Vanda Symon has a nice review of North Pole South Pole by Gillian Turner – sounds like a great non-fiction read.

The Well Read Kitty has another review up for The Nile – and this sounds like an amazing read.

The Vicbooks blog has a great post about the news that Hodder want to update Enid Blyton. And why did I not know about the Vicbooks website – it’s fantastic, people!

Soulless, Changeless, Blameless

Aha! I slay me.

Changeless and Soulless have bounced around the interwebs for a while so I thought I’d dive in and have a read – Changeless was the first title to become available for me at the library so, despite it being the second in the series, I took it. I’ve been told I really should have read Soulless and I will be when it becomes available.

Anyway, actual book? A fun piece of fluffery. Frippery even. Don’t expect much (which I kind of made the mistake of doing), don’t expect writing that extends beyond exposition and you’ll be fine.

Does that make me sound like a total po-faced killjoy? Because it reads like it does.

Some of the supposed language tics annoyed the frick out of me, the plot was a little slow to begin with but improved immensely, I’m not one for cliffhanger endings, I enjoyed a lot of the humour, I engaged more with the characters as the book progressed, I’m happy to read the others (but not looking to run out and buy them), I didn’t love it like I thought I would but I’m willing to look into a bit more of the genre (steampunk. I believe).

Changeless was fun. Is what I’m trying to say.

I think I need to relax more.

Blog reader recommendation for the win! Thanks Craig for recommending Jaime Hernandez – upon which I ran right out to the library and got this title (I’m so suggestible). I didn’t like this quite as much as Strangers in Paradise but to be fair that is more a matter of some personal taste around narrative and not a negative comment on this title.

Locas II is wild, a bit crazy, awesomely illustrated, sad and fun. I can’t comment a lot on the storyline because this is the first Jaime Hernandez I’ve read so these characters are all new to me. The story swings from female character centred to male character centred and, really, that just makes it so enjoyable to read, compared to the “action” graphic novel genre. Is that a genre? If not I just made it up – but do you know what I mean? Manly action hero stuff – a lot of which is good but a lot of which is crap.

Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh

I thoroughly enjoyed my first read of Louise Welsh earlier this year, so I was keen to get this out of the library when I spotted it purely by chance! And I’m glad I did as it is definitely a worthwhile read, a short novel speculating on the last days of Christopher Marlowe (a contemporary of Shakespeare) who was stabbed and died under circumstances that were mysterious at the time and have become increasingly mysterious over the centuries.

Welsh explores this mystery and gives us an entertaining story at the same time – which seems to be Welsh’s modus operandi and the reader is all the better for it!

A great short read – perfect for a little weekend quiet time.

Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa

Duuhuuhuuhuude… *sobs uncontrollably*

So there’s this lovely little family with this cute little kid and then these shadows appear and then the mother freaks out and then the father freaks out and then he takes the cute little kid and flees and… and… and… *breaks down again*

*deep breath*

It’s a great looking graphic novel and the story is sweet and poignant and devastating and really, if you have kids or are just really, really attached to them then make sure you read this with a box of tissues handy.

*sniffle*

The Widow’s Daughter by Nicholas Edlin, Penguin, RRP $30, ISBN 9780143204091, Available now.

This review that has been haunting my brain for a few days now – well, ever since I finished The Widow’s Daughter. This should be a great book and I should have liked it – it has a great premise, it’s a debut novel, but the writing is technically good, it has a strong New Zealand connection… but nothing about it came together. And so much about it left me cold and wondering why I was reading it.

The Widow’s Daughter focuses on Peter Sokol – American marine and surgeon who arrives in Auckland in the early 1940s and becomes involved with a mysterious, self-proclaimed British family through a growing attraction/love/obsession for their daughter, Emily.

Much mystery then ensues, and the book switches between this setting and the Californian coast in the 70s, where Sokol lives with his partner and works as an artist - and the release of a new book written by a fellow Marine and essentially telling what Sokol believes is his story becomes the catalyst for revisiting within himself his time in New Zealand.

One of the downfalls is this switching between the two stories – particularly in the initial stages of the book, the chapters are quite short and there just isn’t enough time in each era to become comfortable and enthralled – or to take in what’s happening and become connected to events, locations and the characters. And it’s this sense of connection (which can really sort out the great books from the okay books) which then becomes a major problem later on.

I felt no connection to the characters in The Widow’s Daughter and little connection to the location or story. I found myself being less interested in the characters as the book went on – which is bottom about face, right? But the characters were cold, and unpleasant without charm. With this happening it then became difficult to connect to the location (despite a very obvious reason for why it should have been an easy connection – one of the reasons I wanted to read The Widow’s Daughter in the first place) and to the story – if I’m not caring about these characters I’m not caring about where they’re going, what will happen to them before they get there – and I had no emotional involvement in any possible redemption/epiphany of any of them. 

