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 Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps by Michel Faber, Text Publishing, ISBN 9781847678911

Michel Faber is what one refers to as an eclectic writer. This might sound like I’m going to be disparaging – but oh, how I’m not. Faber is the kind of writer who makes other writers seethe with envy. A writer who can tackle, and excel at any genre. Whose horror stories (Under the Skin) make Stephen King’s look like Little Golden Books. Whose historical fiction (The Crimson Petal and the White) is one of the BEST historical novels ever written (yes, ever). And whose contemporary fiction is so contemporary it makes you cry tears of tidy white surfaces.

So what has occasioned this review is that Canongate (and in New Zealand and Australia, Text Publishing) has released new editions of Under the Skin and The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps. This book contains two novellas (well, let’s be honest, these aren’t long enough to be novellas, more like long short stories – big margins don’t fool anyone, Canongate) – the eponymous story and The Courage Consort.

Despite this minor quibble over length, both stories are excellent. The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps is a vaguely creepy literary sleuth with a dab of historical fiction (and the use of “axe” for ask, which sent me to google and, lo, an idea for another post), and romance. We’re in Whitby – scene of several famous literary mysteries – with Sian, an archaeologist who is having some rather disturbing bad dreams and who meets a good looking young man with a mysterious manuscript in a bottle. This leads to uncovering of a long forgotten crime and lots of canoodling with a very fluffy and cute sounding dog. Which is an oddly endearing plot point.

The pacing in this story is spot-on – I just kept reading and reading and reading and then suddenly it was over! It’s the right mix of gripping and suspenseful. Which is how the whole “Faber, other writers, seething with envy” thing happens – this is a small story, almost a bagatelle, and really there isn’t a lot here. But somehow the man makes it amazing.

The second story is The Courage Consort – and Faber repeats his trick. This time we’re with Catherine – the soprano in a vocal ensemble who have travelled to a chateau in Belgium to rehearse for 10 days. Catherine is a strange character – appealing yet afflicted – she’s convinced herself she’s batty and a bit useless. She’s drifting along in a misty sort of daze until rather suddenly a tragic event brings her up a bit short and to a rather stunning life-realisation. Then – bam! – end of story and the reader is left again thinking “Lordy, how did he do that?”. There aren’t any firework-type theatrics (nothing as dazzling as in Under the Skin, anyway) but everything just comes together so perfectly that the reader feels completely satisfied.

Everyone should read Faber. If you don’t like history then read his horror, if you don’t like horror then read his history and if you don’t like either than read his short stories. If you don’t like any of that, well, then there’s no hope for you, I’m afraid.

If you fancy some well-written and gripping historical fiction then I highly recommend New Zealand writer Barbara Ewing’s Rosetta – we have a new copy for $20.95.

If you have young kids you know that the pre-school years are a great time for encouraging their natural curiosity and desire to learn (not to mention answering a million questions a day). How to Be Your Child’s First Teacher is a great title chock-full of suggestions and guidance on how to encourage your child and covers the full spectrum of learning. Just $22.95 from BookieMonster!

If you follow me on Twitter (@bookiemonsternz) you’ll know I’m rather upset because my beloved Nana-car is broken (apparently a transmission is a wonderful, but expensive, thing). So I’m thinking I need to read Dare to Repair Your Car and start paying a leeetle bit more attention to my car maintenance. A great guide for anyone who’s is a bit flummoxed by the basic mechanics of cars and just $24.95!

If, like me, you’re a fan of the BBC Friday Night Comedy podcasts, and more particularly The News Quiz, you’ll have heard the dulcet tones of Francis Wheen. Wheen is also a great writer, and we have a copy of his history of Das Kapital by Karl Marx from the Books That Changed the World series, called (unsurprisingly) Marx’s Das Kapital. A biography of a book, $26.95 from BookieMonster.

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman is here soon for the NZ Post Writers and Readers Week in Wellington (wuhwuhwuh) – start preparing now with your own copy of The Graveyard Book for just $19.95! I loved this book when I read it – you can read my review here.

That’s a lot of ifs!

You know how some books just give you happy reading, nothing special, nothing to really jump out and grab you, a few irritants, but then you’re finished and there you go?

Yeah, that was this book. A fictional account of the life of the woman who would eventually become Madame Mao, it’s a relatively enjoyable read with only minor quibbles regarding the constant jumping between first and third person. That I could have done without. And to be honest the actual non-fictional accounts of many of the people and the history of China in the 20th century is so, well, mad, that it almost seems a bit superfluous to fictionalise any of it.

All in all, an okay read.

And to make up for this brevity, please to find this damn fine review of Wolf Hall, by Christopher Hitchens in The Atlantic. I love the internets that it allows me to read stuff like this.

Am I about to write a totally over-the-top I’d-give-this-book-my-first-born review?

Why, yes. Yes I am.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2009, Wolf Hall treads well-worn territory – King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn? Who hasn’t seen the TV series, the movies or read the inevitably trashy and anachronistic “historical” fiction that has told the Tudor tale again and again? But with Wolf Hall, Mantel has literally rewritten this landscape of historical fiction.

