Stories & Shout Outs #5

I've had a successful month finishing off all my half read books thanks to Andi's challenge to read #15in31.

I managed to finish 15 books, although a few of those books were picture books. The reviews for the Aussie books will pop up during November for AusReadingMonth.

I also joined in Blog Ahead during October.

I now have 10 scheduled posts and another nine draft posts for Brona's Books. Another four posts are scheduled for my photo/food blog - Four Seasons.

Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies recently shared an Ursula LeGuin poem in honour of her 13 yr old son's bar mitzvah.
The poem is so beautiful,
Please take the time to pop over and read it. You won't regret it, I promise.

Any excuse really.
I've been looking for a reason why to buy the gorgeous new illustrated hardback edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Andi @estella's revenge has just given me one.

The chance to reread the Harry Potter books over the Australian summer sounds like a lovely, lovely way to enjoy our long, hot days and nights.

I always associate HP with the summer months as my first binge reading of HP happened during the summer holidays of 2001/2002 after I saw the first movie at the cinema.

It was a hot, hot Sunday afternoon. I lived in a small country town at the time. The only cinema had only one theatrette. On show was this kids movie I'd never heard of called Harry Potter. I didn't care, I was hot and wanted to cool down in the air con.

I was instantly converted. A HP fan born in a couple of short, cool hours.

I left the theatre, walked across the road to the local bookshop and purchased my first Harry Potter book.

The next day I went back to buy the next three books.

A week later, I joined the rest of the world waiting, waiting, waiting for the next HP book to be released.

I will wait until AusReadingMonth is over, but I think that a #potterbinge will be just what I need after reading the Australian classic chunkster, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.
Thanks Andi :-)

A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler

I've been reading these short stories since my holiday in Vietnam at Easter.

I have thoroughly enjoyed each one, so I have no idea why it has taken me son long to get through this book.

Actually, yes, I do.

It's the font and the paper.

My edition of A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain came from an American publisher. It didn't cost very much. It's made with rough textured, off-white (okay, yellowed) paper and the font - type and size - is ghastly.

Australians often bitch and moan about the price of books here, but we pay for what we get. Our books are usually published on good quality paper, well-bound with generous fonts. It costs a bit more money to do this, but I think it is worth it.

I don't enjoy picking up this book.

It feels cheap and nasty.

Which is a shame, because the stories are delightful - poignant, descriptive and insightful.
Like many North American books about Vietnam, it focuses on the Saigon and South Vietnam experience only. Or more accurately, South Vietnamese immigrants living in Louisiana.

Butler served in Vietnam as a counter-intelligence special agent from 1969-1971 and later worked as a translator. So I guess that makes the connection and the reason why obvious.

The truly remarkable feature of these stories though, is how well and how completely Butler enters the Vietnamese character's psyches. It feels authentic and it feels respectful.

As an aside, I was curious to see that Butler has now been married five time!

Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.

A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain is no.15 in my #15in31 challenge - yay me!
Thanks Andi for the inspiration and encouragement to finish so many books this month. Now I just have to get on top of the reviews!

Slade House by David Mitchell

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed The Bones Clocks and recommend it to many, many people who have never read a Mitchell before. I think The Bone Clocks is very accessible and not as dense or as incomprehensible as his earlier works. But I still usually only give it a 3, maybe 4 star rating in my mind.

My judgement of Mitchell's earlier works is purely based on my abortive attempts to read Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Mr Books so-so attitude towards Ghostwritten. I haven't actually read one of these right through though.

Despite all of this, I was ridiculously excited when my ARC of Slade House arrived. There is something about Mitchell's writing and the worlds he creates that sucks you and makes you forget your previous prevarications.

Due to it's slimness, I approached it (in my mind) as a novella. But I knew nothing else, except that it seemed like a good book to read during R.I.P.X so that I could sneak in with my one and only Peril the Third choice.

I was pleasantly surprised when I quickly discovered that I was inside another Bone Clocks world. Starting in 1979 we follow the (mis)adventures of the occupants of Slade House every nine years. The date is the last Saturday in October each time. For those of you good with numbers, you'll have already realised that the last chapter finishes in 2015...on the last Saturday in October - the 31st October, 2015 - Halloween!

