Something for the weekend

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Shop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

This is one of my favourite books because it so perfectly conjures up another time and place. Set in America's deep south in a town (surprisingly enough) called Whistle Stop in Alabama, the book jumps between the depression era and the 80's. The story is told via the memory of Ninny Threadgoode as she talks to the depressed Evelyn Couch about her colourful family and friends.

The story mainly focuses on Idgie Threadgoode, her partner Ruth and Ruth's son, who own and run the cafe of the title. Idgie is an unashamed tomboy and after a terrible bereavement in her childhood, loses her joy of life until the pious Ruth Jamieson comes to live with the Threadgoodes for a Summer. It is wonderful to see her falling in love with Ruth and all of the family teasing her as she denies her true feelings. The book is partly a love story about a couple who are accepted without judgement in a time when attitudes were less liberal than now and it is this relationship/ family which forms the emotional heart of the book.

The cafe becomes a haven for people from all walks of life; from tramps to the white professionals of the town, to the disenfranchised black population of Whistle Stop. Set in a segregated America, the race relations add another, more political, layer to what might otherwise have been a more frivolous novel. The Threadgoode family employed a black maid, Sipsey, who ends up cooking at the cafe with her son, Big George and his wife Onzell. We find out as much about their family as we do about the Threadgoodes as the chapters alternate between the two families, and between the past and the present. It is this structure which makes the book so unputdownable, as you sometimes have to wait a few chapters to find out what happens after each cliff hanger Ninny Threadgoode casually mentions.

In the end, we feel as much as Evelyn does, uplifted by spending time at the cafe in Whistle Stop and meeting all of the wonderful people who are getting on with their ordinary lives- though Flagg does give us a murder or two to keep the pages turning. This book will make you laugh, make you cry, but most of all fall in love with the era and people of times past.

Amelia

Buy it here

Something for the weekend..

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem

This weeks 'Something for the weekend' is a cracking hard nosed detective story.. sort of. Our 'hero' is Lionel Essrog, Lionel, at first sight, seems nothing more than a hired goon. But this is a book with many layers & not everything is as it seems. Set in Brooklyn the tale begins in not unusual 'gangster' fashion with a 'hit', Lionel's beloved boss Frank Minna is 'whacked'  (alright I'll stop with the speech marks you've all seen Goodfellas right? or the Sopranos at least). As Lionel was supposed to be keeping watch on Frank that night & as Frank was Lionel's Father figure this causes Lionel a great deal of chagrin.

And so Lionel, alongside the rest of Frank's 'Minna men', sets about attempting to discover the identity of the killer & the reason for the murder. The key to the enjoyment of this book however is not the plot (not to say it isn't gripping) it is Lionel, & Lionel's condition. You see Lionel is (as far as i know) the only literary Private detective with Tourettes.

This isn't a caricature of Tourettes, Lethem doesn't have Lionel shriek expletives to get cheap laughs. More, Tourettes provides the rhythm of the pages, it, or rather Lethems portrayal of it, gives the book it's edge & it's propulsion. There is humour here though, Lionel jerks out some hilarious phrases & you can tell Lethem is having a ball forming the mangled sentences ping ponging round Lionel's frustrated skull, but there is always a sadness behind it - people treat Lionel as if he were a performing clown or a 'freakshow' (the reader of course realising his true nature).

Some of Lethems work can be pretty dense (though I've yet to read one i didn't enjoy) & i couldn't wholeheartedly recommend them to everyone. But Motherless Brooklyn is the exception, I challenge anyone not to enjoy this book.

Plus you'll find out why 'Kiss' by Prince is the perfect Tourettes song.

Gary

Buy it here

Something for the weekend..

Hello & welcome back to Charing Cross Read - Blackwell's Charing cross road Blog. We hope you had a relaxing & enjoyable Christmas & New Year break & are ready to get back to some serious reading! We have some tempting, tasty & tremendous events on the horizon. But just to ease you  back in here's a little something for the weekend..

The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher

Except it's not little it's a whopper! Yes it's another 'Something for the weekend' that you'd have to be a secret robot to actually read in a weekend.

Hensher's Northern odyssey begins in Sheffield 1974 & at the beginning it may remind you of the piquant humour of Alan Bennett or 'Abigails party' - all cocktail sausages & gossipy neighbours. The devil is in the detail for Hensher as we follow his wonderfully well drawn characters through the years. He makes you care about there (admittedly) fairly ordinary lives.

That's not to say it's without incident, but this is more about how the people react to events than the events themselves.It's about how peoples actions can reverberate through time. As the intertwined stories move through the years you will be touched, amused but most importantly you will need to know what happens & that is all down to Hensher's skillfull prose.

