Reading matters

'Oranges are Not the Only Fruit' by Jeanette Winterson

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 171 pages; 2001.

First published in 1985 by a precocious new writing talent -- Jeanette Winterson was just 24 at the time -- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is one of those books that you know you'll get around to reading one day. Well, that one day came around for me last week although I'd had the book in my reading queue for a year or more.

Not having seen the BBC TV series of the same name, I knew surprisingly little about the storyline except that it had "something to do with lesbians". Funny how your mind catalogues unread books by such crude generalisations, isn't it?

Of course female homosexuality is one of the themes that runs through Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit but it is far from the only theme. Religion, obsession, poverty and adoption are other subjects that are central to the storyline.

'The Old Jest' by Jennifer Johnston

Fiction - paperback; Flamingo; 158 pages; 1984.

This classic text by Irish writer Jennifer Johnston won the Whitbread Award for the best novel of 1979, the year in which it was first published.

It's set immediately after the Great War in an unspecified village by the sea, a short train journey from Dublin. Here 18-year-old Nancy, an orphan, lives with her Aunt Mary and her invalid grandfather, a veteran of the Boer War. It's summer and Nancy is on the brink of adulthood, excited about starting her new life, but reluctant to bade goodbye to childhood.

Secretly in love with her neighbour, Harry, a city worker who treats her like a younger sister, she knows deep down inside that he will never reciprocate her feelings: he's too busy wooing another villager, the haughty Maeve Casey.

Nancy, naive but headstrong, spends much of her time alone at the beach, where she discovers a secluded hut -- "built by some railway workers many years before, cleverly hidden in among the granite blocks, which protected it from the sea wind" -- that she makes her own.

During one visit she discovers, much to her annoyance, that someone else has been using the hut, and before long she meets the intruder, an older man, in hiding, whom she befriends. And then, one day, he shows her his gun...

'The Other Side of You' by Salley Vickers

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 271 pages; 2007.

Salley Vickers' Miss Garnet's Angel was my favourite book of 2006 and so it was with some trepidation that I picked up The Other Side of You on a trip to Italy for some much-needed poolside reading: would it live up to expectations?

As you will see from the five-stars above, the answer was a resounding yes.

The tale is told from two perspectives: Dr David McBride, a psychiatrist, and his patient, Elizabeth Cruikshank, a failed suicide. Essentially it is a story about their relationship and how, over time, trust grows between them. But The Other Side of You also tackles some bigger, yet more subtle, themes, including how the decisions we make impact on the rest of our lives and how we never really know the people we are closest to.

'On Chesil Beach' by Ian McEwan

Fiction - hardcover; Jonathan Cape; 176  pages; 2007.

This is one of those delightfully languid books that should be read in one sitting -- and at just 176 pages you can comfortably achieve this without frittering half your life away.

Set in England in 1962, it tells the story of two young, some might say emotionally naive, people who marry for the first time. Neither of them are sexually experienced and so the wedding night -- in a hotel on the Dorset coast -- holds particular significance for both parties.

Yet both Florence and Edward have different expectations -- and fears -- about "the moment, sometime after dinner, when their new maturity would be tested, when they would lie down together on the four-poster bed and reveal themselves fully to one another". Edward is concerned that he'll disappoint his new wife by the absurdity of the sexual act and his over-excitement, while Florence does not know how to explain that she is dreading the whole experience because the thought of it disgusts and repulses her.

This inability to communicate their concerns with one another has unforeseen consequences. As melodramatic as it sounds, what happens on their wedding night will alter the course of the rest of their lives...

'Only Say The Word' by Niall Williams

Fiction - paperback; QPD edition; 264  pages; 2004.

A love of books and the joy of reading figure prominently in this beguiling novel by Irish writer Niall Williams.

It begins with a forty-something man writing a love letter to his deceased wife. He lives in County Clare with his two grieving children -- teenager Hannah and eight-year-old Jack -- and feels so disconnected from them and his own life, that the only way to make sense of what has happened is to pen his autobiography. And so, through two intertwined narratives -- one set in the past, one set in the present -- we get to discover Jim Foley's life, his loves, his secrets.

'Out Stealing Horses' by Per Petterson

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 264  pages; 2006. (Translated from the Norwegian  by Anne Born.)

This is a delightful, thought-provoking and ethereal book by an author the Independent describes as "one of Norway's finest living writers". It's a relatively simple story tinged with nostalgia about a 67-year-old man's remembrance of things past and how events in the summer of 1948 shaped the rest of his life.

The narrator, Trond, is a widower who has lost touch with his children. He is living the life of a recluse in an isolated part of Norway with his faithful dog Lyra. By a strange coincidence his only neighbour, another elderly man, whom he stumbles upon by chance, is someone he has not seen since that fateful summer. This brings some painful memories to the surface and forces Trond to recall what happened all those years ago.

'Out of the Silence' by Wendy James

Fiction - paperback; Random House Australia; 320 pages; 2005. REVIEW COPY.

This delightful book by first time novelist Wendy James is set in Australia at the dawn of the twentieth century.

It revolves around two women from vastly different backgrounds: Maggie Heffernan, a headstrong working-class country girl; and Elizabeth Hamilton, a well educated Scottish immigrant keen to start afresh after the death of the doctor to whom she had been engaged to be married.

Elizabeth's friend Vida Goldstein, an early feminist reformer and the first woman to stand for Parliament in Australia, is also a central pivot to the story, which goes something like this..

'Oracle Night' by Paul Auster

Fiction - paperback; Faber; 207 pages; 2005

Up until now I have been a Paul Auster virgin. I have seen him interviewed several times on television, and appreciate that he is an interesting and accomplished and much heralded author. Whenever I hear his name I automatically think of New York, because he seems synonymous with that city.

Recently, when browsing a local bookstore, I picked up Oracle Night and was charmed by the coverline on the front of the book: "If you have never read Auster before . . . this is the place to start". I weighed the pros and cons, and then thought, why not?

'Orchid Fever' by Eric Hansen

Nonfiction - paperback; Methuen; 272 pages; 2001
             
Eric Hansen explores the dark underbelly of the orchid-growing business by travelling the world and meeting the varied, interesting and ultimately nutty characters that inhabit it. From orchid smugglers to nursery proprietors, from orchid show judges to world-renowned  botanists, this book reveals all the intrigue and drama of an industry warring over money, conservation and politics.

A wonderful true tale in the same vein as Susan Orlean's Orchid Thief, it  reads like a great crime thriller with a touch of travelogue thrown in. Highly recommended.

'On Green Dolphin Street' by Sebastian Faulks

Fiction - paperback; Vintage; 352 pages; 2001

Faulks successfully recreates America in the late 1950s when Communism was the enemy and jazz music was all the rage.

Mary, a young English wife and mother of two small children, is happily married to Charlie van der Linden, a British diplomat, living in Washington. Into their seemingly perfect lives comes a brash American newspaper reporter, Frank, who develops a 'thing' for Mary. Before long, the two are embarking on a sordid affair in New York, away from the prying eyes of Charlie and the diplomatic circle in which they socialise.

While the story is well told and the setting truly evocative of a past era, I found it difficult to like any of the characters and hence cared little for their dilemmas and actions. The fact that Mary was so independent and freely able to visit New York alone without anyone raising an eyebrow - it was 1959 for god's sake - did not ring true. Given that her husband was a drunk and had emotional problems of his own, I still felt that a woman in that era would not have had the confidence or ability to travel solo, especially if she was married.

Leaving that aside, it was an interesting story, but definitely not of the same amazing standard in Faulks' other novels, Charlotte Gray and Birdsong.