Book review: The Good Immigrant ed. by Nikesh Shukla

Sometimes a book hits at the right time. The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla and crowdfunded on the publishing platform Unbound, is one of those books.

I'm heartbroken over the result of the EU referendum, saddened and angered by the surge in openly racist attacks, and all round worried about the future of the UK. And even before the referendum, who can have missed the discourse around immigrants in recent months, even years? From Prime Minister David Cameron calling refugees seeking shelter from war a "swarm" to Donald Trump's plans to build a wall between Mexico and America and ban all Muslims from entering the US, it can seem like an awful time to not be white.

So The Good Immigrant is both a soothing balm and a fiery call to action against the ugliness of the world today. As the daughter of immigrants, I have a particular interest in this book, but this collection of essays is essential reading for all human beings. It's not a book of essays where non-white people moan about how they're treated unfairly - it's a collection of nuanced pieces looking at the immigrant experience, providing a state of the nation and serving as an eye-opening agent for change. During my reading I laughed, I fought back tears, I nodded in understanding, I got angry, and I also felt inspired.

Book review: Leave Your Mark by Aliza Licht

Aliza Licht's Leave Your Mark promises to help give you tips to land your dream job, kill it in your career, and rock social media. 

Those are some big claims, and while I don't think reading this book is going to suddenly set you on the path to awesomeness, I think it'll fire you up so that you want to try.

Licht started in fashion journalism before joining DKNY in a publicity role. There, when Twitter appeared, she set up DKNY PR Girl, pretty much the first Twitter account to give the inside track on PR in the world of fashion. Taking her experience in journalism and PR, Licht has written a how-to guide to making the most of every career opportunity that comes your way, and creating some of your own.

I don't read business books or self-help guides or anything similar - the closest I've come before this is Sheryl Sandberg's wonderful Lean In. So I wasn't really sure what to expect when I picked up Leave Your Mark.

The first thing is that it's very upbeat, very matter of fact, and Licht's voice is very confident. Confidence is a big point in the book, but it took me a while to get past my British reserve and start really enjoying what Licht was saying and the way she was saying it. I never really got used to the 'take a selfie' sections, where Licht almost gives the reader a task in which you have to assess yourself. The use of the word selfie felt a little trying too hard to be trendy to me, and I didn't love it.

Book review: The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink

I very rarely cry at books. I'll get sad, my heart will hurt, my eyes might tear up, but it takes a lot for those tears to actually spill over. So when I tell you that when I finished the last page of Cathy Rentzenbrink's The Last Act of Love to realise I had tears running down my face, it should clue you in to how powerful a memoir this is.

I should say at this juncture that I work with Cathy - I know her professionally, and consider her both a mentor and a friend. Beyond knowing the subject matter of the book, I didn't really know what to expect from The Last Act of Love. What I found was an intensely personal tale dealing with the universal subjects of love, family, and loss.

In the summer of 1990, Cathy's younger brother Matty was knocked down by a car, leaving him in a coma in hospital. Cathy and her parents willed him to survive, and he did. But at the time, Cathy and her family had no idea that survival might not have been the best option - Matty was left severely injured, unable to walk or speak or communicate fully. Every time he made progress, he suffered an epileptic fit, or something else that set him back. Eight years after his accident, Cathy and her parents were forced to make the hardest decision they would ever make.

Book review: Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman

I've learnt a lot of lessons from 1980s films.

From The Breakfast Club I learnt that detention could be cool. From The Princess Bride I learnt that fairytale princesses can be tough AND feminine. From The Goonies I learnt that with a good group of friends you can do anything. From Dirty Dancing I learnt that you never put Baby in a corner (of course).

In her new book, Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned From Eighties Movies (And Why We Don't Learn Them From Movies Any More), journalist Hadley Freeman sets out the lessons she learnt from eighties' films (obviously), in much greater detail and with a lot more thought than I ever could. Split into 10 chapters, Freeman focuses on a different film in each, from Dirty Dancing and what it said about abortion, sex and women, to Pretty in Pink's lessons on makeovers to how Back to the Future is really about the importance of parents.

This is, hands down, one of my favourite non-fiction books ever. It reads like a collection of scholarly essays injected with a massive dose of fun. Freeman's analysis is smart, insightful and considered, as well as being witty, funny and gossipy. There are plenty of footnotes in each chapter, like on an essay you wrote for university. But don't ignore the footnotes, they're full of absolute gems, like the fact that the guy who played Robbie in Dirty Dancing went on to be a journalist and got addicted to drugs while trying to do a story on a cannibalistic cult, and then died. Seriously.

