July Reading Roundup

I know it's a day early, but tomorrow is a busy day, so I need to do this today.


July's reading topic was "light reads," and that's exactly what I did. My favorite book for July was Death in Breslau, by Marek Krajewski, although there were so many good ones this month that it was hard to choose just one.  Here's how the list shakes out:



British mysteries and UK crime fiction
The Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie
Third Girl, by Agatha Christie
The Franchise Affair, by Josephine Tey

French crime fiction
The Chalk Circle Man, by Fred Vargas
Badfellas, by Tonino Benacquista

Historical True Crime
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the case of the Brides in the Bath, by Jane Robins

Italian crime fiction
The Shape of Water, by Andrea Camilleri
August Heat, by Andrea Camilleri

Japanese crime fiction
 The Master Key, by Masako Togawa

Polish crime fiction
Death in Breslau, by Marek Krajewski

Scandinavian crime fiction
The Darkest Room, by Johan Theorin 
--winner of the CWA International Dagger award

South African Crime Fiction
Thirteen Hours, by Deon Meyer (not yet reviewed...soon)

Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Kraken, by China Mieville

Fiction
Chef
The Madonnas of Echo Park, by Brando Skyhorse




In other book-related stuff:
1) My book group is on hiatus until the end of September
2) Added to the Amazon Wishlist
--Blood on the Saddle, by Rafael Reig
--The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison (no, I'm not planning to kill my spouse)
--Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II, by Ben Macintyre
--Therese Raquin, by Emile Zola
--Taking Apart the Poco Poco, by Richard Francis
3) A huge number of ARCs (too many to list) came in, and 23 books went out this month. Chef by Jaspreet Singh came to me from Librarything's Early Reviewer program (thanks!) 
4) The number of books bought, well, let's just say I need to seriously think about a 12-step program to combat the urges
5) Until I replace my Kindle, I discovered I can get Kindle books on my phone. 

August begins the Booker Prize longlist, and I'll throw in a few more crime novels as well -- I have two more books by Krajewski to read.

and that's it!

Chef, by Jaspreet Singh

9781608190850
Bloomsbury
2010

246 pp.

My thanks to Librarything's Early Reviewer Program and to Bloomsbury for this book. 

A bit of background first: The partition of India in 1947 and other political considerations made at the time led to violence, "long-term border tensions, infrastructure problems, and the lasting conflict over Kashmir." 

photo courtesy of BBC website

Kashmir is still an area in conflict, and as the author notes, India and Pakistan have "fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir." And it is to Kashmir that the main character, Kirpal Singh (Kip) is heading after 14 years away.

The bulk of this story, told mainly in flashback, occurs while Kip is on a train from Delhi to Kashmir.  The story flashes back and forth in time. He's been asked by General Kumar (who to Kip is General Sahib) to come back to Kashmir to head up the cooking for his daughter's wedding. Kip worked for Kumar first as an apprentice to his chef Kishen, and then as chef,  joining the military after his father had crashed his military aircraft into the Siachen glacier.  Kip had thought he'd seen the last of Kashmir, but now he is dying from a brain tumor, with only a few months left to live, but accepts this call to his "last battle." 

As the train travels through the country, Kip watches the assault on India's environment and notes its effects on the population:

The waters are sparkling with industrial froth...Chimney smoke rises from an oil refinery. The smoke will blacken the white marble of the Taj. A pesticide factory flashes by. (The farmers killed themselves by drinking eight liters of agricultural pesticide.) Garbage. Streams of plastic. Hills of bottles, bags, wrappers. Cows chew on the plastic. Cell-phone towers...

