The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer, and Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea
and inspired by Pop Culture Junkie and the Story Siren. They're a chance to share news, a post to recap the past week on your
blog,
highlight our newest books and see what everyone else received for
review, borrowed from libraries, or bought.
It's been a few weeks since my last one of these, so on the blog covers a larger time period than the last week.
On the blog
Review: Knightley and Son by Rohan Gavin
Review: The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
Review: Landline by Rainbow Rowell
International Women's Day post
Review: Her by Harriet Lane
Review: Heist Society by Ally Carter
Review: The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan
Review: The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera
Added to my shelves
It's been an extremely busy week of events. On Monday I went to the announcement of The Folio Prize, and my goody bag contained a copy of Rachel Kushner's shortlisted The Flamethrowers.
I read Harriet Lane's Her recently and absolutely adored it, so the publisher sent me Alys, Always by the author, which I'm trying very hard to resist reading until I've read other books I've got in my unread piles.
I unashamedly love The Musketeers, the BBC's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. You have to watch it without expecting it to be faithful to the book, and take it for the fun piece of television it is. BBC Books has done a new translation of the original novel, so Ebury sent me a copy of that.
Allan Boroughs sent me a copy of his book Ironheart, which looks really interesting and has what sounds like a great female protagonist.
I brought home The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, which was given to me by the lovely Felicity at Orion.
And I went to The Night of the Storytellers last week, Hodder & Stoughton's sales conference for 2014. They've got some amazing looking stuff coming up this year, and I got to hear Davids Nicholls and Mitchell read from their new books as part of the evening. In the gorgeous goody bag I got copies of The Secret Place by Tana French, A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, The Art of Baking Blind by Sarah Vaughan (Vaughan was also there and read aloud from her book) and Smiler's Fair by Rebecca Levene.
I also went to the Orion author party at the Royal Opera House, and Orion gave us special author party editions of The Distance by Helen Giltrow and Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. The books, when put side by side, have an image of the Royal Opera House on the front and OG on the back (for Orion Group). Inside, they're each identified as one of 500 copies.
What did you add to your shelves?
From its cover and its blurb, The Awakening of Miss Prim looks like a quaint little novel about a woman who finds love in a small village called San Ireneo.
Yet once you start reading you soon realise it's about so much more than that - feminism, the arguments for and against formal education, the benefits or not of marriage and more all crop up as discussion points.
Prudencia Prim responds to an advert in a paper for a private librarian. Despite being overqualified, she lands the job and soon finds herself sorting the vast library of the Man in the Wingchair, who spends his time teaching the children of the village about great literature and art and ideas.
As Miss Prim becomes a part of the village she finds herself making friends with an extraordinary group of people, and finds her core ideas and beliefs challenged.
The Awakening of Miss Prim is a difficult novel to describe, because whatever I think of to describe the characters or settings or plot is not quite right.
Its setting is sort of a Stepford-like village, but not in a creepy way (see, already running into trouble). Instead, its population have come together and created an idyll according to their desires and beliefs. The characters in The Awakening of Miss Prim are quirky, but not unusual. Rather, they live the lives they want and do so peacefully, detached in some ways from the rest of the world, but not to their detriment. And the plot is more of a discussion of ideas rather than a beginning to a middle to an end, although Miss Prim does most definitely go on a journey.
The Awakening of Miss Prim is an unusual tale, which left me sometimes sharing the opinion of Miss Prim and sometimes sharing the opinions of those around her (without spoiling it, let's
just say that the inhabitants of San Ireneo have some strange ideas that
sort of make sense once you think about them), and sometimes just wondering what on earth was happening. I did find it a little confusing at times, and I'm not sure I liked the way the Man in the Wingchair was referred to throughout as the Man in the Wingchair - it felt a little jarring after a while once we got to know him. But I absolutely adored the ending and found the book a really stimulating read.
Yes, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a charming and quaint love story, but it's also a book that will make you think and question what you think you know and why you hold the beliefs you do on some issues, and make you wish that San Ireneo was a real place.
•The Awakening of Miss Prim is released on June 5 2014.
How I got this book: From the publisher, Abacus. This did not affect my review.
If you keep up to date with news from the book world, you'll know that Donal Ryan's The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award late last year, and that only means the number of people raving about it has increased a hundred fold.
I'm always a bit cautious when it comes to books that have been hyped a lot, worried about whether they'll live up to expectations. The Spinning Heart definitely exceeded my expectations (which were pretty high to begin with).
In the wake of the financial collapse in Ireland, a group of characters in a small town tell their stories, offering a picture of their lives that they don't outwardly show.
Ryan's first person narrative switches in every chapter to a new character, who tells us not just what is happening and the conservations they have had and the things they have seen, but also what they are thinking and feeling and hoping and fearing, and they do it all in the language and tone of rural Ireland. It took
me a page or so to get into the rhythm of the dialogue, but once I did I
could so clearly hear the voice and accent in my head.
As the book progresses, the reader is able to piece together the central plot running through the novel, which unfolds through the eyes and ears and minds of everyone we meet. It's a fascinating way of storytelling, one that seems really truthful - in real life people only know bits and pieces of things, so multiple viewpoints are needed to figure everything out.