Review: Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado

It's easy to judge people less well off than yourself, to comment on why they might be on benefits, or to wonder why they spend money on cigarettes when they can barely feed themselves.

Our television screens are full of programmes about people living on the breadline, but many of them (the programmes) present a one-sided, often snide view. Linda Tirado's Hand to Mouth: The Truth About Being Poor in a Wealthy World is the counterpoint to all those reality shows, offering intelligent, well-thought out and firm arguments about why poor people are poor, and how society is hard-wired to make it difficult for people to lift themselves out of poverty.

Tirado's book came about after she replied to a question on a forum asking why poor people did things that seemed so self-destructive. Her response, which is used in the introductory chapter of the book, took on a life of its own, as people responded (well and badly).

In Hand to Mouth Tirado expands on her arguments. She uses examples from her own life to illustrate how poor people are maligned every day of their lives, and how behaviour which passes without comment or judgement when wealthy people do it is seen as terrible when a poor person partakes.

Work takes centre stage, with plenty of commentary about Tirado's past jobs and the difficulties, and horrors, she suffered - from being propositioned by bosses and customers, to the nightmare that is trying to balance two (or four) jobs, none of which pay well and none of which have bosses who will accommodate the other. From the off, Tirado quashes the stereotype of poor people not wanting to work or being hard workers - it's clear that she is not the exception when it comes to people in poverty and their struggles with work.

One of the most interesting chapters in the book was that about healthcare, even though, as Brits, we are lucky enough to have the NHS at our disposal and so don't have the same difficulties accessing healthcare as Americans. Not only does Tirado talk about the expense of healthcare, but she also takes it one step further and shows how a lack of healthcare leads to things like not being able to get good jobs, which spirals into not having enough money and so on. It's a connection I, naively, never really thought about.

The best thing about Tirado's book is the humour shown throughout, and the wonderful voice. Tirado is not afraid to use the odd (sometimes more) swear word, or tell it like it is, and that's refreshing. My favourite part of the book was towards the end, when Tirado writes a letter to rich people, which is so on the mark it's funny (I had a job where I sat through meetings like the ones she describes and she's spot on).

Tirado's book doesn't have all the answers, in fact, it's not really a book about answers. It's a book about questions and about highlighting problems, and about trying to make people understand. We all saw (and perhaps took part in) the Occupy demonstrations, we've signed petitions against the cutting of legal aid or against the bedroom tax, but it's only by reading a considered book like Tirado's that I've come to have the slightest understanding of what problems are faced by such a large number of people every day. Hand to Mouth is required reading for everyone.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Virago. This did not affect my review.

Review: Land of Second Chances by Tim Lewis

Cycling has been undergoing a resurgence in the last few years, thanks to Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins et al, but my faith in the worldwide cycling community is still pretty shaken from Lance Armstrong's "misdemeanours", shall we say. Or, you know, his drug-taking, bullying ways.

But Land of Second Chances: The Impossible Rise of Rwanda's Cycling Team by Tim Lewis has restored some of my faith. The story of how one of the poorest nations in the world became known for its cycling, and not just for the genocide there in the 1990s, is inspiring.

Lewis focuses his story on two people - Adrien Niyonshuti, a child of the genocide who in 2012 represented his country at the Olympic Games (and is currently at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow); and Jock Boyer, Team Rwanda's coach and a man trying to rehabilitate himself and his reputation. The American inventor of the mountain bike, Tim Ritchey, also plays an important part in the beginning of the tale, but its Niyonshuti and Boyer who provide the compelling narratives.

Land of Second Chances is bracketed by Niyonshuti's appearance at the London 2012 Games, the climax of the cyclist's career (so far). But Lewis takes us much deeper into the story of Team Rwanda than just its preparations for the Olympics. We get an overview of the genocide, with a focus on the Team Rwanda cyclists, and also of Boyer's life. I'd not heard of Boyer before, so there was a moment in the book that left me completely stunned. It did taint my view of Boyer's actions - he clearly, in my opinion, went to Rwanda to improve his image - but Lewis is good at not judging.

That non-judgemental attitude was frustrating at times for me. For example, Lewis addresses the issue of doping in cycling, and there are mentions of Armstrong at various points throughout. At times, I found Lewis's measured approach stifling - as someone clearly invested in cycling I wanted him to rail and rage against Armstrong's wrongs. But Lewis made the right decision in keeping fairly neutral - this is not a book about politics or the politics of cycling, and Lewis does well to keep the focus on Team Rwanda and not let it shift into other issues (no matter how many names I want to call Armstrong).

