Shakespeare

Synopsis: This short biography of William Shakespeare by world famous writer Bill Bryson brims with the author's inimitable wit and intelligence. Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard -- from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died. Following his international bestsellers 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid', Bill Bryson has written a short biography of William Shakespeare for the Eminent Lives series -- which seeks to pair great subjects with writers known for their strong sensibilities and sharp, lively points of view.

Review: The world probably doesn't need another biography of Shakespeare, as Bill would be the first to acknowledge, especially as the main impression is always that we don't know much about him and there isn't much information available (we don't even know what he really looks like as the few images that we have of him are unreliable) but Bill sifts through the facts and tries to seperate them from the fiction with such wit and humour that, like all of his books, it's a pleasure to read. It's only a short book, but I like that, too often books about Shakespeare are filled with conjecture and guesswork, they ramble on for ages and then you realise that it's mostly supposition on the part of the author. It's quite astonishing really that someone who left such a legacy of written work behind him has left hardly any evidence as to who he actually was, but I guess that that mostly relates to the the times in which he lived and in fact I believe that we know more about him than any other dramatist of that time.

'The Droeshout engraving, as it is known (after it's artist Martin Droeshout), is an arrestingly - we might almost say magnificently - mediocre piece of work. Nearly everything about it is flawed. One eye is bigger than the other. The mouth is curiously mispositioned. the hair is longer on one side of the subject's head than the other, and the head itself is out of proportion to the body and seems to float off the shoulders, like a balloon. Worst of all, the subject looks diffident, apologetic, almost frightened - nothing like the gallant and confident figure that speaks to us from the plays. Despite it's many shortcomings, the engraving comes with a poetic endorsement from Ben Jonson who says of it in his memorial to Shakespeare in the First Folio.'

"O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face, the Print would then surpasse
All that was ever writ in brasse."

'It has been suggested, with some plausibility, that Jonson may not actually have seen the Droeshout engraving before penning these generous lines. What is certain is that the Droeshout portrait was not done from life. Shakespeare had been dead for seven years by the time of the First Folio.'

People are still arguing over whether or not he wrote the plays that are attributed to him, Bill does cover a few of these conspiracy theories but it's clear that he believes fairly strongly that they are all nonsense and indeed, most of them have a whiff of desperation about them (although Sir Derek Jacobi is among the doubters and indeed he signed a 'declaration of reasonable doubt' on the subject.) You won't learn much because there isn't much to learn but it's just as informative as other Shakespeare biographies and it has the added bonus of Bill's trademark humour.

Something Sensational to Read on the Train

Synopsis: This is a diary packed with famous names and extraordinary stories. It is also rich in incidental detail and wonderful observation, providing both a compelling record of five remarkable decades and a revealing, often hilarious and sometimes moving account of Gyles Brandreth's unusual life -- as a child living in London in the 'swinging' sixties, as a jumper-wearing TV presenter, as an MP and government whip, and as a royal biographer who has enjoyed unique access to the Queen and her family. Something Sensational to Read on the Train takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride from the era of Dixon of Dock Green to the age of The X Factor, from the end of the farthing to the arrival of the euro, from the Britain of Harold Macmillan and the Notting Hill race riots to the world of Barack Obama and Lewis Hamilton. With a cast list that runs from Richard Nixon and Richard Branson to Gordon Brown and David Cameron -- and includes princes, presidents and pop stars, as well as three archbishops and any number of actresses -- this is a book for anyone interested in contemporary history, politics and entertainment, royalty, gossip and life itself.

Review: I've never particularly liked Gyles, he just doesn't appeal and more often than not when you see him on TV the word that comes to mind is 'irritating' but, I've enjoyed his novels so when I saw this at the library I thought I'd dip in. I'm glad I did because it's an insight into a world that's so completely unlike my own it's fascinating. To say that he's an obsessive diarist is an understatement, since childhood he has kept a daily diary (plus a private diary) along with carefully collated archives of notices, reviews, letters, articles etc, and what we have here is only about a fiftieth of that material (and this is quite a large tome.)

His jobs, and therefore his diaries, have been so varied (he once did a book signing tour for his publishers dressed as Snoopy to promote Snoopy's first foray into fiction, apparently the public went mad for him much to the annoyance of other book signing celebrities) and he has a lively, chatty, gossipy style.

The book is littered with anecdotes, especially of the great actors such as Gielgud, Richardson and Redgrave (Gyles collects them), he had aspirations once to be an actor and performed in several plays but somehow he knew he'd never be great and if Gyles can't be the best at something then he's not really interested (he is godfather to several children but he freely admits he's a terrible godparent he simply isn't interested.) He has produced lots of plays, written many, many books, opened a teddy bear museum in Stratford (which housed the original Fozzie Bear and also at one point Tony Blairs teddy) and of course been an elected Tory minister. He also bizarrely was once best known for his enormous collection of knitted jumpers (there was even a book with various celebs wearing them.)

The book is split into six parts: Schoolboy, Child of the Sixties - Man of the Seventies, Husband and Father, Under the Jumper, Member of Parliament and After the Fall. The part documenting his time as Tory MP for Chester is an eye opener, it turns out that 'Yes Minister' was more true to life than you might think. Probably it will only really be of interest to people in the UK because so much of the book deals with British TV/cinema/showbiz and politics etc. He's fairly indiscreet, I winced at a lot of his observations (Princess Diana) 'I thought (ungallantly) her skin had rather gone to pot: a sort of light pebble-dash effect on her beaky nose' .. (Barbara Cartland) 'she looked like a very old version of the sugar plum fairy' .. (Elizabeth Taylor) 'she has no presence, she is overweight and underwhelming'.

I think his childhood interested me the most, he lived in London and went to Bedales boarding school before gaining entrance to Oxford, life was a succession of theatre, cinema, restaurants and travelling abroad. He probably had seen more plays by the time he was fourteen than I have in my whole lifetime .. miles more infact.

