I feel that recommendations are very personal. When cornered I will offer up a plethora of random titles, usually of books I have recently read or am in the process of completing and then I eventually guide the inquisitor to this blog. My take on the matter is clear; I cannot assume to know you, really know you, enough to know what book you will like. I can tell you about the books I have been reading and maybe, just maybe, we can presume we are that bit closer thanks to the common ground of having read the same book regardless of how we end up reviewing the experience. I liken this to a hotel bed. Just because at random times we happened to occupy the same bed in the same hotel does not automatically mean we have similar tastes or personalities. Same room, different people, different circumstances. I cannot count the times when someone has come up to me and said 'You will REA-LLY like/hate this book' only to find myself questioning why that person would think so when I clearly find the experience in contrast to theirs at the end of it? Did that person recommend it because they thought I was shallow, boring, deep, funny, not clever enough, neurotic or am I plainly over analysing and they thought I would simply like/hate the book? Having said that, once in a while there comes that recommendation that makes me grateful not everyone thinks like I do. Instances that force me to reconsider my take on this subject. Such an occasion arose a few weeks ago when 'In Search of the Missing Eyelash' by Karen McLeod was handed to me by a friend who did the loathsome 'you will love this' act. Still hesitant, I did finally take it but only after she pointed out that the author herself was in the same bookshop where we were all gathered for a mutual friend's book signing. From the outset, 'In Search of the Missing Eyelash' declares itself in a league of its own. I dare anyone to read the first sentence and be able to put the book down. Seriously, I dare you! It has become the #1 sentence on my list of most memorable beginnings of modern times. Karen McLeod hooks you so violently and unashamedly not letting go right until the end when she leaves you emotionally spent and only then does she reluctantly let go because the issues she deals with in her novel (gender, loneliness, self image, abandonment and love) will carry long after you've finished reading this mere 193-page book. The novel is about Lizzie, a lonely depressed young woman who has just been dumped by the love of her life, Sally, for a man. Lizzie suffers from abandonment issues that date from way back when. Everyone she loves leaves: her parents, her brother, her lover even her body which seems to have morphed into one she no longer recognizes. Her best friend, Petula, egocentric and completely self-obsessed with the various men in and out of her life, is hardly the shoulder for Lizzie to cry on. So, alone and desperate Lizzie comes to the conclusion that only two things will ever make her happy again: finding her brother Simon, also known as Amanda, and getting Sally back. And so Lizzie turns part time detective trying to piece together the whereabouts of Simon and her mum, and part time stalker, hoping to be there to pick up the pieces when eventually Sally's relationship with Fat Neck breaks up. A quest which sees her on an insane dash to Brighton where it all goes horribly wrong. Lizzie's juvenile interpretation of love is so touching and yet so disillusioned that you want to yank her out of the book, shake her hard to set her brain straight and then engulf her in one big hug to show her that there ARE those who care. You are willing the author to make it alright for Lizzie, to give her a damn break but all the while more and more complications arise trapping Lizzie (and the reader at times) into an air-tight, even claustrophobic, bubble. It is when the bubble finally does burst and the clean-up begins that the true intelligence and craftsmanship of the author are at their best. This novel may not be a literary masterpiece or every person's cup of tea and I admit there are bits that I found dragged on. At one point (mainly one) Lizzie's soul searching resembled repetitive moaning and she becomes slightly irksome yet for the oddest reasons you cannot bring yourself to give up on her. I found this an extremely well-written, tight and emotional book. I am willing to break my own rule for this book and say that if I were to recommend a good read for summer, this book would be the one. By the end of the evening I mentioned in the beginning I did get to exchange a few words with Karen McLeod. I found her to be a genuine charmer all twinkling eyes, totally disarming with her flamboyant manner and red lipstick. It is very hard not to like her. Based on what I've read on her website in addition to leading an extremely delicious life she is working on her next novel which I can't wait to get my hands on.
