It will be a crime to read in the weeks ahead

As the book pile starts to climb upwards I've decided the next couple of weeks will be dedicated to reading crime books.

So on the reading pile are:

Cop Killer by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, the ninth and penultimate book in the series of books they penned about a Swedish detective.

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill also sounds like it will be a good read.

All The Colours of the Town by Liam McIlvanney looks good about a hack in Scotland and then there are various others that I might well add to the list.

bookmark of the week

Never gone for one of these bookmark and calendar combination things but this was in the sale and some of the images of old maps are worth getting. Intend to use a few of these long after 2010 has been and gone.

bookshops worth a visit - Sussex Stationers, Bexleyheath

I don't live that far from Bexleyheath and there is still a Sussex Stationers there. A lot of the branches, including the one near where I work closed down last year. Although it is not a great bookshop in terms of range it does have one attribute worth going in for and that is it discounts new books. So in terms of getting something topical to read it is a good option.

This pic, which I garnered from the web, is not my local branch but gives you an idea.

Thoughts at the half way point of The Summer Book

There is always something slightly difficult about reading a book that has been described as a 'masterpiece'. You start looking for the signs of brilliance from the start and when they don't instantly fail to appear you start to worry.

In some ways what takes some time is to get into the rhythm of this book. Just like a long slow summer holiday this is a collection of experiences enjoyed by the two main characters the Grandmother and her six-year-old granddaughter Sophia.

They live together along with Sophia's father, who remains in the background, on an island that is so small they know every inch of its rocky and mossy landscape. They create their own worlds, myths and traditions as the summer unfolds...

book review - The Professor + The Housekeeper - Yoko Ogawa

"Everything around us was glowing in the sunlight; even the dried sheels of the insects floating in the fountain seemed to glitter. The most important of the Professor's notes - the one that read 'My memory only lasts eighty minutes' - had come loose, and I reached over to adjust the clip."

There are more than a few moments when the Professor explains to his housekeeper about his obsession with perfect numbers that you are transported back to a maths classroom and feelings of inadequacy return to the surface. But very quickly you start to appreciate and understand why numbers can be so attractive and that side of the story becomes more background noise rather than in the foreground.

The foreground is dominated by three characters - The Professor, the housekeeper and her ten year-old son. The Professor is a mathematical expert and managed to shine in both his native Japan and at Cambridge before being involved in a car accident that gave him brain damage and an 80 minute memory.

To compensate he covers himself with notes that are designed to remind him of what he is doing day today as he keeps going back to the start goldfish style every 80 minutes.

You expect the relationship between the housekeeper and the professor to grow and perhaps at moments even wish for his memory problems to be overcome. But the key to the relationship is the son. The old professor loves children and responds to the 10 year old in a way that has eluded the housekeeper.

But as the friendship between the three grows with the young boy enjoying the fatherly affection from the Professor absent in his own life and the housekeeper discovering a side to herself she had locked up in the pressure to look after her son it is broken up by the housekeeping agency.

The friendship is not seen for what it is and the housekeeper is moved onto another account and with his memory problems the professor can do very little to defend the friendship.

When they do overcome the resistance the cynicism that has existed is removed and in a very moving conclusion you are reminded of the power of literature to provoke feelings in a reader that can be very profound.

Thoughts at the half way point of The Professor + The Housekeeper

At the start I thought this book was going to fairly cold and unemotional about the relationship between a maths professor and his housekeeper.

As a result of an accident the professor can only remember things for 80 minutes and is covered with notes top jog his memory. But he manages to build a relationship with the housekeeper and introduces the single mother of a ten-year old boy to the wonderful world of numbers.

The professor takes refuge in numbers but also believes that to understand them is to get a glimpse of what is written in God's notebook. I'm finding, even as a completely non mathematical person, that the relationship between the two is starting to become compelling as the son becomes the professor's friend.

You want it to have a happy ending but because of the problems with the memory that seems to be very unlikely...

The silver lining

Yesterday I managed to tear the ligaments in my right foot and have since been hobbling around on crutches. It has been very painful but there is one clear benefit to the injury. Once I have managed to discharge the responsibilities expected of someone working from home I have been able to read.

