a little light reading...

So seeing as I am currently confined to the sofa after a few beautifully festive days of eating and drinking myself into a coma, I thought I'd catch up on a little blogging. The year is nearly at a close and all around people are feeling contemplative, doing a little soul searching by reflecting on the year just gone. It only felt right to join them. In a book-y sort of way.

2015 has been one of big changes for me. One of the biggest was my decision to go part time in my teaching job, finally listening to my body and giving my mental health a little break- some much needed room to breathe. By doing so, I was able to apply for and start an MA in Creative Writing, one specifically geared towards getting a novel written and (hopefully) published. This is honestly one of the best decisions I have ever made. I'm fortunate enough to be able to do it purely because I want to and being able to have that time to pursue something entirely selfish has made everything so much more beautiful and bearable for me. I'm doing something for me. Just because I want to. My life isn't entirely consumed now by the torturous workload that teaching can generate. I feel more like a whole person, and I am beginning to actually enjoy teaching now- something I didn't think I'd ever be able to say.

With all this in mind, I thought I'd share the books from my set reading list of my first module. We read a lot. Two texts a week between September and December to be precise. Each week was focused on a different aspect of the 'writer's craft'- we read these books to see how the authors pulled things off, whether that be a genre or a character. We then did a lot of writing, trying to learn from, be inspired by, or mimic, to a point, what we had read.

I hated many of these books. I loved a handful. But they were all helpful. And all are relatively recent publications. So have a little look below, read a couple and decide for yourself.

1) The Seed Collectors by Scarlett Thomas
 Parts I liked. Mystical elements, family secrets. The character of Bryony (because she is fabulous to hate). Parts I didn't. Some sections felt a little trashy. Worth a read. 

2) Satin Island by Tom McCarthy

Boring as hell. Clever book, in theory. Hailed as a great text- hence the Man Booker nomination. I can see what McCarthy is doing. Didn't make it any easier to read. 

3) Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell

Chick lit trash. Hated it. Hated her. Hated everyone who would buy this book. Hated myself for being hooked enough to read to the end. Dear God. By the author who wrote the Sex and the City novels. I like the TV show. I've seen every episode. But TV is where vacuous characters and ridiculous narratives like this should remain.

4) Dexter is Dead by Jeff Lindsay

As genre fiction goes, this was better than Monica. I have been told the TV show Dexter is great. But I'm not convinced by the book. Maybe others in his series were better? This book is the last of seven by Lindsay and it reads like a thriller film. An awful, cliched one. 

5) Seize the Day by Saul Bellow

Call me a literature snob but this was more like it. The type of novel that has something to say and says it well. 

6) Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Beautifully written. Stunning and disturbing. Loved it. One of my favourites on the course. 

7) On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

I'd read this twice before and taught extracts of it to my year 13s. Most readers have an opinion on McEwan. Apparently he's very marmite. I've only read three of his books (Atonement, Enduring Love and this) but I've enjoyed all of them, for various reasons. This one is poignant and frustrating (but it is meant to be so). A great read. 

8) Summertime by J.M. Coetzee

A really interesting text. It is the third in a series of 'fictionalised memoirs' and details the life of a John Coetzee from five people that knew him. Carefully crafted. Made me want to read up on the author and read his previous works. 

9)The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

A darkly humorous perspective of India's underclass. It won the Man Booker prize in 2008 which does surprise me a little. It almost reads like a YA novel at times. The is lovely. The story is disturbing at times and definitely thought provoking. I would recommend. 

10) The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I didn't think I'd like this novel but I absolutely loved it. Full of history, superstition, details of a family across generations and science fiction references, it is a unique novel. Immerses you in the culture of the characters and, although the vast quantity of Spanish makes it hard to read at times, it is necessary to the story. A friend on the course listened to the audio book and I'm tempted to read it again just so I can do the same. Heartbreaking and humbling.