The depiction of Auckland begins charmingly and truthfully with a focus on the nature of the light in New Zealand – sharp, hard, all-revealing and dazzling. I had a moment of “yes!” that got drowned out by the repetition of this insight – again and again and again and again and… again. Oh wait, metaphorical, right? *sigh* And any reader looking for an interesting sense of place from the setting of New Zealand, or any authentic sounding voice of the inhabitants, will finish very disappointed. Beyond the tidbit about Victoria Park being a rubbish tip/burner (again, repeated too many times) there is little detail about either the New Zealand/Auckland of the time or the Americans who found themselves there. One finished with the impression that the Kiwis at the time were all boofheads and the Americans were all drunks who spent all of their days with prostitutes. Really?

In the final equation I was simply frustrated and annoyed by The Widow’s Daughter. At heart it is not a badly written book but it all feels a bit like a show. In a twist the tagline on the cover – “When love becomes obsession” – ends up being quite apt – a meaningless phrase that doesn’t seem to have had a lot of time put into it or a critical eye cast over it.

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman There can’t be many people who don’t know the story of Maus but in case you don’t, it’s a retelling of the Holocaust with the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats. At least that’s what the basic overviews will tell you but what they don’t tell you is it’s so much more than that. Without wanting to sound flippant there has evolved certain tropes around cultural explorations of the Holocaust in our society – Maus ignores and explodes all of these.

It’s heartrending in its factual account of the lives of Spiegelman’s parents, Vladek and Anja, and their survival through WWII and Auschwitz, and the portrayal of Art’s relationship with his father Vladek. There’s no glossing over the dark realities in order to portray the easy dichotomy of Nazi=bad, everyone else=good. It was war.

Chaucer by Peter Ackroyd. On a completely different note, Chaucer is a brief biography of … Chaucer (surprising, non?). I have really enjoyed Ackroyd’s previous novels and non-fiction (London in particular is a work of stunning history) but this was unfortunately pedestrian. Bah.

The Colour of Magic graphic novel. Not Terry Pratchett but the next best thing! Pretty enjoyable actually, though I always find with graphic novel adaptations that you wish they didn’t rush through them so fast. Would it be so hard to do an indepth version? Or perhaps that’s not the point. Fun, even if the illustrations could never match (in my mind) Josh Kirby’s fantastic cover art for the pre-2001 Discworld books.

This giveaway ends Monday 12 July at 5.30pm and I’ll announce the randomly drawn winner at 8pm.

Usual blurb: As usual,  judges decision is final, no correspondence will be entered into, yada yada yada. Oh, and sorry overseas readers, but I can only post to New Zealand addresses, so New Zealand address holders only, please.  And, uh, I reserve the right to change these rules because there may have been something I’ve forgotten.

Right, I’ve got myself together and here’s the first book giveaway! Leave a comment on this post and you could win one of three books – Shadow Sister by Simone van der Vlugt, Thief by Maureen Gibbon or A Matter of Life and Death by Sue Armstrong.  This giveaway will run until Sunday night at 5pm, and I’ll post the winner at 8pm Sunday 11 July.

Tomorrow I’ll start a giveaway for Gunshot Road by Adrian Hyland and on Friday it will be The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James McNeish. You can enter all giveaways!

As usual,  judges decision is final, no correspondence will be entered into, yada yada yada. Oh, and sorry overseas readers, but I can only post to New Zealand addresses, so New Zealand address holders only, please.  And, uh, I reserve the right to change these rules because there may have been something I’ve forgotten. One winner will be drawn at random for each giveaway.

So comment away free book lovers! And don’t say I never do anything for you!

First up:

A Matter of Life and Death : Inside the Hidden World of the Pathologist by Sue Armstrong, Text Publishing, ISBN 9781847675811

An interesting non-fiction book, if not exactly mind-blowing. Sue Armstrong interviews a range of pathologists from around the world, all working in different areas (disease research, historical research, forensics). There’s a lot of questions about how and why the interviewees got into pathology and these are some of the most compelling answers, as well as the historical information about epidemics like the Spanish Influenza.

Suffers a little from being a bit too clinical (ha!) due to the dry “transcription of questions and answers” format. For a book length read I personally find this format to be too limiting – it’s very hard to judge tone and context without any author assistance. But overall I’d recommend it if you find this sort of carry-on fascinating (like I do) and are happy with a touch of gore and the macabre (like me).

Strangers in Paradise graphic novel series by Terry Moore

Brilliant. Brriiiiiiilliant! (trill it with me). Sad, beautiful, ridiculous and ultimately incredibly satisfying reading. I loved every minute and can’t believe I’ve now finished all 6 books. Waaah! Previous musings on this series are here. READ THEM! I command you!