While Niyonshuti and Boyer are the focus of this book, the real narrative is about the creation of a team of cyclists. At times it's sad and frightening, hearing the stories of how the genocide completely changed the lives of so many people or how people live in fear from criminals. At other times the book shows how maddening it must have been, both for Boyer, who found the cyclists just wouldn't listen to him on some things, and for the cyclists, who I think found it hard to have someone come in and expect them to change culturally. 

Mostly though, Land of Second Chances is beautiful and uplifting and heartwarming, a story of hope that reaches far beyond sport. It's a book that'll have you cheering for cyclists you'd never previously heard of, and will restore your faith in fair competition, and in the human race.

How I got this book: In a goody bag

Review: The Vogue Factor by Kirstie Clements

Kirstie Clements is probably not a name people cite when asked to list present and former Vogue editors - those honours go to Anna Wintour, Alexandra Schulman and Carine Roitfeld.

But for 13 years Clements was the editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia. Granted, it's not the brand's biggest or most important title, but Vogue is Vogue, and Clements played a crucial role is shaping the magazine, until she was sacked in May 2012.

In The Vogue Factor, Clements recounts her career, from working as a receptionist at the magazine, through her time in Paris as a freelance reporter and the period she spent working on the upstart Harper's Bazaar, before her ascension to the top spot at the most famous name in fashion magazines.

Clements begins her book at the end, recalling the day she was called into the office of the CEO of Vogue's parent company and told she was being fired, before taking us to the start of her career in magazines. This beginning made me think that Clements would circle round to her last days at Vogue, giving an insight into what happened as the end neared, and her thoughts on why she was sacked. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen. Instead, we get a few pages at the end in which Clements muses on how companies like to change staff when new management comes in, which I felt was diplomatic of her, but also didn't make for great reading.

Other parts of the book are equally bland. Clements likes to list the many, many people she worked with over the years, when I'd rather have heard about what she was doing, both because it would be more interesting and because I love to hear about the inner workings of the journalism industry. Instead, there's endless lists of photoshoots, and hirings and (not that many) firings. Clements also occasionally does the really annoying thing of starting a story but not finishing it. This most stood out to me in the chapter when she starts hiring a team at Vogue. After spending a page talking about needing to hire a new art director and the qualities needed, she fails to the reader who she hired. What was the point of that? 

The endless lists and recounting of trips are not very exciting, but when Clements delves into the big issue in fashion - the size of models - that's when the book comes to life. She recalls the practices she has encountered, and details exactly why certain types of models are used, holding the fashion industry as a whole to account for unhealthy female models. Her stories are quite horrifying (models eat tissues to feel full), more so because they're told in such a calm way. The story of a Russian model so hungry by the end of a multi-day shoot that she couldn't sit up and had to be laid down so the magazine could get its final shot is awful on many levels, not least because Clements and her team have a role to play in stopping this kind of practice, and on this occasion, while they called the model's agency to report the problem, they also didn't bother putting a stop to the shoot.

Clements is also interesting when she's talking about the role of Vogue Australia in relation to other Vogues, with the basic idea that Vogue Australia is the poor relation. It's in these discussions that the book fun is funny and witty, but unfortunately they're few and far between. What could have been an insightful look at the fashion magazine industry instead turns into a rather bland recounting of a career in The Vogue Factor. Unfortunately, this book is the Vogue Australia of books about fashion magazines.

How I got this book: From the room of unwanted books at work.

Review: My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff

Your first 'proper' job was probably a challenge, but I doubt you had the added awkwardness of working for the agency that represented one of the most famous writers in the world, and one of the most reclusive.

Joanna Rakoff did, and in My Salinger Year she tells the story of her year working at one of New York's oldest literary agencies, which happened to represent J. D. Salinger. To say that this is a book about Salinger, though, would be an exaggeration. The author plays a tiny role in My Salinger Year, which is more about growing up than it is about the guy behind Catcher in the Rye.

Set firmly in the world of publishing, My Salinger Year is a great insight into the way things used to be done, and into the way some facets of publishing took ages to catch on to digital. One particular favourite moment of mine is when Rakoff describes how her boss acknowledges she doesn't know what an electronic book is (this is 1996), but she's still not signing away the rights for it. That, plus the agency's pink card filing system, the introduction of one computer, and the pedal-driven dictaphone Rakoff uses, among other things, all made me smile, shake my head in disbelief and then smile again. One thing that didn't make me smile, though, was when the agency lost Judy Blume as a client, which I can only put down to its reluctance to try new things, and should be a lesson for everyone.

Since the book is called My Salinger Year, I guess I should address the issue of the author himself, who comes across as a nice but slightly-deaf man who doesn't enjoy fame one bit. Rakoff's reading of Salinger's fanmail is full of emotion - I can't help but think of all those people who wrote to Salinger and never got replies, because most of them seemed to pour their hearts out on paper to a man they thought would understand them. My Salinger Year wonderfully illustrates the power of authors to connect with individuals, even as they write for masses.

