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On the Shelf...The Goldfinch

10/11/2013

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SPOILER ALERT! A sprawling, complex novel, more a character study, the plot of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch moves slowly, encompassing around fifteen years of Theo Decker's life.

Growing up in New York City with his mother and an absent father, everything changes for Theo when the museum that he's visiting with his mother explodes, killing her. In the aftermath, amongst the wreckage, he finds himself comforting an old man, who, in his delirium, asks him to put a painting, The Goldfinch, in a carrier bag, he also gives him a ring, and an address to take it to. Theo leaves the museum with The Goldfinch, the object which is to haunt him for...well, the rest of the novel. 


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On The Shelf: An Alien Romp

16/10/2013

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I love a good historical romp, and The Alchemist of Souls doesn't disappoint. Set in an alternate Elizabethan history, where a race of beings known as Skraylings have voyaged to England from the New World, and are grudgingly welcomed for their advanced technologies, while shunned as witches for the very same reasons.

A seemingly down-on-his-luck nobleman, Mal is the son of a British ambassador, with more sword skills than you can thrust a rapier at. He is pressed into service as bodyguard for the Skrayling ambassador, and yet his reticence to serve seems to run deeper than the usual distrust of strangers.


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Netting A Good Tail

28/8/2013

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Mermaids have a long history and are guaranteed to set imaginations flowing, even if their most famous recent portrayals have been via Disney and Starbucks. So we were excited, back in May, to hear about the Poems Underwater project. 

A collaboration set up by Kirsten Tambling and Laura Seymour, the project, Kirsten told us, aimed to: "start some conversations about the mermaid figure and some of the things they might represent...one of the things we've noticed is that their symbolic significance is pretty much limitless."

We are pleased to say they have now certainly achieved that with Lines Underwater. Grown out of the initial collection of poetry is an anthology featuring contributions from over 40 people, which you can buy on their website. 


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On The Shelf with Sweet Valley

18/1/2012

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If you read the Sweet Valley High books as a youngster, you will want to know what happens in the recent follow-up.

I know I am a van of sweeping generalisations, but I have come to this conclusion through the rigorous research method of asking everyone I know if they read the SVH books, and if they are interested in the follow-up. It’s no secret that I loved the Sweet Valley High books as a teenager. And ever since I found out there was an update available, catching up with Jessica and Elizabeth ten years after their adventures were last recorded, I’ve wanted to get my hands on a copy.

Not that it would have been difficult, you understand. But I am too much of a book snob, and too easily embarrassed into a fetching shade of pillarbox, to just buy a copy and read it on the train. So when a kindly benefactor bought me a copy for my birthday, I wolfed it down. And here’s the thing. It is terrible. Terrible. But fun. The book equivalent, if you like, of a giant bag of fizzy sweets. So to save you from having to experience the literary equivalent of tooth decay and indigestion I have read it for you and am willing to share the secrets contained within.  


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The Riot Don't Diet 2012 plan

2/1/2012

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This is the week it becomes clear any notion of a New Year resolution is probably not happening. Or because by Friday you aren’t fluent in another language/a stone lighter/a CEO it feels that way. If it already feels like 2012 is a bit of a write off I urge you to concentrate on readying yourself for 2013.

2011 was the year Scrabble decided to settle various pub based arguments and accept the following words (not in alphabetical order for dramatic effect):


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One Day is on the shelf

22/11/2011

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I was given a promotional copy of the first couple of chapters of One Day as part of a marketing giveaway last year. It’s only recently that I’ve read the full book and realised what an ingenious ploy that giveaway really was – the first and last chapters being pretty good.

This book was EVERYWHERE this summer. So many people on my train to work were reading it that the cover became more familiar to me than the pattern on my duvet cover. So that you can join in the inevitable conversation about this novel (or the film adaptation, which I haven’t seen but I hear is pretty much the same) without reading it, I did it for you.

If you do want to read this book then beware – there are massive spoilers ahead. But really, don’t bother.



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Caitlin Moran is on the shelf

16/11/2011

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How to be a Woman is one of my picks for the top book of 2011. If you were trekking through Siberia all summer and missed it, this is Caitlin Moran’s feminist memoir – each chapter detailing a different stage of her life. The focus shifts from losing weight to abortion, sexism at work to masturbating to Chevy Chase.

A quick disclaimer: I’ve been a massive fan of Moran’s writing for years. I was excited to read this book before it even came out. But I wasn’t disappointed: it blew me away.

There is quite possibly more to disagree with in the book than I noticed either time I read it; I was swept away by the sheer, air-punching, laugh-on-the-train joy of reading it. At last, feminist jokes about feminism. It’s a refreshing change to reading boring tirades that pillory “humourless feminists”.


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