Reading matters

At last: a book I can sink my teeth into

It's been a good weekend bookwise. After having experienced some difficulty reading over the past fortnight (see here for a rather convoluted explanation) I picked up Rose Tremain's The Road Home, this year's Orange Prize winner, for half-price at Waterstone's yesterday afternoon and have hardly been able to put it down.

Somehow, reading the rather intriguing story of Lev, an Eastern European immigrant trying to make his way in London, has gripped me to the point I can lay in bed and ignore the sound of traffic whizzing outside my window, something which Arnaldur Indriðason's The Draining Lake (stay tuned for a review soon) failed to achieve.

Hope whatever you are reading is capturing your imagination as much as The Road Home is capturing mine.

An update

After much shenanigans, frustration and sheer incompetency on behalf of our old broadband provider and our impending new broadband provider, I am pleased to inform you that I should be properly back on line on next Thursday. All being well.

In the meantime, my reading's come to a grinding halt thanks to a lovely dose of conjunctivitis -- in both eyes. And just when I was getting really stuck into Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, a wonderful book about disaster capitalism that has me watching the news broadcasts about the Burmese cyclone and the Chinese earthquake with particular interest.

To lighten the mood, I've also been working my way through Stuart Maconie's very funny look at England's North in Pies and Prejudice. He's a bit like Bill Bryson, but with a drier wit and a nice sideline in British self-deprecation.

What have you been reading lately?

Loving 'Dracula'

Bram Stoker's Dracula is one of those classic novels I have always wanted to read. My curiosity was especially piqued when I visited Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast, in 1998 and again this summer, because the whole town seems slightly obsessed by the book: Stoker wrote most of it while resident in Whitby and, of course, parts of the novel are set there.

I was delighted when everyone voted for it as the next selection in Reading Matters' Online Book Group, because at last, I would have to make time to read it. Notwithstanding a two-week postponement for the discussion, I have finally started reading Dracula, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.

I think I half expected it to be very heavy going, burdened by old-fashioned writing and too many footnotes. But alas it's an effortless read -- and exciting to boot.

Remember the discussion opens this coming Saturday, so if you've read the book -- whether recently or in the dim dark distant past -- do drop by to contribute your thoughts.

What I'm reading . . . or not reading, as the case may be

It's been a rather full-on busy weekend in the life of kimbofo, which is why I am writing this blog post on a Monday morning. As of 11am GMT I am on annual leave for five glorious days!

I had rather suspected that I'd be able to cram in quite a bit of reading on Saturday and Sunday, owing to a 5-hour round (work-related) trip on a train to the British Midlands, but I just wasn't in reading mode.

During Saturday's journey I made a start on Alexis Wright's Carpentaria, but found I'd read whole pages without anything sinking in, so I decided I should put it away for another time. Instead I laid back in my comfy seat and watched the scenery whizzing by. I do enjoy a good train ride!

On yesterday's return leg, I was too tired to concentrate on anything, so I listened to my iPod shuffle instead and worked my way through numerous albums, including Crowded House's new one Time on Earth, Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and The Cobra (yes, a real blast from the past, but one of my all time favourite records) and Razorlight's self-titled one. It was actually a very effective way of drowning out the rather loud and obnoxious conversation of the group of lads sitting a few seats away from me, who talked non-stop from Stafford to London at very loud volume!

I'm not sure how much reading time I will manage over the next week. In fact, I'm not sure how much posting I'll be doing on this site, but you might be able to catch up with my escapades over at kimbofo, provided I have the inclination to update that blog during my New York sojourn.

Time for some true stories

Once-upon-a-time I used to read a lot of non-fiction, but these day my reading habits are dominated almost exclusively by fiction. In the course of a year, I'd be lucky to read two or three true stories, which is terrible given I'm a journalist and I should be interested in this genre. Perhaps that's why I tend to favour the made-up stuff; it's less like work and more like escapism.

Anyway, last weekend I decided it was time to start reading a new non-fiction tome I bought back in April, which had been sitting on my bedside table unread and gathering dust. It took awhile to get into, but Martin Sixsmith's The Litvinenko File, about the poisoning of London-based Russian Alexander Litvinenko last November, was a riveting read. I had a four-hour round train trip to take last Saturday and this book was perfect company. The journey went by so quickly, simply because I became lost in the world of Russian exiles and their murky pasts. I know it's a cliche, but I honestly couldn't put it down.

Sixsmith is a former Moscow correspondent for the BBC, so he certainly knows his stuff. Reading this book (review coming soon) made me realise how great non-fiction can be if it is written well and tells an intriguing story.

As soon as I finished it, I thought it might be time to make the most of my non-fiction reading bent and crack open a book my father brought over from Australia in May. I'd specifically requested he bring me a copy of Chris Masters' hefty Jones Town, a biography of Australian shock-jock Alan Jones, because it hasn't yet been published in the UK, but until now I haven't felt much like reading it. For a start, at more than 500 pages, it weighs a tonne, making it a little cumbersome to tote around in my handbag for reading on public transport. It's so heavy it's even difficult to read in bed (where I tend to do the bulk of my reading).