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The story starts with the central protagonist Fatima Abudullah, on her way back from a friend's funeral. Bordering on 86 years, just divorced from her husband of sixty five years, with ten grown up children and now with children of their own, she feels that her life is at its end. This pessimistic prediction is further confirmed by the appearance of Scheherazade who has started to visit with Fatima at her Los Angeles home that she shares with her gay grandson Amir. Scheherazade, the beauty known for her spinning of tales, finds herself in the reversed role of listener rather than story-teller as Fatima relates to her the events of her own life from the days she left Deir Zeitoon in Lebanon in 1936 to emigrate to America to the story's present year of 2011. She feels that once the tales are done in the 1001 days she will spend recounting them to Scheherazade she will die. With utter belief of her end Fatima starts to sort out the major dilemma of who to leave the house in Deir Zeitoon to when she dies, the house from which she bid her mother farewell on that last day she set out with her first husband Marwan to America, not knowing that the two would never meet again or how dramatically her life would be shaped from events to come. The novel reads like a brief history in the life on an immigrant, here Fatima Abdullah. She is an Arab, illiterate woman who finds herself in a foreign country, with a people whose language she cannot speak and a husband she barely knows. It is a tough start by all means made even more so when Marwan dies early on leaving her alone and pregnant. Cue Ibrahim (Marwan's best friend) who she thinks marries her out of duty and obligation. Believing that his wife left him for another, Fatima agrees to the wedding but is forever convinced that this was and remained a marriage of convenience devoid of the notion that Ibrahim could ever have loved her. Once the realization sinks in though, it is too late and the last scenes of the book when we all realize what he has done as proof of his love brings a tear to the eye and is one of the most emotional parts of the book. Fatima's ten children are first generation Americans of immigrant parents. They are children born to parents who although want their children to thinks of themselves as Americans, yet would have liked them to retain some of their Arabness as well. Fatima's daughters by her own admission are girls who do not date, but marry and her biggest regret is that all showed no interest in learning Arabic except for Nadia who decided to learn it at college further frustrating her mother who thought it ridiculous that they had to pay for her to learn a language that she could have learnt for free at home. Fatima's children, all eight of them, lead very different lives and are totally alienated from each other. The glue binding them together throughout the novel is Fatima even if most of the time they are unaware of it. She is their anchor in so many ways that everyone including Fatima herself take for granted. She is the true personification of an Arab saying "il om bitlom" which literally means mother is the binder. The other thing that binds them is the weather. Many readers who are themselves children of immigrant parents will relate so much with this story. The parents struggling to cope with their new foreign environment clutching at straws (in this story keys) to stay attached to a past they fear that if they lose their identity will be lost with it and the children not knowing any other country except the one they were born to. This struggle is very evident in the stories of all the children who Scheherazade takes the time out to show us when she takes a break from being Fatima's listener. The book has a mystery that is revealed at the end and is one of the many reasons that the Abudullah family come to realize is part of the reason why they have become what and how they are as adults. Each in his own turn has not had a very easy life and has had to fight their own demons to come out battered but not totally broken the other side. There have always been prices to pay but there has also been moments of happiness as well. The characters are believable, funny, witty and highly intelligent yet confused and lacking in self esteem. But the story is not doom and gloom and I am sorry if I have made it out to seem like that, in fact it is highly comical, and there are laugh aloud moments in the book particularly where Fatima is concerned and Amir's antics which I found quite endearing. This is a very interesting read, and a book that I have so enjoyed that I will be reading again in the near future. I haven't been as sad to have a book end in so long. This is movie material for sure! To learn more about the author click HERE. Why do we choose to read certain books over others? Is it our mood at the time of purchase that determines what titles we are drawn to or is it a book's cover that lures us? Is it an author's name that stands out or a book's RRP? And once the choice is made should one surrender oneself completely and unassumingly to the adventure ahead or do we determine the book a success if it has fulfilled our expectations of it? Would/should an author's nationality alone be reason enough to buy a book and is it fair to burden the author with our personal expectations of how it should/shouldn't be written? This time I admit that I chose the book for two reasons. The first being its author's place of birth and the second my curiosity of how Emiratis would have lived their life back before oil was discovered under their sands. Here is a female Emirati-born writer (one of a handful) who has written a novel about a female protagonist living