We're never told the name of the agency Rakoff is working at, or the name of her boss, which I found unnecessary all of the time and jarring most of the time. It's unnecessary because a quick search online will lead you to discover the agency is Harold Ober Associates and Rakoff's boss is Phyllis Westberg. I resisted until two thirds of the way through before I decided to go online, but it was tough. And it's jarring, because by never naming them, Rakoff is always substituting "my boss" or "the agency" for real names. One moment where it particularly doesn't work is after the death of someone very close to Rakoff's boss, which leads Rakoff to ask a colleague: "Is my boss okay?" In a situation like that, you'd never use a person's title, and it really grates.

But that's a small gripe, because My Salinger Year usually flows so well that you think you're reading fiction. However, any encounters with Don, Rakoff's then-boyfriend, make you realise this is real life. There is no way any writer could have created a boyfriend as lazy and self-absorbed as Don, and a protagonist who just didn't see any of his faults right until the very end. But Rakoff's relationship with Don is also one of the most compelling parts of My Salinger Year, since it gets right to the heart of the growing up that Rakoff is doing during her year at the agency, which also includes negotiating old friendships and relationships.

My Salinger Year is part The Devil Wears Prada, part New Girl, and better than those two because it's real. Compulsively readable, My Salinger Year will take you racing through the New York publishing scene in 1996, and then have you reaching for your copy of Catcher in the Rye.

How I got this book: Borrowed from a friend.

Review: I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

I'm a 20-something woman (it's rude to ask exactly how old I am) but I'm not afraid to admit that one of my few heroines in life (apart from my mum) is 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai.

We all know her name now - since being shot by the Taliban Yousafzai has been hailed by the western world as a crusader, which she is. But hearing her story in her own words shows that Yousafzai is also a teenager, albeit one whose voice now reaches millions.

Yousafzai is a confident, articulate, passionate young woman who is standing up for one of what should be the most basic rights for a child anywhere in the world - the right to an education. I Am Malala is Yousafzai's account of her life growing up in Pakistan, being a normal child, and then being thrust into the spotlight because of something that happened to her, rather than something she did.

The first thing to note is how well Yousafzai speaks, and how well her voice comes through in this book. If you saw her speech to the UN (and if not, why not?), you'll know that she can command an audience, and that voice comes through loud and clear in this book. Lamb is to be commended for tapping into Yousafzai's voice with perfection. The only part of the book where it feels slightly mechanical is in the chapters dealing with the immediate aftermath of the shooting. This is understandable, however, as it's the only part of the story that Yousafzai is telling second-hand - she can't remember much after being shot, and she certainly wasn't in any condition to know what her parents or the doctors were saying.

Yousafzai's story is fascinating, and one that stands out for a young woman being brought up in Pakistan. As a British-born Pakistani, I have great freedoms and extremely supportive parents. But for many young women in Pakistan, tradition still rules and while there is much more freedom now and young women are getting educated and getting good jobs, many aren't in such a fortunate position. Hearing Yousafzai's story is interesting, partly because her family dynamic is interesting - her father is very forward-thinking, perhaps more than most fathers around the world, in whichever country you visit.

But Yousafzai is not one to take things for granted. She acknowledges how lucky she has been in growing up in a family which places such an emphasis on education. She's grateful but also has that teenage confidence (mainly when it comes to exam results and competition with her classmates). I don't mean that in a bad way, but she comes across as a typical teenager in the book as well - a little cocky sometimes, a little over-confident (like many a teenager you'd meet on the streets of London, or Birmingham, or anywhere).

Aside from hearing about Yousafzai herself, one of the things that most interested me most in I Am Malala was learning about the history and politics of where Yousafzai grew up, and finding out more about how she and her friends and neighbours viewed things. Yousafzai does convey some disappointment with both the governments within her country, and with foreign leaders for failing to step in, or just not doing enough. That the Taliban were free to terrorise her hometown is the fault of many people, and Yousafzai says that.

I think what's most remarkable about Yousafzai's story is how normal she seems. Sure, she's speaking at the UN and meeting presidents and prime ministers, but at the end of the day she's a teenager who wants to learn and grow, and who has a huge amount of compassion. I Am Malala is a triumphant tale and one full of hope, despite the horrific events which occur within, and it's one that I shall be pressing on the various teenagers in my family to inspire them. However, it is also a story with a slightly bittersweet ending - my heart aches for Yousafzai, who wants to return to her home in Pakistan, but cannot yet. I hope one day she is able to return to Pakistan, because the work she is capable of doing there would make her current campaigning look like a school prefect election.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. This did not affect my review.