A couple of typical entries below:

Sunday, 14 August 1960: Staying with the Paices in Dusseldorf. I have found a copy of Lolita by Vladimar Nabakov in my bedroom and I am reading it. It is about an old man who falls in love with a girl who is 12. I am 12. Interesting. 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo-Lee-Ta.'!!!

Saturday 15 July 1972: (at Gyles' first cabaret booking in Dorset)... to cut to the chase: I spent the evening in my room, with my stomach churning. I had prepared an 'act', but I had not performed it out loud before. At around 9.30 pm. I went down to the dining room. Fred the spoons was on - and wowing them. With each succeeding number they loved him even more. And when he reached his finale - during which he played empty Coca Cola bottles - they simply went wild. When he'd finished, he introduced me. I went on - in silence, to silence. Or rather, to the sound of cutlery on china and the murmur of conversation. The diners looked up at me briefly and then turned back to their plates and carried on eating. My throat was dry, my heart was thumping. I stood on the tiny stage gazing out at the sea of heads bent over their dinners and began my act. To say that 'I died' would be an exaggeration since I made no impact whatsoever. The business of the dining room continued as though I was not there. I was terrible, of course - I lost my nerve, I lost my way, I gabbled my way through my material. When I got to the end I stood on my head - yes, I stood on my head on a tiny dais in the corner of this cramped and crowded dining room and NOBODY NOTICED. Waitresses passed in front of me, customers paid their bills and went on their way. I left the stage in silence.

Monday, 2 November 1981: I travelled down to the Penguin sales conference at the Saunton Sands Hotel, near Barnstaple, with Roald Dahl. He was not easy company. I think he likes to give off an air of menace. He sat, curled up, scowling in the corner of our railway compartment. He didn't read. He seemed to want to talk, but his conversation was awkward, random. He did tell me his idea for the perfect murder. The victim is bludgeoned to death with a frozen leg of lamb. The murderer then cooks the lamb and serves it to the police when they come calling - so getting rid of the evidence. He has a wonderful imagination but a somewhat alarming manner.

Great fun in places and even though Gyles' self interest is breathtaking there's something about the way he writes that makes him able to get away with stuff that would make other people seem insufferable. Quite outrageous and rude at times (he was once lewdly propositioned by Frankie Howerd .. and he seemed almost sorry that he couldn't accomodate him) but immensely readable. He's nicked the title of course from Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of being Earnest' .. Oscar being another of GB's favourite subjects.

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders - Audiobook

Synopsis: London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark, stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime – but it is Wilde’s unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings.

Review: Again I listened to this read by Bill Wallis and again I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is the first of the series so I've 'read' them in the wrong sequence but they stand alone easily like a Sir Arthur Conon Doyle novel. I love being immersed in Oscar's world (albeit an entirely fictional one) and I'm very fond of Gyles's version of Robert Sherard who narrates the books (though he really did need a good talking to in this story.) I found that although Oscar speaks in witticisms and bon mots far more than he probably did in real life, it didn't irritate me in the way that say things like 'Becoming Jane' irritated me - that seemed to suggest that every time Jane said something she thought clever she wrote it down and put it in one of her books. The dialogue wherever possible was made up of Austen quotations, as if she never had another thought in her head. I hated that, but somehow I like this, maybe it's because a lot of the quotations are fresh to me.

Anyhow, although I enjoyed this enormously, I did slightly prefer Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death maybe because it included Lord Alfred Douglas and that added an extra touch of spice. Another rattling read to luxuriate in and wonderfully read.

Metamorphosis and other Stories

Synopsis: Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive bug. Trapped inside this hideous form, his mind remains unchanged - until he sees the shocked reaction of those around him and begins to question the basis of human love and, indeed, his entire purpose in existence. But this, it seems, is only the beginning of his ordeal.

Review: A very strange little tale of a man - Gregor Samsa - who wakes up and finds himself transformed into an insect (or bug .. as the purists would prefer but then I have always thought they were one and the same .. ignorance is bliss! Though I do know that insects are supposed to have not more than six legs and Gregor calls his legs 'numerous' still, six could still be called numerous when you are used to only two.) Gregor needs to get himself up and out of bed, he's going to miss his train if he does not and the family all rely on him and his work as a travelling salesman. His father, his mother and sister are all knocking on the various doors to his chamber, urging him to rise and that's all very well and good but how on earth can you rise when you've only just found out that you're a monstrous bug?

There's a feeling of suffocation, it seems he can't even deal with this problem in peace and quiet without his family harassing him. Added pressure is put on by the eventual appearance of the chief clerk from Gregor's office who comes to find out if Gregor is swinging the lead and to add his urges to that of the others. Various thumps and crashes are heard coming from his room as Gregor struggles to do as they request which startle the family but the alarm really goes up when Gregor speaks ... "That was the voice of an animal." says the chief clerk. The doctor and the locksmith are sent for. Eventually the horror of what is actually residing in Gregor's bedroom is revealed to the rest of the family.

It's an interesting concept isn't it, what would you do if you entered the room where a loved one sleeps only to find a giant bug there in their place? My first thought would be that it had eaten my loved one I'm sure and I'd probably phone up Rentokil or something and have the poor thing exterminated. Gregor would not have made it past the first fifteen pages.

Poor Gregor continues to think as a human though and insists that he is still intending to get dressed if the clerk will only report back to the office to say that he has been temporarily incapacitated. The really interesting part of the book is seeing how the family adapt to having a bug for a son/brother. It can't be said that they do all that well, although they certainly do better than I would. Within a fairly short space of time they almost go back to living their life as before, for the most part ignoring Gregor and trying to act as normal. It's not only Gregor's life that is transformed though, each family member changes as the story progresses becoming quite different people by the end of it.

