Set in Stone

Synopsis: When Samuel Godwin, a young and naive art tutor, accepts a job with the Farrow family at their majestic home, little does he expect to come across such a web of secrets and lies. His two tutees are as different as chalk and cheese - the beautiful younger sister Marianne, full of flightiness and nervous imagination, and Juliana, oddly sensible and controlled. Assisted by their elusive governess, Charlotte Agnew, Samuel begins to uncover slowly why Marianne is so emotionally fragile. But his discoveries lead to revenge and betrayal - and lives all around are turned upside down as life and death combat each other for supremacy. Linda Newbery has written a novel in diary style, combining different voices and a different century with her usual brilliance and ease. These are characters full of the same passions as our own today, while living in a less familiar and fascinating time.

Review: This book won the Costa Childrens Book of the Year and it's easy to see why (though there are some dark themes so I'm surprised that it's classed as a children's book), it's a real page turner. It's set in 1898 somewhere near the South Downs in a beautiful country mansion named Fourwinds (not a crumbling mansion for a change .. a very beautiful, newly built mansion) and the narrative alternates between Samuel Godwin, a young artist who has been employed as tutor to the two young ladies that live at Fourwinds (Marianne and Juliana) and Charlotte Agnew, their governess and companion.

The story begins with Samuel travelling to Fourwinds to take up his post as artist and tutor. Darkness has fallen by the time he arrives, and as he opens the gates to enter the grounds he hears a shrill cry and soon after see's the cloaked figure of a young girl running towards him. She's in great distress and seems to be searching for someone, when Samuel enquires who she is looking for, she eventually answers

'the West Wind ... he must be found, captured and secured'.

This young lady turns out to be Marianne, one of his pupils. She's sixteen, very beautiful, passionate and wilful. Her sister Juliana is nineteen, small, delicate and recently returned from convalescence. Samuel learns that their mother is lately dead and their father is doing his best to provide a secure home and proper education for them.

Samuel finds that the inhabitants of Fourwinds are hiding some secrets, one involves the sculptures that adorn the house walls. There are three sculptures on three walls, the North Wind, the South Wind and the East Wind, but the West Wind sculpture is missing. Samuel learns that the sculptor was dismissed, as was the girls previous governess, what could the reasons be behind this?. Also it would seem that the girls mother fell to her death from an upstairs balcony, was it an accident?

Charlotte, is very prim and proper, she has grown very fond of the girls and is quite jealous of any mention of their former governess. She is hiding some secrets about her own life but like Samuel she is curious to know the answers to some of the mysteries at Fourwinds. Like all good literary characters, instead of minding their own business, they go digging around (seperately) for clues and answers.

It's very atmospheric, quite Jane Eyrish (though to compare the writing to Charlotte Bronte would be pushing things a bit) and gothic in style. There's a bit of a nod towards Jane Austen's 'Sense & Sensibility' too with the two girls .. one passionate and wilful (called Marianne), one quiet and serious (though it was only the slightest of nods, a mere incline of the head really). There are twists and turns a plenty including one pretty shocking one which I totally failed to see coming, but then I am a plotline twist-ignoramus.Definitely recommended for young adults (and old adults), but not for children.

Good versus Evil

Synopsis: The Devil and Miss Prym is the conclusion to the trilogy And on the Seventh Day which began with By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept and the hugely popular Veronika Decides to Die. Each of the three books focuses on a week in the life of ordinary people faced with a major life-changing force; be it love, death or power, it is Coelho's firm belief that "the profoundest changes take place within a very reduced time frame"

Review: This was another choice from the 1001 Books YMRBYD list. I haven't read the others in the trilogy (infact I haven't read anything by Paulo before), but I don't think that was much of a problem because it seems that they are three completely seperate stories albeit linked by a common theme.

On the whole I enjoyed it, it's a story about good and evil, temptation and greed. Berta has spent fifteen years sitting outside her front door in the village of Viscos, one day she sees a stranger heading toward the village, but he is not alone, he's accompanied by the Devil.

The next day the stranger sets off to the mountains on the east side of the village, and in the surrounding forest he digs two holes not far from one another, in one he hides one gold bar and in the other he hides ten gold bars.

As he walks back to the village he see's a young woman, Miss Chantal Prym. He strikes up a conversation with her, she works at the bar of the hotel where he's staying. He tells her that the information that he gave on the form at the hotel is false, and tells her that he want's to show her something, she follows him (clearly she had never seen any of the 'Charley Says' public information films) back to the site where he hid the single gold bar. He tells her to dig, she does and uncovers the ingot. He takes her to the second site and gets her to dig again ... she uncovers the ten ingots.