Review: Popular by Maya Van Wagenen

Wouldn't life be easy if you had a step by step guide on how to get through it? While Maya Van Wagenen doesn't have a guide to life, she does have a guide to being popular, and for a teenager that's the same thing.

Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek is Van Wagenen's real life account of a year spent living by the rules of Betty Cornell's Teenage Popularity Guide, first published way back in 1951. Van Wagenen's social experiment sees her wearing a girdle, changing her posture, introducing herself to new people and donning make up in an attempt to be popular at the "armpit" that is school.

This is a frank and funny book, which draws you in immediately. I loved Van Wagenen's voice, which was fresh and sounded reassuringly like that of a 13-year-old (that's how old Van Wagenen was at the time of the experiment). And like a teenager there was plenty of minor drama which at that age seems like it's the be-all and end-all - a crush on a cute boy, dealing with the popular kids.

Popular is at its best when Van Wagenen is talking about the experiences which nearly every teenager goes through in their life, from school to friends to family (although obviously the book is very American). Added into that, Van Wagenen's experiment adds a layer of tension and hilarity, as she goes through her school days wearing pearls and trying to act like nothing has changed so as not to tip people off to what she doing.

As well as school, Van Wagenen's family life is also full of love and humour, from her younger sister Natalia, who has autism, to her annoying but loveable brother, to her occasionally eccentric dad and her beautiful mother. It's her family unit which ensure that Van Wagenen can go through with her experiment for a full year.

Where the memoir slightly falls down is on the more serious topics. Van Wagenen's relationship with her teacher Mr Lawrence, who has terminal cancer, is touching and definitely worth hearing more about. And Van Wagenen mentions gang and drug problems in her school and hometown plenty of times throughout the book, but the issue is never explored properly. I can understand that both situations were a part of Van Wagenen's life, and so needed to be included, but at times it felt like a mention of them was just thrown in and then forgotten about. They don't quite fit into a diary about becoming popular, but at the same time they can't be discarded. It's a conundrum that's handled ok, but not brilliantly (and that's more to do with the editing than the writing).

Aside from that, though, Popular is a great read. Of course, there are lessons to be learned from what Van Wagenen goes through, and there's a certain amount of light preaching about popularity, but it all works pretty well. Not only is Popular an enjoyable book, it's also the tale of a brave young woman who decided to do her own thing, and succeeded. And that's more inspiring for all the legions of teenage girls out there than becoming popular.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Penguin. This did not affect my review.

Review: The Arab Uprisings by Jeremy Bowen

During 2011 it was difficult to switch on the news without seeing an item about protests and demonstrations against a leader in Africa or the Arabic world. Even now, unrest in Syria, where a civil war is under way, still hits the headlines regularly.

Reporting on the Arab uprisings, as they were called, was the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen. In The Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime, he gathers together information gleaned from his reports into a book chronicling what happened in the region.

Given that there is no sign of peace yet - Syria is still in the midst of a battle, Egypt has removed its democratically elected leader, Tunisia is to hold elections later this year - the events of this book already seem like distant history.

Bowen traces the beginnings of the unrest, not just the self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi in Tunisia in December 2010, but also the wider political and economical situation in the region which led people to feel unhappy with their governments.

We also get insights into how the media works when it reports on conflict, from the struggles of getting visas to the cooperation with regimes who want to hide certain parts of their country. Bowen recounts interviews with Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi (arranged by the late Marie Colvin) and Syria's Bashar Assad and gives an insight into both men, as well as looking at why Russia and China won't offer support for intervention.

However, while at the core of this book lurked an interesting concept, mostly it was a dense read which largely recounted everything that I'd already seen on television or read in newspapers or online or seen discussed on social media. 

As a journalist working in the medium of television, I expected Bowen's book to be a little livelier and more engaging, but it seems that being given the option to get across a story in more than a two minute time slot led to a lot of overwriting, which made this book a hard slog. There is constant repetition, particularly in the first half of the book - at times it's like Bowen has forgotten he's written a phrase just 200 words before. The slogan 'the people want the fall of the regime' is oft-explained and repeated in the first few chapters, as if it's a scientific concept that most people would find difficult to grasp.

There are also some really interesting aspects that are just completely ignored. For example, Bowen mentions an American woman called Jackie Frazier, who is the assistant to one of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi al-Gaddafi. Hang on a second, what's her story? How did she find herself working for the son of a military dictator? Bowen has clearly spoken to her, or has some sort of connection, so why is she nothing more than a passing reference?