I found it strangely touching and sad, it's amazing how quickly you can get used to the protagonist being a giant beetle and how you feel all of his discomfort and rejection. A sad little tale about how quickly one can become forgotten, not to say despised, when no longer useful. Apparently there are over a hundred theories about what the Metamorphosis is really about, ideas range from how a family may cope with terminal or mental illness, feelings of alienation (citing Kafka as a German and a Jew living in Prague,) the uneasy relationship between Kafka and his father - which is also touched upon in another short story in this collection The Judgement, an allegory for genocide etc etc. Nabakov even did a lecture on it. It's only short but it's oddly touching.Even shorter is another tale in the collection called Give Up! the entirety of which I will write here:

'It was early in the morning, the streets clean and deserted, I was walking to the station. As I compared a tower clock with my watch, I saw that it was already much later that I had thought, I had to hurry, the shock of this discovery made me uncertain of the way, I was not yet very well acquainted with the town, fortunately there was a policeman nearby, I ran up to him and breathlessly asked him the way. he smiled and said "You are asking me the way?" "Yes," I said, "since I cannot find it myself." "Give up, give up." he said, and turned away with a great sweep, like people who want to be alone with their laughter.'

I'm not sure what is meant but it reminded me of those days when you run around and around and get absolutely nowhere!! I have them all the time! A surreal and thought provoking collection of short stories, but Metamorphosis is the stand-out.

The Secret History

Synopsis: A misfit at an exclusive New England college, Richard finds kindred spirits in the five eccentric students of his ancient Greek class. But his new friends have a horrific secret. When blackmail and violence threaten to blow their privileged lives apart, they drag Richard into the nightmare that engulfs them. And soon they enter a terrifying heart of darkness from which they may never return.

Review: Now this one I really enjoyed, very creepy, unsettling and totally gripping. The book rather cleverly begins with a prologue telling the reader of the murder of Bunny Corcoran, moreover it's clear that he has been murdered by his friends. This made me positively itch to get going with the story. Our narrator Richard Papen then takes us back and recounts his lifestory .. or at least the most recent parts that have led him here.

Richard had to fight tooth and nail (and tell a number of untruths, which is something Richard is rather practised at) to gain a place at New Hampshire College. He's not absolutely sure what he wants to study but he has more than an interest in the Greek classics and a meeting with the erudite classics teacher, Julian, settles it. It's here that he meets the five other students in Julian's class, Henry, Francis, Bunny, and twins Charles and Camilla. They're a bit of a supercilious bunch really, inclined to think highly of themselves and lowly of others. They're all fairly well connected (unlike Richard) and have the habit of littering their conversations with Greek literary and philosophical quotations often intentionally to exclude those around them. On the whole they're viewed as weirdo's by the rest of the students.

As Richard recalls his first few weeks at New Hampshire we get to see a close-up of Bunny's behaviour (he is the first of the group to really extend the hand of friendship to Richard - the others seem a little reluctant to let him in) and it's easy to see that a little of Bunny goes a long, long, way. He's what you might call parasitic. Although his parents have wealth they are not inclined to share any of it with their offspring and actively encourage them to sponge off others. Bunny is a master at it. Richard can't help noticing that the others, Henry in particular, are surprisingly financially generous to Bunny even though they seem also to be irritated by him. Bunny also lets slip certain comments and remarks about his friends which seem to hint at his knowing something that they would prefer he kept hidden. As Richard gets to know his friends more the secrets come spilling out and eventually he finds himself inextricably caught up in their deception.

Tartt's really good at scene setting, college life is headily depicted with student angst mixed with apathy, loose morals and plenty of drugs and booze (goodness, it's a wonder any of them could button up their shirt in the morning!) I actually felt like I needed a de-tox after reading it. The friendship of the group is claustrophobic and guarded, especially between Henry, Francis, Camilla and Charles, outsiders are unwelcome and discouraged. There is a menace in this book that just builds and builds, you already know who murdered Bunny, but as time goes on, and the group's normal calm facade begins to disintegrate, you're not sure what they may do as a consequence, you're not even sure who they actually are, the plot really does thicken.

I liked it a lot and although it's a fairly hefty book and quite slow paced the pages flew by. The only one tiny criticism is that I don't think she fully realised the character of Julian, we know how clever he was but we never really saw any evidence as to why he was so loved and admired by his students. All in all though it was totally compelling.

The Lovely Bones

Synopsis: My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer. This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love, do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished with Susie yet."The Lovely Bones" is a luminous and astonishing novel about life and death, forgiveness and vengeance, memory and forgetting - but, above all, about finding light in the darkest of places. 'Spare, beautiful and brutal prose ..."The Lovely Bones" is compulsive enough to read in a single sitting, brilliantly intelligent, elegantly constructed and ultimately intriguing' - "The Times". 'Moving and compelling ...It will put an imperceptible but stealthily insistent hold on you. I sat down in the morning to read the first couple of pages; five hours later, I was still there, book in hand, transfixed' - Maggie O'Farrell, "Sunday Telegraph".

Review: I had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this book, at times I was compelled and intrigued by it at others I found it depressing and far fetched. I suppose the subject matter makes it quite a difficult book to actually enjoy but I didn't really wholly believe in Susie's heaven, I could never fix it properly in my mind and it all seemed a little cobbled together. Things about the book annoyed me, some things positively enraged me ... bits where it seemed the author had one eye on the screenplay rather than the novel ..


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in particular the scene on the first anniversary of Susie's death when the neighbour's drift over one by one to the cornfield and then sing hymns by candlelight .. all entirely unplanned of course .. and are overheard by the family. I've seen that scene .. or one like it played out a thousand times in TV movies.

But there was still a lot that I did like about the book. It was interesting to view the surviving members of the family and how they dealt with their grief, mostly badly and that's probably fairly true to life. I liked eccentric old Grandma Lynn and thought the writer depicted both the evil, creepy, perverse Mr Harvey and Susie's heartbroken, grief-stricken, father, wonderfully well. Strangely, I didn't find my tears jerked at all, apart from perhaps the opening chapter which was quite affecting, I don't know if I connected to Susie enough on an emotional level. I positively hated the scene ..


