Book:The Truth about these Strange Times – Adam Foulds

Indeed a strange but ultimately enjoyable book. It took about a third of the book for me to get into, not for the first time, but I always think it’s such a waste of precious time to start reading something and then not get the benefit of the whole story.

The story is of 10 year old child genius Saul Dawson-Smith who’s demanding but doting parents are living through him. He is on a never ending timetable of learning to enable him to enter world memory contests with other bored, brainy children who have zero play or ‘child’ time.

The other main character is Scottish, Howard who forms an unlikely friendship with Saul’s father at a hospital. Howard is looking out for Les Dawson-Smith’s mother after his own Mum has already passed away and because he seems to get on with Saul and clearly needs a break from his lonely life in a series of dead end low paid jobs, Mr Dawson-Smith asks him to relocate to London. In gratitude for this stranger looking after his mother, the plan is to find him work but in the meantime, he can help with Saul and the household chores alongside the uppity Mrs Dawson-Smith.

Throw in some Russian friends who are desperate for Howard to marry their friend back home so she can live in the UK legally and the fact that Saul and Howard end up on a road trip, running away from home for ‘respite’ as the genius boy child calls it, and we are in for an entertaining two thirds of a book.

7/10

Inspiration factor 7½/10

Book – The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar

Fairies and New York? Two enticing subjects. I’m slowing getting back into reading (and watching films) based in New York after my long self imposed ban (long, sad story of one big city & one broken heart).

The book is bigged up almightily by Neil Gaiman and I hope when my book gets published (after I finish writing it and sending it out to publishers and someone some accepts it) I’ll have an introduction as good.

The story itself is all in the title, except there are bad fairies as well – obviously. New York – and the whole world is inhabited by fairies from many different nations. In NYC the fairies, as with the communities, are from all nationalities and as with the humans stick together. When Heather & Morad, arrive on the run from their native Scotland after some accidental fairy wrong-doing, they are able to be seen by Dinnie, the overweight, unemployed squatter and Kerry, New York Dolls obsessive with Crohn’s disease who lives opposite. Dinnie has never had a girlfriend, is a terrible violinist and in return for a nationally treasured fairy fiddle that has come into his possession, Heather agrees to help him become the man Kerry would fall in love with.

It’s a delightful tale with many interwoven stories; the fairy clans, the drinking and debauchery and the money stealing and most hilariously, fairy travel; if they want to get somewhere fast, or more likely be on the run from rival fairies, they attach themselves to a cab.

7½/10

Inspiration factor 8/10

Book – Watching Willow Watts, Talli Roland

As well as being an inspiration to us writers, Ms Roland is a prolific worker! It seems I have only just read the debut, The Hating Game and the third one is out but I have just caught up on Watching Willow Watts; I like the hard copy. For one thing, how do I get it autographed otherwise?

Having been overwhelmed by the first one – it’s always hard to  read, let alone review when you know the author – I wondered if the follow up is going to be able to live up to it. As I’ve mentioned before, I would not have picked up The Hating Game had I not known the writer so it’s a blessing that I did.

WWW has me hooked once again. The niche again is using a modern phenomenon as the basis; last time reality TV, this time You Tube, and then building a cast of interesting characters around it.

Willow Watt has gone back from her promising florist career in London to her home village (“Britain’s Ugliest”) to look out for her widowed father, in the process also leaving behind a hopeful relationship. She finds her father’s business in financial difficulty and comes up with a money making idea as she sets about finding the £10K needed for the tax bill. Begrudgingly, Willow is filmed for a talent contest as a Marilyn Monroe lookalike and a ghostly figure appears which the world takes as a sign that our local florist has the movie star’s spirit in her. The new Marilyn is born.

Unfortunately for her, an unscrupulous agent is out to make money from her, as he has done in the past with fellow villager, former startlet, Cissy. The books’ supporting cast of the father, the down trodden Marilyn fan from small town America (who becomes fathers’ companion), her hairdresser best friend who befriends a sleb journalist and the ex-love of her life all make this book come to speedily to life.

Bringing in the elements of strong women business owners, love and the social media makes this a thoroughly modern read. It is the second time Ms Roland has made me put the book down early so I can relish looking forward to the closing chapters the next day.

Love it.

8½/10

Inspiration factor 10/10

On Amazon

Book – This Side of Brightness by Colum McCann

I love Let the Great World Spin.

This one took a while to get into, despite it being as beautifully written.  I’m almost half way through when I realise that the author is writing about two different families, in different eras although I would have known that had I read the jacket first!

There’s two types of freedom, son.

The freedom to do what you want and the freedom to do what you should.

The story gives us the viewpoint of those men who endured ill-health and early demise to dig the tunnels beneath New York City so that the transportation we see today can be implemented. This is supplemented but the more modern story of those homeless – the forgotten society – who still make their homes underneath our pavements and the modern builders working on sky scrapers.

“The knowledge that he is the one who will pierce the virginity of

space where the steel hits the sky.”

 Because of my previous read, I read avidly to see where the generation connections may come; it’s a journey through history seeing what the successors know about their ancestors and how much has changed for them. The book centres on the racism that still exists in the early 20^th century and in particular around a rock solid mixed marriage and their children.

An excellent, literal look look at New York’s underground.

7½/10

Inspiration factor 7/10

Book – A Serving of Scandal by Prue Leith

It was by chance I found out Prue Leith, a renowned cook in my younger years, had become a novelist. She mentioned in passing when she opened a new Academy that I was also a guest at. I come across it in the library, on a rare occasion when I had reached ‘L’ before I’d picked up the maximum amount of books.

