Brilliant books

Either I’ve lost my critical faculties or I’ve read some stonkingly good books lately. For the first time in my life I’m keeping track of what I read – you can see which ones I’m referring to over to the left. I so wish I’d done this all my reading life.

I’ve just finished The Dead of Summer by Camilla Way. I’m not sure how I’d missed seeing this title around but I had and it only came to my attention when someone nominated it as their choice for book club. It wasn’t available here so I Amazoned it. I was unmoved by the cover … it looked so ordinary; I read the back and promptly forgot any of the details when asked about it at the last meeting. So, my expectations were fairly low.

It was fabulous. I really enjoyed it.

The story is told by twenty year old Anita to a child psychiatrist, ‘Dr Barton’.
The narrative is intercut with the original reports from 1986 of Anita’s interviews with Dr Barton. It recounts the events of one summer after Anita, a thirteen year old Pakistani girl, has moved to Lewisham with her family, following the death of her mother.

Her second paragraph tells us: ‘By the end of that summer three of us were dead.” She cuts out newspaper reports of child crimes, and tells us that her friend Kyle is the most famous of the mini monsters. Of course it doesn’t go entirely as we expect.

She starts at her new school where she meets Denis who leads her to Kyle, who lives almost opposite her. The three of them form a friendship; all they appear to have in common is their being outsiders, those ostracised by other children.

Camilla Way captures the voices of the kids; the cruelty, the tedium of summer holidays, the feelings of isolation and detachment from their families. I particularly loved Anita’s sisters. They had tiny parts to play but they were drawn so expertly, they lived.

Now I have to lend it to someone else to read. It’s not available here in Bangkok so we have to pass around the available copies. I don’t want to lend it out …I want to read it again and see how she did it.

Little Bird, Camilla Way’s second novel, is due out in August 2009.

How are the French so chic?

I’ve just been down to school to pick up Son and his friend who’ve been on a camping trip. It was the expedition for the bronze International Award (this is the equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh Award but goes under a different name here.)

I was waiting in the café with another Mum, a French woman who came to Bangkok at the same time as we did. They are a lovely family and our boys, despite being chalk and cheese (brie?) are friends. D rang his mother to say they were back. Five minutes later D appeared in the café. He looked fantastic – as though he’d been on a five star spa break and not camping in the Sam Roi Yot National Park. We chatted for a bit while my son didn’t turn up… (Son lives on a timescale unique to himself.) Then they left, with the parting words from D, that Son, wasn’t looking quite as clean…


Some twenty minutes later, Son appeared in the distance. ‘In the distance’ was the safest place to be but I had to confine myself to a taxi with him. He looked like Pigpen from the Charlie Brown cartoon, walking in a cloud of debris. I'm glad to report he had a great time, but had he changed his clothes all weekend? Who knows? He had tide marks of grime in his neck. Ewugh.

No title

Lisa Ratcliffe

Back in May 2007 I received the following in my inbox:

Are you JJ?
If so, you can email me back here.
Many thanks,
Lisa

Once I’d confirmed it was my inbox, we wrote back and forth. She told me of the difficulties she’d experienced in her life and her struggles to recover. She wrote about her immediate family and the joy they gave her; her parents, her birth family and her friends in Spain who had helped her recapture her confidence and belief in herself. She had had a difficult time but the wisdom she had gained from those experiences she passed willingly onto others. She made time and spirit to give to those struggling with what they were trying to do.

I’m not surprised to discover now that she had made contact with other Novel Racers in a similar manner. She had an unfailing generosity toward other people who were grappling with their own experiences.

A few days after our first contact, the following message appeared in my inbox:

Just received the invite and it's in
the evening - fantastic - Joy of Joys!
I can make it!
Lisa

This would be the first time we met, at the launch of Caroline Smailes’ first book, In Search of Adam. We arranged to text each other when we arrived at the bookshop in case we didn’t recognise each other. She was as lovely in the flesh as she had been in cyberspace.

Despite life’s trials – and they were real ordeals - Lisa always presented a positive enthusiasm for life, for her families, her writing and for horses. It gives me great pleasure to look back at her blog posts about horses and her enjoyment at the technicalities of learning to ride.