Why is he showing her this? What does he want from her? He want's to put a proposition to her, he want's her to go back to the village and tell the villagers what she's seen and also tell them that he is willing to hand all the gold over to the inhabitants of Viscos on condition that they do something they would never dream of doing. That they break a commandment. That they commit a murder. He also tempts Chantal to steal the single ingot, thus breaking the comandment "thou shalt not steal".

Obviously this throws up all sort of problems for Chantal, she's exhausted thinking about it, she can't function properly. She tries to forget about her conversation with the stranger, she thinks about telling the priest. Her troubled mind veers from one solution to another, she procrastinates, she digs up the single gold bar and looks at it again. But then her hand is forced, the stranger hands her a note requesting a meeting, and Chantal, much stressed and with a gun pointing at her, ends up agreeing to speak to the villagers. It turns out that at one time the stranger believed in being a good man, and abiding by the law, but tragedy struck, and whilst trying to do the right thing, his whole world was destroyed. He has no compassion now, his heart is shrivelled, but he still has some questions that he needs answers to ..

'I want to know if, when Good and Evil are pitted against each other, there is a fraction of a second when Good might prevail'.

In the hotel bar that evening, Chantal bangs a fork against a wine glass and ask for silence .. she then repeats the strangers proposition to the villagers.The story from then on in of course is about how the villagers and Chantal respond to that proposition, will they be tempted or will justice and goodness prevail?.

I felt the first half of the book was more interesting and the second half fairly predictable. It was thought provoking ... how would we react if tempted?, would we always choose the right path?, have we all got a price? I did like his writing style and will look out for his other books.

The Elephant Keeper

Synopsis: 'I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.' In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them. 'The Elephant Keeper' is Tom's account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them together. Christopher Nicholson's charming and captivating novel explores notions of sexuality and violence, freedom and captivity, and the nature of story-telling -- but most of all it is the study of a profound and remarkable love between an elephant and a human being.

Review: I love Elephants, they're probably my favourite wild animal and so I found this book both really enjoyable and incredibly sad in places. Tom Page is a stable boy at Harrington Hall in Somersetshire. When his master buys a couple of Elephants fresh off the boat (or not very fresh actually, they had suffered terribly during the journey) Tom is given the job of looking after them. To most of the other workers the Elephants are creatures to be feared or a curiosity. This is the 18th century and hardly anyone in England has ever even seen a picture of an Elephant, but Tom falls in love with them and with time and patience creates a special bond. He calls them (secretly) Jenny and Timothy and his life begins to revolve entirely around them to the detriment of his relations with his family and his sweetheart Lizzy.

Timothy's behaviour gives cause for concern, he is 'on heat' and during this time becomes aggressive and unmanageable, even Tom struggles to pacify him. This along with the financial strain caused by the upkeep of the Elephants and several unfortunate incidents and accidents involving them, leads to Tom's master deciding to sell them both. Unfortunately they are parted, Timothy is sent in a packing crate to Lincolnshire and a few weeks later Jenny is sold to Lord Bidborough in Sussex. Tom is given the choice to either stay at Harrington Hall or accompany Jenny to Sussex. Much to his mother's and Lizzy's dismay, Tom decides to go with Jenny to Sussex. Lizzy's words burn in his ear ...

'Tom, you cannot tie yourself for ever to an Elephant. You cannot spend the rest of your life caring for an Elephant - You cannot, it is unnatural. She is only an Elephant'

But Tom is adamant, however much he feels for his family and Lizzy, it is as nothing compared to the love and responsibility he feels towards Jenny.

It is Lord Bidborough who asks Tom to write a History of the Elephant (and this we read in the introduction), and after writing a few stilted phrases such as 'the Elephant is, without dispute, the largest creature in the world' and 'Its ears are broad while it's skin is generally grey' Tom decides it would be better if he wrote the history in journal form starting with the day he first met them and bringing it right up to date and adding to it each day (which is in effect what we read for the first half of the book).

It's a pretty idyllic life for Tom and Jenny in Sussex but nothing good lasts forever and eventually a series of misfortunes lead to Jenny being sold on again, and again and again. It's at this point that you realise how much Tom's own life has been put on hold and how his devotion to Jenny has cost him a chance of a happy family life himself, or even a stable and settled life (no pun intended). Before he leaves Sussex he enquires after Timothy and he eventually intercepts a letter detailing what happened to the bull Elephant after he left Somersetshire.