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where Susie swaps places with Ruth and enters her corporeal body in order to experience sex with Ray Singh, an old flame. Ray's acceptance of the change I just found bizarre and unconvincing let alone the fact that Susie was only fourteen when she was murdered. I know it's fiction but it stretched credibility too far for me.

Mixed reactions but I'm glad I read it. Despite the problems I had with it I still thought it was a page turner.

The Sea

Synopsis: When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr and Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow. 'A novel in which all of his remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of art, disquieting, beautiful, intelligent, and in the end, surprisingly, offering consolation' - Allan Massie, "Scotsman". 'You can smell and feel and see his world with extraordinary clarity. It is a work of art, and I'll bet it will still be read and admired in seventy-five years' - Rick Gekoski, "The Times". 'Poetry seems to come easily to Banville. There is so much to applaud in this book that it deserves more than one reading' - "Literary Review". 'A brilliant, sensuous, discombobulating novel' - "Spectator".

Review: This is something special. John Banville's prose is so beautifully rich and descriptive that it's a pleasure to immerse yourself both in it and the imagery that it conjures up. Although it's quite poetic, nothing is wasted or superfluous and just as you're getting comfortable, he intersperses his writing with an occasional shock like smelling salts which give you a jolt.

'They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning under a milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waves creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes. The rusted hulk of the freighter that had run aground at the far end of the bay longer ago than any of us could remember must have thought it was being granted a relaunch. I would not swim again, after that day. The seabirds mewled and swooped, unnerved, it seemed, by the spectacle of that vast bowl of water bulging like a blister, lead-blue and malignantly agleam. They looked unnaturally white, that day, those birds. The waves were depositing a fringe of soiled yellow foam along the waterline. No sail marred the high horizon. I would not swim, no, not ever again.
Someone has just walked over my grave. Someone.'

The story concerns ageing art historian Max. He's at a crossroads in his life, following the death of his wife and this prompts his decision to move back to the idyllic seaside village where he used to holiday as a child. In particular he is lodging at a house where he once was a welcome guest of the enigmatic Grace family. There's a lot of mysteriousness surrounding his return, all we know is that 'something happened there' previously but of course we don't find out what until near the end.

The Grace's are a fascinating bunch, they're the sort of family that one envies, effortlessly interesting and vibrant. Max, whose own family are a bit more mundane and ordinary, is desperate to become familiar with them. At first it is Mrs Grace that attracts him, but then he becomes infatuated with her daughter Chloe (with her smell of stale biscuits, the blonde comma of hair at the nape of her neck and the hairline cracks in the porcelain backs of her knees.) Chloe has a twin, Myles ..'like two magnets, but turned the wrong way, pulling and pushing' .. a web footed mute boy who communicates by gestures, noises and clicks which are perfectly understood by Chloe. He's rather odd and unsettling.

The storyline ebbs and flows quite slowly, Max wanders between the now, the lately and the long ago but his narration is not always reliable .. things we take as gospel are later retracted or altered, some of this is down to Max's memory which has become dulled over the years. Gradually we piece together his narration and begin to make sense of it. I don't think this style of writing will be for everyone, some people may find it slow paced or too poetic and there are times when you'll need a dictionary to hand (or at least I did ... what on earth do 'cinereal' and 'flocculent' mean?) but I thought it was pretty wonderful. It's haunting, melancholy and darkly humorous. In a nutshell, it's an old man's rather sad recollections. A wonderfully evocative and atmospheric tale of the unpredictability of life and the inevitability of death. It's another one crossed off of the '1001' (hooray) ... and very enjoyably too.

Agnes Grey

Synopsis: 'How delightful it would be to be a governess!' When the young Agnes Grey takes up her first post as governess she is full of hope; she believes she only has to remember 'myself at their age' to win her pupils' love and trust. Instead she finds the young children she has to deal with completely unmanageable. They are, as she observes to her mother, 'unimpressible, incomprehensible creatures'. In writing her first novel, Anne Bronte drew on her own experiences, and one can trace in the work many of the trials of the Victorian governess, often stranded far from home, and treated with little respect by her employers, yet expected to control and educate her young charges. Agnes Grey looks at childhood from nursery to adolescence, and it also charts the frustrations of romantic love, as Agnes starts to nurse warmer feelings towards the local curate, Mr Weston. The novel combines astute dissection of middle-class social behaviour and class attitudes with a wonderful study of Victorian responses to young children which has parallels with debates about education that continue to this day.

Review: My first Anne Brontë book. The tale is a fairly simple one, much less complex than either 'Wuthering Heights' or 'Jane Eyre', in some ways it's more reminiscent of Jane Austen's work than either of her sisters. Agnes is a likeable girl, her family are a bit strapped for cash and her father is in poor health. Determined to earn her own way in life and not overly enthusiastic about her parents choice of work (to draw and sell her own artwork) Agnes decides that she would like to be a governess.

Her first posting is to Mr and Mrs Bloomfield. Mrs Bloomfield informs Agnes that .... Master Tom (seven) is 'the flower of the flock' - a generous noble-spirited boy who always speaks the truth. Mary Ann (almost six) is 'a very good girl on the whole and Fanny (almost four) is a 'remarkably gentle child.' This all sounds promising but alas Agnes finds that Mrs Bloomfield's opinions of her children cannot wholly be relied upon. In truth the two eldest children are a nightmare to teach, rude, egotistical, boisterous and aggressive. Tom in particular is an absolute horror, intent on setting traps for birds and depatching them in different ways .. 'sometimes I give them to the cat, sometimes I cut them in pieces with my penknife, but the next I mean to roast alive.' He's determined not to be taught anything and Mary Ann is just as bad, Agnes occasionally has to forcibly drag them to the table and hold them there until the lesson is completed. Fanny is found to be a mischievous, intractable creature given up to deception and falsehood and employing her favourite tactics of spitting and bellowing whenever thwarted (this is said to be somewhat auto-biographical, with Anne drawing on her early experiences as a governess.) Although she tries hard, Agnes is unable to teach the children anything and she is constantly being undermined by the parents (who naturally regard their children's lack of improvement as solely the fault of the governess.)