This book is much better than the title and the cover – and indeed the author’s background suggests. It’s really as insightful about British politics as it is about the catering industry.

I say the catering rather than restaurant industry as the leading female character is Kate, a respected chef, running her business from home whilst single handedly bringing up her much doted upon young son. Of course, most of her work is undertaken during evening dinner parties and especially for the government.  She relies heavily on the support and friendship of her best friend and her restaurateur husband who’s own son is a playmate for her Toby.

This sets the scene for how hard she works before we consider her meeting the main male character; Oliver Stapleton, a leading, honest MP, Foreign Sectary and favourite for the PM job but with a disaffected wife and children back in his West Midlands constituency. The scandal comes about after the talented caterer and the lonely MP start having friendly after dinner chats in the catering kitchen which get deliberately leaked (as most leaks are) by a bystander with low self esteem who doesn’t like them.

What I feared was the scandal; what I love is that the scandal appears to be just muck raking by the Evening Standard. I also love the insight into politics as the book mentions many real government players and also how much detail the author goes into to describe the scrumptious cooking. This is to be expected if a little excessive but cleverly weaved in nonetheless.

It says a lot that I recall both characters names without referring back to the book. I’ve always had a passing interest in American politics but this book has opened my eyes a little to the British side and I may now pick up the odd tome based in Westminster village. For sure I’m going back for more Leith and may even find the odd recipe idea for my renewed enthusiasm for cooking. (Project #DomesticGodessinthemaking)

8/10

Inspiration factor 9/10

On Amazon

Book – Everything you know, by Zoe Heller

The second time in a row I’ve read a book by an author I’ve enjoyed, but not particularly this time. Not that there’s anything wrong with the book, I just couldn’t get into it although that’s partly because I’m pre-occupied with 89 things at the moment.

As the jacket states, the book is ’set inLondon,HollywoodandMexico’ so each chapter jumps between the three and ‘the women in Willy Muller’s Life are trouble’ and I have trouble keeping up with them.

There are two girlfriends, a mother and daughters, one of whom is married to a drug addict and the committed suicide, just after sending him her diaries. Willy is a writer, living inHollywoodwhilst his family are inLondon, with his book about to be turned into a film.

It’s as well written as the two Heller books I love ‘Notes on a Scandal’ and the brilliant ‘The Believers’. I actually want to ready the latter again now.

Book – If Morning Ever Comes, Anne Tyler

It took me a lot longer than a week to read this and even after getting to the end, all I can get is only boy from a large family leaves Carolina to go to university in New York. We find his late father lead a double family life and leaves a mistress and another son but other than that, not much else.

I loved the last, most recent book I ready by Anne Tyler which I picked up completely by chance. So I thought I would like this, not realising it was from 1964. Not that this should be significant but I just couldn’t get into it.

I cannot mark down a book by a talented author, it just didn’t do anything for me.

Book – Happiness™ – Will Ferguson

It wasn’t intentional to read to two Will Ferguson books in a row, seeing as I struggled with the last one. This is next on the list as I didn’t get on with a very old Anne Tyler book, being completely ignorant of the fact that she’d been around so long an had films made out of her books (The Accidental Tourist) I’d picked up an interesting book of hers’ in Montreal that I love but couldn’t get into this old one from 1965.

Having said all of that Happiness™ is a fun story about the stereo type editor who is a frustrated writer working in the self help section. These are woeful tales of how editors don’t get past the first page before rejecting, giving most of the manuscripts to interns to decide upon and how they expect to negotiate contracts.

It’s frightening but mostly hilarious as it centres on our main character Edwin who finally finds a book he can work with but only after he’s thrown it out on account of the author’s cheeky, knowing approach. Then when he’s idea-less and facing the firing squad in the team meeting, he decides he can make a book out of this manuscript but unfortunately his trash bin has now been emptied. There follow stories of him going to the incinerator, tracking down said author and negotiating until the book get’s published. And then the story begins.

“Remember, small circles and not too much direct pressure!”

It turns out Happiness™ literally changes the world and because people are less materialistic and just happy with their lot, whole industries go out of business and Edwin thinks that’s bad. There is the perfect wife at home, the crazed publisher at work and the less than perfect love of his life to contend with as well as the author of the most successful book the world has seen since the holy bible.

Happiness™ is a well written, humorous tale (I hope) giving us just the slightest hint at the extremes of the publishing industry.

Now, how can I make sure my book doesn’t end up on the intern’s ‘slush pile’…..?

7½/10

Inspiration factor 8/10

Book – Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw by Will Ferguson

I love the idea of reading this book when I see it in Vancouver but somehow what should have been a nippy, one-week witty read turned into a three week test. Anyhow, it’s probably just as I had a lot on my mind during the three weeks leading up to the largest event I have organised in some time.

The book illustrates a little of the history of Canada written in the guise of a travel book with a many insightful and/or witty snippets:

On Tim Horton, the Canadian hockey player who started a chain of doughnut shops, “thereby combining Canada’s two great passions: toothless men on skates and fried dough glazed in sugar”.

Unlike the Basques in Spain or the IRA on Northern Ireland, the separatists in Quebec have long since abandoned violence as a political tool. (This book is published in 2004)

“Jackie massages my scalp and temples and even my ear lobes (which is nice, although honestly, my earlobes hardly ever get fatigued)”.

On Shania Twain “…had to become a country–and-western singer, a name like that, what else could she possibly be?”

“When it comes to the English, they are either absolutely insufferable or disarmingly endearing.”

