Friday Books - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

New resolution - share the book you have been trying to read for the last four weeks. That one that you thought you'd love, but every time you pick it up, you shrug "nah" and reach for something else.  That's the one. Maybe if you share it, someone will inspire you to finish the damn book.

Hello again. It's time for...

BookBeginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader, and The Friday 56 - hosted by Freda’s Voice. 

Both host sites for Friday link ups, where we discover more books, and make friends. Both involve sharing excerpts from a current book - the beginning and - you guessed it - page 56.

You are not going to believe the book I'm struggling with, people....

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Here's My Beginning..

"WHERE DO OLD BIRDS GO TO DIE?
She lived in the graveyard like a tree. At dawn she saw the crows off and  welcomed the bats home. At dusk she did the opposite."

Such a pretty cover (click it for the blurb), such a lovely looking book. And by the author who won the Booker for The God of Small Things. What's wrong with me? 

I did go and list it on Goodreads as "currently reading", didn't I? So it pops up and mocks me everytime I log on. Then it asks me how far I am. Can you feel my pain?

Here's My Page 56

"On his prescription pad Dr Bhagat wrote in tiny, neat handwriting: Patient formerly of outgoing, obedient, jolly-type nature now exhibits disobedient, revolting-type of personality."

I'll ask you, then - What is wrong with me? Why can't I get into this book? Why can't I even really try? Seriously, I need help.

Thank you for listening to my rant.    What are you sharing today? 

Difficult Women by Roxanne Gay

"Are you just trying to be difficult, or don't you realise you are?" he said over my shoulder as I was paging through this enticing book in the bookstore. True story. What to do? Do I flip over to the cover and reveal that yes, I am a Difficult Woman - note exhibit 1? Wait, maybe he saw it already, and was being funny? No, and I was saved from my quandary by his huffing off to look at something else. I couldn't even remember what I'd done.

So of course I went back another day and got the book. With that coincidental introduction, we were meant for each other.

These stories were exceptional. The writing is effortless, yet rich, deep and chock-full of emotion. Here are some examples:

“She pressed her forehead against mine. Something wet and heavy caught in my throat. ‘Why him?’

‘I’d be no good to a really good man and Darryl isn’t really a bad man.’

I knew exactly what she meant.”

"She pushed Sal away, negotiating the complexity of making her point without getting fired.”

“They had been dating for four years and their relationship was mostly unremarkable. She was smart enough to want more but tired enough to accept the way things were.”

Comments on the book have ranged from - "Why are these women considered difficult?" to "I thought this was an historical account of women in history". It's neither. Because, if you are a woman, you have a innate sense of what Roxanne meant when she titled it thusly. So much. From "Life is difficult for all women" to "Is it not the difficulties encountered that make us so difficult ourselves?" and including "Make us a mould, then - see if we don't fit into it. Because we won't." 

I wanted to read this slowly, but I found I couldn't. I wanted more and more and then some more. On each page I found a piece of my soul.

Not an easy read,  some explicit and extreme imagery,  and plenty of anger and lots of pain, but worth every minute. This is an intense little book.

And please please please don't give me the excuse that you don't read short stories. Because - a) You should and b) Have I not yet convinced you how good this book is yet?

And from my opening paragraph, in case you're still wondering - Yes "difficult" is the word I use to describe myself in an interview when asked to talk about my areas for improvement. And to be honest, I don't really want to change that particular flaw. I kind of like it.

You may also enjoy Maverick by Lauren Beukes or anything by Emma Donoghue - The Wonder is great. 

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Now you see me by Sharon Bolton

The first book in the Lacey Flint series, Now you see me starts with Lacey Flint, a young female detective being caught up with a brutally stabbed woman. Then a journalist gets a letter with allusions  to Jack the Ripper cases, and links to Lacey. The plot is off to a cracking start, and it doesn't let up.

I love discovering an author like Sharon Bolton, and then going back and finding her earlier works - especially if they're a series, and starting from the beginning. Only here, I got it all wrong - Dead Scared is done already. There are 4 books in this series (6 if you read the novellas in between), and they're fantastic - well so far anyway. Which I didn't expect.

Lacey Flint is an unlikely heroine. She's also - gasp - a female lead who is not interested in a romantic  encounter, as she is more invested in solving the case. I know. Fancy that.

This is a darkly clever, amusing and fascinating book. I was gripped by the rip-roaring plot, the wonderful characters - I loved that we get to know Lacey and all her deep dark secrets on the way,  and an appearance by Detective Dana Tulloch (from Bolton's first stand alone novel - Sacrifice).

The best thing about reading any Sharon Bolton book is your lack of desire to do anything other than finish it until it's done. And then when it's done, and you're doing the dishes, or cooking a meal for your starving family, you will smile as you remember the fun you had. And how you're not even sorry.

4 stars

ISBN:9780312600525

You may also enjoy Dead Scared  - the second in the series, or what about Daisy in Chains by the same author? Or if you want a different author, in the same genre - try Belinda Bauer's Finders Keepers.

