April Roundup

As this year speeds ahead, so does the literary world, especially here where the Liverpool Literary Festival is in full swing. It has been a great month for books generally.

Here is my personal account of what went on in April...

Read - 2 books
Completed -
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
First and Only by Peter Flannery
Currently Reading -
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Literary Genius edited by Joseph Epstein
Adventures of a Waterboy by Mike Scott
The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley
The Last Elf by Silvana De Mari
TBR Pile - currently at 126 (according to goodreads) with one book added this month courtesy of World Book Night - Damage by Josephine Hart.
Challenges -
Read First and Only by Peter Flannery, a mystery about a serial killer with a twist for #4 of my challenges, to read a detective mystery, although it doesn't quite fit this because there is detection but not a detective per se.
Reading The Gathering by Anne Enright, winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, which fits with #8 of my challenges to read a prizewinner (Eve Green already fits this challenge so I have ended up reading 2 for this category, but no worries)
Wishlist Additions -
100 Must Read American Novels by Nick Rennison and Ed Wood
Palisades Park by Alan Brennert
A Nearly Perfect Copy by Allison Amend
Amity and Sorrow by Peggy Riley
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell
Discoveries -
Lots going on online...
Independent Booksellers fight back against Amazon with a petition to No10, supported by Stephen Fry, Margaret Hodge and Charlie Higson, to pay their taxes, in The Guardian.

Some literary award announcements with...
- The Women's Prize for Fiction longlist
- International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award shortlist

The new list of Granta's Best of the Young British Novelists is announced, and The Guardian looks back at the first Granta list from 1993, which included Will Self, Jeanette Winterson, Ben Okri, Iain Banks, Louis de Bernieres, Kazuo Ishiguro, Esther Freud and Alan Hollinghurst amongst others, to see how things have changed and become more complicated for our new generation of writers.

There is a celebration of the work of novelist Iain Banks following the sad announcement that he has been diagnosed with gall bladder cancer.

The Book Doctor at The Guardian asked Do classic childrens books give us too rosy a view of childhood? which I am sure will prompt some strong views and good debate.

On a lighter note...
-Reading Nooks inspires us on fascinating places that people make space to read.
-Are cats the top dogs in literature? You decide.
-For Penguin Books enthusiasts, you can now buy Penguin Library Wallpaper from the Literary Gift Company, to furnish your reading nook.

Events -
Like I said it has been literary central up here in Liverpool, with the Literary Festival kicking off on World Book Night at St Georges Hall, where I met the lovely Simon from Savidge Reads, book giveaways all over the city, a City Wide Read of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini in anticipation of the stage adaptation coming to the Liverpool Playhouse, and a variety of talks and events all over the city.
Simon has been involved with a lot of sessions for the festival, and was hosting a talk that I went to yesterday at the Bluecoat Chambers, called Celebrating The Bookshop, with Jessica Fox who left a career with NASA to open a bookshop in Wigtown in Scotland, Sarah Henshaw who runs a bookshop on a barge, and Mandy Vere from our own radical bookshop News From Nowhere in Liverpool. Jen Campbell, the author of Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops, was meant to be there but was unable to make it. It was a good talk, with about 45 people attending, encompassing the passion of booksellers, the decline in independent bookstores, the monopoly of Amazon and it's effects, how booksellers and libraries fit together, and strange and curious tales from the shop floor. It was a very enjoyable and worthwhile talk.