The book gets sadder and sadder, Tom and Jenny end up in London in a badly kept and badly run menagerie, and I found the accounts of the sad, malnourished animals doing tricks or being forced to entertain the meagre crowds almost unbearable. You just keep hoping that something will happen to release them from their misery .. it's torturous reading. Tom is old by now and he worries about what will become of him if he loses Jenny and worries even more about what will become of Jenny if she loses him.

It's an easy, undemanding read, though very sad in places. It is a bit patchy, there are times when it rambles on too long and others where you would like a bit more detail. But the lovely way in which it describes the relationship between Tom and Jenny/Timothy makes it a great read, especially if you love Elephant's.

Julian Barnes's History

Synopsis: Connecting themes of voyage and discovery, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters has become one of Barnes's most studied and talked about novels. The mixture of fictional and historical narratives provides Barnes the opportunity to question our ideas of history, our interpretation of facts, and our search for answers to explain our interaction and placement within the grand scope of history.

Review: This is really a collection of short stories, loosely connected by themes such as Noah and his Ark, boats and water in general and woodworm! Most of them are fictionalised accounts of true stories. The first one is a humorous retelling of Noah and his journey on the Ark .. from the viewpoint of a stowaway woodworm. The woodworm is not a big fan of Noah or his 'role model' God, and that's putting it mildly.

There is a fascinating account of the 'Shipwreck of the Medusa' (1816) which is split into two parts. The first part details how after the ship struck a reef some of the crew built a raft and this was towed by one of the ship's launches. Fearing that they would be overwhelmed by the desperate crew of the raft the launch crew cut the ropes and left the raft adrift in the ocean. What followed is a tale of despair, dissent, fighting, starvation, cannibalism and execution until the few survivors left were eventually rescued. Tucked in between the two parts is a folded book plate which when pulled out reveals a stunning painting depicting the crew of the raft hailing a tiny boat on the horizon.
This painting is by Gericault and is called 'The Raft of the Medusa'. The second part is an account of how catastrophe can be turned into art and Julian attempts to provide answers as to why Gericault chose to paint the raft and it's crew in the way that he did for 'the incident never took place as depicted'.

Other stories include a cruise ship beset by terrorists, a bizarre medieval tale about some woodworm, which are on trial at a French court, accused of infesting the Bishop's throne legs, causing the chair to topple and the Bishop to fall into imbecility, and a tale of an astronaut who believed that during his moonwalk, God spoke to him and urged him to find the Ark on Mount Ararat. He subsequently comes home and sets about raising funds for the trip.

On the whole I liked it a lot. Perhaps the title is misleading, this isn't really a history of the world, just a few fictionalised random accounts of historical events and some musings from Julian about love, life and death. It was rewarding and thought provoking though, the sort of book that makes you head straight to 'Google' during and after reading it, to research the subject matter.

Fever Crumb

Synopsis: "Fever Crumb" is a stunning, stand-alone prequel to Philip Reeve's brilliant science fantasy quartet. It is set many generations before the events of Mortal Engines, in whose dazzling world huge, predatory cities chase and devour each other. Now, London is a riot-torn, ruinous town, clinging to a devastated landscape and hiding an explosive secret. Is Fever, adopted daughter of Dr Crumb, the strange key that will unlock its dangerous mysteries?

Review: I hadn't read any of the 'Mortal Engine' books so I had no idea what to expect from this prequel. It's a story set in futuristic London, a story about Fever, an orphan, abandoned at birth and brought up by scientist Dr Crumb. She is the youngest member and only female of the Order of Engineers.

Fever has had a practical, unemotional upbringing and is very realistic and serious. She has a shaven head, hair is .. 'just a vestige of our animal past and provides a home for lice and other parasites'. She drinks boiled water .. 'it is deeply irrational that dried leaves should be transported halfway around the world aboard ships and land barges simply to flavour water. Besides tea is a stimulant, which leads to nervousness and irrationality' and she cannot see the purpose of jokes.

London had once been ruled by The Scriven, who were brilliant, cruel and not entirely human .. they liked to call themselves 'Homo superior'. However, like most mutant strains, they hadn't thrived for long. Largely unsuccessful in breeding and held in contempt by native Londoners they were sought out and slaughtered in an event known as the 'Skinners Riots'.

One day Fever is sent on a placement to archaeologist Kit Solent's house, he has specifically requested that she help him study some artefacts. But her odd coloured eyes and shaven head evoke suspicion in some of the native Londoners, and it isn't long before the Skinners get wind of this odd looking traveller and set about trying to track her down.