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Mischling by Affinity Konar

Mischling ("mixed-blood" in German) was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons deemed to have both "Aryan" and Jewish ancestry. The word has the general denotation of hybrid, mongrel, or half-breed.

In this account, Pearl and Stasha arrive at Dr. Josef Mengele’s camp for twins at Auschwitz in 1944, delivered by their mother and grandfather. The horrors of the concentration camps are different for these twins. They believe they are better off, better treated, better fed, and perhaps they are. 

The dehumanisation of children - experiments that at best are weak attempts to stumble upon some “scientific” discovery and at worst, slow agonising torture of innocent victims. Characters are camouflaged by the appearance of medical knowledge, yet devoid of ethics and morals - this makes for difficult subject matter.

The author’s writing is attractive - there is lots of imagination and imagery in her style, but I kept hearing an older voice than the 12 year old twins doing the telling. The plot was well balanced, and held my attention for the best part.

I’m always hesitant to pick up another World War II novel.There have been many retellings, and it’s not easy to be original  in this genre. And it's difficult to review the story honestly, because it's so easy for others to say "How can you say - not another Nazi Germany book, I've had enough?"

We cannot and should not forget the horrors that abounded from that time, but I fear that this rendition has nothing more to add, and unless it’s your first encounter with this history, is unremarkable.

ISBN: 9781786490841

You may also enjoy The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah or Lilac Girls By Martha Hall Kelly.

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Friday Books - Johannesburg

Where has the week gone? Too much work, too little reading, that's where.

BookBeginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader, and The Friday 56 - hosted by Freda’s Voice both host sites for Friday link ups, where we discover more books, and make friends. Both involve sharing excerpts from a current book - the beginning and - you guessed it - page 56.

I've finished this one already. Here's  the Goodreads blurb:

Johannesburg by Fiona Melrose

Gin has returned home from New York to throw a party for her mother's eightieth birthday; a few blocks away, at the Residence, Nelson Mandela's family prepares to announce Tata Mandela's death...

So begins Johannesburg, Fiona Melrose's searing second novel. Responsive to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, the story follows a polyphonic course across a single day, culminating in a party and traces the fractures and connections of the city.

An irascible mother, a daughter trying to negotiate her birthplace and the people from her past, a homeless hunchback who takes his fight for justice to the doors of a mining company, a mining magnate, a man still haunted by his first love, the domestic workers who serve this cast and populate the neighbourhood, a troubled novelist called Virginia - these are the characters who give voice to the city on a day hot with nerves and tension and history.

Johannesburg is a profound hymn to an extraordinary city, and a devastating personal and political manifesto on love.

The perfect opening. Johannesburg, in December - this book plays out on a single day in 2013, when Mandela died - is renowned for its thunderstorms. So much atmosphere in two short sentences.

I loved this book. I love this city. I read it also in a single day, and enjoyed every minute.  Here's my review.

Thanks for the visit. What are you sharing today? 

Johannesburg by Fiona Melrose

Gin returns to Johannesburg from New York to hold a birthday party for her 80 year old mother. Her timing is perfect - she returns on the day that Nelson Mandela's death is announced, and the nation starts pouring out its grief, its pain and also celebrating with many wreaths, flowers, candles and pilgrimages his wonderful life and inspiring legacy.

It's a party, and of course we meet cantankerous Mrs.  Brandt. But also Mercy, the domestic helper, and Dudu her friend. September, the miner from Marikana, Peter, Gin's ex, and Juno - the family pet - all feature.

Set on this single momentous day in Johannesburg Gin's past and future, her supporters and detractors, her family with all its faults collide, and no one is the same after that.

Here's an example of the beautiful writing:

"Some of the platters had thin cracks no wider than an ant's foot. Mercy ran her fingers across the fault lines. She liked how they felt and liked too the confidence she had that they would not break. The older things had a strength to them that the newer stuff did not. The same was true of women and girls. Mercy's own daughters worried her. So here, so there and always more money and more things and no work."

The characters were somewhat bare. Not that they weren't well developed, more that they were  distilled to their essence. And this skill of the author's for distillation pervaded the whole little book. In Johannesburg, thunderstorms and hail batter tree lined gardens, filled with roses tended by gentle hands, hardened through years of pain. Eyes that meet at traffic lights that glance away - some guilt, more pain. It's all there, but never over told. It's so very real.

This book resonated with my soul in a true reading experience. I know that Fiona Melrose gets Johannesburg, like I do. And I hope that all my friends read this. They won't all get it. But those who do will look at me, and we'll know. We do.

"Johannesburg is a profound hymn to an extraordinary city, and a devastating personal and political manifesto on love". Read it.

5 stars

ISBN: 9781472152831

Fiona Melrose also wrote Midwinter, which I reviewed here. You may also enjoy Why you taken by Janita Lawrence, also set in Jozi.