'I observed, on the grass about his garden, certain apparatus of sticks and cord, and asked what they were for.
"Traps for birds."
"Why do you catch them?"
"Papa says they do harm."
"And what do you do with them, when you catch them?"
"Different things. Sometimes I give them to the cat; sometimes I cut them in pieces with my penknife; but the next, I mean to roast alive."
"And why do you mean to do such a horrible thing?"
"For two reasons; first to see how long it will live - and then, to see what it will taste like."
"But don't you know it is extremely wicked to do such things? Remember the birds can feel as well as you, and think, how would you like it yourself?"
"Oh, that's nothing! I'm not a bird, and I can't feel what I do to them."

"But you will have to feel it sometime Tom - you have heard where wicked people go to when they die; and if you don't leave off torturing innocent birds, remember, you will have to go there, and suffer just what you have made them suffer."

"Oh pooh! I shan't, Papa knows how I treat them and he never blames me for it; he says it's just what he used to do when he was a boy. Last summer he gave me a nest full of young sparrows, and he saw me pulling off their legs and wings and heads, and never said anything, except that they were nasty things, and I must not let them soil my trousers; and uncle Robson was there too, and he laughed, and said I was a fine boy."
"But what would your mama say?"

"Oh! she doesn't care - she says it's a pity to kill the pretty singing birds, but the naughty sparrows, and mice and rats, I may do what I like with. So now, Miss Grey, you see it is not wicked."
"I still think it is, Tom; and perhaps your papa and mama would think so too, if they thought much about it. However," I internally added, "they may say what they please, but I am determined you shall do nothing of the kind, as long as I have power to prevent it."

Eventually, in less than a year, Agnes is dismissed and sent home, much to her consternation and embarrassment. She's a little downcast but after spending a few weeks at home she decides to try again and this time secures employment with the Murray family. Although the daughters are vain, self centred and thoughtless they are more tractable that the Bloomfields and Agnes becomes more settled. It's here that she meets the curate Edward Weston, a very earnest and worthy young clergyman. Agnes is very taken with him, he's her ideal, but Rosalie, the eldest of the Murray girls (seventeen) is now in want of an admirer and with time on her hands, before she is advantageously betrothed, she fixes on Edward on which to bestow some of her well rehearsed coquetry. Poor Agnes is mortified, and when she is suddenly called back home she fears that she will never set eyes on Edward again.

Agnes is likeable enough but apart from the fact that she's obviously very conscientious and kind you don't really learn anything much about her. Despite her pledge at the beginning of the book to be candid, she's too guarded. The story is a pleasant one but it does lack a little bit of oomph .. obviously you can't always have a lunatic in the attic or a deranged lover digging up his dead soul mate but the story perhaps could have done with a tad more excitement. You have the feeling a long way before the end that it's only a matter of time before she's saying .. click here to continue review - possible spoilers

reader, I married him

.. or something very like it.

Shades of Grey

Synopsis: Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane -- a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey ...If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels ...neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.

Review: Here's something completely different from Jasper. Eddie Russett lives in Chromatacia (a post apocalyptic version of our world several hundred years hence.) A world where your standing and social status depends on how much colour you can see. Most people in Chromatacia have limited vision and no night vision at all, so seeing natural colour is highly prized. It's a sort of dystopian 'Pride & Prejudice' with colour being everybody's motivating factor instead of money. Those that can see purple are the highest ranked in society and those that have no colour perception at all are called 'greys' and are basically the lowest and the last.

Eddie, a fairly strong red, is hoping to elevate himself in society by marrying into the Oxblood family and becoming heir to their string empire, but unfortunately, although he's on a half promise, he is not the only suitor for Constance Oxblood .. Roger Maroon is also in the running. Eddie has been sent to East Carmine to conduct a chair census as part of his 'humility training' (following a prank and an unwelcome proposal for a number queuing system to be introduced in his hometown.) He's accompanied there by his father who is a chromaticologist .. a sort of doctor who uses colour as cures (unless the patient has the dreaded mildew which is, alas, incurable.)

Along the way Eddie comes across Jane, an extremely disrespectful not to say rebellious grey (who is on her way to re-boot along with all perceived troublemakers.) Their first encounter is fairly explosive and pretty disastrous. Jane is so opposite to any greys, not to say women, that Eddie has come across before, that he is at first completely non-plussed by her. It's not long though before his initial wariness turns to admiration (for one thing Jane has a really cute retroussé nose, which Eddie can't help but admire, even though mentioning it is likely to get his eyebrows ripped off.) Eventually, as he gets to know Jane, Eddie begins to question the morals and values of the society in which he lives. It seems that there are some pretty underhand and sinister goings on in Chromatacia. Things are not exactly black and white so to speak. His relationship with Jane doesn't go smoothly though, for one thing she has a tendency towards violence not to say a willingness to feed him to a man eating Yateveo plant.

Really inventive as you would expect from Jasper with great characters and lots of colour-related puns. I loved Eddie, he has the sort of wide eyed innocence of Bertie Wooster, although he's nowhere near as dim. I loved the Apocryphal man too, a discredited historian whose depth of knowledge of the past 400 years has made him unacceptable and therefore invisible to the collective ... as Eddie's father says .. 'I pity the poor people he's not lodging with'. Shades of Grey is the first book in the series .. I think as the books progress I'll become even more familiar with Chromatacia and it's ways and begin to enjoy it even more because although I enjoyed it a lot I had the same feeling as I did when I read 'The Eyre Affair' of being not always quite in the loop. It helped tremendously that it was read to me and the narration was excellent. I didn't think it was as funny as the Thursday Next series, being gentler in style but it's still very amusing, thought provoking and quirky.