11) Baptism by Max Kinnings

'Thriller' week. I love a good thriller. This played on my worst fears, fears of the moment like many thrillers do. Terrorism. Tube trains. Being trapped. Eurgh! It was definitely a 'page turner'. It gets a little far fetched at times but it is also truly terrifying in parts. The lecture this week was also given by the author which was a big plus. I even went on to read the second 'Ed Mallory' thriller (the blind hostage negotiator who the text centers around), a novel called Sacrifice which I have just finished today. I'd recommend both, but Baptism more so. 

12) Sleep Walkers by Tom Grieves

 Thoroughly intriguing premise. A great set of ideas but fails to deliver. It felt like the start of a series of books as the ending and explanations were unsatisfying. Wanted a little more. 

13) If Then by Matthew De Abaitua

I was dreading Sci-fi week. Just not my thing at all. I was pleasantly surprised by parts of this text though. Dystopian world. People are controlled through implants in their skulls by 'The Process'. But it is just all a bit odd. All a bit confusing. I just didn't really get this one. Maybe if Sci-fi is your thing, you may do. 

14) The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

Again, just not my thing. Too many planets for my liking! But it is really well written and I did enjoy parts. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to finish this one though...

15) Face by Benjamin Zephania

Teaching KS3, I knew of Zephania before 'Children's Fiction' week but wasn't ever hooked. I thought this was a great book for 11/12 year olds. Deals with issues of identity and physical appearance. 

16) Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephania

Now. I was having a bit of a stressful, emotional week but this book did reduced me to tears. It's a hugely important text for children to read, in my opinion, especially with everything going on in the world today. I've already recommended it a few times to the 14 years olds I teach. It's heart wrenching, touching and infuriating. 

17) Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 

I was meant to read this on my undergrad course but the first line (depending on which translation you read, it declares that 'When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous vermin') made me throw it across my room. No way was I reading a book about a man who turns into an insect! But I actually read it this time. It's obviously a classic. We now have the word 'Kafkaesque' (look it up). It's surreal, bizarre and disturbing. It is very much a text you 'study' but worth a read- even if it is just to be able to say you have when speaking to a bunch of literary snobs... 

 18) Vertigo by W.G Sebald

Very much in the same vein as Satin Island for me. Critics apparently love it. I can see what he's trying to do. But my god it's confusing and dull. 

19) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Horror week. I'd been waiting for this one! Most people have probably seen the film. The book is amazing. It's vile, disgusting, hilarious and so so well crafted. A definite must read. If you can stomach both graphic sex and graphic violence of  course... Proceed with caution.

20) Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik

The same author who wrote Fight Club. Very weird book. A lot of smaller short stories held together by one larger narrative (each short story is supposedly written by a character from the larger narrative). It's not exactly scary. More unsettling. Stomach turning at times. Just a bit bizarre. 

21) Funes el Memorioso by Jorge L Borges

A short fantasy story about the nature of memory and lost opportunity. Again, one you would be made to 'study'. Interesting concept. A bit meh. 

22) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

A classic, of course. You've heard of it. The novel and the phrase 'catch 22'. You've probably used it. I'm surprised I haven't read the novel until now. We read it to focus on how the author uses time in the narrative. But there are so many more aspects to it. Annoying at times, but I enjoyed it as a whole. I'd recommend it. 

If you're still with me, well done! There's a whirlwind tour of the novels I've devoured in the latter half of 2015. Try a few.

Hello again...

So I'm giving this another go. I never finished my best picks from last year. And now this year is almost over, terrifyingly. So once again with the long cold nights drawing in and the desperate count down until the Christmas holidays underway, I needed something to keep me busy. To trick myself into thinking I'm hugely productive. 

I'm calling time on the unfinished posts from nearly a year ago and starting fresh. They will still be books. There will still be little musings. Just a little shorter and hopefully a little more frequently. I may even include some writing of my own and a maybe a few more day to day 'what I got up to' posts. 

This year has been a busy one. I had a tantrum about my little life stagnating in a small village so I've upped and moved to Brighton and it's marvelous. I had a tantrum about teaching so dropped my hours and am now doing a writing MA. Again, marvelous. And a wonderful excuse to read even more books. 