She expects to be taken by Kit to some ancient site, but instead he takes her to a secret passage that runs underneath his house. The passage leads to a chamber in which there is a door, with no handles or hinges .. just a 'lectronic keypad'. It requires a code to break it and for some strange reason, Kit expects Fever to know that code and even stranger than that is that Fever thinks she does remember that code.

She starts to find her stay at Kit Solents house unsettling, she begins to have thoughts and feelings that she's never experienced before. She wonders about her past, who were her real parents?. She begins to remember things, memories of other yesterdays which could not possibly have been hers for she has always lived at Godshawk's Head with Dr Crumb.

And all the while a huge army makes it's way South, tribes of people from the North who have been set wandering by the plagues and firestorms. Travelling in gigantic wagons and traction castles, huge cities moving ever onwards towards the 'Moatway' gates and London.

I thought the writing was fantastic, if Dickens had ever written a futuristic novel for children then it would be very much like this one .. with the Skinners, the Scriven and the Patchskins .. The Mott and Hoople Pub, Pickled Eel Circus, Cripplegate, Stragglemarket and St Kylie. Clearly Philip Reeve is a David Bowie fan as there is graffiti saying 'This ain't genocide, this is rock'n'roll' and there is also a pub called 'Scary Monsters and Super Creeps' (also Fever has mismatched eyes as Bowie has). Central to it all is Fever, and though she is a weird little unemotional thing, you can't help but be interested in her and anxious about her welfare.

Apparently, though this is a prequel, it's best if you read it last. I haven't done that but I'm still interested to read the others because they sound even more fantastic.

Cloud Atlas

Synopsis: 'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies ...' A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagans California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation the narrators of CLOUD ATLAS hear each others echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanitys dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

Review: Disappointingly I didn't enjoy it. It felt like six short stories that were only wispily linked, some of the stories I liked and some I didn't which meant that I would have preferred more of one and much less of the other.

The first story we encounter is 'The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'. Adam is a rather naive American notary writing his journal on board the Prophetess in 1850 as it makes it's way across the Pacific. It's enjoyable enough in it's way but not rivetting and the story stops abruptly .. literally in mid sentence.

The next story is 'Letters from Zedelghem' and this one I enjoyed. It's about an impoverished composer called Robert Frobisher who travels to Belgium, sometime between the two world wars, in order to throw himself at the mercy of a reclusive English composer in order to work as his amenuensis. Robert is a wastrel, immoral and self absorbed but his letters to his friend Sixsmith are at times hilarious.

'Dover an utter fright staffed by Bolsheviks, versified cliffs as Romantic as my ar*e and a similar hue'

We then come to ''Half Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery' which is a story set in California in the 1970's. Luisa is a journalist investigating corruption at a nuclear power plant. I wasn't that taken with this story, it was ok but it seemed more like a script for one of those made-for-TV movies destined to be shown on a Tuesday afternoon.

Next is 'The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish' about a 'vanity publisher' fleeing from the gangster brothers of his client. Timothy calls upon his brother for help, and heads for what he thinks is a kind of safe house/hotel hoping to lie low until the furore dies down. His ghastly ordeal continues when he finds he is confined in a nursing home from which there is no escape. This was another of the stories that I enjoyed, the tale is wittily told and Timothy is very funny.

'I was sent to my room without breakfast. I plotted vengeance, litigation and torture. I inspected my cell. Door, locked from outside, no keyhole. Window that only opened six inches. Heavy duty sheets made of egg carton fibres with plastic undersheet. Armchair, washable seat-cover. Moppable carpet. 'Easywipe' wallpaper.'En Suite' bathroom: soap, shampoo, flannel, ratty towel, no window. Picture of cottage captioned: A House is Made by hands, but a Home is Made by Hearts. prospects for break-out: p*ss poor'

Then we arrive at 'An Orison of Somni', a dystopian story set in Korea about a genetically engineered server at Papa Songs diner who is being interviewed, by the archivist, before her execution. This I found a mixture of both interesting and uninteresting but for this first part of her story anyway I was intrigued. A terrifying description of what life is like for a futuristic cloned server in a McDonalds/Burger King type outlet .. bred to work for 20 hours a day, incapable of independant thought, working tirelessly to earn their twelve stars which will enable them to retire to 'Xultation' in Hawaii (though this we find out later is far from the case).