The Well of Lost Plots

Synopsis: Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'. Landen, her husband, is still eradicated, Aornis Hades is meddling with Thursday's memory, and Miss Havisham - when not sewing up plot-holes in 'Mill on the Floss' - is trying to break the land-speed record on the A409. But something is rotten in the state of Jurisfiction. Perkins is 'accidentally' eaten by the minotaur, and Snell succumbs to the Mispeling Vyrus. As a shadow looms over popular fiction, Thursday must keep her wits about her and discover not only what is going on, but also who she can trust to tell about it ...With grammasites, holesmiths, trainee characters, pagerunners, baby dodos and an adopted home scheduled for demolition, 'The Well of Lost Plots' is at once an addictively exciting adventure and an insight into how books are made, who makes them - and why there is no singular for 'scampi'. In the words of one critic: 'Don't ask. Just read it.'

Review: These books really do get better and better as they go along but they get harder and harder to review. It's difficult to write anything that will make one ounce of sense to anybody who's not familiar with the Nextian world. Delightfully convoluted, Jasper's writing regularly ties your brain in a knot and has your mouth dropping open at the sheer ingenuity and inventiveness of his plots.

With Landen still eradicated, pregnant Thursday has taken up temporary refuge in the Well of Lost Plots (a 26 floored sub-basement situated underneath the great library, where all unpublished books are kept.) To be precise she is in a pretty awful detective novel called 'Caversham Heights' whose chances of being published are practically nil. As the library sub-basement gazeteer informs us ..... 'Caversham Heights represents all the worst aspects of amateur writing. Flat characters, unconvincing police work and a pace so slow that snails pass it in the night. Recommendation: Unpublishable. Suggest book be broken up for salvage at soonest available opportunity. Current Status: Awaiting Council of Genre's Book Inspectorate's report before ordering demolition.' Thursday is standing in for Mary as part of a character exchange programme (set up to allow characters time off to enjoy a change of scenery.) Luckily Mary's role in 'Caversham Heights' is only minor, and Thursday .. with her pet dodo Pickwick in tow .. has plenty of time to rest, relax and concentrate on her pregnancy.

Of course, in reality it doesn't pan out as simply as that. Thursday has promised Miss Havisham that she will help out at Jurisfiction, tasks which include trying to eradicate grammasites, destroy a mispeling vyrus (hilarious, the passages just become more and more jumbled as the virus takes hold.) and placate a group of striking nursery rhyme characters. But when a succession of Jurisfiction agents are killed, things start to get a lot more complicated. As if this wasn't enough, Thursday is still being hounded by the evil Aornis, but this time it's Thursday's memory of Aornis that's causing trouble. Somehow she's controlling Thursday's memories, making her re-live some of her nightmare moments and forget all the good one's .. she's even beginning to forget who Landen is.

Miss Havisham is back at her waspish best, doling out wisdom, fighting foes and getting into all sorts of bother with Mr Toad as they fight to see who can break the land speed record. Thursday's gingham clad Granny Next is also back to make sure that Thursday keeps remembering, and there is light relief with the fantastic ibb and obb as they evolve from generics to real people. Add to that a minotaur on the loose, a rather belligerent and egotistical Heathcliff bent on retaining the award for 'Most Troubled Romantic Lead' at the annual book awards and an insidious new book delivery system .. UltraWord™ and you've got about one hundreth of the plot.

It is complicated, but once you're into the swing, it's just pure enjoyment. The more of the books you read the more familiar you become with Thursday's world and it's just fantastic fun. As always it's full of literary characters and quotations (I loved Thursday's perilous trip into Enid Blyton's 'Shadow the Sheepdog' where the characters are so hung up on emotional highs and lows that Thursday is in danger of being married and murdered in a matter of minutes just so that they can have their sentiment fix) and they always makes you want to read more (both of the books quoted and the Thursday Next series) and teach you new things ... I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know that A.A. Milne wrote 'Toad of Toad Hall' I just assumed it was another name for 'Wind in the Willows.'

Enough waffle, as the aforementioned critic said ... "Just read it!"

The Girl with Glass Feet

Synopsis: A mysterious metamorphosis has taken hold of Ida MacLaird - she is slowly turning into glass. Fragile and determined to find a cure, she returns to the strange, enchanted island where she believes the transformation began, in search of reclusive Henry Fuwa, the one man who might just be able to help...Instead she meets Midas Crook, and another transformation begins: as Midas helps Ida come to terms with her condition, they fall in love. What they need most is time - and time is slipping away fast.

Review: I did really like this adult fairytale although I thought it was a bit of a shame that the occasional swear word and slight graphic content made it unsuitable for children/YA because in every other way it would be perfect.

I loved Ida, she's a lovely mix of feisty and vulnerable. She's someone who would normally be quite outgoing and adventurous but Ida has a problem, her feet have turned into glass and it's gradually seeping it's way into the rest of her body. Ida doesn't know why this is happening, she has only one clue and that's the words spoken to her by reclusive Henry Fuwa after she had come to his aid one day. This happened when she was visiting the remote and icy St Hauda's land, and so she returns there to look for him and see if he can help before it's too late. Whilst searching for him she comes across Midas Crook, who's something of a loner and a keen photographer. He's immediately struck by her appearance, she has the cool, monochromatic look of a fifties movie star all except for the enormous boots that she has on.

Ida soon enlists Midas's help in trying to find Henry Fuwa but unknown to her Midas has his own problems and Henry Fuwa is a part of them too. A friendship grows between the two, a friendship which slowly begins to turn into something more, but time is not on their side. Beautifully dreamy and descriptive, the book's not overloaded with magical creatures but they weave in and out and the mystical sits quite happily alongside the ordinary.