in the Arabian Peninsula in the 1950s. An era about which not much is known due to lack of documented history and the reliance on the accuracy and authenticity of word-of-mouth relay. This is an author who comes from a trading family with roots that extend way back when the United Arab Emirates was a scattering of tribes here and there. It may be fiction she's offering but my curiosity was aroused and understandably what ensued was a natural presumption that this book would shed light on an era and a private people that only few know about. The book, in general, did not disappoint kicking off with a gripping first chapter that reveals two match makers who have come to determine Noora's suitability for marriage with a series of demeaning (albeit farcical) tests. If she passes then they are to train her to be a devout obedient wife to her new husband. The scene painfully demonstrates the woman is a mere commodity to dispense with as the male counterpart of the family sees fit. Finally Noora is married off to an older man as his third wife, forced to travel far from family and all that is familiar, and has to live under the same roof of not only an old miserly husband, but with his two other wives as well. The insight into how women such as Noora, robbed of all human decency and rights had to rely on their inner strength and resolve if not deviousness when need be to get by is amazing. It was heartbreaking to see the loss of innocence and the suffocation of Noora's mind and personality so that she ends up as she does by the end of the story. If she is accused of self-absorption, it is a reflection of her self-preservation amid the turmoil and chaos. And then, there is the sex! Hats off to Maha for highlighting this very basic human need that discriminates not between men and women. Sure it was the 1950s in a remote seaside town whose residents were good practicing Muslims and yet they were also human. Humans with emotions and a need to love and be loved and recognized in return. Gargash's story is by her admission a work of fiction so although the reality would have been more restrictive of women's movements in that era (maybe) and that settings allowing for intimacy beyond marriage are hard to imagine (maybe), it is the author's right to choose how her protagonist will act in certain situations whether the reader agrees with her or not. Although this book may not be one of the best to come out of the Middle East, this should in no way undermine its author's skill in telling a good story. Gargash is a woman who has spent most of her life researching the history and traditions of her region and I am sure she has much more to give. The Sand Fish is well-researched, accurate historically and is a very gripping book once you get stuck into to. Its ending though has been reserved for the realists as it does not get any more real than that. About the book: Seventeen-year old Noora (the sandfish) is an independent, fiery and totally sheltered girl growing up in the mountains at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Her father is a deranged old man, her mother gone, and her brother, a once happy boy turned serious and sour decides to marry her off to a rich pearl merchant. Third wife to an old unyielding man, she struggles to cope with her new surroundings. Like a fish out of water she struggles to breathe in her life of captivity where robbed of choice, her will not her own, she is left alone to stand up for herself in the face of a husband she loathes and his two other wives residing in the same house as hers. She soon finds out the real purpose she was selected as a third wife is to produce an heir. In all this misery she does find solace in the arms of a lover, a situation that throws Noora's life into a new kind of jeopardy. Thanks to Twitter I learnt of this book by author Paul Craig. It is only available as an e-book and I am wondering whether we will ever see it in print as it would make a very good Christmas present. (Just forward thinking here!) Here's the thing: I have for some time been searching for a book I could read with my nine-year-old. Not for lack of choices out there but for lack of what my son would go for these days. He's a peculiar reader and struggles to find something that he won't find boring after a few pages. He's grown out of dragons, has had enough of wizards, and remains too young for vampires. Enter Paul Craig's book 'While You Are Sleeping'. From the first chapter, this book was onto something. The fact that it offered my son an explanation to why hair is ruffled in the morning and an excuse from now on that he's not to blame for mislaid socks or scattered toys or vanishing consoles was reason to use this book as a bible from now on. Speaking of bible, there are parts of this book that touch on certain theological issues that would make great discussion points for maturer readers. The names of places, the food and the characters are funny, well-chosen and evidence that Paul Craig has put effort in his choices. They are very hard to forget. In short, the story is about David, a nine-year-old boy who lives with his alcoholic mother, enormously fat step-sister Kim and abusive step-dad. He is locked in his room most of the time, hungry and ignored. He hasn't learnt to read and write and his only friend in the world is his