A joy from to start to finish -  it's one of those books that you just know you will one day read again.

Gary

Buy it here

Something for the weekend..

Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There's a lot of talk about everyones' favourite pipe smoking sleuth at the moment. What with the (excellent) BBC Series returning very soon, the sequel to the (hugely popular) film by Guy Ritchie about to hit the silver screen, and Anthony Horowitz's  new addition to the canon just released (House of Silk) it's a boom time for the clever dick.

Deservedly so in my opinion, Holmes' adventures are a cracking read, so in this 'Something for the weekend' I'm suggesting you go back to the original stories. For me it all began in 1982, I wanted to watch the Bbc's 'Hound of the Baskervilles' because this 'Holmes' person looked like Dr Who (see picture). In an attempt to find another vehicle for the incredibly popular Dr, the beeb put him in a deerstalker & sent him off to battle a large dog painted green. Well i liked it. I also enjoyed Jeremy Brett's terrific turn during the 80's & early 90's, it was comparatively recently though, that i actually read the source novels.      

If like me you are entering Conan Doyle's world quite late, be prepared - there's less than you think! There are only four novels (& they aren't very long - perfect for the weekend in fact!), the rest of his work is made up of short stories in various collections. Having said that i mostly prefered the short stories, they tend to work better structurally. Indeed the one odd thing that struck me about the novels (except 'Hound') is the curious way Doyle waits until he gets two thirds of the way through before one of the characters will sit Holmes down and explain the back story to him in intricate detail. But it's all part of the fun.  

And what fun it is! Holmes is a lovably pompous genius, Watson his loyal dependable sidekick and of course the narrator of 99% of the work. Together (well Watson is there) they solve devilishly clever crimes mostly set in foggy London with a motley collection of ne'er do wells, with a dash of cocaine, simple Policemen to make Holmes look clever and some soothing violins - what's not to like?

So this Christmas treat yourself, watch the TV version, go to the flicks if you like, but most importantly go back to where it all began.

(this was not an excuse to get a picture of Tom Baker on our blog. Honest)

Gary

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(Now that would be) Telling - Steampunk Guests

(Now that would be) Telling brings together contemporary art, literature and history through a big dollop of imagination. The project features site-specific artwork made by Hayley Lock and texts written by Jessica Hart, Lucinda Hawksley, Ben Moor, Hallie Rubenhold and Liz Williams for five stately homes.

Using the portraits and collections in the houses as starting points, Hayley created parallel worlds through her work. She used the documented histories as much as rumour and hearsay, mining the lives of the people living, working and visiting the houses for inspiration. Hayley has also collaborated with a different writer in each house to bring out a different aspect of the work.

At Ickworth, Ben Moor wrote Please Wait Here, a contemplative and often absurd tale of a questionnaire writer suffering a block for the remarkable and barmy Ickworth House in Suffolk. Historical novelist Lucinda Hawksley created stories of those In the shadow of Ruskin for Brantwood in Cumbria. Romance novelist Jessica Hart created a bodice-ripping yarn full of torrid affairs amongst the noble classes; broadcaster. Novellist Hallie Rubenhold penned The Johnsonian Mysteries, including an entirely fabricated contents page full of wry references for scholars of Dr Johnson. Finally, science fiction and fantasy writer Liz Williams wrote the lifetime in a day of the Parminter cousins who built A la Ronde in Devon, their octagonal house created to have a room for every function throughout the day.

Hayley's works are densely layered in terms of their references and their facture, with a mix of digitally manipulated imagery, hand drawn and collaged surfaces decorated with intricate lines of glitter, gems, feathers and textiles. The references threaded through the writer's texts too, with tartan squirrels appearing in Ickworth and characters dancing from one form to another. A dark glass appeared in every house and in several stories, a connecting principle with occult undertones. The Claude glass was originally a drawing tool - a darkened convex reflective glass - but became synonymous with the all seeing eye and various connections to another world. We have brought them to the houses as part of a meta narrative and darkened heart showing views of other worlds.

Historical houses offer guided tours and information about what visitors are seeing, interpreting their own histories. Part of our aim is to inspire visitors to create their own versions of history, to see the rich heritage of the UK as starting points for adventures and magic. The stories take different forms - visual, written - and hopefully don't stop with the work created by the artist and writers, but continue with each visitor's imagination.

We are delighted to bring some of these works into a dramatically different context to The Kitchies’ Steampunk Evening at Blackwell’s, an entire event celebrating the folding of history through imagination. We're looking forward to seeing the works on their own and reading the texts in a space where books are king. I suspect that, whilst you can take the work out of the homes, you can't take the homes out of the work, so I like to think we're bringing them too.