So far, I'm about 80 pages in. While it's not as "catchy" as the Litvinenko book, it's still a fascinating, if overly detailed, account of one man's life. It will be interesting to see if the level of detail -- almost to the point of recording the colour of Alan Jones underpants every time he changed them -- continues, or whether Chris Masters lightens up a bit. I guess you could not accuse him of not being thorough in his research!

I largely suspect this book is going to take me a month or so to read, in between other books, because it's relatively hard going and to read it exclusively would probably kill too many of my brain cells.

Anyone got any hot tips for other non-fiction books I should read once I've finished Jones Town? Do you favour fiction over non-fiction, or the other way around?

My holiday reading

So I've returned from my holiday suitably relaxed and refreshed and with my batteries relatively recharged. The past five months have been quite full-on work-wise, so it was delicious to leave my normal schedule and worries behind and to just lay by a pool (see post below) with a good stack of books for company.

Initially, I planned on taking a dozen tomes with me, but I dumped several at the last minute because I was worried that my suitcase wouldn't comply with baggage limits! I packed just nine carefully chosen novels. I knew I wouldn't read them all, but it would be nice to have a choice. Unfortunately, things didn't start off too well because I forgot to take any reading matter in my hand luggage and spent a two-and-a-half-hour flight flicking through a rather dull in-flight magazine. Lesson learnt.

Seafaring adventures

I've always been a sucker for a good story set on a ship, so when Penguin offered me a review copy of S. Thomas Russell's Under Enemy Colors, due for release in hardcover next month, I said "yes, please".

I'm about half way through it right now and am thoroughly enjoying every word. It's set on a British ship, headed up by a bumbling, incompetent captain, during the French Revolution. The hero is the first lieutenant, who has been overlooked for a well deserved promotion because his mother is French. So, essentially, it's a book about loyalty and bad leadership, two subjects dear to my own heart!

All this talk of the sea has me weighing up whether to invest in a 10-paperback set of Patrick O'Brien's Jack Aubrey novels currently on offer for £9.99 via The Book People. I've not read any of O'Brien's work before, but I suspect I'd rather enjoy it.

The best ocean-faring novel I've ever read is Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger. This 1992 Booker Prize winner is set on an 18th century slave ship and from the word go I just could not escape its icy grip.

I can also highly recommend Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea (I'll be buying the follow-up Redemption Falls as soon as it's out in paperback) and Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, which was discussed as part of Reading Matters' Online Book Group at the end of 2005.

Any other suggestions for seafaring adventure stories would be gratefully received.

Lazy Saturday

I've had two killer weeks at work which have left me mentally and physically drained. I think this may partly explain my reading funk, because I simply don't have the brain power to struggle with books that I would normally power through even if the storyline hasn't particularly grabbed me.

Anyway, today I made the most of my down time and lay on the sofa reading. (I have a lovely new sofa that is the perfect place to curl up with a good book.) It might have been a gorgeous summers' day outside, but I didn't even step out the door: I was too determined to finish Tim Gautreaux's The Clearing so that I could get my claws into something -- ANYTHING -- else!

In between bouts of reading I caught up on some much needed sleep. I think I fell asleep three times in the space of the afternoon! But I did finish that damn book, and then I very happily picked up one of my new Persephone's: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's The Blank Wall, which is a brilliant piece of suspense fiction I'm roaring through simply because I don't want to put it down.

I think the reading funk is over!

It's been 'Saturday' for me all week

Ian McEwan's Saturday has been languishing in my To Be Read pile for about two years. I did have a stab at reading it about six months ago, but the first two pages didn't grab me and I put it back in the pile for another time.

I picked it up again earlier this week -- and have been unable to put it down.

This book is wonderfully contemporary and wonderfully London. I know the specific area in which this book is being played out and have several photographs (which I'll post at a later date as part of my "scene from a book" series) of the street in which the main character, Henry Perowne, has a car accident.

As you will no doubt know, the book is set on that particular Saturday in February 2003 in which some two million people took to the streets of London as part of the Stop the War march. I was one of those protesters, so I am enjoying the references that litter this book; they bring back many memories of the feelings that day invoked for me personally.

It's funny how you have to be in a certain frame of mind to read certain books. Why this book didn't feel right half a year ago and yet feels so wonderfully comfortable and enjoyable right now I just do not know. Does this happen to you, too?

Some creepy bedtime reading

I am currently reading Patrick McCabe's Winterwood and it is freaking me out. I thought Cormac McCarthy's The Road was creepy, but it was nothing compared to McCabe's latest offering, which provides a very disturbing glimpse inside one man's deranged mind.

I'm not sure why I am surprised. I ploughed through McCabe's Booker-shortlisted The Butcher Boy many years ago and found it to be incredibly shocking but compelling too. I still consider it the most profound book I've ever read.

Because Winterwood delves into similar territory I guess it's only natural to feel that icy chill creep up my spine whenever I dare to open the book up for some quiet bedtime reading! But this isn't a story to lull you into sleepy mode. It's the kind of tale that makes for the worst kind of nightmares -- but the best kind of page-turning reader excitement! Stay tuned for a review coming soon -- provided I survive the experience.