Category: week in books

Book of the Week, non-fiction, reviews

Book of the Week: A Kim Jong-il Production

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A nonfiction pick for BotW this week – but the story it tells is so incredible that it reminds me of an essay I wrote at university about the statement “Literature has to be plausible, history only has to be true”. And whilst I don’t remember what I wrote in the essay (although I do remember it got a first after much panicking and a session with my tutor where I learnt the “Ron” method of essay writing), this book really does prove that the truth can be stranger than fiction.


So Paul Fischer’s A Kim Jong-il Production tells the story of the kidnapping of South Korea’s biggest female movie star and her ex-husband, the country’s most famous director/producer who were snatched by North Korea as part of a plan to overhaul the county’s film industry.  But as well as the story of the kidnapping, it’s also a bit of a potted history of the two countries, the ties that bind them, that separate then and a truly mind-blowing insight into the workings (or otherwise) of the world’s most secretive state.

Now I work in news and I’m a history graduate (albeit one who did mainly European history, and avoided anything before 1066) and I like to think that I’m fairly well up on world events and current affairs, but my mind was honestly boggled by the goings on in this book – not just the stuff from the country ruled by the crazy dictator and his family, but also by the intermittent chaos and military rule going on in South Korea. I can (just) remember the Seoul Olympic Games, and it seemed incredible to me that just a few years before the country’s president was assassinated – and tanks were on the street.

If I have a criticism of  book, it’s that it sometimes seemed to be taking a long time to get to the actual kidnapping, but given my (as I now know) woeful understanding of the wider picture and the situation leading up to the main event (so to speak) I can let Paul Fischer off the hook.  I feel like I learned a lot over the course of the book as well as being thoroughly engrossed in the story.

The Boy practically snatched this out of my hand as I fished it so that he could read it and he’s already two thirds of the way through. I guess if you already know a lot about the history of the two Koreas, this might be repeating some old ground, but if you’re anything like me, I think you’ll find it fascinating, bonkers and just a little bit scary – and very glad you weren’t born in North Korea.

Happy reading.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: September 5 – September 11

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 Now that is much more like it. Lots of reading done this week and some good stuff in there. I suspect the Coulson Whitehead may take me a while to read – the writing is beautiful but by golly is the story tough. 

Read:

The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

You’re the One that I Want by Angela Britnell

Pumpkins in Paradise by Kathi Daley

The House in Quill Court by Charlotte Betts

Michelangelo’s Ghost by Gigi Pandian

Clockwork Gold by Jenny Schwartz

Murder in G Major by Alexia Gordon

Louisiana Longshot by Jana Deleon

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

Started:

 The Underground Railroad by Coulson Whitehead

 Dancers in Mourning by Margery Allingham

Primary Colors by Anonymous 

Still reading:

N/a

The only book I bought this week is Margaret Atwood’s new graphic novel Angel Catbird. Check me being better at impulse control!

Book of the Week, reviews, women's fiction

Book of the Week: The Madwoman Upstairs

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This week’s BotW was a tough decision, with two books in serious contention.  But in the end I’ve picked Catherine Lowell’s debut novel The Madwoman Upstairs.  The other contender, Brenda Bowen’s Enchanted August, also gets an honourable mention – and if you’re looking for a rich people problems summer holiday book, set on an island in Maine (and inspired by Elizabeth von Arnim’s Enchanted April) this would make a good read for you – I’ve already lent it to my mum. But I digress.

My copy of The Madwoman Upstairs
This week’s fetching photo was taken on the train, where I read 300 pages in two trips!

The Madwoman Upstairs tells the story of Samantha Whipple, the last remaining descendant of the Bronte family, starting at university and trying to avoid the attention that her family name has always brought her.  She had an unconventional childhood, brought up by her eccentric father, who died in a fire, and who, it’s rumoured, left her a treasure trove of secret Bronte documents.  As far as Samantha knows, the mysterious Bronte literary estate doesn’t exist – or if it does no one’s told her about it.  Then she receives a copy of a Bronte novel, annotated by her dad, and finds herself caught up in a literary treasure hunt, set by her father.  She sets out to solve it, helped – or hindered – by her handsome but cantakerous and combative personal tutor.

I’m not a big Bronte fan.  I’ve read Jane Eyre once, tried to read Wuthering Heights several times and never made it, and gave up on the TV adaptation of Tennant of Wildfell Hall.  However I seem to be reading increasing numbers of Bronte-themed/based books – and really enjoying them.  This isn’t quite up their with The Eyre Affair, which is my all-time favourite, but I liked it even more Jane Steel (a BotW a few months back) – which was promising at the start but faded a little.  This keeps the pace going to the very end – which left me having a spoiler-filled moment on Litsy (I added spoiler tags don’t worry) because I had Thoughts I needed to put out there.  It’s really fun and quite funny – although I wouldn’t precisely call it a “a light-hearted literary comedy” as some of the tag lines would have it* – I was thinking more darkly comic in places.