My posts will be a little more sporadic during May and June bacause I am away, but I will still be here, with a host of things to talk about on my return I am sure.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

This one, you may remember, was one of the titles I was challenged to read last year by my work colleague BD, after he had enjoyed it. I have only just got around to reading it earlier this year after finding this copy with a very attractive cover picture. I knew of the story but had never read the book, Wilde's only novel, and was keen to do so.
Set during the Fin de Siecle high society in London, the artist, Basil Hallward has been painting the young Dorian Gray's portrait, a young and very beautiful youth circulating the aristocratic scene. Basil has become quite obsessed by Dorian because of his looks, and also his innocence and naivete. On the last sitting for the painting Lord Henry Wotton arrives at the house, an enticing socialite who thrives on excessive experience and aestheticism, being rich and therefore able to do so. His life of indulgence has bred a cynical and manipulative man and on meeting the fresh faced Dorian, he entertains himself by determining to introduce him to a more hedonistic lifestyle and viewpoint, a thrilling prospect for the young man, and against every beseechment from Basil to leave him uncorrupted. They talk about beauty and youthfulness, and in a moment of overwhelming madness after seeing his perfection in Basil's painting, Dorian wishes that the painting would take on the ageing and ravishments of life so that he can keep his youth.
"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in this whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!" (Ch2 p29)
Lord Henry's influence shapes the young Dorian's life from then on, and each selfish act is recorded in the painting. Dorian first notices a sneer at the corner of the mouth after he has cruelly let down a young woman and realises that the request has been granted, the picture will record his life while his looks will remain untarnished. This knowledge, a form of redemption against anything he may wish for, alongside Lord Henry's encouragement to experience every pleasure regardless of consequence, leads Dorian on a very dark and shady path, ending in a life of depravity and selfish disregard. The painting, now hidden in a locked room, grows hideous and deformed, while Dorian remains unaged and beautiful. The consequences are far reaching, on those around him, but also his own torments as he swivels out of control altogether.
There are many lessons in this novel, warnings of excess, the preoccupation of image, although Wilde denied any didacticism. Being a supporter of the Aesthetic movement, he believed that art was useless and should only be admired for it's own sake. There is a lot to support this movement in the novel (and indeed in his other works) because it deals with the importance of beauty, and certainly it is Dorian's looks that allow a certain amount of acceptance despite the rumours that surround him. It is only those who are immediately affected by his behaviour who shun him, but no one actively calls him to count amongst the fashionable and the rich. Wealth and good looks seem to provide him with an exemplary pass.
Cleverly, and enticingly, we never find out about some of the acts that have led various former friends (and their sisters's) to avoid him, never speak of him, and in some cases bow out of their mutual circles in a form of escape. This is most profound in the contents of a piece of paper passed to a former close friend in order to blackmail him into providing a gross and terrible service to get Dorian out of a messy situation. We never find out what is written, and it is all the more powerful in it's absence. What on earth had occured between them? It is never spoken of, but you know it will have been indecent, amoral, and probably illegal, with the other man possibly not knowing what he had got himself into before it was too late.
I also loved the details that betray Wilde's own attitudes. Basil's fawning over Dorian's perfect beauty reaches levels of eroticim and idolatory that are way beyond any formal friendship. It is obvious that Basil has been lying awake fantacising about the young man. Then there is the interesting portrayal of women. There are virtually no realistic women characters in it. The young actress, Sybil Vane, is given the most floor time, but comes over as a caracature out of a cheap romantic melodrama, all swoons and grand gestures. Other women are portrayed as pretty furniture, slightly batty and unaware of the goings-on that surround them, only serving to plump up the personalities of the men in their life (probably quite truthful for the times). Lord Henry's observation of the female sex sets the scene.
"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals." (Ch 4, p 53)
Wilde's deliberate portrayals of the female characters serves to question whether he wanted to bring attention to their disregard in society at the time, or did he find them as tedious as his male characters seem to?
The first few chapters are very wordy, endless conversations between the three men, but it was after this that the plot drove it forward, becoming morally lower and lower than ever imagined, with quite a few nasty twists along the way. There is one particularly unforgettable scene that remains vividly seated in my imagination for its downright ickyness. As I say, a lot of it is left to the reader to imagine, and therefore is a lot worse than any book that provides the details.
Likewise the morality of the book goes in circles. There is no question as to Dorian's actions being bad, but what drives it is less clear, and the depths that he reaches, providing internal misery and torment in equal measure with indifference and disregard. I never knew at any time why Dorian grew into such a dislikeable monster, but I did enjoy reading about him.
A brilliant classic, with an endlessly questionable narrative, full of nuance and polarity, providing eons of discussion afterwards.
LitLovers provide a Dorian Gray reading guide with discussion questions for reading groups.
If you are ever in Paris, I recommend a visit to Pere Lachaise cemetary, where Oscar Wilde's lipstick kissed tomb is amongst many other amazing monuments to the famous and artistic personalities interred there.
Finally, on being asked about any autobiographical conotations in his novel, Wilde had noted in a letter,
"Basil Hallwood is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be - in other ages, perhaps."