dog Robbie. His father disappeared when David was young and all he believes he has of him is a bracelet he found in the loft of his old home. For some reason whenever David slips the bracelet on, he feels safe and secure. The Underworld is a strange sort of realm, parallel to ours with trolls, dwarves and talking animals. The underworld is where the chaos makers live. Eric, one of the gang, kidnaps David and brings him to the underworld. He is unaware that by doing so, him and his friends will be embarking on the adventure of a lifetime; An adventure that involves danger, Ultimate Beings and ending up in the worst and most frightening place in the underworld: The Gulag. This is a very funny book, not without flaws (it needs at times serious editing I must say), but still worth giving a go. Our view (my son's and I) is that the author should have chosen a different accessory to a ring in the story. There is one part in the book where you could imagine them all standing there going "My Precious" if you get my drift. Some parts reminded of other novels struggling to find an independent and different role in this story but really these are things that are quickly overcome when you speed through the pages eagerly wanting to find out how it will all turn out for David. A lovable character that makes you wish he finds the break he has long deserved. To read more about the Underworlders click HERE This is brilliant! For fear of sounding juvenile I shall also add that this is a novel not only well-written but so tightly knit and structurally solid that there is not one thing that I can fault it with. A gripping tale about time, history and a mystery thrown in for good measure. The Sense of an Ending is the story of sixty-year-old divorcee Tony who feels that he has lived life as he should have or at least how he was meant to have lived it; carefully, sensibly with no surprises. Never having had any expectations of how his life should turn out (either because of his lazy nature or the fact it just doesn't occur to him to live it otherwise) he feels that he is happy to end up where he is now. His will is drawn up, his daughter married off and although divorced from his wife Margaret, they still have an amicable relationship. But then out of the blue, he is contacted by the lawyer of one of his exes Veronica informing him that his friend Adrian who was in a relationship with Veronica forty years ago and who at the time committed suicide at age 21 had left him his diary after his death. A fact that had been kept from him for nearly forty years. Now you may wonder, as does Tony, why it should have taken forty years for that diary to surface. The reason we find out is that Veronica's mother had had it with her all this time and she herself had died just recently. Of course knowing about the diary and actually getting Veronica to hand it over are at the heart of this book. Things get more complicated and Tony's peaceful life is blown to smithereens. For fear of spoiling the ending I shall say no more. This is a novel (or novella really as it's only 150 pages) about life, how we live out that life or even how we decide to end it, the choices we make, the words we say and the emotions we display with our loved ones and even our enemies. This is a book about memory and old age and how with time our perception of how things that happened in our past really did happen at the time and whether we all pay a price at the end. This is a witty book with a witty ending and I urge a reading. I know you might think I just say this because it won the Booker prize for 2011 but once you have read it, you'll know it was a prize well-awarded. This is a story mainly about a Calligrapher called Hamid Farsi and his wife Noura who in the opening chapter we know has run away from the marital home. Rumour is rampant as to why she fled and it is only until the end of the book that the events and characters come together to give us a clear idea of the why and the when. It is a powerful opening chapter with a beautiful description of Damascus by an author who knows the city well and knows to the dot how the dwellers of that city truly live their lives. Rumours are rampant and feed people's imaginations at times when food itself is scarce and hard to come by. In Syria, as in most of the Arab countries, rumours take on a life of their own so that by the time a rumour has done the rounds and returns to its initial instigator even they fail to know it is the same one they had started themselves. But it is also a powerful weapon that can make or break a person's life and jeopardise all they have strived to achieve all their lives. There are two sides to this story and they are both based on love albeit in two different forms and what Rafik Schami is trying to conclude is that once we fall into love's trap we are helpless and would do anything and give up everything for love when it is pure and strong. There is Noura, who finds herself trapped in a love-less oppressive marriage which she feels has stripped her of all humanity. Let down by her own parents and society she feels she has reached a black tunnel until she meets the apprentice who changes her life forever and offers that glimmer of hope of a better more worthy life. Love takes many forms in this novel and it proves time and again that whenever