A sign:

WARNING

Stay Well Back from Cliff Edge

Parents: Children Are Your Responsibility!

 

On slavery:

By 1803, most blacks in Canada were free (it wasn’t until 1833 when all forms of slavery were banned thought British territories).

There is a fascinating chapter about the heroic volunteers who lead slaves in America to safety in Canada, especially Harriet Tubman who had escaped slavery herself.

On the song, ‘a sweet chariot’ was an underground network, ‘to ‘swing low’ was to come down south and ‘carry me home’ meant an escape to freedom.

6½/10

Inspiration factor 6½/10

Book – The Editors Wife, Clare Chambers

“Original and additive…reminds us of the rare pleasure that an intelligent tale with a happy ending brings”. Daily Telegraph

“Beautifully observed and achingly funny” – Woman & Home

A surprisingly light read which is just what I had hoped. In fact the book is better than I hoped as I haven’t come across the writer before but will be sure to read more of her work now.

The first surprising thing I notice after a few pages is that the book is narrated by a man. I had to double check the cover and the jacket to determine Clare is a woman. I’ve never read a book written in this way before so I’m immediately intrigued.

The character is a writer, Christopher, or rather he is when he becomes a university drop-out. He’s written a novel of a story he feels compelled to write and is amazed to get the attention of a wonderful editor who takes him under his wing. It’s this Editors Wife that he falls for and the book tells a little bit of their affair but also delves into the feelings of angst the writer goes through in writing this book whilst having the affair.

The book teasingly drops in and out of present time now that he is middle aged and when he was writing the book. It is much later in life that the real story becomes known.

I love the characters that weave in and out of Christopher’s life, the parents, the, hall we call him eccentric, brother, the Editor and the famous author and how their memories keep appearing throughout this novel.

A fine read and a twist of the interesting variety at the end.

8/10

Inspiration factor 9/10

 

Book: Julian Clary – Murder Most Fab

It was just sitting there on the shelf, looking like a Neapolitan ice cream amongst all the endless cloudy slate covers of the crime novels. It oozed readability.

Who knew Julian Clary could pull off a novel? I did; I remember the round of promotional interviews he did at the time. ‘Murder most Fab’ was published in 2007 and there’s been another since then.

We may as well get out of the way that yes, it is a gay book, explicitly so on many occasions and throw in a rent boy, a closet gay Lord and a wonderfully loopy mother and eccentric straight talking grandmother before we even think about the successful TV presenter and we have a colourful tale on our hands.  Mr Clary must have had colossal fun putting this cast together (please tell me he did, it sounds like fun).

We are set up nicely with the prologue which is a letter to one of the characters, the authors’ lost love, who is likely to be most hurt by the ‘Murder Most Fab’ story being told. So now we believe the story, it is time to begin.

Johnny is one of those young boys that always knew he was gay; he didn’t have that initial ‘girlfriend’ before he knew for sure. Hi savvy grandmother, knew before he did and packed him off to drama school after his mother lost a few more of her marbles than usual. He meets Catherine, a nurse/hooker and before long, his rent boy career starts and Johnny soon becomes accustomed to the hedonistic lifestyle as the two hatch plan after plan.

The first murder comes quite quickly – more assisted suicide really and after that, it all becomes the natural order of affairs for the scheming pair, Catherine manipulating  and plying  Johnny with drugs and he trusts her all too well in managing what is now his TV career.

Each turn of the page is lifted with lines such as ’Johnny here slept with Boris Yeltsin last night. Why don’t you tell them about his luminous semen?’ and ‘Such insolence! I shall have you horse whipped!’

It really is a riotous read with enough one- liners and jokes to have me reading beyond the time I ought to and enough twists to keep me eager to pick up the book again.

Fantastic.

8/10

Inspiration factor 9/10

Julian Clary books

Book – Rockin’ The Bronx by Larry Kirwan

It’s one of those books that I saw in the library on one of my browse sessions. Ordinarily I just order all my library books or otherwise on line but once or twice a month I like to spend an hour or two in the library and in a book store, just to see what leaps out. Also to research trends.

The Bronx as you’ve guessed is the notorious den of iniquity at the top of New York City, or at least it was at the turn of the 1980s, when this book is set. ’Rockin’ refers to the music scene, as our much admired author is a musician. Kirwan’s novel tells of Sean arriving in The Bronx from Ireland looking for his Mary (because there aren’t any other Irish names) only to find out she is now stepping out with a local drug lord. The heartbreak doesn’t deter him from moving into the squalid squat which also houses Danny the pro IRA builder and the happy go lucky Kate. I can understand a little why he stayed for a while, to win her back but not sure why he stayed the best part of two years and tolerated their on/off relationship whilst watching her with his rival.

The band does get formed so there is some musicality but mostly it’s about all four roommates ending up in some kind of love rectangle and even with the peripheral characters, it took a while to like any of them so I found it hard to read in part. In all, the book took some time to really get into. I’m a good half way through before I stopped speed reading and skipping pages and it’s the only last third I looked forward to reading.

I’d not come across the author or his Black 47 band before, or indeed since and this book is brilliantly written. It’s just that all the drugs, alcohol, IRA talk and literally living in dirt left me, well feeling like I needed a shower. I would have liked more of the music.

7½/10 because it is so well written

Inspiration factor 7/10

Book – A Tiny Bit of Marvellous – Dawn French

Clearly the publishers had more than half an eye on promoting the book when they decided on ‘A Tiny Bit Marvellous’. I’ll go with it; it’s quite a bit marvellous, actually (boom, boom).