Wolf Hall is the story of the man Thomas Cromwell – a man who happens to have been a courtier and advisor to Henry and Anne, a capricious man, a man constantly up against the constraints of his class, constantly overturning the rules of his age – and constantly weaving a rather tricky path between the various, often life-threatening, vagaries of the times and world he lives in.

So, no cookie-cutter historical character charade here – this is a true delve into the mind and life of an historical figure. And make no mistake – this is no codpieces down, corsets up beach-reading romp. This requires thinking and concentration, though this reader had no problem concentrating. If anything I had a bigger problem letting this world go every time I had to put the book down. There is just so much detail here that you feel you’re living every day of the 8 years of Cromwell’s life that are covered with him. It is quite an astonishing feat of scholarship and imagination, and reading it can at times feel like an equally astonishing feat.

Mantel’s quirk of referring to Cromwell only as “he” (particularly when assigning dialogue) can also throw up some roadblocks and requires a fair amount of “Wait, who said that?” re-reading. But when you’re re-reading writing this good, who cares? (Well, apparently some people do but fie I say, fie to them.)

The language here is sparse but no less effecting for that – the passages after Cromwell loses his wife are not overdone but remain incredibly moving and there’s a good dollop of humour spiced with nastiness served up throughout. The many characters can often have a floating peripheralness but Mantel gives those central to the moment more earthiness with sometimes just one sentence or line of dialogue, and as the book continues those such as Henry and Anne become more substantial and more real to us. And Cromwell, ah Cromwell… we are absorbed in his mind, as well as his story.

I loved Wolf Hall. I loved its difficulties, I loved its quirks, I loved its utter commitment to the world it portrays. Wolf Hall is supposed to be the first in a trilogy …the idea that there is more of this to be had is just awesome.

Voices murmur. Sunlight outside. He feels he could almost sleep, but when he sleeps Liz Wykys comes back, cheerful and brisk, and when he wakes he has to learn the lack of her all over again.

In the Kitchen by Monica Ali – a new novel from one of the most acclaimed writers of the last few years. We have a new copy for the low price of $22.95!

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – last years Man Booker Prize winner! We have a new copy for sale for just $21.95!

Rosetta by Barbara Ewing – this is a great historical novel from one of New Zealand’s best (and most underrated) fiction writers. We have a new copy for just $20.95!

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein – a truly heartwarming story with an unusual narrator. We have very good condition secondhand stock for just $11!

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer – if you’ve seen the wonderful movie from director Sean Penn then you’ll know this sad and complex true story. This is an amazing read, and a deep journey into one young man’s psyche and travels in America. We have a really good condition secondhand copy for just $10

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger – a strange read for me, but one I would recommend everyone to read and form their own opinion.  We have my once read copy for sale for $18!

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – an amazingly well-written nominee for 2009′s Booker Prize, and a recommended read from me! Just $18 for an excellent condition copy!

And, as always, there are my recommended and highly recommended reads – click this link for the full list.

Oh, and you must, must, must read Jasper Fforde’s The Big Over Easy – seriously good, clean, clever fun.

The story is set in Victorian times in a cathedral town, amongst the various denizens associated with the cathedral and, as said, is narrated by Dr Courtine – a history professor visiting an old friend and nursing an old grievance. There is much here about historical manuscripts, academic intrigue and theological debate as well as personal demons.

This reminded me on more than one occasion of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (which I love), though the labyrinthine turnings of the whodunnit plot did threaten to overwhelm me every so often – I have to admit my attention span is not what it once was (I blame the interwebs). The characters themselves are intriguing, especially the little psychological revelations and the “secrets and lies” tone, but ultimately completely unlikeable.

All in all, a good read and one I’d recommend to Victorian mystery buffs especially (and even more especially those with good concentration skills and long attention spans), but not one I felt particularly connected to on an emotional level.

2 ½ little black furry BookieMonster Kitteh paws up. Or 3. Argh. I’m on holiday, I’ve no decision-making skills.

Creepy. Unsettling. Strange (not surprisingly). I’m left a bit confused as to how to explain The Little Stranger. This is a superbly written book suffering from a slight defect in urgency – though whether this is in fact a deficit is debatable – this tale takes its time and has a slow pace in the beginning, which gradually becomes more obviously well-suited to the story, but in the first third of the book there is a danger of falling into a torpor.

The Little Stranger is set in an upper class but rapidly decaying home – Hundreds Hall – following WW2, and the story is told by Dr Faraday – a local “lad made good” who remembers visiting Hundreds as a child and whose mother worked there as a nursery maid. Gradually it becomes clear that all is not well at Hundreds Hall, inhabited only by Mrs Ayres and her son Roderick and daughter Caroline, and a young teenage maid, with strange happenings seeming to indicate a malevolent force at work.