He also reflects on his last time in Kashmir, where the ongoing conflict was played out not just on the glaciers, but in every day life as well.  The continuous wars and religious conflicts affected the lives of everyone, not only the soldiers stationed on the Siachen glacier where the temperature gets to 58 below and everything freezes, making life unbearable.  For example, before Chef Kishen had become a chef,  had been demoted to dishwasher for exercising his innate prejudice by refusing to serve tea to a Muslim officer.  After several months of training, he had come to work for Kumar, and had learned to "subvert" international cuisine, telling Kip:

 Foreigners have colonized us for a long time...Now it is our turn. We will take their food and make it our own.

but once again lost his job after cooking for several Muslim clerics at an important function. His punishment:  he was sent to the front at the Siachen glacier.  Food  is another main theme and provides images that run throughout the story -- tortellini becomes a woman's navel; spices provoke memories, a mango is a strong reminder of Kip's father. According to Kishen, a cook cannot get "stuck inside nationalities", and should allow for "dialogues between our methods and the ingredients from the rest of the world." Yet now Kishen is stuck on the glacier, eating precooked and canned food, instant noodles and juice in a package, walking on chocolate to gain traction in the ice.

Although Kip is in the army, he's somewhat sheltered in Kumar's kitchen, but eventually his encounter with a Pakistani woman accused of being a terrorist draws him in closer to what's happening on the outside. Kip, who has been trying to lose his virginity throughout, becoming involved with women in absolutely hopeless situations, gets in head over heels with this woman.  He begins by serving her food when he meets her in the hospital, and under orders to find out everything he can about her, he comes to realize that her life in Pakistan was "worse than death." But again Kip's life is destined for sadness -- eventually resulting in him leaving Kashmir, until he is once again summoned by now Governor Kumar.

Chef is a beautiful novel on several levels, but what strikes me about this novel is how the small-scale conflicts of every day living tend to reflect what's happening on the larger scale of the ongoing war. But at the same time, Kip knows how his world is going to end, unlike those people both actively at war and those innocently caught up in this constant conflict; yet ultimately, everyone has to go on living, just waiting for things to play out.  The story will capture your attention and your heart.  Most highly recommended for readers of literary fiction who prefer a more thought-provoking novel.

And for a glimpse of what's really happening in Kashmir, this month's London Review of Books will help you out in this article.

The Booker Prize Longlist is announced

the booker longlist, 2010

 

Every year I look forward to the release of the Booker Prize longlist.  Over the last few years, I've read the works of some excellent writers who've since become some of my favorites.  The longlist also determines what I'll be reading for the next two months. And it's here.

 According to the website for the Man Booker Prize, a total of 138 books were considered for this year's Booker Prize longlist. Out of those, 13 made it: 


Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)
Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan - Picador)
Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin - Fig Tree)
Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic - Atlantic Books)
Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)
Andrea Levy The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group - Headline Review)
Tom McCarthy C (Random House - Jonathan Cape)
David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet  (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)
Lisa Moore February (Random House - Chatto & Windus)
Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin - Hamish Hamilton)
Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House - Chatto & Windus)
Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic - Tuskar Rock)
Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House - Jonathan Cape)


The bad news is that I've only read two of these (Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Slap). The good news is that I own a few of the others, so at least I can get a start before I have to turn to The Book Depository for the rest. So now, I guess it's time to get reading.

It's Monday! What am I reading?

As always, my thanks go to the lovely host of this blog, Sheila at Book Journey. I don't know how in the world this human dynamo finds time to read with her busy life.

I missed posting last week so I have a bit to make up for, so bear with me. Continuing with light reads:

Books I've read:
Kraken, by China Mieville (sf/fantasy)

Badfellas, by Tonino Benacquista (crime fiction, France)
August Heat, by Andrea Camilleri (crime fiction, Italy)
 Death in Breslau, by Marek Krejewski (crime fiction, Poland)
Thirteen Hours, by Deon Meyer (crime fiction, South Africa) -- not yet reviewed, but wow!
Third Girl, by Agatha Christie
 The Franchise Affair, by Josephine Tey
The Madonnas of Echo Park, by Brando Skyhorse
and Chef, by Jaspreet Singh -- finished late last night, so not yet reviewed, but a most excellent book

Currently reading:
 Appointment With Death, by Agatha Christie

 Planning to read this week:
 The Singer's Gun, by Emily St. John Mandel
The Leavenworth Case,  by Anna Katherine Green
and whatever
 
so that's it. Have a good reading week!

The Madonnas of Echo Park, by Brando Skyhorse

1439170800

Free Press, 2010

224 pp.

This book came to me from the First Editions book club at Book Passage -- it's an excellent program that puts the newest literary works in your hands each month.