I’ve already lent this out to a friend – I suspect my mum may want to read it as well, and I think this would generally be a great book to read as the schools go back, starting as it does with Samantha arriving at university.  But equally if you’re off on a late summer break, this would keep you engrossed and smiling on the plane (or on the beach).

I was lucky enough to have an advance copy which was paperback, but sadly it’s only out in hardback at the moment.  You can get a copy from Amazon, Kindle, Kobo, Waterstones, Foyles – or pre-order the paperback for a nice treat you’d forgotten you’d bought when it arrives in April – on Amazon and Waterstones.

Happy Reading

*I see the paperback cover – and the current ebook cover feels much lighter and less gothic than the cover I had, which fits with the light-hearted comedy idea much better than the one which I have.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 29 – September 4

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Not a very disciplined week – I kept starting new books and didn’t manage to finish them all.  Naughty Verity.  I’ve got copies now of a couple of books on my Autumn Preview wishlist, but I’m trying to resist the urge to start reading them immediately until I’ve got the ongoing list down a touch!

Read:

Enchanted August by Brenda Bowen

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

After Dead by Charlaine Harris

Curious Minds by Janet Evanovitch and Phoef Sutton

When Everything Feels Like The Movies by Raziel Reid

The Rise and Rise of Tabitha Baird by Arabella Weir

Started:

The House in Quill Court by Charlotte Betts

You’re the One that I Want by Angela Britnell

The Pursuit by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

Still reading:

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

The Jennifer Crusie got unexpectedly 50-paged-and-out (although i read the end to see if it went the way I thought it was going to – it did), hence its disappearance from the list.  I bought three second-hand books to get some free postage from Amazon, but apart from that, I was very restrained and good!

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: The World’s Wife

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I’m a bit off-piste with this week’s BotW choice – because it’s poems.  It’s not the first poetry to be BotW- because Sarah Crossan’s One was free verse – but Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife is the first poetry collection to get the nod from me.

Copy of The World`s Wife
My copy of the World’s Wife -it isn’t the latest edition which I think is prettier.

The World’s Wife is a collections of poems about the women behind famous men, or in some cases changes famous men into famous women.  It’s on the AS level syllabus these days – I think my sister studied it, although I got stuck with Wordsworth back in my day – so I’m not going to pretend to any profound knowledge or insight.  In fact I feel like I need to read them again already, with whatever the modern equivalent of York Notes is to help me get the most out of them.  But I enjoyed reading them – and I’ve been off down the internet rabbit hole afterwards to find out who some of the men I didn’t know were.

I have studied Carol Ann Duffy though – at GCSE.  In the big orange English Anthology, as well as Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions, there was a selection of poems from 3 poets – Simon Armitage, Ted Hughes and Duffy – and you had to study one of them.  Carol Ann Duffy was the one we had to do.  Towards the end of our two years, a local theatre held a GCSE poetry day – with a selection of the featured poets on stage reading from their works and answering questions.  And Ms Duffy was one of them – she read a few poems (I can’t remember which) and was generally very tolerant of 1400 teenagers’ questions she’d probably heard a hundred times before*.  My friend’s question wasn’t answered and at the interval, she wanted to see if she could get an answer, so dragging me with her, we scoured the theatre for the green room, and found it and waited for Ms Duffy.  My friend was much braver than me and she did all the talking, but Ms Duffy was friendly and gracious towards the two of us – and we even ended up with an address to write to her if we had any more questions.  I kept the scrap of paper it was written on for years – although I’ve lost it now – and have never forgotten my brush with the now Poet Laureate.

*Not all of the others were!

 

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 21 – August 28

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Ok, so I’ve actually read more this week than this list suggests – as I did another round of 50 pages and out (see Book Pile post) and got another half dozen books or so off the pile.

Read:

The Venetian Venture by Suzette A Hill

The Counterfeit Heiress by Tasha Alexander

Ready to Were by Robyn Peterman

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

A Leader in the Chalet School by Elinor M Brent Dyer

Herring in the Library by L C Tyler

The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

Started:

A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer

Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

Still reading:

n/a

I bought a stack of second hand Chalet School books while I was in York visiting my little sister – and the new (well newly rereleased) Trisha Ashley book.  But other than that I was very good.  Honest.  Apart from 3 books in the charity shop.  Oops.  But that was before the second phase of the cull.  I’ll be better now…

Book of the Week

Book of the Week: American Housewife

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I know. I know. This is a day late. And I’m sorry. It’s been one of those weeks. Work has been quietly bonkers, I’ve been exhausted and time got away from me. Rather than rush something out to keep to schedule, I thought I’d take the extra time and do it properly.

So the BotW is Helen Ellis’s short story collection, American Housewife. These a a series of deliciously dark and funny bite-sized  tales, which I mostly read before bed. I’m not a massive short story reader, but they do make good bedtime reading because they have good obviously stopping places. And while these blackly humorous, there’s nothing here that’s going to give you nightmares. That said, Ellis doesn’t give you all the answers, some stories have distinctly ambiguous endings. Or even ambiguous middles.