Slightly creepy, a little disturbing and immensely readable. The final chapter is very satisfying if you've read and enjoyed The Bone Clocks.

Slade House is due for release tomorrow...just in time for the weekend and you guessed it...Halloween!

This is also book 14 in my #15in31 challenge.

Stories & Shout Outs #4

I'd rather be busy than bored, but I do feel like I'm constantly chasing my tail and never really getting anywhere.

In an attempt to gain a semblance of order in my chaotic life, it's time to write a Stories & Shout Out housekeeping post.

In real life October has been a month of family birthdays, HSC exams, hay fever and extra shifts at work.

Next weekend is the Cancer Council's 7 Bridges Walk which I plan to do for the first time in it's ten year history.

In blogger land October has been a month of reading thanks to Andi's #15in31 challenge.

I'm a chronic multiple book reader.
Every now and again I need a prompt to simply finish all the half-read books cluttering up my life. With 11 days still to go, I can proudly say that I have just finished reading book no. 12, although I'm rather behind in writing the subsequent reviews.

Maybe November will be my Month in Review!!

I attempted to join in Dewey's 24hr Readathon this weekend, but it clashed with my niece's 5th birthday party. The time difference meant that I was able to join in reading for the first hour and the last hour as it coincided with my usual read-before-sleep routine.
I was able to finish Geraldine Brook's The Secret Chord during this time - yay me!

I have also been working on Blog Ahead during October in an attempt to get organised for the Silly Season with some scheduled posts.
I currently have 6 scheduled posts for this blog and 3 scheduled posts on my Four Seasons blog.

The Classics Club announced their Women's Classics Literature challenge last week which I was all over like a rash with a quick sign up post followed by a lengthier list of women's lit books.

Looking ahead to November we have AusReading Month & my Fortunes of Richard Mahony readalong as well as Sophisticated Dorkiness et al's Non-Fiction November.

Personally, November features our wedding anniversary and one family birthday. The trial season for next year's soccer teams also starts in November....there go the weekends!

No wonder I feel tired!

But at least I now feel like I've got it all straight in my head.

How are your October plans panning out?

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

Thanks to Andi's #15in31 challenge this month I have been ripping through all those half-finished books lurking in my backpack and by my bed.

The Days of Abandonment was my backpack book, mostly due to it's slimness. But as it turned out, the emotional impact of this book worked best in small doses as well.
(My backpack book is the book that only gets pulled out at lunch time. It gets read in small, quick bites.)

"One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me."

So begins Olga descent into disbelief, despair, and her days of abandonment.

This is raw stuff.

Ferrante delves into the deep, dark days of the soul after a break-up. Some sections are hard to read. You want to avert your eyes and push the pain away any way you can.

You feel Olga's helplessness, you feel her rage. You want to shake her and tell her to wake up to herself. You wish she had a little more dignity and a little less bitterness.

Once again, you are left feeling that Ferrante must be writing from real life. The details are so specific and so authentic that it feels like you're intruding on someone's personal journal.

This is not an easy read, or a happy read.
But it is a very human reading experience.

Book 9 read for #15in31 challenge.

My reviews for My Brilliant Friend
The Story of a New Name
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
The Story of the Lost Child

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

The Guest Cat has been sitting by my bed since June when I added it to my 20 books of winter challenge. I read a few chapters but then it got 'forgotten' in the flurry and chaos of our move.

Thanks to Andi's #15in31 challenge this month, I have been rediscovering all these half-read books lying around our new home - and I'm determined to finally finish them.

The Guest Cat's initial appeal was its cover. The title and the cats eyes use a shiny, glow-in-the-dark type foiled paper. The eyes seem to follow me around wherever I go...in a good way.

Like may Japanese books, The Guest Cat deserves to be read slowly, in a zen-like way to appreciate the attention to detail and the day to day observations.

The cat in question, Chibi, is the neighbours cat. But she adopts the 30-something couple in the cottage next door. This is their story.

Some of the descriptions of Chibi took my breath away with their pure cat-ness, their simplicity and their elegance.

When she began to sleep on the sofa - like a talisman curled gently in the shape of a comma and dug up from a prehistoric archaeological site - a deep sense of happiness arrived, as if the house itself had dreamed this scene.