She had such courage; with the help of those who loved her, she put herself back together and in school and back on a path to a happier life.

Even after her diagnosis she continued to chivvy me with my writing. “Writers …write,” she urged all of us on her last blog post only a week ago.

She was the bravest woman. She found emotional reserves to blog the journey of her illness, not for self indulgence but for other people …to benefit anyone else experiencing the traumas she’d experienced.

My love and thoughts go to her husband, her daughters, her families and her friends in Spain.

If you can please give something in her memory at http://www.justgiving.com/lisaratcliffe.

Same same but different

I am right at the end of the Mary Wesley biography and I’m loving it; really enjoying it. The closer I get toward the end the more details there are about the books and I know I’ve got to have a Mary Wesley fest. I can’t wait to read them again now I know more about her life and I’m twenty years older (can I really be twenty years older? How has that happened?)

Husband has got some colleagues coming out next week, so if I hurry, I can get them sent to one of them for him to bring out for me. Husband appears to have forgotten the ban on buying books. Husband is a very good man. (What do you think? Perhaps if they aren’t purchased by me in a regular shop and they aren’t addressed to me by Amazon, maybe they don’t really count as purchases?)

******
In other news, my lack of post yesterday was because I was traumatised by another haircut. It was bound to happen sooner or later. A friend had recommended a hairdresser and so the other day I set out full of enthusiasm, clutching an address and directions and I couldn’t bloomin’ find the place. This happens to me all the time in Bangkok.

I have a very low ‘mad’ threshold when it comes to my barnet. My hair looks crazy when it’s a good cut and behaving well, but I was looking battier and battier as the dreadful hair cut I had last June grew out. I was attempting to keep a semblance of control with hair slides but it wasn’t working out. In fact, it was such a terrible hair cut, that not even my mother made her usual ‘Oh Jen …’ in tones of terrible disappointment …‘what have you done to your hair?’ comment.

Anyway, I never did find the recommended hairdresser so I walked into one (an internationally branded one) off the streets. What could I expect? She was lovely, spoke English. I showed her my picture and she said ‘similar to this?’ I should’ve known, shouldn’t I?

It’s not quite right but at least is less barmy than before.

Books

I did a bit over a thousand words this morning. I must continue to write then blog because I produce more wip words that way.

In celebration of my words, I decided to go off to Dasa Books to see if I could find some copies of Mary Wesley books… (Husband has requested that I do not buy any more books until I have made a significant dent on the TBR pile, but secondhand books, surely, do not count? I really don’t think they can count because there is a secondhand book sale coming up at the Siam Society on the 14th …)

Anyway, Dasa Books, with the warm chocolate brownie that I resisted, had only one copy of a Mary Wesley book and it was in a Scandinavian language. I forget which. On my way out I found a Christina Koning, called ‘Fabulous Time’ in the sale bin. I often buy a book after reading her review of it in the Times so I took that instead.

A new tack: I will phone home and ask them to send me their copies of Mary Wesley books.

Bits and Pieces

I’ve had an uppity downy type week when it comes to writing. I’ve been worrying about the release of information and what, if I can’t release and reveal yet, goes in the middle 40,000 words? Do things just keep getting worse and worse?

I’ve been traumatised by the past participle of 'to glide' being simply 'glided'. I mean I know it is but if ‘to ride’ is ‘rode’ why isn’t it ‘glode’? Or if ‘to slide’ is ‘slid’ and not ‘slidded’ why isn’t it ‘glid’? It’s such a mystery to me.

I’ve just finished reading ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and it made cry about four times right at the end. I don’t cry at books very easily. I must be a stony hearted old bag. I really loved it. I found it difficult to conceive that we are living in the same world.

I’ve just started reading ‘Wild Mary: The Life of Mary Wesley by Patrick Marnham. I loved her books back in the eighties and I used to wait for the next one, worrying that she’d left it so late to write. (Her first book was published when she was seventy.) I think, twenty years on, that I need to read them again. I shall have a look in the second hand bookshop this week, as my copies are all stowed in my attic in England.