There are larger issues here, playing out within a domestic setting – the loss of wealth and status and the general aimlessness of the upper classes after WW2. Roderick, injured in the service of the country, has little to do but obsess over the state of his “estate” – and littler money to do it with. Caroline is a spinster, almost nostalgic for the war that gave her life a purpose and meaning beyond marriage.

Waters’ amazing technique with writing is on total show here – her ability to inhabit the voices of her characters is skilful and as equally creepy as the events they contend with. There is no jarring note here, no moment of anachronism. Their voices are fully formed and genuine and one feels total submersion in the time and story of the novel. Haunting and haunted, the voices of ghosts and a time past. Perfect for the tale being told.

The unsettled atmosphere increases as the story moves on, gradually drawing you in and eventually becoming gripping, with moments of genuine spookiness. Waters holds back from explanation and outright description though, intensifying the creepiness by lack of detail about what exactly we are dealing with here. The reader is never allowed a complete grip on events, an ambiguity that is slightly maddening but also means we never stray into well-worn territory of “horror”.

Who is The Little Stranger, is it really a ghost or is it the character of Dr Faraday himself? In the end it’s almost as if the only person who doesn’t want to give up the “gentrified” Hundreds Hall is the one person who also resents its presence – Faraday. There is a love story here, ostensibly between Faraday and Caroline – but in the end I was left wondering if Faraday’s true love is not in fact Hundreds itself, rather than any of its inhabitants.

Which, I think, is exactly where Waters wanted me, as a reader, to be.

3 little furry black BookieMonster Kitteh paws up. I didn’t find this as completely satisfying as other Waters’ books (notably Fingersmith and Affinity), but its patient skill cannot be overlooked.

Affinity

Description: An upper-class woman, recovering from a suicide attempt, visits the women’s ward of Millbank prison as part of her rehabilitation. There she meets Selina, an enigmatic spiritualist-and becomes drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own.

BookieMonster says: Phew, Sarah Waters! Into one very well-written and captivating novel she managed to cram spiritualism, lesbianism, Victorian stifling of women, Victorian mourning rituals, Victorian treatment of mental health, Victorian prison history, Victorian class structure and a clever little mystery plot. (Sorry for all the Victorians, but this novel is rather, well, Victorian.)

The very best thing about Waters is that, unlike much lesser historical writers, she manages to cover all these points in a way that doesn’t say “Hey, look at how historical I’m being! Look at my many accurate historical points! oh, and look! Lesbians!”.

No, Waters does a very neat trick in her writing – and that is being genuinely authentic to the point where you just don’t really notice it. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery of the plot and the portrayal of prison life and the spiritualist movement (especially having recently read Spook).

Affinity has been somewhat overshadowed by Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith (both also excellent, by the way) which is a bit of a shame, as Affinity is every bit as good. This is a dark tale with a sad and lonely heart. Highly recommended.

The Shores of Darkness

If you’ve been following my blog for a little while you’ve probably noticed I’m not exactly a huge reader of the bestselling historical fiction genre, a la Phillipa Gregory, Ken Follett, Diana Gabaldon, Jean Plaidy/Victoria Holt/Philippa Carr, though I will occasionally dabble in some Gregory when I’m looking for a quick easy read.

But I do actually like historical fiction, I just prefer it to be extremely well written and authentic (i.e. The Crimson Petal and the White, Year of Wonders, anything Victorian by Sarah Waters) as well as hopefully (but not just) rip-roaring.

On that note let me introduce you to Shores of Darkness by Diana Norman. Now this is not an easy book to get hold of, it’s out of print and you’ll only find it secondhand and even then not very often. But if you do find a copy I have to recommend snapping it up and enjoying some top rate rollicking historical fiction. Norman is probably better known for her American Revolution series that started with Catch of Consequence, and is now writing historical mystery under the name Ariana Franklin.

Shores of Darkness is, in part, a female pirate story that well makes up for the irritating Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Carribbean.  Norman manages to cover piracy, slavery, royal succession issues, voodoo, Daniel Defoe, the French Royal Court, war in Flanders and the legend of female pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny as well as a murder mystery slash love story. Phew.

What sets this book apart for me is the total lack of moments where you think “God, this is really tosh”. Thoroughly absorbing and vastly entertaining. If you can find a copy, lucky you (you can’t have mine).

Publisher’s description:  Martin Millet came home from the war in Flanders one summer day in 1706 to find his Aunt Effie murdered, his friend Daniel Defoe embroiled in espionage, and himself responsible for Bratchet, his aunt’s female servant, whose life is also threatened.

Instead of settling on a small estate, as he had hoped, Martin must embark on a seven-year odyssey which will lead him,  Bratchet and a mysterious Highlander from London’s stews back to the battlefields of Flanders, the court of the Sun King, the perils of piracy on the high seas and the horrors of Jamaica’s sugar plantations. Yet little do they but know it, the answer to Effie’s death, Bratchet’s safety and Defoe’s commission lies closer to home – in the apartments of Queen Anne, dying with no Protestant heir in view…