Often Chibi would be in the midst of grooming herself, using her small, precise tongue, and would suddenly stop and look back over her shoulder at the intruder.

Hiriade engaged in several interesting philosophical discussions throughout via the voice of his narrator. He referenced Machiavelli, fate versus free will, the change of the seasons, the aging process and the virtues of a life 'frugal, yet with the beauty of simplicity'.

My only quibble with the book, which may have been a translation issue, was that the time periods seemed to jump awkwardly. It was disconcerting to be meandering along in the story and then to suddenly jump forwards or sidewards into another phase or idea.

Recommended for those who like slim books that meditate the meaning of life with the help of a cat.

The Guest Cat is book 8 read for Andi's #15in31 challenge.
This book is also a part of Dolce Belleza's Japanese Literature challenge.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

It almost feels a bit redundant to write a review about My Brilliant Friend, since nearly everyone I know in blogger land has already read and reviewed it.

But since this blog explores my personal journey with books rather than writing straight book reviews, I figure I'll find something to say that is unique!

Part of the difficulty when finally reading a book that everyone around you has been raving about for months is the high level of expectation.

The Neapolitan Novels are now one of my colleagues favourite books. Dear Libby has been at me all year to read them. She is currently on a month long tour of Italy.
I felt I owed it to her to read at least one of them while she was gone so we could finally talk about it when she gets back.

And while it is fair to say that I loved the book, admired the beautiful language and now want to read the next three books, I haven't felt the need to rave.

This got me thinking.
What books do I rave about? Why not this one?

It all boils down to a sense of discovery.
Books that I have raved and gushed about in recent times, were ones that I felt that I had discovered all by myself. They were unknown quantities, new experiences to me. I often approached these books with no more expectation than a general, "this looks like my kind of book. I'll give it a go."

Does it matter that I don't feel the need to gush and rave about this book?
Isn't it enough to say that My Brilliant Friend is an extraordinary portrait of friendship, eloquently told? Does a book with so much heart, so rich in detail really need my rave review? Isn't this book, this series selling itself on its own merits?

Although the mystery surrounding Ferrante must be part of the success of this word of mouth sensation.
Elena Ferrante is a pen name.
Almost nothing is known about the real identity of the author.
I couldn't help but wonder if the Neapolitan novels were autobiographical in nature. Not just because of the name of the narrator (Elena), but also because the story felt so very, very real.
The observations about friendship and some of the little incidents seemed grounded in real events. The emotions, the dramas, the scenes read just like a memoir.

This could explain why the author has chosen to write under a nom de plume. The streets of Naples belong to the Camorra. My Brilliant Friend describes the interactions, the effects, the influences and the behaviours of the Camorra on everyday Neapolitan life.

However, my knowledge of the Camorra was non existent until my reading of My Brilliant Friend. I had to do some research.

My knowledge of the Mafia was purely based on American movies like The Godfather. 
For instance,  I didn't realise that the Mafia was called by different names in different regions - Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Ndrangheta in Calabria, Sacra Corona Unita in Apulia and, of course, the Camorra in Naples.

A Vanity Fair article, The Camorra Never Sleeps, from 2012, says,

The Camorra is not an organization like the Mafia that can be separated from society, disciplined in court, or even quite defined. It is an amorphous grouping in Naples and its hinterlands of more than 100 autonomous clans and perhaps 10,000 immediate associates, along with a much larger population of dependents, clients, and friends. It is an understanding, a way of justice, a means of creating wealth and spreading it around. It has been a part of life in Naples for centuries—far longer than the fragile construct called Italy has even existed. At its strongest it has grown in recent years into a complete parallel world and, in many people’s minds, an alternative to the Italian government, whatever that term may mean. Neapolitans call it “the system” with resignation and pride. The Camorra offers them work, lends them money, protects them from the government, and even suppresses street crime. The problem is that periodically the Camorra also tries to tear itself apart, and when that happens, ordinary Neapolitans need to duck.

Is it any wonder that the author wishes to remain anonymous?

This book is #2 out of my 15in31 challenge throughout October.

My reviews for The Story of a New Name
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
The Story of the Lost Child

also by Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment

Stories & Shout Outs #3

Due to visitors, a Yr 12 Graduation, Mr Books birthday and a neighbourly farewell party, Bloggiesta was a bust for me this time around.