In the last couple of days it has been a pleasure lying down with the right foot elevated reading some books. i would never recommend tearing ligaments but the silver lining has been great.

book review - All the Conspirators - Christopher Isherwood

"'You shouldn't talk so loud,'he said. 'As I came up the stairs, I heard every word.'
He left them, blankly standing. Mrs Lindsay looked foolish; but Joan was really frightned. She had, for the first time in her life, seen hatred on her brother's face."

The idea is a simple one in terms of a son wanting to get away from his mother, from the expectations that surround him. But it is of course more than that because this is done so skillfully that it extends beyond the boundaries of the struggles of the brother and sister Joan and Philip and their mother and starts to characterise a generation coming out of the First World War and wanting to live rather than stick with the drudgery of the nine to five.

At the heart of the story Philip, who works in the City, is struggling to throw off the shackles of his mother's expectations and spend his time painting and writing. The book starts with him having thrown his job in and having escaped to a hotel to escape his mother's wrath and start his new life. He is in the middle of a hatred between two mutual friends Victor and Allen. Victor, who is manipulated by Joan's mother into proposing to Philips's sister Joan, represents the stuffed shirted world of the past. Allen on the other hand, with his displays of drunkeness and questioning attitude perhaps signals an alternative.

But as Philip heads home waiting for him with her controlling ways is his mother Mrs Lindsay who gets him back into work and kills his dreams of leading a creative free-spirited life.

The quote chosen at the top is the moment when Philip walks into the room after hearing her discuss with Joan just how unlikely it is that Philip will ever escape from the destiny she has chosen for him.

He is even prepared to go to Africa to get away but the night before he is due to go he runs away and suffers a breakdown which lands him back in the clutches of his mother. She would rather have him broken but compliant.

Isherwood paints a 1920s world where the war is almost unmentioned but its presence leaves a shadow everywhere. Just like the fog he describes creeping up on people the sense of doubts and uncertianty about the future combine to make it feel uncomfortable even if there are people like Mrs Lindsay prepared to carry on as if nothing has happened.

The author's note at the start of this edition, where Isherwood is almost apoligising for his first novel, is a slightly odd start and it does take you time to recover. But once the story gets back in London and the fight with Mrs Lindsay starts in earnest the reader feels on firmer ground. It is perhaps firmer still because in the form of Mrs Lindsay Isherwood is describing a character that still lives and breathes and manipulates dreams and lives to this very day.

bookmark of the week

My children have been set a task, which is being asked of everyone at their school, to design a bookmark. My eldest has come up with this one. It is going to be coloured in but you can already see the idea that someone is reading and then the pictures of the words are in their mind. We have been reading about Dinosaur Cove recently which might have influence the design somewhat.

bookshops worth a visit - Camden Lock Books, London

Much to my embarrassment I have only visited this shop once but it left a mark because of its fantastic stock selection and ambiance. For those who enjoy shopping for books as much as reading them Camden Lock Books is everything a bookshop should be. I intend making another trip soon. Just need to get on the Northern line and get off at Old Street accidentally on my way to a meeting one day ;)

Thoughts at the half way point of All The Conspirators

It takes a while for you to get to grips with what is happening as the story starts in a hotel away from London with a trio of male characters - Philip, Allen and Victor. The last two seem to have a loathing for each other with Philip in the middle.

The young aspiring artist then comes firmly onto centre stage as he heads home to face his mother after having quit his job before running away to the hotel. But Philip is no match for his strong mother and even with the support of his sister Joan the matriarch of the family manages to impose her will.

But with Philip beaten back down and back in the City in a job he hates the mother seems to be turning her focus on getting her daughter Joan settled down with the Cambridge graduate Victor.

Will her plans come to fruition? As someone not particularly keen on control freaks my hopes are pinning on a family led-revolution against the mother. We will see...

World Book Day

Today is World Book Day and for those people who love reading it is a chance for the spotlight to fall on our passion and for the book industry to put out some special books to attract the next generation of readers.

I popped out and got some books for my eldest son that are colourful, flip books so they include two short stories per book and at £1 each are very reasonable.

Hopefully reading will get the attention it deserves today both inside and outside the classroom.

book review - Bel-Ami - Guy De Maupassant

"Envy, bitter envy, was permeating his soul drop by drop, like a poison that tainted all his pleasures and made his life hateful."

"She had expected him to be overjoyed, and was annoyed by this coolness. 'You really are incredible. Nothing satisfies you now.'"