there is a slither of hope there is always a chance for love to make its way through. There is the love between Karam the Cafe owner and Badri the barber, the love of Salman for his mother and his dear friend Sarah, and the wider forms of love between Christians, Muslims and Jews in Syria. Love comes in different forms and our relationships with each other as humans determine how open we are to receive, to give as well as to dedicate ourselves to love and the methods in which we choose to do so. There is no right or wrong we find but just that people's experiences ultimately shape their perception of what love is and one cannot give what one does not know. The Calligrapher on the other hand has a deep secret that not even his wife Noura knows about. Hamid Farsi is a Master Calligrapher and lives and breathes only for his art. He has high hopes for calligraphy and for the Arabic Alphabet and it is only towards the end of the book that we find out just what these aspirations are and how they could mean the end of all he has achieved. It is a good story, not as powerful as Schami's The Dark Side of Love but still very entertaining and gripping. Syrian politics are lightly treaded in this book and seem to come as an after-thought at the end of the book or maybe it was because the politics was the main underlying theme of The Dark Side of Love that I personally expected more of it in this book. I just felt that the social issues highlighted here had been dealt with in Schami's previous novel bar the art of calligraphy which is in itself truly fascinating. It was a pleasure to be reminded of the various forms of Arabic writing that as a school girl I had to learn and identify with as part of my Arabic studies. Calligraphy is art, politics, religion and a labour of true love and dedication in the Arab World and its journey has been a hard and challenging one for more than a thousand years. Just for a window into that world, it is well worth giving the book a go. What a fantastic surprise it was to receive this book underneath my Christmas tree (sounds like a song title). I had been pining to get my hands on this graphic novel for months ahead. The reason I hadn't? I had already blown my allocated money allowance on books which left me with no way to explain the cost. In case you're wondering, the book is only in hardcover (can't see it printed otherwise really and comes steeply at £20). I have just finished my first reading of it and I know that I will return to this time and time again. First let me get the blurb of what this book is about out of the way: Habibi tells the love story between Dodola and Zam. From the very start, their relationship is complex. They meet as slaves (Zam nee Chams a three-year old son to a slave woman; Dodola a child-bride kidnapped by slave traders). The love between these two blossoms when they flee the slave traders and set up home in the desert where they make a haven for themselves. Nine years later and it all changes when now Zam is a thirteen-year old on the brink of manhood and it all changes dramatically when he finds out just how Dodola has been providing food on the table. I found the love story very intense and quite sad but the true beauty of the book lies in the illustrations and detailed drawings. Here is Craig Thompson at his best. As a speaker of the Arabic language it was just divine following the cursive Arabic letters, the calligraphy, the blend of Eastern and Western interpretations of the stories in the Quran and the Bible. Attention to detail at its best. The ink flowing from one page to another. Too much for the senses to absorb in one go. This is a book that should be viewed over and over again. Controversial? Absolutely! Note: This is a very adult graphic novel with a lot of nudity and topics of a sexual and violent nature. So NOT for the kids! This is a very compelling page-turner that you won't want to put down and will leave you drained, horrified and an emotional wreck. In brief, a must nominee for your next book-club read. Oh and it is short-listed for the Man Booker 2011. Now with that said and out the way I can explain why I started the review this way. Had I known the subject matter of the book prior to reading the book itself it probably would have remained on the bookstore's shelf for others to enjoy and for moi to miss out. And this, I think, is any a good time to confess to a horrific reality: I hate the story Moby Dick. There, I've said it. I find it morbid beyond morbid and although based on certain historical facts there has always been something alienating and disconnecting and dare-I-say- boring about it. I apologize to all and might as well add too that I found the movie equally boring too. That said, although Jamrach's Menagerie is both about men at sea whaling (hence the Moby Dick mention above) and their days at sea I still thought it was brilliant. Another thing is that it is partly based on two historical truths which I will not reveal to you here but once I read about in the acknowledgements made the story even more fascinating if not downright horrific. I hope it does the same for you. The novel is about Jaffy Brown, a boy destined for great things living in the slums of Victorian London who is "born twice. First in the wooden room that jutted out over the black water