The Nix by Nathan Hill

Samuel Andresen-Anderson is a college professor, blocked writer, player of Elfscape - an online game where orcs troll elves - and our main protagonist. We meet him in 2011 - a hilarious encounter with a student - she insisting her work is original, he accusing her of plagiarism. 

We then discover his absent mother has been arrested for assaulting Governor Packer - a crime that sets social media alight. Samuel doesn't know this hippie version of his runaway parent - but then, given she left home when he was a boy, does he know her at all?

It’s impossible to do this book justice in a limited word review. Samuel’s journey back to his childhood, his discovery of his mother’s truth, and the realities they must face in the present are presented with dark wit, engaging charm and sharp accuracy that had me laughing out loud one minute and gasping in agony the next. 

The author’s take on the protest marches in Chicago in 1968, through the eyes of bar-bellied male bigots was enlightening. But then so was his exploration of news and fake news, feminism and bullying. This is epic storytelling at its very best. A debut novel that has been compared favourably with John Irving's work, who ups the ante and compares it to Dickens.

At 620 pages, it’s lengthy, and won’t appeal to all readers, but you’ll know soon enough - you’ll either love or hate this book.

I loved it. I suspect most will.

5 stars

ISBN:9781509841899

You may also enjoy I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, or John Irving's Avenue of Mysteries.

Some more books...

                            

Wake me up

"Why didn't you wake me?" I asked my Dad when I woke up. 

"I did."

"You did? Then how come I didn't watch Dallas, like you promised?"

"You told me you'd changed your mind, you wanted to sleep instead."

"I did not."

"You did."

Needless to say, I missed Dallas, which I'd intended to watch after a little nap - and these being the days before VCR (well in our house, anyway) and catchup, I missed it completely. Forever. And to this day, I have no recollection of this conversation. Maybe my Dad forgot to wake me, and made the whole thing up.

These days, I'm sure it could happen. I'd tell a story of staying up all night working, to escape waking up in the morning, if I were forced to. Only, I never am. My body clock is relentless. Come 4am, I'm done with sleep. So by the time it's 6am, I'm either wide awake and working, or ready for my morning nap.

Either way, it's not a big deal at that point to get up and exercise. Especially since, if I do, my sleep patterns tomorrow may improve. If I exercise consistently, that is.

So while I go, I'm singing one of my favourite 80s songs. Guess which one? Oh, you already did? I did kind of spoil it with the title.

Here you go, now off you go - however you slept last night, exercise will make it better. Especially with this music, and this music video.

Here's last week - Rather be

More Monday Motivations

The Hate U give by Angie Thomas

This book kept popping up everywhere, everyone raving about it. Oh dear, to read or not to read? Mostly the hyped books are just not worth it. But I had some Audible credits, so why not, right? 

Indeed. Starr Carter is sixteen. She lives in a poor neighbourhood with her parents and two brothers and attends a fancy school. She is pretty much a typical teenager, trying to fit in without giving up who she is. She introduces a friend this way: 

“Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug.” 

There is a horrific incident with Khalil, which I'm not spoiling, but if you read the blurb, it will, which rocks Starr's world. The fallout ripples through all her relationships - immediate family, her uncle and cousins, friends at school, her boyfriend - just everyone.

This was an amazing listen - not once did I feel he need to go and find the book and read excerpts, which is unusual for me. The characters jumped into the back seat of my car, tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention, and when they took the floor, I was entranced.

Momma reaches her fork onto my plate and breaks off a piece of pancake. “What is Tumblr anyway? Is it like Facebook?”
“No, and you’re forbidden to get one. No parents allowed. You guys already took over Facebook.”
“You haven’t responded to my friend request yet.”
“I know.”
“I need Candy Crush lives.”
“That’s why I’ll never respond.”

The fact that this was so relatable and these people were my friends threw the racism issues into clearer focus for me.

“Daddy once told me there's a rage passed down to every black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn't stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there's nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.” 

"That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?"

If you haven't rushed out to get yourself a copy yet, try the free six chapter sample - see here.

"Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right."

Angie Thomas' debut novel, this is going to be difficult to follow up. It's a smart, larger-than-life, emotional read that will have you on the edge of your seat for all 444 pages.

I loved it.

5 stars

ISBN: 9780062498533

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Friday Books Then She Was Gone

It's Friday already. Time to stop and read. At last.

BookBeginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader, and The Friday 56 - hosted by Freda’s Voice both host sites for Friday link ups, where we discover more books, and make friends. Both involve sharing excerpts from a current book - the beginning and - you guessed it - page 56.

I have to confess, I've finished this one already. (Click the cover for the Goodreads blurb)

So much about this opening is real. I have a daughter in year eleven (grade 11 here). I can picture the bug-eyed babies in oversized blazers. Adorable, even if not good-looking.

Lovely stuff, but that's what you get when you pick up a new Lisa Jewell. Good writing, clever plot, wonderful characters. This is my kind of book. Here's my review.

What are you reading today? Leave me a comment and I'll pay you a visit.

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