All the Light We Cannot See … a review

This is a hands down brilliant book. I picked this up because I saw a friend reading it and I thought it looked interesting. I am usually not up for books set during the war (unless they are classics like Hemingway or Remarque). But this book is different, because it follows the journey of a young girl in Paris, the blind Marie-Laure LeBlanc – daughter of a Museum employee and a young boy Werner Pfennig in Germany.

Werner and his sister Jutta fix a half broken radio and listen to a Science made simple show, where an older Frenchman breaks complicated concepts down for children. When Germany invades France in 1940, Marie-Laure has to flee Paris and ends up with her eccentric great-Uncle Etienne. The story interleaves between the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner and the amazing thing is that the two central characters don’t meet until 80% of the book is over. Even so, it is a fleeting meeting that doesn’t last long at all. Everything about the story is incredibly well crafted. I loved Jules Verne as a child and this book has snippets of all time favourite ‘20,000 Leagues under the Sea’.

The storyline is incredibly simple, but with Germany invading France during the war, even the simplest of stories take on a larger than life meaning. I would definitely recommend this book, even if it is the only one you read in the summer. It was long after I had finished reading and I couldn’t get the book out of my head, I decided to red up on the author and discovered that this book had won the 2015 Pulitzer!

And Then I’m Gone … a review

I started reading some of Matt Freese’s work a few years ago and so I jumped at the chance to read his latest – a memoir and a sort-of-sequel. I enjoy reading memoirs because I like peoples’ personal stories, there is so much more to each one of us than what is evident on the surface.

So it is with Matt. At 76 and getting on a bit now, he worries about the usual stuff, health, running out of time to do things, reconciling with his estranged child. What runs through the entire book, however, is a deep need to understand his emotions and using a mix of logic, history and philosophy. I enjoyed the interludes where he references the great words of Krishnamurthi. It continues to surprise me that it is hard to find reviewers who will review Holocaust literature. I believe it requires a special type of spineless to shy away from the horrors of history. How will we move forward as a species if we do not learn from our past collectively?

It is nice to be taken through a long life, but through its most salient parts – I still find it hard to compute what a long life holds – so many heartbreaks and smiles, tears and love, distances and horizons. And of course, dreams. Freese brings them out beautifully through his words, as in his previous works (here, here, and here). At times, the prose is a bit halting in this one, but it all lends itself well to this short work that hold the substance of a tome.

I recommend this book, especially as this time of the year is a wonderful time for reflection and looking back. To say the least, Matt is ‘felt’. It is available here.

10 Favourite Love Quotes

Here’s 10 of my personal favourites:

“I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it — to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once. ”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

“For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him when he departs to the Havens: for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“It is that happy stretch of time when the lovers set to chronicling their passion. When no glance, no tone of voice is so fleeting but it shines with significance. When each moment, each perception is brought out with care, unfolded like a precious gem from its layers of the softest tissue paper and laid in front of the beloved — turned this way and that, examined, considered.”
― Ahdaf Soueif, The Map of Love

“The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you’ve already stopped loving that person forever.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“You can never know if a person forgives you when you wrong them. Therefore it is existentially important to you. It is a question you are intensely concerned with. Neither can you know whether a person loves you. It’s something you just have to believe or hope. But these things are more important to you than the fact that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. You don’t think about the law of cause and effect or about modes of perception when you are in the middle of your first kiss.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I want to fall in love in such a way that the mere sight of a man, even a block away from me, will shake and pierce me, will weaken me, and make me tremble and soften and melt.”
― Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus

And in the end, I leave you with the most heartbreaking love poem by Pablo Neruda, placed to incredible violin, watch here.

One Day … a review

I read this book over two long haul flights. It was a recommedation from a friend who knows I enjoy books set in Edinburgh. This one starts off in Edinburgh but then is based in some other places, depending on where the characters are.

The year is 1988. Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have woken up from having spent the night together in Emma’s flat in Edinburgh. It is the day after their graduation. As the book progresses, the story follows the lives of Em and Dex, on that day, every day, for twenty years. The characters meet, unmeet, and then go their separate ways. Life goes on, as do their individual trajectories.The book weaves in and out of their lives with each other and with other people. Many characters come and go, some stay.

There are a couple of things very good about this book. First of all, it is an unusual way to write a book. It is evident that the narrator is witness to these two peoples’ lives and that in itself is like someone has held a lens to their eyes. The other thing is that the ending is extremely believeable. It is not a rom-com ending, and it is not a typical ending. I will not spoil the ending by saying any more but I very strongly recommend the book, it is like reading the story of you or I. It is one of the very best I have read of modern fiction and I thoroughly enoyed it.

Life Updates July 2015

I am starting to become an unreliable narrator, isn’t it? Appearing and disappearing at will etc. I have no excuses this time; life has just been hard and confusing in the last six months. But back on a happier track now, folks! I did do a lot of reading for my Literature exams (which I took last month) and I will be reviewing some of that over the next few weeks. I will also be attending the Edinburgh International Festival and the Book Festival next month, so hopefully will write about those too! Finally, ‘Go Set a Watchman’ launch event tonight, with Cee, yay!

Thank you for hanging about. Hope you’ve all been well!