'Hour four thirty is yellow-up. Stimulin enters the airflow to rouse us from our cots. We file into hygiener; then we steam-clean. Back in our dooroom we dress in fresh uniform; then gather round the Hub with our Seers and his Aides. Papa Song appears on His Plinth for Matins, and we recite the Six Catechisms together. Our logoman then delivers His Sermon. At a minute before hour five we go to our positions around the Hub'

The central story (and the longest as it was the only one not split into two) was 'Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After'. A tale set in post-apocalyptic Hawaii and told by tribesman Zachry in heavy dialect. This tale together with 'An Orison of Somni' reminded me a bit of reading Will Self's 'The Book of Dave', the reading of which I would never willingly want to be reminded of. I stopped and stuttered so much over the two .. especially 'Sloosha's Crossin' that it disrupted the flow of the book entirely.

'Mis'ry'n'barrassment are hungersome for blame, an' what I blamed for losin' Roses was the dammit Prescient. That mornin' on Moon's Nest I got up an' hollered my goats an' droved 'em to Thumb pasture without even sayin' goodbye to Meronym. She'd got 'nuff Smart to leave me be, mem'ry she'd got a son o'her own back on Prescience I'

We then go into rewind .. and continue with the first five tales in reverse. Finding out what happened to each of our narrators/protagonists after the point in which we left them until we finally read what was written in the rest of Adam Ewings journal. This only works if you enjoyed all of the stories, if you didn't you approach them again with a kind of dread or ennui .. thankfully the one I enjoyed least was the central one so it wasn't too bad.

I can see it's ambitious, clever and well written .. I can see that lots of people will love it ... but overall I didn't enjoy reading it as much as I was hoping. It gave me knots in my head .. and my reading mojo, which was healthy and eager for challenges, is going to have to be coaxed out of a darkened room .. from whence it retired with a 'Cloud Atlas' induced migraine.

Happy Birthday Algie!

It's hubby's birthday today, so I thought I would attempt to make him a cake.

I've been meaning to try out some recipes from the 'Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache' book by Harry Eastwood .. and this seemed like the perfect time.

The concept behind the recipes in this book is that eating cake shouldn't make you feel guilty or regretful, they can be natural and healthy and still delicious.

I didn't write this book because I'm obsessed with healthy food. I wrote it because I adore cake.

So Harry uses grated vegetables in a lot of her cakes to replace butter, ground almonds to provide good crumb and less sugar than would ordinarily be called for. There is butter in the icing of some of the cakes ....

Butter is king of the castle in the flavour department, and many delicious icings in this book are made from it. I'm all for butter when you can taste it.

Anyhow, the front cover cake looked perfect for my chocaholic husband so this was the one I chose. It calls for 200g of grated Butternut Squash, and by the time I had finished grating it (by hand .. it seemed more virtuous and organic that way) I had it everywhere ... up the walls, on the cupboards and in my hair and ears.! I must admit to feeling a bit dubious that this mixture was ever going to turn into a luscious chocolate cake but thankfully I was wrong.

I didn't go mad and opt for the bunch of rosebuds to decorate the top, but I did sugar some rose petals.

It's fantastically light and extremely squidgy, which is exactly how a good chocolate cake should be and you're probably getting one of your five a day with every slice .. perfect.

The 'Red Heartache' cake has beetroot in it, I can't wait to try that.

Enter The Dragons!

Synopsis: Naomi Novik's stunning series of novels follow the global adventures of Captain William Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire as they are thrown together to fight for Britain during the turbulent time of the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just twelve years old; finding a warmer berth in Nelson's navy than any he enjoyed as the youngest, least important son of Lord Allendale. Rising on merit to captain his own vessel, Laurence has earned himself a beautiful fiancee, society's esteem and a golden future. But the war is not going well. It seems Britain can only wait as Napoleon plans to overrun her shores. After a skirmish with a French ship, Laurence finds himself in charge of a rare cargo: a dragon egg bound for the Emperor himself. Dragons are much prized: properly trained, they can mount a fearsome attack from the skies. One of Laurence's men must take the beast in hand and join the aviators' cause, thus relinquishing all hope of a normal life. But when the newly-hatched dragon ignores the young midshipman Laurence chose as its keeper and decides to imprint itself on the horrified captain instead, Laurence's world falls apart. Gone is his golden future: gone his social standing, and soon his beautiful fiancee, as he is consigned to be the constant companion and trainer of the fighting dragon Temeraire!

Review: A really enjoyable book to read, the characters were engaging, especially the dragon 'Temeraire'; I loved his relationship with Laurence (he is almost always called Laurence though it is his surname). Usually dragons in fiction are either fierce or impossibly cute, this was a rather pleasing mixture of the two (erring on the right side in both cases).