From its opening lines ('My father still lives back the road past the weir in the cottage I was reared in. I go there every day to see is he dead and every day he lets me down) to the very end, Ryan pulls no punches with The Spinning Heart. In a brief 156 pages Ryan has crafted a novel that tells the story not just of a town, but of a country. That's some achievement.
How I got this book: From the publisher, Transworld. This did not affect my review.
A story about glamourous, clever teenagers running around Europe and America planning to steal back a lot of really expensive, really rare art? Yes, please.
Ally Carter's Heist Society is one of those fun, frivolous books that you didn't know you wanted to read until you were doing so.
Katarina Bishop has given up her old life as the daughter of a world-class thief. At least, that's what she thought. Now she's been expelled from her exclusive boarding school and has found out her father is accused of stealing a collection of art from a really, really mean guy. With no other option, Katarina must head back into the world she tried to escape, and with a group of friends try to set things right.
Let's be clear, Heist Society requires you to suspend disbelief. The action takes place over roughly two weeks and in that time Katarina - a 15-year-old girl - manages to jet between America, England, France, Italy and a couple of other places numerous times. That alone seems unrealistic (although her friend/love interest is super rich and has access to private planes). Add to that the fact that Katarina - remember that she's a 15-year-old girl - is threatened by a grown man who probably would be better off speaking to actual adults about his stolen art, that she and her friends plan a heist that's huge and audacious, and that they all manage to flirt and joke throughout.
But you know what? None of that matters, because Heist Society is a great read. The story has a solid female protagonist - clever, tough, independent - and the action is fast and full on and you get completely caught up in it. I found myself tearing through the book, wanting to know what happened next, and most importantly, I really enjoyed reading it.
The best way to sum up Heist Society is that it's Ocean's Eleven meets Gossip Girl. How could you not want to read that book?
How I got this book: Borrowed.
Reading Her by Harriet Lane is a bit like going out when it's raining very, very slightly - you're aware that it's wet, but it's only when you get to the end of the journey that you realise you're completely drenched.
With Her, I knew there was something sinister going on with the characters, but it was only when I finished the novel that I realised just how bad things had ended up.
Nina spots Emma across the street one day, and immediately recognises her. Accomplished and successful, she draws Emma into her life, and Emma, caught up in the struggles of motherhood, is grateful. Only Emma doesn't remember Nina, and is unaware that Nina's motives aren't exactly altruistic.
Her is an absolutely absorbing read with brilliant characterisation, which really drives the book. In terms of stuff that happens, the plot is pretty thin - this is a book that is definitely about how people create situations rather than one where characters just happen to exist within a plot.
Nina is creepy from the start. Slightly too perfect, from the moment we meet her it's clear her intentions towards Emma are not good. Emma, on the other hand, is likeable, but quite naive. There are moments when it's so obvious Nina is behind something that you just want to reach in to the pages, grab Emma and point her to the evidence.
Chapters are told alternatively from Nina and Emma's points of view, with both recounting their own lives, as well as their encounters with each other. At first, I was a little uncertain about this - did I really want to read about the same things twice? But I soon realised that Lane had crafted two very different characters with different motives, which meant the same incidents could be read completely differently, and each telling would shed a little more light on them.
The big mystery of how Nina and Emma know each other is a good one. I half guessed at their shared past, but the truth was much more sinister, as was the ending. Difficult to talk about without spoiling, all I will say is that what I hope happened at the end and what I think actually happened at the end are two very different things.
A wonderful, clever read, Lane's Her is a book I would definitely recommend.
•Her is released on June 12.
How I got this book: From the publisher, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. This did not affect my review.
On this International Women's Day, it seems appropriate to honour the great female writers and characters out there.
First up, a few of my favourite books by female authors:
- Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg - a powerful book that really hammers home that you can do anything you put your mind to, glass ceilings be damned.
- We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver - a book about the strength of a woman and about a family torn apart.
- The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld - I read this very recently, and it grabbed hold of me and still hasn't let go. Brutal, heartbreaking and so worth the read.
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - just a perfect, perfect read that is funny and nostalgic and sweet and hurts a little bit (but just a little).
Secondly, a few of my favourite female characters:
- Sara from The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett - one of my favourite books from childhood, I really wanted to be Sara.
- Katniss from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - kicks arse, sacrifices herself for her family, brave. What more can be said?
- Cress from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer - I guess Cinder or Scarlet would be the more obvious choices, but I like that Cress clearly goes from being a scared little girl to being a woman in her book, and that we see that development.
Some famous women that I think rock:
- Malala Yousafzai - seriously, she is amazing. If you haven't see it (and why not?) here's her speech to the UN.
- Hadley Freeman - my favourite fashion writer, she's got a sense of humour and I'll read just about anything by her, even if I'm not interested in the subject matter. Here's a link to her Guardian profile.
- Kate Mosse - one of the founders of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Mosse is one of the loveliest people I've ever interviewed, not to mention a brilliant writer.
Next, if you haven't seen it already, here is the longlist for this year's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
Womankind has put together a list of books if you're doing a women's book group, and you can find them here.
For a bit of fun, why not take this Guardian quiz about the best fictional females in children's books?
I'd love to hear about your favourite female writers and characters, so let me know in the comments below.