Sylvia Plath

Today is Sylvia Plath‘s death anniversary. Somehow, it seems more appropriate to remember her on this day than on the day of her birth. today was the day when she decided to take life and matters into her own hands and leave this world of her own free will. I love her poetry. I think it is deep, and beautiful, and touching. It is also, in my opinion, slightly gendered. In the sense that, I think women would relate and feel more from it than men. But that’s just me, I’m sure many men understand her just as well. I like how she used to write of things that constrained her, and constrained her demons too. Imagine leading a life with such talent and such a lot of pressure for it. Giving up her entire life in a country and moving to foreign shores, composing new poems, making new friends… what a life led! What a life…
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

I re-read The Bell Jar again, the story of the deep downward spiral into depression and nervous breakdown. It is such a dark book. And in the light of darker female protagonists dominnating the Hollywood movie scenes of late, Sylvia’s words put even more spice into the mix. I have always recommended her writing – for the sense of universal tragedy evoked as an extension of personal pain. Read ‘Colossus’… see how the loss of her father figure is extended into the falling of a giant statue… beautiful!

A blue sky out of the Oresteia
Arches above us. O father, all by yourself
You are pithy and historical as the Roman Forum.
I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress.
Your fluted bones and acanthine hair are littered

In their old anarchy to the horizon-line.
It would take more than a lightning-stroke
To create such a ruin.
Nights, I squat in the cornucopia
Of your left ear, out of the wind,

Counting the red stars and those of plum-color.
The sun rises under the pillar of your tongue.
My hours are married to shadow.
No longer do I listen for the scrape of a keel
On the blank stones of the landing.

Musing Mondays (June 23)

My Musing:

I tried an audiobook, finally! I know that they’ve been around quite some time and they’ve become very popular with folks who listen to books while they drive. I received an offer for a free book from Audible, which I’d vaguely heard of and decided to take the plunge into ‘listening’ to a book for the first time. To be honest, I was rather disappointed. I downloaded Gone Girl, the infamous book from last year. Perhaps it wasn’t the right choice for a first book!
But it wasn’t just the content. The progress was so slow! When I read, I think I am a much faster reader and so I get through books fast, in general. But because it was narration, it was very slow, and I got through a chapter in some 15 minutes, instead of five. I could notch up the speed but then it was just annoying, like listening to quacky duck! It was nice to be able to rest my eyes and such and I think I should have downloaded a book of poems or something, but because it was free, I didn’t have much choice.
What was your first audiobook? Do you have any good free suggestions for me to try out?

Musing Mondays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

Describe one of your reading habits.
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

The Crimson Petal and the White … a review

I couldn’t remember reading a tome of a book since I read Lord of the Rings six years ago. I had quite forgotten how satisfying it is, and I such a different way, to be lost amongst characters and places and plots for days together! This Michael Faber book  is quite the tome, with 900 pages of narrative about a prostitute Sugar, her life in Victorian London, and her rise in station with the help of her lover and benefactor William Rackham. This book was recommended to me in passing, by M, and I picked it up thinking that I has a few weeks with minimal travel, so it’s good to be reading something heavy (physically).

The book is well-written. The narrative follows a pattern that I’ve never read before, with the author leading the reader on behind characters. The effect is remarkably potent, it gave me a feeling of winding through narrow backalleys of London, into damp and cold quarters of the fallen women. While the author shrugs off this style soon enough, it is still a brilliant way to introduce the prime characters of the novel. The books also contains romantic elements – the faithlessness of a marriage, the intermingling of the upper and lower classes, adultery, the deification of the beloved, and the ironical faithfulness towards the other woman.

Rackham, a perfume company tycoon is surrounded by three women. Agnes, his frail wife, suffers from hallucinations and delusions and is frequently unable to discharge her duties as wife and mistress of the house. Sophie, their infant daughter, who grows up to the age of seven in the novel, without the love of her mother or the affection of her father. Sugar, his mistress, who brings some form of relief to the other two women. The ending of the book is rather controversial, as it does not leave the reader with a clear idea of the events that ensue. It is open to interpretation, but the way I saw it, it seemed clear enough to me what happened. And I rested my tired eyes with a comforting and happy ending for the woman who had my sympathy and support. Worth a read!

Teaser Tuesday (June 17)

My teaser:

“Sugar leans her chin against the knuckles of the hand that holds the pen. Glistening on the page between her silk-shrouded elbows lies an unfinished sentence. The heroine of her novel has just slashed the throat of a man. The problem is how, precisely, the blood will flow. Flow is too gentle a word; spill implies carelessness; spurt is out of the question because she has used the word already, in another context, a few lines earlier. Pour out implies that the man has some control over the matter, which he most emphatically doesn’t; leak is too feeble for the savagery of the injury she has inflicted upon him. Sugar closes her eyes and watches, in the lurid theatre of her mind, the blood issue from the slit neck. When Mrs Castaway’s warning bell sounds, she jerks in surprise.
Hastily, she scrutinises her bedroom. Everything is neat and tidy. All her papers are hidden away, except for this single sheet on her writing-desk.
Spew, she writes, having finally been given, by tardy Providence, the needful word.“

From ( Mariner Books 2003) of The Crimson Petal and the White.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Enjoy!

My Third #AtoZChallenge

I like keeping this blog neat and tidy, just about books and reading. So, I always participate in the April blogging marathon on my other blog. For my newer followers, Shreds & Shards began in 2007 when I used to write a lot of poetry. It was largely hidden from the eyes of the world and visible to only a select clutch of people. Gradually, I moved on from writing poetry (sadly) and until I go back to it, I use that space for the A-to-Z Challenge.

26 days of blog posts commencing on April 1. This time the theme is ‘English Literature Year 1 – Tassels & Troubles’. I will try my best to stick to the theme but there may be posts here and there which are unrelated. This is because this year, I’m completely unprepared. Past themes were Scotland in 2013 and Fictional Characters in 2012. Anyway, hope to see some of you following at Shreds & Shards 🙂