I loved the notion too that during the Napoleonic wars, dragons were in the Air Corps with crew, very much like the fighter planes in WWII. There are some sensational aerial battles, really edge of the seat stuff and I'm not in the least surprised that Peter Jackson has bought the film rights. If executed well the films should be fantastic and he's probably the man to do it.

There are a couple of glitches, Laurence's relationships with his family and his, soon to become ex, fiancee aren't really fleshed out. Perhaps we'll learn more about them in the sequels (I think there are three so far). A couple of the plotlines, like the one involving the french deserter Choiseul, were fairly predictable. But that didn't really get in the way of what was, on the whole, a highly enjoyable read.

It was really reminiscent of those old swashbuckling adventure stories ... but with the added bonus of dragons too!! There were a couple of situations or words that were fairly 'adult' .. which just prevents it from being suitable for 9 year olds and above .. nothing at all graphic, just words mainly, but that's a bit of a shame because I think they would enjoy it immensely. I will read the first sequel at least. I hope it continues in the same vein.

Never Judge A Book By It's Cover .. Well Maybe

I saw this on the shelf of the 'Helen & Douglas House' charity shop in Witney for £1 and had to have it. I didn't mean to buy another book, indeed I had promised myself that I wouldn't, but I couldn't resist it.

I think I was seduced by the cover, how fantastic is it?! I buy Angela Carter books because of the great covers too .. luckily she writes incredibly good stories so I've never regretted it.

I buy a lot of my books based on the covers and so far it's worked out ok. I don't mean that I only look at the cover before parting with my money but it is the thing that draws me to the book in the first place and nine times out of ten it will be 'my sort of book'.

When I will get the time to read it I don't know. I have a pile of library books that have taken precedence over everything else and a heap of TBR's on the shelf. Still it is a beautiful cover and what else could you buy for a £1?.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I was inspired to read this after seeing it on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. I've only read about 53 of the recommended books so far, so long, long way to go (though I would never be able to read all of them ... time would be a problem obviously, but also, I can tell, that some of them would scare me half to death, and require liberal amounts of tea, and a copy of Wind in the Willows, to put right .. horror and psychological thrillers are not my thing).

Synopsis: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Pipes and kettledrums herald the arrival of gypsies on their annual visit to Macondo, the newly founded village where Jose Arcadio Buendia and his strong-willed wife, Ursula, have started their new life. As the mysterious Melquiades excites Aureliano Buendia's father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the old gypsy passes into their hands. Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, haunting's and vendettas, the many tribulation's of the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember it's existence and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds.

Review: It was hard to get into at first, despite the intriguing first line quoted in the synopsis. All the men of the Buendia family were either called Jose Arcadio or Aureliano, and this pattern repeats and repeats (with slight variations) through six generations. Luckily there is a family tree at the beginning of the book, which I referred to for the first few chapters, after that I got to know each individual through their character traits and particular brand of insanity.

I loved the magical realism of the book, you learn to expect the unexpected all the time. The priest does chocolate fuelled levitation's, there are magic carpets, characters that are dead still drift through the house, one of the girls suitors is perpetually surrounded by a swarm of yellow butterflies, you can tell where he's been even if you haven't seen him. Remedios 'the beauty' is so beautiful and good that one day whilst folding some sheets in the garden she simply ascends into the sky and to heaven .. waving as she goes. There is also a travelling gypsy called Melquiades who is a magician. After he dies his spirit lives at the Buendia house and is revealed to some of the descendants as they try to decipher the crumbling manuscripts. All these wondrous events are commonplace to the people of Macondo, and yet they are utterly captivated by magnets, telescopes, false teeth and ice!.

It's very mysterious. We are told at the beginning that the world was so recent that many things lacked names, so it sounds almost biblical but then during the hundred years we see the arrival of the railway at Macondo.

However much the children are separated, sent away or educated, they all invariably end up repeating the mistakes of their descendants. It's like a perpetual wheel in motion, just when you think they've broken free of the past and moved on something happens to drag them back. Most of them have violent, untimely and downright bizarre deaths.

It was surreal and a challenge but one I ultimately enjoyed and I look forward to reading his Love in the Time of Cholera.

Welcome to my book blog, hopefully I will be able to overcome my technophobia and work out how all this stuff works .. with a little help from Algernon (him indoors).
This will be a place where I can keep track of all the books I've read and indulge in some booklust .. amongst other things.