The Arab Uprisings is at its most interesting when Bowen is telling stories about specific, everyday people he meets, regardless of which side - regime or rebel - of the conflict they are on, or when we see extracts from Bowen's diaries that he wrote while in Libya or Syria and so on. Unfortunately, these are few and far between. Instead, the book is a repeat of everything that someone with an interest in current affairs would know (anyone not with an interest would put this book down within the first few pages), and one that misses the opportunity to have an authority on the area, a journalist with years of experience in the Middle East, give some real analysis of a charged situation.

How I got this book: Borrowed from the library

Reading challenge 2013 - the results

Success! After failing the challenge I set myself in 2012, this year turned out much better. Wanting to up the number of non-fiction books I read, I set out to read one every month. Although it didn't quite work like that, I did manage 12 non-fiction tomes, covering everything from politics to business to the London 2012 Games and even fiction. Below is the full list of books I read, with links to the reviews...

1. Into Danger by Kate Adie
2. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
3. The Sweetness of Life by Francois Heritier
4. Lean In - Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
5. Making History at London 2012 edited by Brendan Gallagher
6. How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
7. The Siege, Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
8. London Villages, Explore the City's Best Local Neighbourhoods by Zena Alkayat
9. How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
10. Front Row, Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer
11. Very British Problems by Rob Temple
12. Dedicated to... compiled by W B Gooderham

Book review: Dedicated to... compiled by W B Gooderham

I love secondhand books, and one of the reasons I love them is for the dedications you sometimes find inside.

Who gifted the book? Who received it? Why has it now found its way into the hands of another owner?

W B Gooderham is also a fan of secondhand books, and in Dedicated to... has brought together some of the best dedications he has found inside books. Each page features a picture of the book, and the inscription page (if possible) and, usually, a typed version of the inscription, since some of the handwriting is difficult to read.

Dedicated to... is a collection of messages between friends, family, lovers, acquaintances and more. All we see is the book and the dedication, the story behind the gift is left to the reader to decide.

There are some strange messages, some quite deep, but the ones that got me most were the ones that were clearly between people in love. For example, in a copy of Embedded Anatomy: States and Industrial Transformation by Peter Evans (yes, this comes under strange too) there is a message to Kim from Stu, whose dedication ends: "I am yours always." Clearly, Stu was in love with Kim when this book was gifted, but what happened afterward? Did they have a horrid break up? Is that why Kim (presumably) gave the book away? Or did Kim give the book away because it's such a strange choice?

The stories are myriad, and in one way it would be great if the people whose messages have been printed could get in touch with Gooderham to tell him their stories (not sure how he'd feel about me volunteering him). In another way though, the mystery is what makes this book, and secondhand books, so appealing.

How I got this book: Gift from a friend

•Dedicated to... is the 12th, and final, book in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013.

Book review: Very British Problems by Rob Temple

You know how it is, you're in a queue, and someone stands next to you, instead of behind you. Are they queuing or just loitering? Are they going to push in front? Are they just unaware of how queues work?

This, my friend, is a very British problem.

Rob Temple's book Very British Problems came about after he set up the Twitter account @soverybritish. It is, according to its blurb, a book that reveals how we're "a nation of socially awkward but well-meaning oddballs, struggling to make it through every day without saying sorry to an inanimate object". 

(By the way, British problem no. 236: Trying not to laugh out loud on the train while reading Very British Problems in case people think you're a weirdo).

The great thing about this book is that I so often found myself nodding along and going "yes, that's me". Among my favourites, and those that hit closest to home, are:

• "Saying you're pleased with your haircut despite the deep inner sadness it's causing you." - There was this one time I got a fringe, and it was horrible and I told the hairdresser it was lovely, and I went home and almost cried.

• "Feeling the need to pat down all your pockets, despite knowing full well you haven't got your loyalty card." - All the time, and mostly I don't even have pockets on my clothes.

• "Sitting awkwardly for your entire journey to accommodate the staggering leg spread of the gentleman beside you." - In my new life as a rail commuter this is a daily misery.

• "The challenge of attempting to deal with a sneeze while holding a scalding cup of tea in a surface-free area." - I don't drink tea, but this problem can be applied to drinks of any kind, I feel.

Very British Problems is a laugh-out-loud book (even if you're on the train) and one that should be passed from friend to friend so you can all exclaim about how these problems really are the sort we all encounter in everyday life. (Except then you encounter the problem of friends who turn the corners of book pages, and you can't say anything, and it's all awkward, and oh goodness...)

•Very British Problems is book 11 in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013. 

Book review: Front Row, Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief

Even if you don't follow fashion, you've probably heard of Anna Wintour, if only from the film or book The Devil Wears Prada.