World Book Night 2013

It was a great day in Liverpool for World Book Night and I got to do some booky things myself.
I gave out my books, The Reader by Bernhard Schlink this year. I chose it because I felt it was an important book to read, historically and socially, as well as a touching human story. It gives you a lot to think about and I hope those who got a copy get something out of it.
After work I headed off to St Georges Hall which had a marketplace with various stalls, cafe and book swaps, and there were talks and discussions too. We couldn't get tickets for the popular speakers, the advance bookings went quickly for Jeanette Winterson and Frank Cottrell Boyce, but there were some drop in sessions and we listened to a talk about the history of the Central Library, which is due to reopen next  month, and also political literature in Liverpool from Steve Binns MBE.
I also got to meet Simon from Savidge Reads which was lovely. My first encounter with a fellow book blogger. Simon has an excellent and very popular blog and has recently moved to the area. He writes for various publications and is actively involved with the literary scene in Liverpool now, indeed he has been working on some of the sessions for the Liverpool Literary Festival In Other Words which is now underway. Among other things we were chatting about The Kite Runner which is getting its European stage debut in this summer, coming to the Liverpool Playhouse from the 13th June. Both of us are fans of the novel. We also both chose The Reader as our giveaway this year.
I came away with a WBN book too... Damage by Josephine Hart. I was trying to be so good.
I hope your WBN was good fun, I would love to hear how yours went.

World Book Night and the Liverpool Literary Festival 2013

 There are two very exciting events coming up for us bookish types, one specifically in Liverpool and the other around the UK and also in the US too. Both kick off on Shakespeares birthday, the 23rd April.

World Book Night has lots of events planned with many many books being given away to encourage the delights of reading. This year I have copies of The Reader by Bernard Schlinck to hand out, a book I am excited to be introducing to people who get a copy.

There are flagship events in London and Liverpool and many other local events around the country. To view an interactive map that lists World Book Night Events 2013 near you use the link.

I know that Waterstones in Liverpool One has book giveaways planned. I am hoping to get along to St Georges Hall during the daytime where there will be a marketplace with stalls, competitions, bookswapping and a literary themed cafe. There are talks and debates in the evening, some are drop in, some are ticketed, which also mark the start of the Liverpool Literary Festival In Other Words where there will be events around the city until the 19th May, including the grand reopening of the newly refurbished historic Liverpool Central Library. For the full list of Events for In Other Words Festival 2013 in Liverpool use the link.

Maybe I will see you at one of these gatherings in my home town, and I will certainly be reporting back here to tell you how it goes. Here's hoping that WBN goes down well for everyone who is getting involved, and I know a fair few of you who are, book bloggers and others too.

March Roundup

We have already left last month behind by quite a few days, although the weather here in the UK does not show any signs of warming up yet. The bitter cold has meant staying by the fire still, sometimes with a good book. Here is how my reading life took shape during the month of March...