Having persevered through the heavy tome that is ‘London’, thousands of years of names, laws, places and kings, by the wonderful Edward Rutherfurd, I line up a few light reads for the next few weeks and Dawn French is top. When I open it, I’m pleased to see it’s a regular 323 pages but upon starting to read it, there are only about 17 joyous words per page. OK massive over statement but I resolve to read in three days and start eyeing up the next book, (Just Kids by Patti Smith).

It’s the perfect antidote to a history novel, set in the present time with everyday characters; a family of 2.4 children.

I love it when novels are written in a unique way; this one is written by three characters; (1) the mum, soon to be 50 Mo, way too tall, a children’s shrink that has no idea how to handle her own two, (2) Dora, soon to be 18, appears to be a little rounded but probably more so in her own eyes and a mum-hater and best of all (3) Oscar, a 16 year old called Peter whose love of all things dandy attest to his new persona as Oscar Wilde.

You can guess the chapter written by Mo, who cannot fathom at what point she lost the bond with her daughter who calls her rude names and makes her dislike obvious is quite a bit different from Dora, spitting venom as to why she isn’t allowed a tattoo before her 18^th birthday.

I, also being a fan of all things Oscar adore the son’s chapters; he is out, loud and proud but at no point any reference made that he is different; he simply is as he is and everyone else has to deal with it, exactly as it should be. His chapters are written with more than a hint of Oscar-ness and this is where I think Ms French shows her wonderful talent to the fullest.

There is a husband in all this but he doesn’t get a word in.

I loved Dawn’s writing in her autobiography but one can never tell what a new novelist is going to produce, no matter how talented they are otherwise.

A tiny bit fabulous and an easy read too, phew.

8½/10

Inspiration factor 9/10

Book: The Hating Game, Talli Roland

The Hating Game in question is a reality television show. Unknown to Mattie Johns when she agrees to go on it for ‘a second chance for romance’, the chance will be with four of her carefully chosen exes.

Ms Johns isn’t doing the show for romance; she needs the £200K prize money to save her recruitment business, after one of her exes took half of her business with him when she fired him and he started his own.

Will she make it through the two weeks of national TV humiliation to get the money? Which one of her (many) exes will be revealed on the show and what tricks has the aspiring but in-experienced producer got in store for her?

The author’s imagination works wonders on what the behind the scenes in a reality show may be like; there is corruption for sure but the manipulation of the greedy production executives is bordering on illegal and all of it is immoral. This and wondering which one of her exes will pop from the under the dimmed lights has me racing through the chapters, my brain working faster than my page turning fingers.

I adore the entire colourful cast of characters from the domineering personality of the business person in financial trouble to the controlling TV exec, all four exes, the wimpy aspiring producer with a contradicting conscious and the drippy but loyal best mate.

I can’t help but think what fun must have been had thinking up the characters and once again I’m inspired; maybe I will write a novel as well as ‘fact’ books one day.

I loved this more than I imagined. It’s a light read but has your eyes begging you to read faster and for your fingers to turn the page. You know when I love a book I save the last few pages for the next day so I can relish looking forward to it. It’s rare but that’s the case with this. I could do with reading one of these books say every three months. Come on Ms Roland, do a Barbara Cartland for us and keep them going! I cannot wait for the next novel.

8½/10

Inspiration factor 10/10

Book – Just Kids, Patti Smith

More often than not, I make brief notes when I’m reading a book making the review a little easier. I didn’t in this case.

I’m besotted from the minute I start reading it and just didn’t want to stop mid-sentence to write any words.

It tells the story of Ms Smith’s growing up, or rather growing of age in New York and as the wonderful cover depicts, with soul mate Robert Mapplethorpe. There is a little on both their backgrounds which wonderfully sets the scene of all their escapades from the late 1960s until the time of Robert’s death in 1989.

Their first break was being accepted into New York’s Chelsea Hotel where all of the artists of the day lived, even if they could afford their own place. Testimony to this is that the couple, as they sometimes were and other times just inseparable best friends, that when they could afford it, they took on two rooms opposite the hotel in which to work and sleep but still kept their room at the Chelsea, to use the bathroom if nothing else.

What their work was going to be was unknown up until they moved into the Chelsea, where the manager accepted residents who where penniless in exchange for art or other work. Robert always seemed destined to be an artist of some kind whereas Patti started with poetry, dabbled in art and acting before finally putting her words together with music.

There is a tinge of sadness throughout; poverty, heartbreak and deaths, most notably of Joni Mitchell, Jimmi Hendrix and Andy Warhol litter their lives when they finally join the much coveted membership to New York’s bohemian artsy scene they so craved. Patti surprisingly, especially in those times, stayed away from drugs and drinking and came out of this destructive yet hugely creative period of the 1970s relatively unscathed. She even went on to have two children with her late husband, Fred Sonic Smith whilst maintaining her beautiful friendship with Robert. They were true soul mates.

I just adore every moment of this beautiful book that is essentially about friendship.

8½/10

Smile factor 9/10

 

From the jacket:

Just Kids starts as a love story and ends as a elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies, and to it’s rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists ascent, a prelude to fame.

Book – London, Edward Rutherfurd

Regulars will know I love love love Edward Rutherfurd’s New York, which I read soon after it came out about 18 months ago. I love it so much I keep the last chapter back to savour every word the next day even though I have time to finish it. I also read it within my self imposed three week deadline. I give myself a week to read a standard book of say 300 pages, this had 1017.

After that, I’m looking forward to reading the author’s other ‘history told in a novel’ stories and have London and Dublin at the top of the list. This year I get to do that. I start London at the start of February and even though it’s only 829 words I give myself over three weeks- February was a packed month for me.