There are moments with this book when you are trying very hard to like the main character Duroy. As a journalist you want him to fall in love with the written word and understand the power and attraction of informing others and being a man in the know.

Unfortunately all that seems to motivate Duroy is money. The power is a secondary thing that is gained as a result of the quest for more money. Nothing is ever enough and the son of peasant tavern owners in Normandy all too quickly forgets his past. His lucky break is also quickly forgotten and a growing sense of deserving money and influence starts to grow in his heart.

Duroy is almost blind to the pain and hurt he causes others starting with his mistresses and then moving on to his wife. He marries well above his position and manages to enter into a social world that was completely beyond him when he was a clerk for the Northern railway company.

But as his heart hardens and he sets his sights on greater prizes the reader also starts to lose support for 'Bel-Ami' the handsome man who is able to conquer hearts.

But there are moments of dislike here reserved for journalism as a whole rather than just the general power hungry social climber as the exchange between Duroy and the journalist Saint-Potin show after they have been sent to interview prominent Indian and Chinese officials.

"Saint-Potin began to laugh: 'You're still very naive, aren't you! Do you really believe that I'm going to ask that Chinaman and that Indian what they think of England? As if I didn't know better than they do what they're supposed to think for the readers of La Vie francaise! I've already interviewed hundreds of those Chines, persians, Hindus, Chileans, Japanese and suchlike. As far as I'm concerned they all tell me the same thing. I simply have to take the article I wrote most recently and copy it word for word. What does change, naturally, is their appearance, their names, their titles, their age, their staff.'"

But once his feet are under the table Duroy manages to navigate a path to becoming not only wealthy but in terms of relationships spoilt for choice of mistresses. But he fails to see love in any real shape, even from his parents, and instead keeps moving forward with those pound eyes in those eyes.

He fears failure like others fear death and that spurs him on to set his sights on power and money and to gain it in such a ruthless manner.

"A confused, immense, crushing terror was weighing upon Duroy's soul, the terror of those infinite, inevitable nothingness, endlessly destroying each fleeting, miserable life. Already, he was bowing his head before its threat."

The fact that you are not only inducted into the world of Duroy and can grasp the issues of the day as France argues with itself over its imperial ambitions is because of the way De Maupassant builds up the picture. It starts slowly as Duroy takes his first tentative steps into society but by the end as the issues become more complex the reader is able to navigate round this world of newspaper, foreign ministers and mistresses and still come to the conclusion that Duroy is dangerous.

Just as in Pierre et Jean what you admire here, along with the plot, is the way that De Maupassant is able to serve up such wonderful characters. Just as with the other book the bare bones of the story are reasonably simple enough the magic comes when he describes how certain characters react to those circumstances.

Politicis and journalism might have changed but what keeps Bel-Ami timeless is the master class in describing human behavior and then motivation of those captivated and driven by wealth and power.

Thoughts at the half way point of Bel Ami

The rise from the poverty of a humble clerks position to a p[lace on a Parisian newspaper is handed to Georges Duroy because of an old military connection with a fellow journalist.

Having served in Africa the ex-soilder has left his peasant roots and headed to paris to make his fortune but he is getting nowhere until he bumps into an old friend and manages to get a lucky break into journalism.

The world of newspapers is described as one of low morales, low effort and a position used almost solely for personal gain. As he enters deeper into that world, taking a society mistress to bulk up his ambitions, Duroy starts to change to become greedy.

Just how far the worlds of power and politics will impact him remains to be seen...

First impressons - The Housekeeper + The Professor

There is a feeling that i have so far encountered with Japanese literature that is really hard to describe but is there in the limited examples I have read so I will have a go at putting it into words.

The most natural way of trying to relate it is to talk about a detached way of describing the characters. The emotions are controlled and kept outside of a narrative that concentrates on telling a story in as efficient a way as possible.

So here we are introduced to the world of the professor with his 80 minute memory, resulting from a previous car crash, and the housekeeper desperate to keep her job to support her son. Numbers are the one point of conversation that unites the mathematics professor and those around him.

Although the toe has only just been dipped in this reminds you of Haruki Murakami in the way the story is told in a fairly controlled way despite the clearly emotional lives unfolding on the page.

Will wait to see how this develops...