Copy of American Housewife
I love the cover design – so simple and striking but appropriate for the book

I think my favourite story was the email war between two New York neighbours over their shared hallway. Or maybe the instructions on how to be a patron of the arts. Or the very unusual book club. Basically, there’s a lot of good stories here and I’m spoilt for choice.

If you fancy dipping your toe in the short story pond, this would be a very good place to start. And if you’re a short story fan, this should definitely be on your list. In fact I’d be surprised if it isn’t already. It is a hardback at the moment – and you’ll probably need to look in a proper bookshop for this (ie not the supermarket) or you can order it from Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles. It’s also available on Kindle and Kobo – at the much friendlier price of £2.99 at time of writing.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 15 – August 21

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So I had a bit of a rationalisation this week.  A couple of books are gone from the long serving list because I decided I didn’t want to finish them.  A few more are gone from the pile and not mentioned on here at all because I started them and didn’t like them.  I still have more to do to get the pile under control, but I’m working on it.

Read:

Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich

A Mint Condition Corpse by Duncan MacMaster

Death of Liar by MC Beaton

Thursday’s Children by Rumer Godden

Dead White Female by Lauren Henderson

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

The Man on Top of the World by Vanessa Clark

Started:

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders

The Venetian Venture by Suzette A Hill

Still reading:

n/a

In the spirit of dealing with the pile, I’ve been very restrained this week – I didn’t buy any new paperbacks at all – and my kindle acquisition was a freebie.  I’m working on being better…

Book of the Week, children's books, Young Adult

Book of the Week: Carry On

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I know it isn’t that long since I had Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl as BotW, but I loved this so much I couldn’t not pick Carry On – the book about the characters that Cath was writing about in Fangirl.  But you don’t need to have read Fangirl to understand Carry On as they’re separate entities – and there’s no cross over (or at least I didn’t notice any) between the story of this and the fan-fiction that Cath wrote in Fangirl (Rowell has said that this is Canon not fan fic).

So good that I read it on the train at 4.30 in the morning.
Paperback copy of Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

So, Simon Snow is returning to Watford School of Magicks for his final year.  But his girlfriend has broken up with him, his mentor wants to move him to safety away from the school and his roommate-cum-arch-nemesis hasn’t turned up – which Simon would be loving except that he’s a bit worried about him.  Then there’s the ghosts that keep turning up and the fact that the Evil Magic that’s trying to destroy the world (and particularly Simon) is still out there.

Now if this sounds a bit familiar to you, in Fangirl the Simon Snow series had a similar sort of world impact that the Harry Potter series did/does – so yes, it’s about a school for Wizards, and a Chosen One and his friends.  But it’s also not the same.  Magic works differently, the Baddie is different and the general dynamic is different and it’s not going to all work out the same (I don’t think that’s a spoiler).  As I was reading this I was reminded of how much I loved the Harry Potter series when it first came out, and how much fun there is to be had from a YA series about a Chosen One and which doesn’t feature a dystopian future world where everything has gone to pot.  And its been hard to find books like this – or at least I’ve found it hard.

I raced through this – reading pretty much 400 pages of it in practically one sitting (I stopped for dinner and Olympics) because I wanted to know what happened.  I suspect Harry fans may have a love/hate relationship with it – I wouldn’t describe myself as a super passionate fan* but I really liked it.  In fact I wish there were more books about Simon and Baz and their time at the school.  It did what I want an adventure-y thriller-y book for children/youngadults to do – it has a strong core group of characters with strengths and weaknesses (who compliment each other but also don’t always agree), who have challenges to overcome.  There is peril and adults are around but some of them are the problem and the rest might not be able to fix it.

I can’t guarantee that if you like Harry Potter you’ll like this, but equally I don’t think you have to like Harry to give this a try – if you like chosen one stories, quest stories, adventure stories then this one may well be for you.  And it should be everywhere.  My copy came from Tesco, but it’s also on Amazon, Kindle, Waterstones, Foyles, and Kobo.

*I own all the books (some in German and French as well), I reread Azkhaban fairly regularly and the other early books to a lesser extent, but don’t reread the end ones as much.  I’ve seen most of the films (but not the last one), I haven’t bought the script for Cursed Child, but I have tried to buy tickets to see it and I haven’t been to any Harry theme parks or attractions.

books, stats, The pile, week in books

The Week In Books: August 8 – August 14

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Romance, crime and magic appear to be the themes of last week’s reading – and I didn’t even realise that I was doing it!  Some of the stories below were not full length novels, so I didn’t quite read as much as the list might suggest – although at over 500 pages Carry On might make up for that a bit!

Read:

What I Did For A Duke by Julie Anne Long

Rivers of London: Night Witch 3 by Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel

Police at the Funeral by Margery Allingham

A Right Honorable Gentleman by Courtney Milan

So Sweet by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Play With Me by Alisha Rai

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Started:

American Housewife by Helen Ellis

Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich

Still reading:

The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink

The Man on Top of the World by Vanessa Clark

I bought two books at the charity shop – for 75p altogether – they’re American editions of Old School Romances and you don’t see them very often so I had to have them!