I’ve just finished it on Sunday.

It’s written in the same style, has the same level of detail and historic facts and is written about my own country; yet I find after 2 hours of reading time, I have not turned over four pages. I’m not sure if it’s just that my mind is finding it hard to focus but I just couldn’t get into it. Determination made me finish it.

I love the start, 54BC where civilisation seemed much more civilised than I imagine and my favourite periods in history, Tudor & Shakespeare and the Georgian/Regency period, the latter mostly for the home decor I have to say.

Other parts that are such a big part of our lives are glossed over, Jesus’ birth and Guy Fawkes trying to burn Parliament for example.

I have however, picked up some brilliant insights of Britain through the ages; I trust all of these learnings are true:

Apart from giving us roads, Romans introduced herbs into cooking (and America only just seems to have discovered them)

‘Ham’ = hamlet

‘ton’ = farm  (as in Kensington)

‘hythe’ = harbour

Easter (eostre) was a festival to welcome spring that the Pagans renamed Easter.

Edward Rutherfurd cleverly worked the myth about London’s streets being paved with gold by having Centurions bury some stolen gold coins but not living to recover them. You have to read all the way through the book to see when that gold is discovered.

The first fireplace in the UK was in the Tower of London in 1081

There was a prison called the Clink, hence the nick name.

Southwark was where the vagrants lived (any change there?)

Dogget: This is very clever; Rutherfurd derives this name from ‘Dog’s Head’ girls, sisters who worked at a whorehouse. Later the name got changed to Ducket for the rich and Dogget remained for the poor.

This was the time when the church ran the legal brothels and they had Bishop Inspectors to throw out the disease-ridden girls.

There was a law that only a whore could save a man on death row, if she claimed him to marry her. Since they would have no credibility anyway, many are presumed to have chosen the noose but the author uses this to clever affect in one such case.

Another name, Lombard Street is said to come from the Italian financiers based here, from Lombardy.

Priests never used to be celibate (used to be?)

John Harvard, as in Harvard University, was English and went over to the USA, back in the day when they let everyone in as no-one was there.  I’m sure Americans really show appreciate for the English going over there to start the nation every day of their lives.

In 1652 puritan England, it was outlawed to ‘celebrate’ Christmas as a festival as it should be a time for solemn prayer, so people had Christmas dinners

In the same year, adultery carried the death penalty, before they had CCTV, DNA testing and private investigators. The guilty mostly escaped death because the legal minds didn’t feel it justified it but they could not live a normal existence in the community thereafter.

Small banks were being bailed out by the government in 1824.

There was a Lavender Hill, as depicted in the Marilion song, in south London, according to this book. It sounds absolutely gorgeous with mansion houses built to look down at the views.

Each town kept its own local town until national trains were introduced and they decided to keep ‘London time’.

Another masterpiece by the author who must have now earned about five honouree degrees given his in depth knowledge of world history.

8/10 (think it’s just my mind in other places that made me lack focus)

Inspiration factor 9/10

Book – What Would Audrey Do? by Pamela Keogh

Timeless lessons for living with grace and style

Do you buy things when you’re celebrating? I think it’s just me; when I spent the most cash ever on a dream car, I went out and spent £100 on an outfit before I’d even driven the car home. When I found out 90% of my wardrobe was being delivered back to me from New York, I celebrated by shopping for £750 worth of clothes. I only spent just over £200 though and gave the old clothes I replaced to charity.

When I spent a lovely weekend in Devon with my friends, I bought this book as a little treat from a delightfully shop in Salcombe, Amelia’s attic. I only went in there to buy an ‘Amelia’s attic’ bag for a little girl I know of the same name. 

Audrey (everyone I know knows who I mean, I never need to use the lady’s surname) has been my style icon as long as I can remember. I love Marilyn and Jackie O too but in a different way. Audrey is all encompassing; it’s not just the clothes.

It is a little disappointing to read some things. I don’t have a huge curiosity level when it comes to strangers so I really didn’t need to know Ms Hepburn put up with cad like behaviour from both her husbands, if indeed any of this is true. I’m not sure why the author seeked to compare the actress to Katherine Hepburn; I had never made the connection.

The book portrayed Audrey to be a little bit too twee for my liking but the worst point is that the author believes every Audrey fan wants to be thin, famous, a Hollywood actress or all three; hence the reader is given alternatives in case we don’t all have our own gardener, cook or friends with private planes.

On that subject, much is made of the fact that Audrey travelled ‘steerage’ for UNICEF missions as it’s a huge sacrifice. Well of course, I’d expect charity work to be done on a budget, unless of course expenses are not being claimed back.

It is a stated that despite Audrey’s war time experience of hunger and poverty, she never tried to forge this much success for herself. That just destroys the Audrey image/illusion of wanting to do well despite war time poverty. I hope it’s untrue.

There are many contradictions;

On one page the author asks if anyone has ever said anything bad about George Clooney as a comparison as the same is true for Audrey and on another she states Audrey would never have dated him! Thank goodness for that.

Audrey was only paid to do one advert for wigs with the stipulation (as is often the Hollywood case) that it will only be shown in Japan. Later we learn of her campaigns for Revlon and working with Kevin Aucoin.

However, the fun and quirky tips I was expecting from this book are there:

Put washed wet shirts in the fridge before ironing

Join first class club if flying economy to take advantage of comfortable lounges before boarding.

If you’re germ phobic (I’m not) don’t ever ask for ice!

But then there’s

‘Most hotels have speakers so take your own music to make you feel at home’. They do?

