross-over so that they also appear in the text the reader is reading, blurring the lines between the reader's life and the fiction he reads.

Essentially, this is the type of novel that just gets your brain in a complete muddle. And while I'm not averse to this kind of post-modernist technique, where the author also appears as a character (think Paul Auster or J.M. Coetzee), and where different literary styles and genres are "sampled" in the one novel (think David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas), I found If On A Winter's Night A Traveler rather exasperating.

It doesn't help that the alternate chapters of the book, which are presented as opening chapters of what is supposed to be Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveler (but never are), is that they all end abruptly at a climatic moment, so you are left dangling and never find out what happens next. This happens 10 times. (At one point Calvino compares sex to reading, so perhaps these abrupt endings are his idea of a joke about failing to climax.)

Each of these 10 chapters are written in a different style or genre, so Calvino gets to show off his ability to write a satire, a romance, a thriller and so on. But unfortunately each chapter does not feel sufficiently different to the one that precedes it, so the "trick" failed to truly work.

The saving grace, for me anyway, is the illuminating insights and ideas Calvino presents about the intertwined and ever-changing relationships that authors and readers have with books. He makes it clear that every author is looking for the perfect reader, and every reader is looking for the perfect book. He makes other statements about different readers wanting different things from books, and that every time we read a book we bring with it our own prejudices based on our life experience. In fact, he goes so far as to suggest that our enjoyment of reading a book can be influenced by something as inconsequential as to where we are sitting (or lying) when we read it and what is going on in our personal lives at the time.

While I admire Calvino's ambition, his ideas, his ability to turn our notion of a novel on its head, this book clearly wasn't for me. The elegant prose and the courageous experimentation (with its nod to James Joyce), couldn't make up for its lack of narrative drive, detailed descriptions and rich characterisation. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler is one of those books that takes you right out of your comfort zone; it's intelligent, a little bit witty, a little bit cynical but ultimately it's too emotionally shallow to offer any real insight into the human condition.

----

This book was chosen by Anirban as part of our Riverside Readers book group.

Triple Choice Tuesday: Armen

Welcome to Triple Choice Tuesday, a regular series that has been on hiatus for about six weeks. This is where I ask some of my favourite bloggers and other bookish bods to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles and new bloggers.

Today's guest is Armen, an Iranian-Armenian journalist, who lives in London and is a member of Riverside Readers, the book group I attend.

Armen doesn't have a blog of his own, but he is staggeringly well read, with a special interest in world literature and non-fiction on history, politics and art.

Without further ado, here's Armen's Triple Choice Tuesday selections:

 

A favorite book: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
 

"From now on, I'll describe the cities to you," the Khan had said, "in your journeys you will see if they exist."

But the cities visited by Marco Polo were always different from those thought of by the emperor. This is a very unusual book. It is dialogues between Marco Polo and Kublai khan, the great khan of the Mongol Empire. There is no plot, no characters besides these two. It is very difficult to describe the book, but reading it was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had with a book. The great khan gets tired of stories sent by his messengers but Marco’s stories keep him interested. Marco tells him stories about cities no one has ever heard, the "invisible cities".


A book that changed my world: The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg

This is the first book I read by Natalia Ginzburg, an Italian author whose books are mostly out of print in English. I’ve read most of her works and it’s such a pleasure when I read her. (I often search her name to see if there’s anything new in English, a book maybe? A play, or even an old interview!) I read this book when I was very influenced by anything Italian, cinema, literature, music and even ice creams! This is one of her last books, written in letter form.

Giuseppe, a middle-aged, depressed journalist, leaves Rome after 20 years and moves to the United States to live with his brother, a move he seems to regret. He writes letters to his cousin, ex-lover and a group of friends. These letters are about failed marriages, unhappy love affairs, frustrated family relationships. There is no hero in this book. The characters are very much like people we meet everyday at home or on the street, with usual highs and lows. The people in this book want to belong to somewhere, but are not sure where.


A book that deserves a wider audience: Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov

This is an eastern black comedy by a Ukrainian author! The main character is Viktor, a writer, but economic hardship in the early years of post-Soviet Union makes him write obituaries for a newspaper. He writes these obituaries in advance, meaning he’s writing them for Mafia, although he doesn’t know this in the beginning. He shares his life with a penguin, called Misha. Misha is an important figure in the book. This penguin brought lots of smile to my face!

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Thanks, Armen, for taking part in my Triple Choice Tuesday!

What do you think of Armen's choices? Have you read any of these books? I've already got The City and the House in my TBR, after Armen mentioned it at our very first book group back in the summer of 2009. And I've promptly added Death and the Penguin to my wishlist as it sounds sort of surreal -- and very funny.

Mary Shelley's resting place

On the weekend we journeyed to Bournemouth, on the south coast, for a one-night stay. Of course, it really doesn't matter where you go in England, there is always some kind of literary sight to see, and Saturday was no exception when we paid pilgrimage to the resting place of Mary Shelley.

Shelley, who is best known for her novel Frankenstein, is buried in St Peter's churchyard along with her parents, political philosopher and journalist William Godwin and the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

The heart of her husband, the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, is also interred alongside her.

Shelley died on 1 February 1851. She was 53 years old.