Read - one and a half books
Completed - The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Currently Reading -
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
Literary Genius edited by Joseph Epstein
Adventures of a Waterboy by Mike Scott
The Natural Navigator by Tristan Gooley
The Last Elf by Silvana De Mari
TBR Pile - no novels added so it is currently at 127 (according to goodreads), but I did get a copy of The Kitchen Diaries II by Nigel Slater, a lovely book that can be used for inspiration in your own kitchen or as a bedside book to dip into.
Challenges - I finished The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, which was part of #5 of my challenges to myself this year, to read 1 or 2 titles that came from our literary holidays. This one was my lucky dip prize from our Jane Austen holiday in Hampshire (2010) and a recommendation from that trip.
Also I am reading Eve Green by Susan Fletcher which won the 2004 Whitbread Novel of the year, to comply with #8 of my own challenges to read a prizewinner.
Wishlist Additions -
Pure by Andrew Miller
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Stranger Child by Alan Hollinghurst
The Oopsatoreum by Shaun Tan
Ahabs Wife or The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
Discoveries -
Some excellent articles on the net this month...
The death of writer Chinua Achebe prompted a lot of tributes, including
- Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist and poet in pictures
- Chinua Achebe 'a mind able to penetrate the mystery of being human'.
Then to tie in with St Patricks day there was Books of the Irish
A discussion about What is World Book Day?
Some positive news for the future of our bookstores, at least in the US, with A Novel Trend: Independent Bookstores on the Rise
A lovely article in The Guardian about Virago publishing - Has Virago changed the publishing world's attitudes towards women? and A New Study About Which Authors Have Ignored Women The Most.
I love a good list so the Lonely Planets Worlds Greatest Bookshops caught my eye.
Also Folio Society named as sponsor of fiction prize to rival Booker
About book blog reviews in Beyond Good and Awful: Literary Value in The Age of the Amazon Review in Time Entertainment.
An article in The Nation Irritable Reachings: On John Keats on his life and poetry.
A website that collects together many different articles, including literay and bookish subjects at The Electric Typewriter
And finally, the curious and the bizarre...
- Edible Book Cakes in pictures
- Bed Bugs found in Kzoo Library Books
Events -
The Liverpool Literary Festival is gathering speed, due to start on 23rd April in various venues in the city, celebrating the Written Word. To see the Writing On The Wall Literary Festival 2013 program use the link.

Lets hope it starts to warm up a little soon, I need to get out in the garden...

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I was one of the few book bloggers who hadn't read this book, but I loved the film and cried my eyes out at multiple viewings of this very moving story. So when I heard that the stage version was making it's European debut in Nottingham and Liverpool this year I was very excited and proud, and decided it was time to get hold of a copy. It came to me in a lovely second hand bookshop in Nottingham called Bookwise.

The story is narrated by Amir, now an adult in America, recounting his 1970's childhood in Afghanistan with his father, a wealthy businessman and his only living parent, and also his childhood friend Hassan, the son of the longserving and loyal household servant Ali and a Hazara, one of the lowlier tribes living in Afghanistan. Not only are Amir and Hassan playmates, getting up to mischief, inventing games and re-enacting their favourite Westerns from the cinema, but they fly kites together in competitions, with Amir as the flyer and Hassan as his skilled kite runner who collects the fallen kites as trophies. Hassan is unfailingly loyal to Amir, but because of his lowly status, is a target for a local bully and his gang. When they finally get Hassan alone in a back street in Kabul, what happens there will change both of their lives forever...

"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years."

Afghanistan is changing and very soon, under the Taliban, Kite Flying will be made illegal, and their unforgiving policies will wreak havoc on this once cultural, sophisticated and historic country. Amir and his father escape to America, but the boys lives were torn apart long before the Taliban ever came along.

When a family friend, many years later, calls Amir back to the country of his birth, with an invitation, an opportunity, to make things right, he reluctantly goes back, and into a situation that brings sorrow, realisation, anguish, but also release for his twelve year old self and the weight he has carried all these years. 

I already knew the story from the film, so the plot held no surprises for me, but even so, this book was an emotional ride as all the best loved books are. At turns warm and affectionately familiar as it relives young boys playing together, and then heartbreakingly tragic with tangible pain of deep seated guilt and remorse, this book wrings your emotions dry ready to fill you up again for more.