There were occasions when I thought the book lost it's way a bit, and I couldn't really see the point of the moth winged bulls, but the true measure of any story is how much you care about the characters and as this book reaches it's climax I found myself becoming increasingly anxious about Ida. This is Ali's first novel and I'm definitely interested to see what he comes up with next.

Good Behaviour

Synopsis: 'I do know how to behave - believe me, because I know. I have always known...' Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. This elegant and allusive novel established Molly Keane as thelike affection or respect natural successor to Jean Rhys.

Review: I loved this book. It takes the rather bold step of starting the book off by portraying the main character .. Aroon St Charles ... in a less than flattering light. We see her looking after her invalid mother and against her will practically force feeding her rabbit (actual game rabbit .. not the family pet or anything!) Mummie, who is quite feeble and bed-ridden, protests saying that rabbit makes her feel quite sick, but Aroon will hear none of it, and manages to get a couple of forkfuls down her. Mummie is promptly sick and then dies, much to the distress and consternation of her maid Rose (who promptly opens the window to let her mistress's soul fly free), but Aroon remains detached and unmoved as she telephones for the doctor. She seems to almost be taking a sadistic pleasure in treating her mother with such indifference.

So you start by thinking, this is a character that you're not going to like very much. Then gradually Aroon begins to recount the story of her life growing up at Temple Alice (once grand but no longer.) An awkward girl, searching for affection and not usually finding it. She forms a strong bond with her governess Mrs Brock but unfortunately (for reasons made clear to us but not twigged by Aroon) Mrs Brock suddenly leaves her post never to return.

Aroon falls in love with her brothers best friend Richard, and is deluded into believing he feels the same. She claims that she has once had a lover in her bed, but what she actually means is that someone she loves .. Richard .. has been in bed with her, but in actual fact all he did was chat and laugh .. 'I really must not touch you, we'd regret it always piglet .. wouldn't we?'. Aroon is totally unaware of Richard's true feelings though again the reader is one step ahead of her (you can constantly read between the lines of her narration.)

The only person to treat her with anything like true affection and respect is her father, who is touchingly protective but he is often wrapped up in his own affairs (literally) of which Aroon is, of course, totally ignorant. The family fortune soons begin to dwindle away and when an accident befalls her father it looks as if Aroon is destined to remain the unloved spinster daughter of Temple Alice.

'The girls lived near the Wine Cellars and he had often been known to call in and bask for an hour in their acidulated adoration. I can only suppose the girls and their lives were like a comic strip to Papa. He followed their activites, some of them rather shady; it was a game, laughing at their contrivances. Their bitter, nipped tongues kept him guessing at what they might say next. He liked to nose out their small scandalous escapades - nothing like love affairs, poor things, of course not, more like a sharpish bit of horse dealing. One of their pleasures was not telling. It put an edge on everything they did or said. Poor unhappy things. Much as I pitied and faintly despised them, they had the knack of making me feel I was lolling helplessly through an objectless, boring life. I never wanted to see them, or listen to them, or even eat any of the delightful food they produced from air, or sea, or garden.'

The writing is fantastic, calling to mind Mitford and Waugh. Marian Keyes calls it a tour-de-force and I think she's right, a highly enjoyable unputdownable book. Straight away I wanted to read more by Molly but after reading several reviews it would seem that this book is seen to be her literary highlight and therefore possibly everything else will be a disappointment .. I probably will read more by her though, this book was too good not to try for more.

Mr Rosenblum's List

Synopsis: List item 2: Never speak German on the upper decks of London buses. Jack Rosenblum is five foot three and a half inches of sheer tenacity. He's writing a list so he can become a Very English Gentleman. List item 41: An Englishman buys his marmalade from Fortnum and Mason. It's 1952, and despite his best efforts, his bid to blend in is fraught with unexpected hurdles - including his wife. Sadie doesn't want to forget where they came from or the family they've lost. And she shows no interest in getting a purple rinse. List item 112: An Englishman keeps his head in a crisis, even when he's risking everything. Jack leads a reluctant Sadie deep into the English countryside in pursuit of a dream. Here, in a land of woolly pigs, bluebells and jitterbug cider, they embark on an impossible task.

Review: A very enjoyable read and a great mixture of comedy and tragedy. I really, really took to Jack Rosenblum, he infuriated the life out of me and I couldn't believe what he was willing to risk in order to become the perfect (in his eyes) English gentleman but he was so well intentioned and naive that I couldn't dislike him. Likewise poor Sadie who never quite settles in her adopted home and misses her family terribly to the point of seeing visions and trying to re-create the scents of her mothers kitchen by marathon baking.

They're both at times extremely irritating, Jack is stubborn and obssessive and Sadie is resentful and unsupportive but there's something undeniably likeable about the pair of them. Jack is determined to become a very English Gentleman, he's written a list on the subject, and so far he's done well. He has set up his own very successful carpet business, he reads The Times, buys his suits from Savile Row and knows how to adjust his hat to the correct angle. The one thing he hasn't yet managed to do is become a member of an English golf course, however much money he makes, or whoever nominates him, his requests are always refused.

Daunted but undeterred Jack decides that he will build his own golf course in the grounds of his new house in Dorsetshire and have a grand opening on Coronation Day. Sadie finds that this new home deep in the countryside reminds her even more of her native Germany and she begins making a list of her own, a list of things she must remember in order to keep the past alive.

I loved the description of the Baumtorte which is a sort of remembrance cake, made by ladling the batter into the tin one layer at a time and grilling it before adding the next layer so that your finished cake resembles the rings of a tree, each layer representing the memory of a loved one or special occasion. Sadie makes a spectacular version of this, several feet high, in order to remember her loved ones but all this reminiscing is making her sadder and more isolated. Jack is so obsessed by his golf course that he doesn't notice just how lonely Sadie has become. He has worries of his own, for one thing getting the golf course ready in time (he has no experience, he's never even played golf and the terrain is all wrong.)