Picks from last year: Instalment Two

4. ‘The Light Years’ by Elizabeth Jane Howard

I took this one away with me to Turkey last August (this and literally about 10 others. Cue angry boyfriend cramming several in his hand luggage when my suitcase wouldn’t close. Only at these times does a Kindle seem like the best damn idea on earth). On yet another book shop visit in preparation for the holiday, I stumbled across this gem and the cover called to me- understated and most importantly, scattered with floral, with the subtitle ‘The Cazalet Chronicles: Volume One’. As an avid fan of ‘Downton Abbey’ and someone who seems to read a shocking number of novels set in beautiful manner houses of the past, the opportunity to follow a family and all their eccentricities across not just one but five (five!) novels seemed almost like a dream come true. Ridiculous, I know.

The novel is set in ‘the heart of the Sussex countryside’ in 1937-38. It follows the Cazalets, an upper-middle class family, through their everyday lives. Another war is looming and as the Cazalet households prepare for their summer pilgrimage to the family estate in Sussex, we meet Edward, in love with but by no means faithful to his wife Villy; Hugh, wounded in the Great War; Rupert, who worships his lovely young bride Zoe; and Rachel, the spinster sister. Along with this generation of characters, we also follow the lives of not only their children, but also their parents and all of the servants.  The novel has an unusual narrative technique in that the point of view is distributed more or less evenly over more than a dozen characters so that the story is brought to us in a series of snippets. And keeping track of the characters is desperately hard at first. But it is wonderful. Lying by the pool in the sweltering Turkish heat, I was thoroughly absorbed.

I am ashamed to say that I have bought the second book in the series, ‘Marking Time’, but have yet to read it. I will remedy this as soon as. The absence of ‘Downton Abbey’ on a Sunday evening is beginning to affect my well being and the Cazalets are an excellent alternative.

Page 99 Snapshot:

Once a month he went home and Mum made a fuss if him, but his sisters had gone into service, and his brothers were much older, and Dad kept telling him how lucky he was to learn the trade under Mr McAlpine. After a few hours he didn’t know what to do with himself and he missed his friends who were all working in different places. He had been used to doing things in a crowd: at school there’d been a gang of them who’d gone fishing, or picked hops in the season for cash. Here there wasn’t anyone to do things with. There was Dottie, but she was a girl so he never knew where he was with her and she treated him like a boy when he was doing a man’s job- sort of0- earning his living, anyway, same as her. Sometimes he wondered about going to sea, or he might drive a bus; the bus would be better because ladies took buses; he wouldn’t drive,he’d be a conductor, so’s he could see all their legs...

5. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

God I love this book. I first read it when I was at school after being given it by an English teacher of mine and, although I felt its unsettling tone creep under my skin, I didn’t grasp the full significance of the story. I have now taught this text twice to my sixth formers, a year 12 class and a year 13, and I have barely been able to contain myself when reading it. The ending still sends shivers along my spine- clichéd but 100% true. And if a text can do that to you during a five period teaching day surrounded by twelve or so seventeen year olds gaping at you, you know it must be good.

The short story is a tale of a woman driven to the brink of insanity by the ‘rest cure’ prescribed after the birth of her child. While she is isolated in a crumbling mansion, in a nursery with bars on the windows, the tortuous pattern of the yellow wallpaper winds its way into the recesses of her mind. Based on the author’s own experiences, it is a thought provoking and chilling comment on the roles and expectations placed on women, and the damaging consequences such oppression could have.

Pioneered by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, the ‘rest cure’ was prescribed in the late 1800s as a treatment for ‘hysteria’. The treatment usually lasted six to eight weeks and involved almost complete isolation from friends and family, and enforced bed rest. The patients were sometimes prohibited from talking, reading, writing, sewing or any activity that would involve even the slightest mental or intellectual stimulation. Many of those to be prescribed the ‘rest cure’ were women, usually those who were outspoken, creative or independent. It is thoroughly shocking that such a premise existed and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ concerns itself with the gradual decline and disastrous consequences of the treatment. Narrated from the point of view of the female protagonist, the style creates a controlled tension, and we are with her every step by tiny step as she ‘creeps’ slowly towards madness.

Page 9 snapshot (there are only 32 pages to the narrative!):

I wish I could get well faster.