We need more of these!

5/10

Inspiration factor 3/10

Read if you’re young, thin, a waitress/actress/ model in LA. Or just to prove me wrong

Book – Rosa Guy, The Friends

 

I have been after Rosa Guy books for a few years. Now I figure that after my book clear out, if I’m going to own any books, it has to be these. Rosa Guy was my first favourite author when I got into reading books courtesy of the school library and I imagine was my introduction to reading, to writing and to New York. My life was thereafter clearly mapped out for me.

Having said that I didn’t start reading again until July 2008 because that’s when I started writing.

I finally get hold of this copy after a friend managed to secure it from my long standing Amazon birthday list and without any real hope of actually reading it, I take it on my Christmas holiday.

I say without any real hope.  as it was a short haul trip to Italy, less time at the airport and waiting for the plane to take off which is the only time I’d read a book on holiday, if that.

Instead, I pick it up on the last day, a day spent mostly waiting for or on trains to get back to Milan airport and then home. I read the whole book in a day, something I’ve always wanted to do. Now I accept that’s not exactly a challenge as it is a teen novel with 197 pages but still, ambition achieved.

I can’t say I recall any of the story from 30 odd years ago but I love reading it. Throughout I’m thinking what I would have thought reading about New York in the early 1970s and about a West Indian family trying to integrate themselves into a nation already filled with immigrants and yet not a million miles away from segregation.

Mostly, I’m thinking about friendship and about being an outsider as that’s what the book is about. A young West Indian family making a life for themselves in Manhattan for better or for worse. The story is told through the eyes of the younger of the two daughters, Phyllisia, an intelligent hard working student who is bullied for her efforts. Eventually Phyllisia accepts a hand of friendship from Edith, who is on the wrong side of the tracks but the only one that is on Phyllisia’s side.

The story entwines through both families but each time comes back to the friendship that is formed between these two school girls despite their differences and their similarities.

Next step, to find more Rosa Guy.

8½/10

Inspiration factor 10/10. It has to be.

Book: Paint it Black by Janet Fitch

The author was recommended to me although I don’t know if this is the book they meant. I give it whirl anyway.

Essentially, the whole book is the aftermath of a suicide. Josie has hooked up with Michael who is from a well to do creative family, the opposite of her own and they are living in relative poverty.

That pretty much sums up Josie’s life, poor yet happy with just their dreams of running away to Paris to live, still poor, still artists but in Paris rather than in LA misery.

Josie works as a life model and actress in bit films and thanks her lucky stars that artist, ‘beautiful Michael’ chose her. Michael has low self esteem despite famous, wealthy parents who sent him to Harvard, hence the suicide. Josie herself clearly sees herself as unworthy of his attention and refers back to some of the low rent men in her life.

What the book unveils, very slowly are the secrets Michael kept to himself. These become apparent through Josie’s treacherous, dysfunctional and highly unlikely relationship formed with his mother, Meredith, after she publicly dammed her at Michael’s funeral. Meredith is an internationally renowned classical musician, born to second generation immigrants and divorced from Cal, a renowned writer.

Meredith has been bought up with servants and money as has Michael who has shunned this life to live in a shack with Josie, who has to work at least two jobs to keep food on their table whilst he works mostly as an unpaid artist. But why?

 Josie spends the weeks following the funeral seeking the truth from the only person who could tell her; Meredith. Why would someone who loves her commit suicide and leave her behind? It turns out the couple had their difficulties and Josie is left to work out why she was running herself ragged to support a rich but non earning artist.

She has no family support, a decent home or inheritance and he had servants, a home in Paris and first class travel.

Will all be revealed?

Worth a read

7½/10

Inspiration factor 8/10

Book – Notes from a small Island by Bill Bryson

I’ve been warned about reading too much Bryson. Whereas I found his memoir of growing up in middle America enchanting, this one about arriving in Britain is frustrating, entertaining and funny in almost equal measures.

I nearly gave up reading a few times but I’m not quitter; I have to keep reminding myself that he had the same level of derogatory comments about his homeland as he does about the UK, it’s not personal. Plus things have changed since 1993.

So that’s the review, here are some interesting points:I love the details about the cost of things in 1973; the pound was $2.46, average weekly take home pay was £30.11 and a colour TV £300. The last one probably hasn’t changed much.

I’m so glad that Bryson thinks as less of BT as I do. Not sure I’d have everyone who works there killed but I’d certainly get rid of the organisation.

Bryson moans about there being nothing to do in Dover (obviously) and yet just stays a few days where he enters the country, but he was young and naive then.

London is big. Yes it does appear to start at Gatwick and end just below Luton.

Possibly my favourite quote about the London underground: ‘That isn’t a city up there; it’s a Jane Austin novel’.

Yes there is no hill or indeed Tower strictly speaking at ‘Tower Hill’ but once upon a time, maybe there was and that’s the beauty of naming places after history, we still remember.

Yes I understand Bryson’s view when talking about ‘an ugly building competition’ and it would be lovely to keep all the buildings from hundreds of years ago but it’s not always possible; sometimes due to lack of upkeep but also I think London needs to have a skyline befitting its status as one the world’s leading finance centres. I feel we have the best of both worlds.

Having spent more than a decade in publishing myself, some of it in Fleet Street, I love the description of printers in the 1980s; over staffed, over paid and underworked. Of course the industry is now all but extinct due to the advanced technology.