In a small slice of Los Angeles, outside the small neighborhood mercado called El Guanaco, Friday afternoons belonged to a group of women and their daughters.  The girls would dress in "Madonna-style outfits," turn on a portable cassette deck and dance, while their moms would clap their hands and provide encouragement. They did this because El Guanaco was the on-location film site of rock star Madonna's video for her song "Borderline,"  and also because this  was their small gesture aimed at taking back one of the most violent corners of the neighborhood, if only for a while. On one particular day, years ago, the mother of Aurora Esperanza wanted a picture, so the girls lined up. Aurora argued with her mother Felicia about kneeling with the little girls, wanting instead to stand with the women, and as they argued, a series of gunshots went off, leaving little 3 year old Alma Guerrero dead. The paper the next day would have a headline that read "Baby Madonna Murdered by Heartless Thugs."  This one incident serves as the focal point of this novel, which is really more of a collection of short narratives told by several characters over several years. The rest of the novel is about people in this community left to deal with the incident in some way, especially Aurora and Felicia.  The stories intersect as do the characters, who move in and out of the other characters' lives as some point as time goes on.

The characters are varied, but their stories have all have several points in common -- the themes of identity, place and dislocation running through the entire book. For example, there's the story of a former gang member, whose gang "used to own these streets," and  who now sits with his son Juan at an upscale coffee shop on Sunset eating a "grilled cheese and soy bacon sandwich, made on seven-grain bread with organic, grass-fed, raw-milk cheddar." They keep coming back because "it's in the neighborhood." Or the story of Freddy Blas, coming back to Echo Park after being away in prison, and finding a different world when he returns.  Or Felicia, whose early life had been uprooted at the same time as her grandmother lost her home in Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium and now makes her living as a cleaning lady, only to be uprooted once more. Or my favorite story about Efren Mendoza. He's a city bus driver who goes by the rules and who knows where people will be safe getting off of his bus, depending on their ethnic backgrounds. Efren has nothing but scorn and contempt for illegal immigrants  because he's convinced they make problems for the hard-working Mexican-Americans like himself. He also singlehandedly causes a major riot by what he does when a fight breaks out on his bus.

It's amazing to think that Madonnas of Echo Park is Skyhorse's first novel. His characters are believable and real. There's also an overarching aura of humanity and dignity in every narrative and in the overall book as a whole.  And he pulls off all of this without being preachy. And his choice of Echo Park as the setting for Madonnas is excellent, considering what's going on there lately regarding gentrification, higher rents, and the edging out of some of the members Latino community who've been there all of their lives. This is happening everywhere, not just in Echo Park.

I hope more people read this novel. I've heard something about Oprah touting it as a good summer read, but it goes well beyond just a light, easygoing book that you may want to read while laying out at the beach.  While some of the story may have a bit more sentimentality than I  normally like, it's definitely a book I'm happy to have read.  And don't brush it off merely because of the subject matter -- I don't care which side of the political fence you are on, this is a book about the fate of a group of human beings. Bottom line.

as an aside: If you're interested, there's a really good video called "Gentrification Nation" at youtube that captures some of the current problems of Echo Park.

Alleviating the symptoms of shiny book syndrome, or SBS

Weekly Geeks this week tackles ways in which a person might alleviate the symptoms of Shiny Book Syndrome, in which

"a person only wants to read their newest book and leave piles of poor unread books on their shelves to collect dust."

I must say that I have suffered greatly from SBS over the years and thus I literally have rooms filled with old paperbacks and hardcover books. I've tried everything, including  not buying books until I've read 10 I already own (that never works, because I have been known to cheat), reading 5 brand new ones, then 5 the next year down, etc. etc., but that doesn't work either. As a last-ditch attempt, I even tried guilting myself into reading the not so glossy-covered books, but guilt works better on me if someone else does it to me.  So finally, after stacks beginning to grow on the floor of my office between myself and my computer, 2 years ago I hit on a great way to get through my books without leaving the old ones behind -- I began to give myself mini-challenges each month.