While that book, written by a former assistant of Wintour's, is real life given a sheen of fiction, Jerry Oppenheimer's unauthorised biography Front Row, Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief, purports to be all reality.

From Wintour's childhood as the daughter of Evening Standard editor Charles Wintour to her ascension to editor-in-chief of American Vogue - and leader of the world's fashion industry - this book chronicles every moment that has made Wintour into what she is today.

And that is, according to Oppenheimer, one of the most feared and nastiest editors, if not women, in the world.

Of course, Wintour has a reputation. She's tough, she doesn't play nice by all accounts, and she's said to be a harsh taskmaster. But Oppenheimer seems to go out of his way to portray Wintour as nasty - there's barely a move she makes, according to this book, that doesn't have some sort of motive behind it.

Tiny little incidents are made much bigger than they seem, all in order to make Wintour seem horrible. One that sticks out, from Wintour's time at Savvy, is introduced by Oppenheimer as an incident that put Wintour's "name and the magazine's" on the line. It amounts to a photographer's assistant damaging a rug and shattering a vase, and Oppenheimer quickly wraps up the story by saying the "damage was taken care of, and Anna walked away with her reputation and job intact". Perhaps as he was writing Oppenheimer realised this incident was hardly what he made it out to be.

Oppenheimer does acknowledge Wintour's talent at her job, and even includes quotes from people who say she's tough but fair, but as soon as he's praised her he's off damning her again.

What I wanted was a book that really delved into Wintour's career and gave me an insight into her talent and her world, which I realise isn't always pretty (unless you're sitting in the front row at a fashion show). Oppenheimer's bitchy biography, while stacked full of quotes from sources and those supposedly close to Wintour, is just an extended version of a newspaper's gossip pages, and not worth the paper it's printed on. (If you want to find out more about Wintour, your time will be better spent watching The September Issue.)

How I got the book: Bought

•Front Row, Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief is the 10th book in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013.

Book review: How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis

From princesses to witches to Bridget Jones, the fictional women in our lives are numerous and different, and it's impossible not to take something from our readings of them.

The lessons we learnt from the literary heroines that have littered our lives are what Samantha Ellis examines in her brilliant book How To Be A Heroine: Or, what I've learned from reading too much. Part autobiography, part examination of the portrayal of women in literature, How To Be A Heroine is an extraordinary read which had me constantly wanting to go back and read the books of my childhood and teenage years (and beyond).

Following an argument with her best friend about who was better - Cathy Earnshaw or Jane Eyre - Ellis decided to reread the books of her past to see if the female characters still held up, all the while looking back on her own life as a Iraqi Jew growing up in London with dreams of becoming a playwright.

Ellis looks back at many of the books I've read, and her chapter on Anne of Green Gables is my favourite in the book. Anne was (is) a literary heroine of mine - fearless, clever, a feminist when there wasn't a word for it. But Ellis discovers that in sequels to L. M. Montgomery's first book, Anne becomes less of a heroine, in the same way that the March sisters don't stand up to scrutiny on her rereading of Little Women, Good Wives and Jo's Boys. Still, I'll always love Anne Shirley (and I think Ellis will too) - the key is to ignore the sequels!

Other rereadings lead Ellis to discover new things. On revisiting Gone With the Wind Ellis comes to the conclusion that while Scarlett is the obvious heroine, it's Melanie who is the true heroine of the novel, something which I have to agree with.

There are plenty of familiar characters Ellis revisits - from Elizabeth Bennett to Jane Eyre - that are familiar to me, but there are others who feature who I didn't read about as a child. One chapter focuses on Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann, a book that sounds like a mash-up of something written by Jackie Collins AND Danielle Steel AND Jilly Cooper. While Ellis's examination of it make it sound like its female characters are hardly heroines, it did make me really, really want to read the book.

And of course, in addition to all the fictional females in the book, there is Ellis herself, whose story encompasses love and loss, failure and success. Some of the heroines Ellis rereads stand up to scrutiny, while others don't, but in the end, it doesn't really matter if they're true heroines or not - we can learn something from them all, and we can learn something from Ellis's story too.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Chatto & Windus

•How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis is released in the UK on January 2, 2014.

•How To Be A Heroine is the ninth book in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013.

Book review: London Villages, Explore the City's Best Local Neighbourhoods by Zena Alkayat

With its huge skyscrapers, constant traffic and jam-packed streets, it's easy to forget that London does have its quieter, less manic areas.

In London Villages, Zena Alkayat exposes some of the city's hidden gems, selecting 30 neighbourhoods split into north, south, east, west and central, and recommending some of the best places to visit in each.

Of course, there are the usual suspects, such as Columbia Road and Hampstead Village, 
but most of the places Alkayat picks are little visited by those who don't know and love them well.