Catherine Hemelryk is the Curator of (Now that would be) Telling and is on the panel of judges awarding The Kitschies’ Inky Tentacle.

Something for the Weekend

Kobo Abe- 'The Woman in the Dunes'




Kobo Abe's 'Woman in the Dunes', made into a award winning film in 1964, is surreal and often absurd tale of imprisonment and isolation. Jumpei, a tourist visiting the beach, misses the last bus and home and is offered shelter in a nearby village. He is then kept captive with an unnamed woman at the bottom of a vast sand pit, forced to shovel the sand that threatens to engulf the village. As  all his escape attempts fail he slowly becomes closer to the woman he is being held captive with and has to accept the horror of his situation.

Written in sparse prose you feel like you are in the pit shovelling the sand whilst reading it. The kafkaesque feeling of being persecuted by unknown people for unknown reasons lends a sense of futility to the story. The sand becomes a character itself, more threatening than those who are holding Jumpei hostage. A powerful statement on what happens when people are faced with nightmarish situations and how the mind can learn to cope in extraordinary circumstances.

'The Woman in the Dunes' is short, I read it in only two sittings, but I was shaking imaginary sand from my  hair for weeks after.

Buy it here

Young Adult and Middle Grade Steampunk

We were super pleased to be asked to write an article about Steampunk for the site and have opted to do some recommendations for both middle grade (9 – 12 years) and teen (and older) readers.
Our list is by no means exhaustive but shows there is a strong market for books of this genre for a young audience. The books below above are all superbly written and character driven novels; where the setting helps enrich the world but where the world isn’t everything.

Teen & Young Adult 
Shipbreaker by Paolo Bacigalupi (Atom)
The Looking Glass Wars, Seeing Redd and Arch Enemy by Frank Beddor (Egmont Books)
Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare (Walker)Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore (Bloomsbury)
Incarceron and Sapphique by Catherine Fisher (Hodder)
Airborne, Skybreaker and Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel (Faber and Faber)
Arcadia Snips and the Steampunk Consortium by Robert C. Rodgers (Steam Powered Press)
All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen (Tor)
Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances (Constable & Robinson)
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (Walker UK)

Middle Grade 

Kaimira by Monk & Nigel Ashland (Walker)
Airman by Eoin Colfer (Puffin)
Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling, Lamplighter and Factotum by DM Cornish (Corgi / Random House)
The Mortal Engines series, as well as Larklight, Mothstorm and Starcross by Philip Reeve (Scholastic)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)
The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle, The Obsidian Dagger and The Doomsday Thief by Catherine Webb (Atom)
Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath by Scott Westerfeld (Simon & Schuster)


More titles are due in 2012, including Tiffany Trent’s The Unnaturalists, which sounds fantastic:


"The City of New London is all Tesla’s fault. If his experiment had not broken the walls between London and Fairyland, New London would not be here at all, and Fairyland would not be in jeopardy. The tear in the fabric of space and time brought things from every era of London—Vauxhall Gardens, the Tower, Nonesuch House. With it also came the belief that Science would cure all ills. Soon, the descendants of Tesla learned how to turn magical energy into power, using a substance called myth. Just as Old London relied on coal and gas, New London relies on myth. It’s in everything from lanterns to sealing wax. It powers machines. It provides heat and light.

But all of this comes at great price.

In the Museum of Unnatural History, fifteen-year-old Vespa Nyx has spent the last two years since her expulsion from Seminary learning to identify, catalog, and mount rare sylphs. Even as the black desert of the Creeping Waste threatens New London, young Syrus Reed seeks Vespa at the behest of the mysterious Manticore. Whether they can learn to trust each other and work together in a race against time and greed is at the heart of this steampunk adventure."


Doesn’t it sound simply superb? We couldn’t be more excited. Long may writers continue creating Steampunk stories to enjoy and talk about. It is one of those sub-genres where it feels like literally anything can happen... and it usually does. All the writer has to do is ask: what if...

Liz - creator and instigator of My Favourite Books. Her tastes in reading material vary from picture books to YA to crime and fantasy novels for adults. She also has a penchant for literary fiction, but don't hold that against her. Find her online as @LizUK on Twitter.
Mark - Mark is an avid gamer who has a penchant for archery, fencing and medieval sword. Mark's reading is as eclectic as his taste in music - he enjoys fantasy, crime, science fiction (and is a Black Library devotee) and historical novels. Find Mark on Twitter as @Gergaroth.
Sarah - Sarah is My Favourite Books' YA guru. As an aspiring YA writer, Sarah has made it her goal to read every single YA book in existence and she loves the challenge. She knows more about vamps, witches and weres than your local priest. Find Sarah online as @esssjay on Twitter.