I ultimately found Listology.com, where I have been working constantly on getting my library organized because frankly, I still don't know what I have on my shelves.  This is an ongoing project -- and so far, I have managed to compile my own "librarius domesticus" in five parts. You can click here: example to see one of those lists. Of course, I often get behind trying to keep up with adding books, but they'll all get there, eventually.  The second part of my attempt at beating SBS is to create my own little mini-challenges each month -- if you look at my "books finished in 2010" page at Listology, you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.   After deciding on a mini-challenge topic each month, I then go to my online library, look through the books, and purposefully choose some older ones from yesteryear to throw into the mix. This system works SO well that I'm reading stuff I didn't even know I owned AND the Shiny Books at the same time! 

I also participate in a few reading challenges hosted by other bloggers, and I can't resist reading an entire shortlist if there's a book award I'm interested in (like right now, I've just finished all of the International Dagger Award shortlist books). The next two months are pretty much all Shiny Books, because I'm reading the Booker Prize longlist, but I'm already pulling out a few older ones to read in between.

This is my own tried and true method of not glomming on to the brand new, gorgeous books that a) I can't resist buying at my local bookstore, or b) come in the mail weekly.  I tell you, this works! And each month when I'm finished with my own little mini-challenge, I give at least 1/2 of those books away. Of course I just buy more, but now I know how to overcome Shiny Book Syndrome, so I'm finally under control.

Third Girl, by Agatha Christie

0002318075

HarperCollins, 2002

originally published 1966

Hercule Poirot is now in his 35th adventure; after this one, he has only three more contemporary appearances -- in Hallow'een Party, Elephants Can Remember, and Curtain.

Third Girl is set smack in the mid-sixties.  It's a time when men are wearing such clothes as  "elaborate velvet waistcoat[s], skin-tight pants," and wearing their hair long in "rich curls of chestnut," while women were wearing

"the clothes of their generation: black high leather boots, white open-work stockings of doubtful cleanliness, a skimpy skirt and a long and sloppy pullover of heavy wool".

The Beatles proclaim in 1966 that they're more popular than Jesus. The younger generation is experimenting with drugs and getting high. Girls aren't staying at home much after leaving school, going off to the cities to find jobs and live in apartments, often doubling up or adding a "third" girl to help with the rent.  It is just such a "third girl," Norma Restarick, who early one morning finds herself with Hercule Poirot, to tell him that she might have committed a murder, but then proclaims Poirot too old, and disappears. He's obviously intrigued, and finds out the girl's identity only when Ariadne Oliver, the mystery novelist, begins discussing a party she'd been to earlier where she'd met this young woman. From that point, the two begin investigating Norma's past and present, trying to discover if she's unbalanced, or if there's someone that might mean her harm. Poirot looks for patterns & death, and Ariadne tries methods that her detective, Sven Hjerson, might use in her popular mystery books.

As usual, there are plenty of suspects and red herrings throughout the novel, and this time Christie puts a secret up her sleeve that she doesn't reveal until the end -- a bit of duplicity on her part which wasn't really fair, but worked.  I thought the final solution was well done and although the clues were there all along, I still managed to be surprised by the ending,  which a) I felt was quite satisfying and b) I should have figured out after the breadcrumb trail of clues Christie left behind. And while the story may seem a bit muddled from time to time, it's still well worth the read. 

Poirot, without a doubt, is one of my favorite detectives ever, with his fastidious mannerisms and personality.  Even toward the end of his career his little grey cells are as busy and sharp as ever; Miss Lemon,  the secretary par excellence,  makes an appearance, always a step ahead of Poirot, and then there's Ariadne Oliver, a rather unique character, often living off of her intuition or using her mystery novelist skills to offer help in Poirot's investigation.  While she does provide some comic relief and comes off as a bit of a bumbler from time to time, she actually manages to also provide a few valuable clues to Poirot from time to time. 

At first I was a bit unsure as to whether or not I would enjoy this novel, but it ended up being a treat. This must be one that either I read eons ago and have totally forgotten, or that somehow I managed to miss until now. I can recommend it, definitely, BUT ... if you're looking for the recently televised Third Girl, you'll find that there's quite a difference between page and screen.

fiction from England