This makes for great reading, and great inspiration. Alkayat recommends five places you must visit in each of the neighbourhoods she selects, from cafes to haberdasheries to galleries, but those are just the starting point for readers wishing to explore further.

There are lots of bookshops Alkayat mentions which I plan to visit, and I'll definitely be popping in to the Blue Brick Cafe, which serves a vegan and vegetarian all day menu, in East Dulwich when I get the chance.

Even Londoners who think they know it all will find Alkayat's book helpful, packed as it is with great tips for places to visit. I'll be carrying it in my bag and using it to get to know the city a bit better.

How I got this book: From the publisher Aurum for review

•London Villages is book eight in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013.

Book review: The Siege, Three Days of Terror Inside the Taj by Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark

Five years ago 10 young terrorists took one of the world's best-known cities - Mumbai - hostage. For three days they set off bombs, shot dead innocent people and confounded the security services.

In The Siege, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark focus on The Taj Mahal Palace hotel, one of the buildings targeted by the terrorists. Using the stories of a number of guests and staff trapped inside the Taj during the attacks, as well as of police officers and the terrorists themselves, Levy and Scott-Clark have created an intimate, intricate, powerful look at an event that stunned the world.

I remember when the attack on Mumbai happened - 24-hour news channels broadcast footage constantly from the city, and I even remember hearing interviews with people trapped inside the Taj, some of whom feature in this book. But the coverage given on television skims just the surface of what Levy and Scott-Clark uncover.

Taking the reader from the planning of the attack, the recruitment of the terrorists and the involvement of American-born Pakistani David Headley, who worked for both Lashkar-e-Toiba, the group behind the attack, and the American intelligence community, through to the moment the attackers were killed, the book reads like fiction. Knowing that it's true only makes it more compelling, and more harrowing.

There is a focus on Ajmal Kasab, the only one of the 10 attackers caught alive. Levy and Scott-Clark burrow into his background and show how he was trained before being sent to Mumbai. Pictures of Kasab and the other attackers show what look like a group of children wielding weapons, while their grown-up handlers in Pakistan control the action and tell them who to kill and where to plant bombs.

Other pictures in the book are heartbreaking, like one of hotel guests Mike and Anjali Pollack on the steps of the Taj after they escaped - Mike has a huge smile on his face, but Anjali looks fearful and is caught mid-sob. They, like many guests, spent hours and hours fearing they were going to be killed at any moment.

What really struck me from reading The Siege was just how impotent the Indian security services were. The Black Cats, India's elite group of Commandos, were only officially called into action hours after the attack (although they were prepared to respond within the hour), and even then it took them half a day to get to the scene. The police were largely stifled in what they could do, partly by their own leaders, partly by the lack of equipment - the gunmen had far more powerful arms than the security services.

At one moment in the book, police officers Vishwas Patil and Rajvardhan Sinha, two of the only ones to head into the Taj, see on CCTV that all four of the hotel's attackers are in one room. Patil and Sinha believe it's the perfect time to nip the attack in the bud, before more damage is done. But despite their calls for help, no one responds and the attackers soon leave the hotel room with their hostages, intent on causing more damage. That the attack on the Taj could have ended hours after it started if not for the incompetence of higher-ups angered me.

On the other hand, the true heroes in the book, in my opinion, are the Taj staffers. From kitchen workers to the Black Suits (the Taj's security) to the hotel's manager Karambir Kang to Grand Executive Chef Hemant Oberoi, these were the people who put their lives on the line to save as many guests as possible. Kang's wife and two young children died inside the Taj, but he stayed at the scene to help try and control the situation, while Oberoi and others led guests out of danger, and at times put their bodies between those of the gunmen and guests during attacks.

It is these stories, the ones of human endeavour (and there are many in the book) and, in some cases, sacrifice, that make The Siege such powerful reading. I found myself going back over parts of the book again and again, trying to understand why certain things happened. As the fifth anniversary of the attack approaches, The Siege is essential reading for anyone wanting to find out more about the days Mumbai was brought to its knees.

How I got this book: Review copy from the publisher Penguin

•The Siege is book seven in my challenge to read 12 non-fiction books in 2013.

•How To Be a Woman is the sixth book in my challenge to ready 12 non-fiction books in 2013. I'm failing miserably.

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- See more at: http://girlreporter.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Reading%20challenge#sthash.rZBFr1O8.dpuf

•How To Be a Woman is the sixth book in my challenge to ready 12 non-fiction books in 2013. I'm failing miserably.

You might also like:

- See more at: http://girlreporter.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Reading%20challenge#sthash.rZBFr1O8.dpuf