Don’t f*** with English puddings. Fair enuff

Mr Bryson, England isn’t the only place in the world that has fog; it’s in other counties too, including America

In England, ‘ladies wait until all the shopping is bagged up before getting out their purses at the supermarket’? Not me, I think he’s talking about older people generally, bless them, not women specifically.

University Challenge – UK v USA? Interesting idea.

Bemoaning the fact that he can’t get a direct train where he wants i.e. Oxford to Cambridge. Well we can’t build a line between every city – do they have that in America? 

With Milton Keynes, my most despised place on the planet, Bryson can do his worst. All he really came up with is its ‘Built like an American mall’. He moaned that he couldn’t find the shopping area from the train station but all he needed to do is ask; it’s just 15 minutes walk after all. Aren’t all train stations built away from town centres, on account of the noise and the big long track that needs to be laid down?

There are constant references to bad food and the rain. On the former you get what you pay for my friend, England is closest to France and we’ve had French cooking (since, joined by just about every other nation) from when you still thought a McDonalds meal was healthy.

On the rain, ever been to Scotland? Or Ireland? Or northern Europe or Boston in fact?

Birmingham: there isn’t a landmark that you can identify Birmingham with. Firstly, does there have to be and secondly, ever seen the Rotunda? Or the Alpha Tower or since the book, the new Bull Ring centre with its iconic Selfridges building for that matter, amongst others. You can go off someone.

Apparently there is not an equivalent American phrase for ‘taking the pi**’, yes there is, ‘yanking your chain’.

There is a constant moan about the lack of trains everywhere he wanted to go, including the remotest parts of Scotland where we think it’s quaint they only have two trains per week. But that’s why we have a motorway system, so we have the option to drive if there isn’t a convenient train service.

I love that he says that bank cashiers open two at a time, expect when it’s busy. They only open one. Hilariously true!

Finally I love that he feels that the Brits always find humour in every situation, perhaps contradicting what he and a few Americans I know, thought originally.

6½/10 Smile factor 7½/10

Book – Dear Fatty by Dawn French

I read another book, indeed a memoir that I wish I had thought of first. Perhaps I’ll do it in five years when everyone has forgotten this one. Having said that, obviously my books won’t get anywhere near the coverage that Dawn French gets so I can just nick the idea.
Dawn French’s memoirs are written in letter form, each one is a chapter written to different people who have meant something in her life. Superb.
Ms French of course is extremely funny lady but life as we know is not always a bundle of laughs. What struck me most were the letters to her Dad who committed suicide before she had even started college. I didn’t know about that and some of those chapters have the inevitable shadow of sadness but still with an air of cuteness.
Admittedly, my eyes really picked up about a third of the way through when I read Ms French spent a year in New York, still in the dangerous late 1970s, when New York was NEW YORK. She won a place on a programme, due mainly through a teacher’s encouragement of her to join debate clubs and the like so she studied out there, living with different families. If that doesn’t give a teenager confidence I don’t know what will.
The photographs testify to the author’s slimness in those days but she talks of loving her food and we can’t begrudge her that. The Dear Fatty in question appears to be the equally brilliant Jennifer Saunders. What a fantastic pair of comics they have been since they were first plucked for the Comic Strip series as the token women. And they still innovate and amuse now.
There are also frequent letters to her best friend (BF) her mum, her daughter, her nieces and nephews and various members of her family along with an ex boyfriend or too. And there’s the ‘fan’ letters to David Cassidy and the riotous, more recent letters to Madonna.
Finally she writes beautifully to her, sadly now ex-husband, Lenny Henry, only one mind, their life was and is private a fact that I love.
Read if you like memoirs and/or if you have a sense of hilarity.
8/10
Inspiration factor 9½/10

Book – Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

New York Times food critic

The more I read of Ruth Reichl’s memoirs as a food critic at the New York Times after being headhunted from the LA Times, the more I compare her work to those of other food critics.

AA Gill by no means lavishes praise on all the restaurants he visits for the Sunday Times but does he go to the length that Ms Reichl does to disguise himself? Will he visit the restaurant several times in different guises over the course of many months in pursuit of the honest restaurant review?

It stands to reason that when a restaurant critic books a table, he will receive the best service and be fed the best food the head chef can muster. I cannot imagine local newspaper critics being anything other than idols in the eyes of restaurant owners (although I’d love it if they do go in disguise). The free publicity resulting from a decent review is worth more than any advert that can be bought.

Ms Reichl writes about taking on the persona of the lady she disguises herself as, with the help of an acting coach, a friend of her late mother’s. She talks of the character taking over her personality once the wig goes on. Together they create Molly, the former school teacher, mother of two who comes to New York every few months for shopping and theatre visits.

Each of these characters even has their own credit card or otherwise the USA’s premier food critic carries a lot of cash with her for the types of restaurants she reviews, even in the early 1990s.

There’s Betty, Emily, Brenda, Chloe and Miriam – her mother, all visiting New York’s newest or finest restaurants with her family, her colleagues or her friends, each in on the act and playing along. The difference in her treatment when going as an overweight, older tourist to going as her swish powerful self accompanied by her husband or young son is palpable. I guess the people who continue to go to these high and mighty establishments after knowing the service ‘Betty’ received don’t care how other people get treated.

What I love is learning the lengths a truly professional food critic goes to make sure we the reader reads accurate information about the restaurant’s service, not just about the food they give to their most important patrons.

Interweaved with the descriptions of the relationships the author formed during her time at the New York Times makes this a very personal account. Oh and if unlike me you enjoy the cooking and not just the eating, recipes are included.