The story can be split into 3 parts, Amir and Hassan as childhood friends, the escape to America and growing up, and then the dangerous return to a changed country that has been ripped apart in unimaginable ways, but where Amir will find the truths of his past and a way to move forward.

The writing is beautiful, conveying all that Amir feels so that you feel it too, his relationship with his father, his wife, his childhood friend and also with the country of his birth. Amir's actions are not always easily comprehendible, yet Hosseini gives us enough to make us want to yell at him as well as feel sympathy and some understanding for his motives, ensuring that when he does return to Afghanistan we are still rooting for him, knowing how much he needs to turn things for the better. It is a painful journey, for him and for us too, but one that is worth investing your time in, because this is a wonderful book.

Throughout my time reading it I could not help comparing it to another book I read about Afghanistan not long ago, The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad. I did not trust the blinkered account of a country that many Europeans do not understand, simply because many of us have only heard of the atrocities, a war torn, bleak place of untold oppression, especially towards women. This is the image repeatedly available in the media, but Afghanistan has had a colourful history before the Russians and then the Taliban brought their miseries. A country of liberality, culture and learning, populated by intelligent, affectionate, hospitable people. Everything that I had a problem with in Seierstad's book was counteracted here as Hosseini displays loving relationships between families, men and women. A patriarchal society like many others, but human and teaming with life, warmth and human interaction, the poetry and rhythm of every day life, making its demise even more tragic. Seierstad wrote an account where none of this was present or even evident in its past, offering little in human qualities as if the Afghani's lack of humanity had brought about their situation, a view that I was deeply suspicious about. Hosseini tells us of a different and much more believable place.

This is a truly lovely book dealing with many difficult subjects and so many layers that it does feel epic. The plot turns about so many times and moves from the relatively leisurely beginning to an action packed pelter of a pace in the third part. It is clear why this book has been held so high in many readers regard and has provided much for book groups to chew on. Highly recommended. 

Khaled Hosseini's website can be found by using the link, where you can find discussion questions on The Kite Runner and information about his other work.

I am very intrigued and excited to see this story on the stage. It is on at theNottingham Playhouse 26th April to 18th May and then the Liverpool Playhouse 13th June to 6th July.

The Organic Year: A Guide to Organic Living by Patricia Gallimore

Forming part of a display next to the shelves, I picked this book up second hand in Oxfam in 2010. Set out in months, each chapter is dedicated to a British organisation that believes in and follows organic practice. At the end of each monthly chapter there is a practical guide for growing and also seasonal buying and availability, together with recipes. I read this in real time for each corresponding month, throughout last year.
We are introduced to some colourful and determined individuals who have converted or started their business with organics at its heart, for ethical and health reasons, most of them many years ago when Organics was seen as new age, or even crank. Times have changed thankfully, and Organic practice has become more mainstream and more widely understood.
There is everything here, farms, garden centres, breweries and wine specialists, food shops, turkey breeders, bakeries, herbalists, baby food production, dairies, Green and Black's Chocolate, and even the Prince of Wales's own farm and estate.
Explaining their reasons for choosing this way of life, their beginnings, business decisions, trials and successes, with lots of colourful pictures throughout, this is an attractive book ideal for anyone interested in this subject. It is also good as an introduction for those who are curious about the Organic way and why it is important.
The author, played Pat Lewis in The Archers on BBC Radio since 1974. Her character married Tony Archer and the producers decided that they would convert their farm to Organic in 1984. Advised by the Soil Association for the show, Patricia Gallimore became fascinated by the practice of Organic living and greatly admired those she met during the research, and from attending agricultural shows, fairs, festivals and debates. Many of these contacts have been revisited in this book, as well as some new ones.
For anyone with an interest in finding out about the Organic way of life, interested in getting started or looking for inspiration, this book is ideal. Easy to read with practical growing and shopping guides, in an attractive format, this colourful book covers a variety of subjects with Organic life at its heart.
For the Top 10 Reasons to Support Organic in the 21st Century use the link to this organic website.