But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!

There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.

I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and its everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breaths didn’t match, and the eyed go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.

6. ‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks

Another text that I have taught my year 12s this year. They are currently writing their coursework on it so you think I would be sick to death of it by now but I adore it. It’s beautiful. I read it first on holiday (another pool side read!) when I was away with the girls about 5 or so years ago. And I cried. By the pool. I’ve also seen the stage show and it was astounding. Thoroughly recommend it.

The novel is set before and during WWI and follows the life of the protagonist, Stephen Wraysford. Beginning in Amiens, France, in 1910, Part One of the text involves a clandestine, furtive, and fervent love affair, immediately confusing your expectations of a war novel.  This tranquil setting and intimacy serves to create a jarring upheaval for the reader when we are transported in Part Two to the centre of the front line in 1916; a device meant to mirror the experiences of the young men whose lives were so callously uprooted. With the use of narrative prolepsis (flash-forward to the 1970s), Faulks manages to create both an intimate tale of Stephen and those he encounters, but also highlights for the reader the importance of remembrance and respect on a national scale- for all of the thousands who lost their lives. Especially with last year being the centenary, it seemed a fitting choice.

Page 99 snapshot:

‘What’s happening?’ she said. ‘Why is everyone shouting?’

Stephen felt a rush of pity for the girl. He turned speechlessly from her and ran to Isabelle’s room. She had put on a coat and a green hat with a feather. She looked touchingly young.

‘All right?’ said Stephen. ‘Shall we go?’

She took his hand between hers and looked into his grave face. She smiled and nodded and picked up her case.

Each space and unexpected corridor beneath the plunging with its conflicting angles was alive with voices and the sound of feet, heavy, hesitant, running or turning back. The door to the kitchen banged and rolled repeatedly on its hinges as Marguerite and the cook shuttled back and forth to the dining room under the pretext of clearing the dinner, then lingered, listening, in the hallway. At the top of the stairs Stephen appeared with his arm around Isabelle, guiding her past the stricken looks and questions. 

Picks from last year: Instalment one

As promised, I’m going to give a brief nod to some of the books I particularly enjoyed from last year. Some are fresher in my memory than others, but I just know that when trying to select a cross section from my shelf, I felt myself going ‘Oh I loved this one!’ for one reason or another.

Each post will cover about three books until the stack is done and then I will push on to talking about the books I read in December and the start of January (I read often and fast so the list is growing at an alarming rate).

So, children. Let us begin.

1.       ‘The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox’ by Maggie O’Farrell

Now my first two are picks from very early last year and my memories of the ins and outs are hazy but I will try to give you an idea of why they’ve made it here.

‘The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox’  is a narrative full of oppression, madness, injustice and love. It focuses on Iris Lockhart’s reluctant discovery of a great aunt she never knew she had- Esme, a patient of a psychiatric unit who is about to be released. The text moves seamlessly between the present day and, through Esme’s recollections, the 1930s. Esme recalls her early childhood in India with her ayha and mimosa trees. Forced after a traumatic experience to return to England, Esme becomes, through the eyes of her parents, an ‘impossible’ child; she refuses education, loathes dances and has no interest in finding a husband. Eventually, through a series of injustices, hallucinations and violent incidents, Esme’s parents have ‘no choice’ but to place her into an institution, where she is disowned and forgotten for decades.

The novel made me furious and frustrated for Esme- her life was stolen from her because she did not and could not conform to the expectations placed on women. I so desperately wanted to visit Esme in the institution, years before her eventual release, and rescue her, comfort her, help her reclaim her life. A really touching book.

Page 99 Snapshot:

Esme has abandoned the seatbelt and has pressed the hazard light button on the dashboard. The car is filled with a noise like crickets. This seems to delight Esme, who smiles, presses it again, switching it off, waits a moment, then switches it on again.

‘Really?’ Iris says. ‘Well, could you try just “hospital”?... No, not any hospital. I need this one, specifically. Yes.’ Iris feels incredibly hot. She is regretting the jumper under her coat. She reaches out and covers the hazard button with one hand. ‘Could you please not do that?’ she says to Esme, then has to say, ‘No, no, I didn’t mean you,’ to the Directory Enquiries woman who, magically, has managed to locate the whereabouts of Cauldstone on her system and is asking Iris if she wants Admissions, Outpatients, General Enquiries or Daycare.