of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when the tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began." Before he knows it he is boarding a ship for the Indian Ocean with his friend Tim at his side. What happens next is an adventure beyond their wildest imagination. I like this book on several levels. As you know I live in London, very close to Greenwich which is home to the Cutty Sark Clipper. I am also fascinated by the West India Company's history and the voyages of 19th Century whale ships so you get how this novel was a real pleasure. Well-researched and with a penchant for description and detail the imagery, sounds and smells are all too real. A mention of the Lascars was the cherry on the top. A word of warning: this book is not for the faint hearted and some parts are there to haunt you forever and mark my word they will. Oh and did I mention that it is short-listed for the Man Booker 2011? This is the story of Ishmael and Ishmael's father Aga Akbar. They come from a land that may as well be far far away and from a time that may as well be long long ago. From Persia. Ishmael's father is the deaf, out-of-wedlock son of a very important man. He is raised by his junkie uncle, Kazem Khan, who lives in the Saffron mountains. Akbar is taught to write using his own form of cuneiform symbols introduced to him by Kazem Khan who one fine day hands him a pen and a journal, takes him to the holy cave of the village, and explains to him that he must write in cuneiform as they are letters etched into the stone "by a great King". Aga Akbar is hooked and after his death, this journal finds its way to Ishmael who by now lives as a political exile in the Netherlands who decides to translate the journal as a tribute and final act of love and atonement for his dead father. The story is told by Ishamel Mahmud Ghaznavi Khorasani who now safely lives at 21 Nieuwgracht not Amsterdam but in the Flevopolder - the reclaimed ground that the Dutch have wrested from the sea. He is battling feelings of loneliness, home-sickness and guilt at having left not only his country but his family behind particularly his father and sister Golden Bell. The revolution that had taken shape in his homeland Iran and in which he played an integral part robbed him of all that he loved and he carries with him a sense of being cheated and unable to make amends with himself for the decisions that he once took. This is a story of exile, politics and love between family members. It is about the bravery of women and their own battle for recognition in a very harsh environment. It spans different times in Iran's history from the Shahs to Khomeini and the mullahs. It is a great introduction to anyone who does not know much on the subject. Suffism conotations are rampant and the writing is lyrical and poetic. This is not an autobiography although the writer chooses a protagonist who like him is exiled from his country Iran and lives in Holland. This is may not be a true story in one sense but its interpretation of reality cannot be more real or vivid. For more on Kader Abdolah, click here. This is a story of love between a brother and sister (not in the crude sense you filthy minded person :) ) but how sibling love carries with it all the secrets, pain, and joys of youth all the way into adulthood. It is all about the strong bond between older brother Joe and his sister Eleanor (Elly) really cemented in early childhood when Elly entrusts her brother with the biggest and most horrifying secret of her childhood. It is this secret that casts its shadow on them throughout the book and shapes them into the adults they turn out to be. The book is set in London, Cornwall and New York and spans a generation growing up in 60s-70s Britain and then spending a stint of their adulthood lives in New York at the time of 9/11 . But make no mistake this is not a story about 9/11 or a religious book as the title may at first imply, it is more about people coping with life and whatever it throws at them and forces them to cope with from cancer to terrorism, this is a raw study of the fragility of life and yet the strength that individuals find in themselves when strength and understanding is all that one can do. The story's fluidity is fantastic and mind you this is a debut novel but the writing is confident, rhythmic at times if also mystical, whimsical and magical. Personally, I thought the strength of the book was in its first part and all the childhood trauma that happens there from abuse to first love whether heterosexual or gay. This is a family growing up in 70s Britain when gay rights and feminism were thrust at the forefront of social and political mainstream. The theme is rampant throughout the novel and the parents of Elly and Joe, particularly their mother are trying to adapt to the changing times by reading up on new parenthood and psychology material on how best to deal with their offspring. This is a book of hope and the writer is very reluctant to keep her reader in darkness and despair although she succeeds in taking them to the brink. There are certain over-long descriptions at times and it's a roller coaster keeping up with Elly and her emotions. Is she a likable character though? That I will leave for you to judge and maybe let me know? |
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