I loved his unpretentious newsy letters to American golfing legend Bobby Jones who designed the course at Augusta, despite never hearing back from him he writes weekly telling him about his progress or lack of it, and all in the wild hope that Bobby will impart some of his knowledge and perhaps even be there for the opening. It's a story where you long for a happy outcome. A gentle read, both funny and sad. If you enjoyed 'The Guersey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society' then you'll enjoy this.

Little Hands Clapping

Synopsis: In a room above a bizarre German museum, and far from the prying eyes of strangers, lives the Old Man. Caretaker of the museum by day, by night he enjoys the sound of silence, broken by the occasional crunch of a spider between his blackened teeth. Little Hands Clapping brings together the Old Man with the respectable Doctor Ernst Frohlicher, his greedy dog Hans and a cast of grotesque and hilarious townsfolk, all of whose lives are thrown together as the town uncovers a crime so outrageous that it will shock the world. From its sinister opening to its explosive denouement, Little Hands Clapping blends lavishly entertaining storytelling with Rhodes's macabre imagination, entrancing originality and magical touch.

Review: You know you're going to be in for something different with Dan's books, they are never predictable and this was something different again. This one reminded me of Neil Gaiman's writing, especially his more sinister short stories. The humour is very, very dark and the tale is disturbing and bizarre yet compelling.

'At ten past three the old man jolts awake at the sharp smack of wood on wood from one of the rooms below. He sit's up and listens for any further disturbance, but none occurs. He sets his alarm for five, then lies back and closes his eyes. He knows the sound, and that it can be dealt with later on. His mouth falls open, and once again his breathing fills the room, beginning as a light wheeze then escalating into a rattle, the inhalations and exhalations at a pitch so indistinguishable that it seems like a single undulating drone. A fat house spider crawls across the sheet, clear against the bright white. It steps onto the sleeve of his nightshirt, where it lingers for a while before scuttling up to his neck. The moment the first of the eight dark brown legs touches the old man's cold skin he wakes once again. He does not move, but the rattle stops dead and his breathing becomes soft and shallow. The spider sprints to his cheek, where it remains still for a moment before moving towards his open mouth. It stops again, as if considering it's next move, and then, with an agility bordering on grace, it darts into the chasm. The old man's mouth shuts and the spider races around, trying to make it's way out, but there is no escape from the thin, grey tongue that pushes it first into his cheek and then between his back teeth. After some final desperate flailing, the spider is crunched into a gritty paste and the tongue moves around the old man's teeth, collecting stray pieces. His breathing slows, and he swallows the final traces. Soon the rattle returns. In and out, in and out, It all sounds the same.'

I found a lot of it extremely distasteful and yet I couldn't stop reading it or laughing from time to time, he's so good at mixing the sick and twisted with funny observational comedy. It's very gothic in feel with more than a nod to Grimm and he doesn't worry about making his main characters loveable .. for the most part they're all either despicable or absurd but there's usually always someone to care about and in this book it's tragic Madalena who cannot bear the loss of her childhood sweetheart and is making her way towards the macabre German museum in which much of the story is set.

I liked the ending, it seemed to tie up all the ends neatly with everyone getting their just desserts which makes a change for Dan's books. I'm intrigued to see what he comes up with next, I like everything I've read of his but I have avoided reading 'Anthropology' ... as I've read indifferent reviews. This one won't be for everyone, it's a bit grim and gruesome but in an adult fairytale kind of way.

Anansi Boys

Synopsis: Fat Charlie Nancy is not actually fat. He was fat once but he is definitely not fat now. No, right now Fat Charlie Nancy is angry, confused and more than a little scared -- right now his life is spinning out of control, and it is all his dad's fault. If his rotter of an estranged father hadn't dropped dead at a karaoke night, Charlie would still be blissfully unaware that his dad was Anansi the spider god. He would have no idea that he has a brother called Spider, who is also a god. And there would be no chance that said brother would be trying to take over his life, flat and fiancee, or, to make matters worse, be doing a much better job of it than him. Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four more-than-slightly eccentric old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo -- and between them they unleash a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?

Review: Another one that I liked a lot, though perhaps not as much as 'Neverwhere' or 'Stardust'. This book is a little bit different from Neils other work, it's a lot more funny and less dark but it still has all of the magical, mystical elements that you expect from his work. Fat Charlie Nancy is a great character, a bit hapless and 'ordinary', but someone that you immediately warm to. The story starts with him attending his fathers funeral. He didn't know much about his father except for the fact that he used to embarrass him to death when he was a kid so he's surprised to learn, not to say incredulous, that his father was actually a God .. the trickster spider God Anansi in fact.

Charlie also discovers for the first time that he has a twin brother .. Spider ... who is also a God. Spider comes to stay at Fat Charlie's flat and basically sets about unintentionally ruining his life. Charlie loses his job and finds that his fiancée Rosie has taken more than a shine to Spider who she actually thinks is Charlie, only a new improved and much more interesting Charlie. The trouble is that Spider is everything that Charlie is not, handsome and gregarious with all the inherited smooth tongued charm of his father.

Fed up with this intrusion, and more than a little envious of his brother, Charlie seeks to banish Spider, only he finds that a few subtle hints not to say downright commands to get lost aren't having any effect. Exasperated he turns to his father's old acquaintance Callyanne Higler and her three equally eccentric friends for help. During a seance at Mrs Higlers house Charlie encounters the malevolent Bird Woman who says she can banish Spider but in return she wants Anansi's bloodline. Without knowing what this means Charlie agrees, and although he's at first inclined to think that he's imagined it all, he soon realises that something more sinister is afoot.

There are plenty of delicious secondary characters, Rosie's mum is a gem and I also loved Charlie's boss - the despicably corrupt, murderous, irritating twerp, Grahame Coats. There's a lot to enjoy here, some great plot twists and revelations and really enjoyable Carribean dialogue and humour. I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't quite up to the standard of 'Neverwhere' but that's just nit picking .. it was still a fantastic read.