2.        ‘The Light Between Oceans’ by M.L. Stedman.

For the book ‘The Light Between Oceans’, I will just give you the blurb that enticed me. It is cheesy. It is clearly melodramatic. But every time I entered Waterstones over the course of a few weeks (I stroll in there remarkably often- bookshops are soothing!), I felt myself coming back to this book again and again, against my better judgement. The blurb is as follows:

A boat washes up on the shore of a remote lighthouse keeper’s island.

It holds a dead man and a crying baby.

The only two islanders, Tom and his wife Izzy, are about to make a devastating decision.

They break the rules and follow their hearts.

What happens next will break yours.

I am even cringing as I write that, it’s so so so awful. The last two lines make me want to die a bit inside. And the comment ‘Heartbreaking’ from Good Housekeeping was off putting too- it literally says in the blurb that the novel will break the reader’s heart so this review is hardly mind blowing. And also, Good Housekeeping?! But I swallowed my literary snobbery and bought it. The setting sounded quaint and mysterious and I just had to know whether it would, in fact, break my heart. It pains me to say this but I actually cried at the end. *hangs head in shame* It was surprisingly well written, tender and complicated, full of moral questions and I was gripped from start to finish.

Page 99 Snapshot:

Tom checked the pencilled scrawl on the paper. Yes, the right room number. He scanned his memory again for the lullaby-gentle sound of his mother: ‘Ups-a-daisy, my young Thomas. Shall we put a bandage on that scrape?’

His knock went unanswered, and he tried again. Eventually, he turned the handle tentatively, and the door gave no resistance. The unmistakable scent rushed to meet him, but it was a split second before he recognised it as tainted- with cheap alcohol and cigarettes. In the closed-in-gloom he saw an unmade bed and a tatty armchair, in shades of brown. There was a crack in the window, and a single rose in a vase had long ago shrivelled.

(***Ahh even the obvious connotations of the single shrivelled rose pain me a little bit! But it is good- I swear.)

3.       ‘Small Pleasures To Save Your Life’ by Maeve Haran

Okay, so this isn’t a novel but a collection of the small, simple, everyday things that Maeve Haran finds comforting and wholesome. I was drawn to this book during a time when I was feeling particularly bleak and desperately sad about life. I was actually searching for a birthday present for a friend of mine when I discovered it. Enticed by the line ‘Good bread, warm towels, crisp mornings, eating the froth on the cappuccino: these are the ordinary pleasures that make life worth living’, I bought two copies, one for my friend and one for myself. I almost, stupidly, felt like I could read this and it would make me feel much more at peace with myself. It did make me feel all ‘warm and fuzzy’ inside for a time and, despite good ol’ Maeve being a tad irritating at times, it did push me to try and take pleasure in the ordinary to get you through the day when it all just seems a bit hopeless. (Another darling much loved friend of mine and I devised our own simple pleasure to cheer us up- during the summer term, as a Friday treat and a ‘well done for surviving the week’ gift to ourselves, we would get iced lattes from Costa on the way to work. This small, insignificant, tiny indulgence literally made my day.)

Page 99 Snapshot:

An old-fashioned dressing table

Dressing tables were highly unfashionable when I was growing up. We were reacting against suburban 1950s kidney-shaped version, draped in brightly coloured fabrics with frills on. The price we pay for our disapproval was a decade of putting our make-up on in the bathroom with nowhere to balance our foundation or mascara and having to lean uncomfortably over a sink to see into the mirror.

Recently there’s been a romantic revival in the fortunes of dressing tables and I love it. Mine is curvy and capacious, covered in photos of friends and family in petite photo frames. Jewellery is draped everywhere, as well as perfume, some of it in old cut glass bottles. I haven’t gone as far as feathers, but almost.

(*** I swear this one is just me. Throw some sequins and fur on that bad boy and you’re good to go.)