The illustration is phenomenal – a perfect mix of whimsical, realistic, fantasy, serious and amusing. And I dare you to not fall in love with at least ONE of the characters.

So what’s up next? Well I have more graphic novels, as well as Gold by Dan Rhodes, Chaucer by Peter Ackroyd and Diary by Chuck Palahniuk.

And look out this week for a ton of giveaways – I’ve got a small pile of books with which to reward you, my lucky readers! ♥

SO GOOD. Two words that sum up my entire reaction to this fabulous book. Yes, this is another crime/thriller but I have nothing bad to say about this one – what amazing writing! What fantastic characterisation! What a stunning hold on pacing and tension Hyland has!

Gunshot Road is Hyland’s follow up to Diamond Dove and, like that title, follows Emily Tempest – the new Aboriginal Community Police Officer for the outback town of Bluebush. We get straight into the problems involved for Emily in dealing with her white bosses and her Aboriginal friends and townmates, problems which only get compounded with the death of an old friend in a seemingly open and shut murder.

Emily, though, suspects that there is nothing open and shut about the case and embarks on an investigation of her own, one that puts her in physical danger. The story progresses at a great pace – not necessarily fast chronologically but perfectly timed to keep the reader hooked and involved. The tension is perfectly balanced with some beautiful domestic scenes and witty one-liners. The whole story really put me in mind (oddly enough) of the old TV mini-series Edge of Darkness (god, no, not the movie) – it had the same feeling of a local story that becomes something much larger and with genuinely thrilling moments interspersed with haunting personal introspection.

At the same time Hyland has an amazing ear for voices and Emily’s in particular is charming, rough and humourous – which describes the whole book, really. The location is outback Australia and there are no pulled-punches here – Hyland shows both the whites and Aborigines viscerally responding to and interacting with the land around them, and his portrayal of the social problems in the Bluebush community is both casual and heartbreaking. Over all of this looms the land itself – large, open, wide, hot, dusty. Empty. Watching.

It’s all brilliant stuff and I honestly can’t recommend it highly enough. Buy it! Don’t question me! Just do it!

The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James NcNeish, Text Publishing (Australia) & Random House (New Zealand), RRP AU$32.95 & NZ$36.99.

I was intrigued by this title purely because it was written by James McNeish – a New Zealand author who I confess I hadn’t yet read. The Crime of Huey Dunstan is narrated by Professor Chesney (a psychologist who specialises in trauma and also happens to blind) who recounts to us his involvement in the trial of Huey Dunstan – a young man accused of a killing that he very definitely did commit – but the question that Professor Chesney investigates is why? And what could this mean within New Zealand’s laws regarding provocation?

You can probably see where this is going by now, and really it doesn’t take much. The story is not so much in the plot points but in the head space of its characters and the machinations of the legal system they’re dealing with. McNeish has done a fine job of exploring the implications, both social and legal, of the provocation defense within the New Zealand system. All very timely considering recent cases that have provoked both impassioned and ill-thought-out responses.

In some ways the book reads a bit like a who-dunnit – not who-dun what Huey-dun, but who-dun it to Huey. Ches finds that Huey’s actions may have been beyond his control due to an unacknowledged trauma in his childhood. There’s some talk of “buried memories” here but I’ll be honest, to me the idea of a buried memory is that you hold on to it a lot harder than Huey does, which points to the only real fault of the book - pacing. Some of the early “investigation” by Ches seems to happen a little too fast and the revelations come out a little too easily. Then we got into a lot of the courtroom drama and, as a reader, I started to feel bogged down. Fortunately McNeish does a better job of picking the story up in the final quarter.

McNeish also does an excellent job of portraying the back story and concurrent lives of Huey’s family and his superb study of the character of “back country” North Island towns is both restrained and immediately recognisable, and these are some of the most enjoyable passages to read. The details of the relationship of Ches and his wife and Ches’ family and acquintances are also nicely handled as are the practical details of Ches’ working life as a blind person.

In the end I have to confess to not being entirely sure of where I was with Huey – did I believe him? Did it matter whether I believed him? And, just as importantly, did I believe Ches? Of course these are exactly the questions that arise whenever the defense of provocation was used. I don’t feel that McNeish answered any of these questions, which I hope wasn’t really his intention.

My final summing up (see what I did there, with the legal laffs?) though is McNeish hasn’t quite pulled this all together and pulled it off. I was left with a distinct feeling of the end not quite mashing with the middle not quite mashing with the beginning not quite mashing with the whole. A book of good parts mixed with bad parts and unfortunately marred by the inconsistency.