The last Bloggiesta gave me Feedly.
I love it.
It's a great way to keep track of my favourite blogs...although it does need a tidy up of categories already....!

I had hoped to tackle that job and join in some twitter chats to get more great tips and new ideas. But it was not to be.

At odd times throughout the weekend though I would catch myself thinking about my blog and what I really wanted from it.

I love reading and reviewing.

I love visiting other blogs to discover new books, new authors and I love joining in discussions about the books we've read.

I also love joining in memes.

Over the years I have created my own as well as joined in others on a semi-regular basis. But the same thing happened with each one. I found myself unable to commit to the same time, same place scenario for very long.
(I also have the same problem with exercise regimes!)

All this pondering eventually led to my weekend ah-ha moment.

I would create my very own personal meme where I can talk books, housekeeping and blogging whenever I want to. A meme that is not tied to any day of the week or schedule.

So goodbye Shout Out Sundays.
Hello Stories and Shout Outs....on any day of the week that suits me.

____________________________

After writing the above last weekend, life and blogging have once again got away from me...which only highlights the perfection of my newly created meme!

To focus on reading this month I have joined in Andi's #15in31 challenge.
My plan is to finish all those half-read books by my bed before AusReadingMonth starts in November. So far I have finished two of the books on my list and reviewed one of them.

I also spotted Blog Ahead hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and Herding Cats & Burning Soup. This is a great way to keep ahead of the blogging game by scheduling posts to be used later.

I need this for two reasons - firstly I used up all my old scheduled posts during the craziness of our recent move. And secondly, I have AusReadingMonth coming up and I would like to prepare for it ahead of time this year.

I'm not going to commit myself to any specific number as anything will be better than the big fat nothing that I currently have in reserve!

Kate @Books are my Favourite and Best recently reviewed A Little Life.
I really liked her discussion on "allowable weaknesses" as I felt this accurately summed up my feelings on the book as well.

Allie @A Literary Odyssey reviewed Liane Moriarty's What Alice Forgot.
I've read Big, Little Lies and The Husband's Secret and had been wondering whether the earlier books would be as good. Turns out they are!

It's a long weekend Monday in NSW today (yay!) It's also HOT, HOT, HOT.
Which means it is time for me to go and finish My Brilliant Friend...poolside!

What have you been up to this lovely long, beginning of daylight savings weekend?

The Princess in Black and the Perfect Princess Party by Shannon & Dean Hale

The Princess in Black is back!

With the same sassy monster fighting moves and the same sparkly princess bling, Princess Magnolia returns ready to tackle a birthday party full of unsuspecting princesses.

I love the monster fighting onomatopoeia like 'tiara trip' and 'twinkle twinkle little smash'. I also admire Princess Magnolia's dedication to the cause despite the temptation to ignore the persistent and badly timed monster alarm.

The only disappointment with this sequel is not enough goat-boy time. I was hoping that goat-boy would become the Princess in Black's trusty sidekick. Instead goat-boy barely gets a mention and we see a new possibility for sidekick in the unfortunately named Princess Sneezewort.

But perhaps the Princess in Black, with her strong girl-power, can-do attitude doesn't need a sidekick other than her faithful steed?

What will book three, The Princess in Black and the Hungry Bunny Horde hold in store for us?

This is my first book in my 15in31 challenge (yay me!!)

15in31

Call me crazy.

CRAZY!!

But here I go again with a reading challenge. 

Estella's Revenge is trying to boost her reading enthusiasm by reading 15 books during the month of October & she has requested company.

With extra work shifts coming my way during October, starting and finishing 15 whole books is way beyond my capabilities. 

But with a little tweek here and a little tweek there, I could use this reading challenge to help me finish all the books languishing on my goodreads 'currently reading' list as well as keep ahead of my work TBR list.

Some of the books vying for my attention right now are...

...my Classics Club Spin, a highly recommended and a new release.

A few non-fiction titles that have been lurking for months now!

Three half finished books desperate to be done!

A few early reader new releases at work that look tempting.

Just 3 of the ARC's on my TBR pile that are no longer so 'advanced'!

 

 Will you be reading like an animal during October?