Fascinating

8/10   Inspiration factor 8½/10

Book – The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson

Generally speaking, if a book appears on the Booker prize list I stay away from it. I find it hard to concentrate on reading (on anything) at the best of times and if a whole paragraph is used to describe how a cup is chipped and why that is significant, my mind wonders off to all the cups I have, the ones, I have broken, the special ones picked up on my travels…..

Darn it; I’ve used a whole paragraph to describe why I can’t concentrate.

Having said that, I enjoyed this story and if I understand it right, it’s about 3 gentlemen; Libor who is twice as old as the others and recently widowed by the love of his entire life; Samuel, also widowed although not the same kind of relationship due to his philandering and Julian.

The story is told through Julian’s longing to be a Jew or sometimes even thinking he is one. Unlike his two married Jewish friends, he has remained a bachelor despite fathering two grown up children with whom he has virtually no relationship. The book tells each man’s stories of their relationships, their friendships, their career choices and their Jewness.

Julian is constantly agonising as by no means has he lived a pure life and is paranoid that it will all end prematurely anyway. He has skipped from job to job and pays particular high disregard to his former long term employer, the BBC (I’m guessing there’s something the author was trying to tell us). He now works as a lookalike of any celebrity that is male and of similar build it seems, whereas his more driven friends are a hugely accomplished; author/TV star respectively and their retired teacher.

It is actually a very good read – well obviously it is; it’s in the short list for Booker Prize and I’m glad I read it.
I imagine you will be too.
7/10 Inspiration factor 7½/10

Book – The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson

Following what I think is excellent advice I’m on a mission to read 10 travel memoirs before writing my own. Not that mine are all travel, but there is fair chunk of voyage talk half way through writing the first draft of the book and it is a memoir.

I’m amazed in all the books that I have read in the last 48 months there has not been one travel memoir. Maybe Stuart Maconie’s Cider with Roadies counts or Kerouac’s On the Road?

In any case, I have heard a lot about Bill Bryson’s work and on more than one occasion have been tempted to pick a book up but alas always when there is a big pile waiting for me on the coffee table.

So now that I’m happily forced to do so, I pick the Thunderbolt Kid first. Strictly not travel, it’s about Bryson growing up in 1950’s middle America and centres on his family and school life. Well that’s all there is as a kid. He writes about his uber-forgetful mother, a terrible cook and not exactly maternal but somehow still doting. He writes about all the kids, the ones he picked on and the ones that picked on him. Then he talks about his father and this for me is the most enthralling part.

It turns out the late Mr Bryson senior was a sports journalist of some note, who stayed with the local paper, The Register, despite offers from the big boys. He also spent chunks of time away from home covering baseball games and I’m not sure if they would do that now. It’s just gorgeous to see how well he was rated by his son and touching for him to quote some phrases.

His mother also worked for the same newspaper as Bryson senior but his recollections are only of her being out for coffee, for lunch or forgetting that he was going to meet her at the office despite them having regular Friday ‘dates’. This in the days where he can stroll into a big office building and right up to her desk,

Inevitably in the American 1950s, despite young Bryson not experiencing that much himself during his tender years, he talks briefly about racism and details some local events of needless deaths.

However, the book is mostly uplifting and amusing starting with the anti communism stance of the counties leaders, a world away (or is it?) from the America of today where permission has been granted to build a mosque near the site of the old Twin Towers.

It’s about the era when everything changed; TV came, cars became a regular fixture, women could work as long as they were home makers too, missiles weapons were being tested without recognising the damage done and money was seemingly in plentiful supply. Anything was possible.

What a fantastic time to grow up.

8/10    Inspiration factor 9½/10

Book – The Truth About Melody Brown by Lisa Jewell

Because there’s a girl’s name in the title, it’s written by a female and the story is about a woman, one would assume this is chick lit, a phrase I dislike as much as ‘RomCom’.

I dislike it because I assume it to be a ‘Bridget Jones’ or ‘Shopaholic’. Not that I dislike those, in fact, they are the only two I have read of this genre albeit, before I realised it was a genre. I thought they were just comic novels but aimed at women. I’m put off because whilst I am happy to have read these, I don’t want every book to be about shopping, not being able to get a man and bleating on about being single or worse, all of the above.

So I dislike the term because just as the RomCom tag means I have probably missed out on some very funny movies, the chick lit label means it’s possible I have missed out on some great books.

This would have been one of them.

It’s such a painful admission to dislike it as I probably write it.

I don’t know where exactly but I did read about this book and something must have appealed to me. It’s one of those stories that is so simple yet full of complications, I wonder why no one else (me) didn’t think of it. Lisa Jewell throws enough spanners in the works to make this almost thriller like.

The book alternates between now and then; Melody Brown is 9 years old when her family home burns down. She grew up having blocked out all the memories before that moment and thinking the people she lived with…well I won’t spoil it.

She’s now a single parent, living in Covent Garden, London (oh the glamour) having lost contact with her parents when she found herself pregnant, nearly 18 years ago.

The then story kicks off when Melody’s parents break up and she and her mother move into a squat on the Kent coast. A myriad of characters come into her life but none of these are part of Melody’s memory, until she goes to see a live hypnotic show and is asked to be up on stage to take part. Only when she is transported back to being five years old does her mind start to unlock and the book tells of her first 9 years of memories slowly, painfully and sometimes excitedly coming back over the approaching days.

Melody stars putting back the pieces together as lost family and friends start entering her thoughts.

I don’t find it as sad as some reviewers but I do agree it’s uplifting. It’s what they call in the trade, a page turner.

I’m looking forward to reading Ms Jewell’s back catalogue. Any you recommend first?

8/10     Inspiration factor 9½/10